...what counts is a new creation...
I have been a life long professional navigator starting with ocean going cargo ships, then went on to US Navy jets. After changing careers from cargo operations in the maritime industry in 2007 I have been focused on creating easy to use WordPress websites and training organizations how to use them to effectively attract more people.
Got another interesting comment today. This time it’s over at SuccessCREEations where I wrote about Feeding Your Spirit For Success.
Someone named Step says that you have to check your brains at the door in order to believe in Jesus and the Bible.
What do you think? Is it possible to be a reasonably thinking person and still follow Jesus? Or do you have to leave your brains behind?
OK, Here’s an article that could open up some discussion.
Apparently there is a priest over at the Vatican who is the Pope’s official “Caster Out of Demons” – Father Gabriele Amorth. And Father Amorth says that Hitler & Stalin were both possessed by the Devil.
What are your thoughts on that whole deal?
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Whoo-Hoooo!
It has been a long and somewhat painful process but the SucessCREEations Library is finally set up and ready to be filled with books.
Check out today’s post over there to see why I feel so strongly about reading being an important tool to achieve success.
That whole library thingy has taken up all my free time (of which I don’t have much) and a good chunk of my sleep time (which rarely seems enough) over the last few days to get the way I wanted it to be. I still have some tweaking to do. And of course I’ll have to add books to it.
But a recommended reading list is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I just feel that it fits in better over there than it would here.
I should be back to my usual posting hi-jinx here at CREEations shortly. There sure is a lot to juggle with life, isn’t there?
In the mean time, keep a careful eye on Ernesto. He’s not much of a storm, probably won’t ever graduate to full hurricane (himmicane?) status. But he’s just enough to stir things up a little in my line of work. And his screwy course prediction has to be giving the professional weather guessers fits!
Anyway here’s to hoping your day is a wonderful experience.
I’m off to work. I hear my ship may have come in…
Enjoy!
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UPDATE: Apparently the spam problem wasn’t on my end at all. The program I use to get handle on it (Askimet) experienced down time. It happened to coincide with my updating to a newer version of WordPress. Go figure.
ProBlogger and BloggingPro both wrote about the problem this morning. I’m glad I wasn’t dealing with their traffic levels yet, eh? Scores of spam comments are relatively manageable compared to thousands!
Please bear with me. I’ve been having some technical issues over the last couple of days.
Part of my problem has been a spam attack here at CREEations. I normally get scores of spam comments every day here. I have a good safeguard that has been shutting them out cold.
Until a couple days ago, that is.
They were all getting through like I had no protection at all. It was disconcerting.
At first I thought somehow the comment from Dot a couple days back might have something to do with it and I even considered deleting the comment finally to see if it would help.
But I think the problem had more to do with the fact that I just upgraded to the new version of WordPress, which is the core software which runs everything here at CREEations, at about the same time.
Somehow with the upgrade my anti-spam thingy forgot to come back online.
It took a while, but fortunately I think I resolved that issue finally. In the mean time I was frantically checking in ever couple of hours to delete the dozen or so viagra ads and such that were flooding my comments sections.
Oh, and I have been working to format an add-on Library function over at SuccessCREEations, so this weekend was busy behind the scenes. The Library is close to being ready to go live. Just a little more tweaking…
Hope you have a wonderful day today.
Enjoy!
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Yesterday someone left an insulting anonymous comment here at CREEations. I had to think about how I responded.
My fist instinct was to simply delete the comment. Hey, it’s my blog. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. There are only about a hundred gazillion other websites and blogs out there. If you stumbled on my blog and don’t like it, hit the back button. Don’t insult me. Right?
But then I remembered that my only real policy here is to edit out profanity. Since the comment managed to steer clear of that even though it was insulting and hurtful, maybe deleting it wasn’t the right answer in this case.
I could have simply ignored the comment and left it there. But that’s really never been my way.
I chose to respond. Keep in mind that I can be very sarcastic and cynical. In fact that is the way I usually respond to things in general. So I wrote a response that was rather harsh.
But Jesus said we should turn the other cheek. Listen to his words:
“But if you are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for the happiness of those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other cheek. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. Give what you have to anyone who asks you for it; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. Do for others as you would like them to do for you.”
That’s pretty strong stuff. Not much room for harsh sarcastic cynicism.
