#suffering — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

WIST Quotations @[email protected] · 2026-08-17 · 22:50 UTC

O stranger, cease thy care;
Wise is the soul, but man is born to bear;
Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales,
And the good suffers, while the bad prevails.
Bear, with a soul resign’d, the will of Jove;
Who breathes, must mourn: thy woes are from above.

[‘ξεῖν᾽, ἐπεὶ οὔτε κακῷ οὔτ᾽ ἄφρονι φωτὶ ἔοικας:
Ζεὺς δ᾽ αὐτὸς νέμει ὄλβον Ὀλύμπιος ἀνθρώποισιν,
ἐσθλοῖς ἠδὲ κακοῖσιν, ὅπως ἐθέλῃσιν, ἑκάστῳ:
καί που σοὶ τάδ᾽ ἔδωκε, σὲ δὲ χρὴ τετλάμεν ἔμπης.]

Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 6, l. 187ff (6.187-190) [Nausicaa] (c. 700 BC) [tr. Pope (1725), l. 227ff]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/homer/11313/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #homer #odyssey #nausicaa #divinefavor #divinejudgment #divinejustice #divinewill #endurance #fate #fortune #problemofevil #prosperity #suffering #problemofsuffering

#quote #odyssey #quotes #suffering #qotd #endurance

WIST Quotations @[email protected] · 2026-08-03 · 21:31 UTC

A quotation from Homer

And, oh! whate’er Heaven destined to betide,
Let neither flattery soothe, nor pity hide.
Prepared I stand: he was but born to try
The lot of man; to suffer, and to die.

[πέρι γάρ μιν ὀιζυρὸν τέκε μήτηρ.
μηδέ τί μ᾽ αἰδόμενος μειλίσσεο μηδ᾽ ἐλεαίρων,
ἀλλ᾽ εὖ μοι κατάλεξον ὃπως ἤντησας ὀπωπῆς.]

Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 3, l. 96ff (3.96) (c. 700 BC) [tr. Pope (1725), l. 114ff]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/homer/49946/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #homer #odyssey #telemachus #odysseus #brutallyhonest #candor #destiny #doom #fate #honesty #meaningoflife #misfortune #mortality #suffering #death

#quote #doom #odyssey #death #quotes #destiny

WIST Quotations @[email protected] · 2026-07-23 · 23:01 UTC

A quotation from Josh Billings

Mizery luvs company but iz allwuss jealous, — there never waz a man yet but what thought hiz lame back was a good deal lamer than hiz nabors.

[Misery loves company but is always jealous — there never was a man yet but what thought his lame back was a good deal more lame than his neighbor’s.]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1877-07 “Dregs” (1877 ed.)

More about this quote: wist.info/billings-josh/85114/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #joshbillings #back #company #injury #misery #pain #perspective #selfcenteredness #suffering

#perspective #quote #back #quotes #suffering #pain

Bhyllabus l'énigme @[email protected] · 2026-07-10 · 13:23 UTC

The Iron That Learns to Wait: On the Hard Years

A smith folds iron through a drought that will not end, and in his patience a wider constellation opens — Javanese nrima ing pandum, Stoic prohairesis, Taoist water, Confucian burden, Sufi fire, Vedantic impermanence, Buddhist second arrow. Not how to escape the hard years, but how to be folded by them without breaking.

https://legawa.com/2026/07/10/the-iron-that-learns-to-wait-on-the-hard-years/

#bhagavadgita #buddhism #confucianism #dailyprompt #dailyprompt2818 #elinglanwaspada

Dining and Cooking @[email protected] · 2026-07-06 · 17:40 UTC

Airborne lawsuit tests front-of-pack dosage claims

A proposed class action against RB Health (US) LLC is highlighting a recurring false advertising theory that continues to draw scrutiny of front-of-pack nutrient claims on dietary supplements, according to one industry attorney. “This is not necessarily a new…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Nutrition ##young #ache #Healthcare #nutrition #Runny #suffering
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2715630/airborne-lawsuit-tests-front-of-pack-dosage-claims/

#dining #cooking #diet #food #nutrition #young

Dining & Cooking @[email protected] · 2026-07-06 · 17:21 UTC

Airborne lawsuit tests front-of-pack dosage claims https://www.diningandcooking.com/2715630/airborne-lawsuit-tests-front-of-pack-dosage-claims/ ##young #ache #Healthcare #nutrition #Runny #suffering