I deleted my first response.
And I’m not sure I really succeeded in purging my sarcasm from my second try.
So my question is how would you have handled it better?
Let’s all learn from this and become better people for it. Leave a comment and let me know your suggestions.
Enjoy!
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I was poking around yesterday and I stumbled on the Blog Day web site.
Did you know there is a day set aside world wide for blogging and bloggers? Did you know that that day is almost here?
What’s it all about, you ask? Well here is what the web site has to say about it.
BlogDay was initiated with the belief that bloggers should have one day which will be dedicated to know other bloggers, from other countries or areas of interests. In that day Bloggers will recommend about them to their Blog visitors.
What will happen in BlogDay
In one long moment In August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post a recommendation of 5 new Blogs, Preferably, Blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog surfers will find themselves leaping and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers.
It sounds like a lofty goal, maybe even a little pie in the sky optimistic.
It also sounds like my kind of fun. I’m in. Thursday I’ll share 5 new blogs with you and give y’all an opportunity to discover something new.
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Psssst! Wanna know a secret?
Lean close, let me whisper in your ear.
I’ve started a new blog.
Unlike here where I look at what I call practical life philosophy, over there we will be focusing in on the topic of success, specifically what it takes to improve our lives for more successful financial, physical, relational and spiritual health.
It is very much a work in progress, which I explain over there. When I get it a little more polished up I’ll have a grand launch (complete with cake!)
But in the mean time you can get an inside view as I start putting things in place. Sort of a behind the scenes access pass, if you like.
Anyway go check it out at SuccessCREEations.com and let me know what you think.
Enjoy!
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I’m around a person quite a bit who seems to complain a bunch about her with poor health. And I feel bad for her because she is obviously suffering miserably much of the time.
She struggles with keeping weight on and every day talks about her headaches, lack of energy, and sinus issues. And I suspect she may have some more serious things going on that I don’t know about.
She also smokes multiple packs of cigarettes a day. I don’t know how many but to me it seems like a lot.
Now I suspect that there is a strong correlation there. I’m no health expert. And I’m not really anti-smoking from a regulatory sense. But I do know that every time she lights up on her way outside to smoke my own sinuses react as they try to purge the junk I just breathed in from my body. It’s spooky how fast it happens to me. Wham! Before the door even closes behind her I’m having trouble breathing. By the end of the day my contact lenses feel all crudded up too. And sometimes I’ll get headaches myself from it.
If the tiny little bit of smoke I get makes me feel so cruddy, I can’t imagine what the mass quantities she is throwing at her body are doing to her.
I asked her if the doctors ever said anything about her smoking being related to her health issues.
“Oh, yea.” was all she said.
So I gently probed a little further by asking her what she thought about it.
“Well, there’s a big difference between knowing you should quit and being able to actually do it.”
And that is when my heart really ached for her.
You see she genuinely doesn’t believe she can quit.
And that is a lie from the pit of hell designed to keep her suffering until her life is cut short from some entirely preventable disease that she’d never encounter if she never was exposed to the smoke.
The truth is thousands of people successfully quit smoking every day. I know it isn’t easy. But it is possible. For her too.
I’m not sure any amount of talking on my part would convince her to make a change that would have such a significant positive impact on her life because she seems determined in her choice to believe a lie.
What we choose to believe determines our reality.
Read that sentence again. In fact I’m going to change it to big bold words so no one can miss it.
My smoker friend believes she can’t quit smoking. And you know what? She’s right. She can’t. Even though she seems to really want to, as long as she continues to believe that way she’ll never be able to.
But if she was to change the way she thought about it and began to believe that, yes she could quit smoking, she’d find something amazing happen. That belief would likely change over time to thoughts about how she would quit smoking and eventually get to the point where she started to believe “I will quit smoking.” Not long after that she’d put the cigarettes down.
The Bible has a lot to say about believing. There are nearly 300 references to the various forms of the word believe and just about as many references to faith. The vast majority of those references are in the New Testament when Jesus came on the scene.
Here’s how the Bible defines faith:
What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.
Faith and belief go hand in hand. There was an incident in the life of Jesus that prompted him to explain how powerful belief really is.