#young #ache #healthcare #nutrition #runny #suffering

Footprints on the Mind @[email protected] · 2026-06-26 · 08:52 UTC

Shalini

Published in 2006 - Edited in 2026 “Come Mohandas, it is time for your interview with the doctor.” “Yes, coming.” Rishi, a young assistant, dressed in a freshly starched uniform walked ahead, as he led a tired old man, with balding head, thinly covered with greying hair, to the consulting rooms. At his soft knock, a deep voice from inside replied, “Come in.” “Sir, patient No. 33.” The square room was sparsely furnished. At the far end, there was a wooden table with two […]

https://ishitadeshmukh.com/2026/06/26/shalini/

#breathingtechniques #domesticviolence #domesticviolencecases #dowry #familylove #fantasy

Wisdom in Space @[email protected] · 2026-06-05 · 07:00 UTC

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
-- Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #FyodorDostoevsky #Intelligence #Suffering

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #GreatSandDunes #Colorado

#wisdom #quotes #fyodordostoevsky #intelligence #suffering #photography

WIST Quotations @[email protected] · 2026-05-15 · 18:42 UTC

A quotation from Ingersoll

For me, it is hard to see the plan or design in earthquakes and pestilences. It is somewhat difficult to discern the design or the benevolence in so making the world that billions of animals live only on the agonies of others. The justice of God is not visible to me in the history of this world. When I think of the suffering and death, of the poverty and crime, of the cruelty and malice, of the heartlessness of this “design” and “plan,” where beak and claw and tooth tear and rend the quivering flesh of weakness and despair, I cannot convince myself that it is the result of infinite wisdom, benevolence, and justice.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Essay (1881-11) “The Christian Religion,” “Part 2” North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 300

More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertingersoll #robertgreeningersoll #circleoflife #divinejustice #divinelove #divineplan #divinewisdom #evil #foodchain #God #Godslove #history #humancondition #intelligentdesign #malice #meaningoflife #predation #problemofevil #problemofsuffering #suffering #theodicy

#history #quote #evil #quotes #god #suffering

Dining and Cooking @[email protected] · 2026-05-08 · 13:35 UTC

MartinBauer hair growth complex a potential support for GLP-1 side effect

AnnurtriComplex is a clinically-backed ingredient representing a m…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Nutrition ##unhappy #background #baldness #caucasian #cosmetology #Disease #hairline #home #losing #male #man #medical #nutrition #scalp #sick #stress #suffering #therapy #thinning #transplant #Unhealthy #Wooden
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2633459/martinbauer-hair-growth-complex-a-potential-support-for-glp-1-side-effect/

#dining #cooking #diet #food #nutrition #unhappy

WIST Quotations @[email protected] · 2026-05-01 · 20:52 UTC

A quotation from Mark Twain

   “You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory — must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
   “O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
   (After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Story (1905), “The War Prayer”

More about this quote: wist.info/twain-mark/5637/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #twain #marktwain #warprayer #blood #consequences #defeat #destruction #devastation #divinewill #divinewrath #enemy #imprecation #intercession #killing #prayer #suffering #tragedy #unintendedconsequences #victory #violence #war #divineintercession #curse #divinelove

#tragedy #war #violence #blood #quote #victory

Bodhi 心 @[email protected] · 2026-03-30 · 10:07 UTC

Can the #dhamma solve all the world’s problems? Are there any problems to solve or is the world in exactly the state it needs to be in, always? Will reducing #suffering by transforming #desire into #contentment have a meaningful impact in time to avert the #polycrisis? Is the polycrisis a fiction we use to divert attention from our personal suffering? So many questions. So much time to fail at answering them, if we zoom out to a broader #cosmological perspective that may not seem “natural” but …

#dhamma #suffering #desire #contentment #polycrisis #cosmological

Joseph Lim :mastodon: @[email protected] · 2026-03-05 · 12:49 UTC

#UnificationChurch #dissolution order upheld, liquidation process begins⚖️
"te orgz'n is still engaging in #unlawful #solicitation of #donations tt financially ruin its members & others. "One can hardly expect te #church to voluntarily take measures to prevent its members fr engaging in #illicit activities," te #judge said. A former #follower of te church welcomed the decision, saying, "Te #court responded to the #suffering we voiced for so many years.""
#justice #religion
https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/71570

#unificationchurch #dissolution #unlawful #solicitation #donations #church

WIST Quotations @[email protected] · 2026-02-14 · 00:00 UTC

A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

In his infinite goodness, God invented rheumatism and gout and dyspepsia, cancers and neuralgia, and is still inventing new diseases. Not only this, but he decreed the pangs of mothers, and that by the gates of love and life should crouch the dragons of death and pain. Fearing that some might, by accident, live too long, he planted poisonous vines and herbs that looked like food. He caught the serpents he had made and gave them fangs and curious organs, ingeniously devised to distill and deposit the deadly drop. He changed the nature of the beasts, that they might feed on human flesh. He cursed a world, and tainted every spring and source of joy. He poisoned every breath of air; corrupted even light, that it might bear disease on every ray; tainted every drop of blood in human veins; touched every nerve, that it might bear the double fruit of pain and joy; decreed all accidents and mistakes that maim and hurt and kill, and set the snares of life-long grief, baited with present pleasure, — with a moment’s joy. Then and there he foreknew and foreordained all human tears. And yet all this is but the prelude, the introduction, to the infinite revenge of the good God. Increase and multiply all human griefs until the mind has reached imagination’s farthest verge, then add eternity to time, and you may faintly tell, but never can conceive, the infinite horrors of this doctrine called “The Fall of Man.”

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertingersoll #robertgreeningersoll #Christianity #curse #death #disease #divineanger #divinejustice #divinelove #divineplan #divinepunishment #divineretribution #divinewill #divinewrath #Eden #fallofman #foreordainment #GardenofEden #Genesis #God #humancondition #illness #mortality #omniscience #originalsin #predestination #problemofsuffering #revenge #suffering #theodicy

#quote #christianity #death #quotes #god #disease

WIST Quotations @[email protected] · 2026-02-14 · 00:00 UTC

A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

In his infinite goodness, God invented rheumatism and gout and dyspepsia, cancers and neuralgia, and is still inventing new diseases. Not only this, but he decreed the pangs of mothers, and that by the gates of love and life should crouch the dragons of death and pain. Fearing that some might, by accident, live too long, he planted poisonous vines and herbs that looked like food. He caught the serpents he had made and gave them fangs and curious organs, ingeniously devised to distill and deposit the deadly drop. He changed the nature of the beasts, that they might feed on human flesh. He cursed a world, and tainted every spring and source of joy. He poisoned every breath of air; corrupted even light, that it might bear disease on every ray; tainted every drop of blood in human veins; touched every nerve, that it might bear the double fruit of pain and joy; decreed all accidents and mistakes that maim and hurt and kill, and set the snares of life-long grief, baited with present pleasure, — with a moment’s joy. Then and there he foreknew and foreordained all human tears. And yet all this is but the prelude, the introduction, to the infinite revenge of the good God. Increase and multiply all human griefs until the mind has reached imagination’s farthest verge, then add eternity to time, and you may faintly tell, but never can conceive, the infinite horrors of this doctrine called “The Fall of Man.”

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertingersoll #robertgreeningersoll #Christianity #curse #death #disease #divineanger #divinejustice #divinelove #divineplan #divinepunishment #divineretribution #divinewill #divinewrath #Eden #fallofman #foreordainment #GardenofEden #Genesis #God #humancondition #illness #mortality #omniscience #originalsin #predestination #problemofsuffering #revenge #suffering #theodicy

#quote #christianity #death #quotes #god #disease

WIST Quotations @[email protected] · 2026-02-14 · 00:00 UTC

A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

In his infinite goodness, God invented rheumatism and gout and dyspepsia, cancers and neuralgia, and is still inventing new diseases. Not only this, but he decreed the pangs of mothers, and that by the gates of love and life should crouch the dragons of death and pain. Fearing that some might, by accident, live too long, he planted poisonous vines and herbs that looked like food. He caught the serpents he had made and gave them fangs and curious organs, ingeniously devised to distill and deposit the deadly drop. He changed the nature of the beasts, that they might feed on human flesh. He cursed a world, and tainted every spring and source of joy. He poisoned every breath of air; corrupted even light, that it might bear disease on every ray; tainted every drop of blood in human veins; touched every nerve, that it might bear the double fruit of pain and joy; decreed all accidents and mistakes that maim and hurt and kill, and set the snares of life-long grief, baited with present pleasure, — with a moment’s joy. Then and there he foreknew and foreordained all human tears. And yet all this is but the prelude, the introduction, to the infinite revenge of the good God. Increase and multiply all human griefs until the mind has reached imagination’s farthest verge, then add eternity to time, and you may faintly tell, but never can conceive, the infinite horrors of this doctrine called “The Fall of Man.”