In the morning, as Jesus was returning to Jerusalem, he was hungry, and he noticed a fig tree beside the road. He went over to see if there were any figs on it, but there were only leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” And immediately the fig tree withered up.
The disciples were amazed when they saw this and asked, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”
Then Jesus told them, “I assure you, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this mountain, `May God lift you up and throw you into the sea,’ and it will happen. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
What we choose to believe determines our reality. Some may ask where the limits are on that principle. I really don’t know. My subjective self says, “Come on! Make sure you are realistic about the things you choose to believe.”
But how realistic is it for a mountain to be thrown into the sea? Not exactly something rational to believe, is it?
Yet that is the example Jesus chose to make his point. I think as humans we draw the line waaaay too far over to the rational side limiting side of our willingness to believe.
What do you believe about belief?
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It is interesting how life seems to arrange itself into seasons. And like the seasons of each year, the seasons of our lives seem to have defining characteristics and eventually move on to a new and different season.
Like Jack Crabb in Little Big Man who said
After my religion period, I took up with a swindler: Allardyce Merriwhether. After Mrs. Pendrake his honesty was downright refreshing.
we move from through our lives in stages, each defined a little differently.
For the first two years here in Savannah I rarely had to work on a Sunday. In fact I was usually wanting a little more weekend work because I get paid a little extra for it.
The past few months our weekend work has picked up considerably. As a measure I’ve only been able to attend 2-½ church services in the past 8 weeks.
I know some folks would say that is still too much church.
But I think many of them would find that the church I go to is a little different than the image they have in their minds of what church is. And besides, I like being there. I even led the tech team for a while.
These days I seem to be working a lot on Sundays. I’m OK with that. My life priorities put my job ahead of church attendance.
Fortunately yesterday was one of the 2-½ that I could be there. It was good.
The tech team had one of their best days in a long time (they’ve been plagued with tripping circuit breakers and such). The band was rocking, but played songs some of us (slightly) older folks could sing along with. The message was spot on (as always). I felt connected with God. All in all it was a good day.
The Bible says
There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven
I’m looking forward to the end of this season of weekend work just like I’m looking forward to the end of our long hot summer.
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I’m working on setting up another blog because I want to explore a specific topic in detail that I don’t think fits here in my general personal blog (where I look at what I call practical life philosophy.)
I just started putting things in place yesterday, and there is quite a bit involved with getting things the way I want them to be. Fortunately I’ve learned a ton from messing around here at CREEations.
That experience is helping the process go much quicker with the new blog than it did when I was transitioning from my old Blogger format to this one here.
One of the things I wanted to get done as quickly as possible with my new blog was get a sitemap submitted to Google so the Googlebots know where to find the new site. It takes those creepy little critters a while to get around to crawling through a new site. So it should be no problem submitting my new blog before I really have completely things up and ready.
Besides, if I wait until it is ready to go, it will only take that much longer to get the dang thing indexed.
There is a groovy little dealie I can use to create a sitemap for my blog with just a click of a mouse. (Google Sitemap Generator WordPress Plugin) I even have it set to do its thing automatically here so I don’t have to think about it. The trouble is it didn’t want to work with my new blog for some reason.
I kept getting some error about the program not having permission to do what it was supposed to do. Apparently me yelling (very softly – Gorgeous was still sleeping) that yes it did have my permission because I was the one who clicked the mouse and I own the site wasn’t the authority it was looking for. I mean it was never a problem here at CREEations!
Stubborn program.
If there was anyway I was going to get what I wanted done I was going to have to do some digging to find out what goofy thing it was asking for.
And I did eventually figure out the problem after about an hour of (quiet) frustration.
But here’s the best part. In the process of figuring out how to fix my “permission” problem with my sitemap I also figured out why I haven’t been able to back up CREEations here. I didn’t get an error message when I’d try to back up. I would just get an empty file as a backup output with no explanation.
Now being fairly anal and a big fan of redundancy and backups, I was not at all happy about that state of affairs. My backup system has relied heavily on prayer.
Well I’ll keep praying. And now I’ve got some temporal redundancy in place, which can’t hurt.
What’s the lesson here?
Sometime we don’t come up with solutions problems that are in front of us until we are forced to. And sometimes answering one question causes other dominoes to fall in place for us.
Pretty cool the way things work, isn’t it?
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