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertingersoll #robertgreeningersoll #Christianity #curse #death #disease #divineanger #divinejustice #divinelove #divineplan #divinepunishment #divineretribution #divinewill #divinewrath #Eden #fallofman #foreordainment #GardenofEden #Genesis #God #humancondition #illness #mortality #omniscience #originalsin #predestination #problemofsuffering #revenge #suffering #theodicy

#quote #christianity #death #quotes #god #disease

WIST Quotations @[email protected] · 2026-02-14 · 00:00 UTC

A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

In his infinite goodness, God invented rheumatism and gout and dyspepsia, cancers and neuralgia, and is still inventing new diseases. Not only this, but he decreed the pangs of mothers, and that by the gates of love and life should crouch the dragons of death and pain. Fearing that some might, by accident, live too long, he planted poisonous vines and herbs that looked like food. He caught the serpents he had made and gave them fangs and curious organs, ingeniously devised to distill and deposit the deadly drop. He changed the nature of the beasts, that they might feed on human flesh. He cursed a world, and tainted every spring and source of joy. He poisoned every breath of air; corrupted even light, that it might bear disease on every ray; tainted every drop of blood in human veins; touched every nerve, that it might bear the double fruit of pain and joy; decreed all accidents and mistakes that maim and hurt and kill, and set the snares of life-long grief, baited with present pleasure, — with a moment’s joy. Then and there he foreknew and foreordained all human tears. And yet all this is but the prelude, the introduction, to the infinite revenge of the good God. Increase and multiply all human griefs until the mind has reached imagination’s farthest verge, then add eternity to time, and you may faintly tell, but never can conceive, the infinite horrors of this doctrine called “The Fall of Man.”

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertingersoll #robertgreeningersoll #Christianity #curse #death #disease #divineanger #divinejustice #divinelove #divineplan #divinepunishment #divineretribution #divinewill #divinewrath #Eden #fallofman #foreordainment #GardenofEden #Genesis #God #humancondition #illness #mortality #omniscience #originalsin #predestination #problemofsuffering #revenge #suffering #theodicy

#foreordainment #fallofman #problemofsuffering #robertingersoll #divineplan #omniscience

راديو وياك - RadioWayak @[email protected] · 2025-12-13 · 11:55 UTC

الخيم لا تحمي العائلات في غزة من #البرد #الحر #الأمطار، ومع استمرار #المعاناة وغياب #المأوى الآمن، تزداد الحاجة إلى #كرفانات #إيواء تحفظ الكرامة وتوفر الحد الأدنى من #الحياة_الآمنة.
Tents in Gaza fail to protect families from #Cold #Heat #Rain, and amid ongoing #Suffering and lack of safe #Shelter, the urgent need for #Caravans #Housing grows to ensure dignity and basic #Human_Safety.

#البرد #الحر #الأمطار #المعاناة #المأوى #كرفانات

WIST Quotations Has Moved! @[email protected] · 2025-12-12 · 19:24 UTC

A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
Lecture (1872-01-29), “The Gods,” Fairbury Hall, Fairbury, Illinois

More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertingersoll #robertgreeningersoll #conquest #deity #destiny #divineintervention #domination #evil #God #history #omnipotence #oppression #problemofevil #problemofsuffering #suffering #slavery #theodicy

#history #quotes #quote #god #destiny #evil

Where Bread Is Found @[email protected] · 2025-11-30 · 12:00 UTC

Suffering? The most depressing book in the Bible says three things are GOOD in your darkest wait (Lam. 3:24-27). See through the illusion of pain.
Read the raw study: https://downiefamily.wixsite.com/wherebreadisfound/post/while-we-wait-the-strength-to-wait
#ChristianHope #Suffering #BibleStudy

#christianhope #suffering #biblestudy

WIST Quotations Has Moved! @[email protected] · 2025-07-03 · 20:08 UTC

A quotation from Omar Khayyam

If I were God, I would not wait the years
To solve the mystery of human tears;
And, unambiguous, I would speak my will,
Nor hint it darkly to the dreaming seers.

Omar Khayyám (1048-1123) Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer [عمر خیام]
Rubáiyát [رباعیات ][tr. Le Gallienne (1897), # 116]

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/omar-khayyam/77325/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #rubaiyat #omarkhayyam #divinewill #God #problemofevil #problemofsuffering #revelation #suffering #theodicy

#quotes #quote #god #qotd #revelation #quotation

David Boles @[email protected] · 2024-07-30 · 13:56 UTC

My mother, Wilma Jean Boles, died on June 24, 2024. She was 85-years-old. Her death was unfortunate, and unnecessarily gruesome in that, in the end, she chose not to walk, or eat, or take her medication after a major surgery; the only thing she desired was a quick death. My mother always fought for what she wanted, and sometimes what she wanted is what nobody else wanted, including her death. Wilma never really recovered from elective surgery she had on May 23, 2024 to fix a perforated diaphragm where half of her stomach and part of her colon were stuck in her chest cavity, placing pressure on her left lung. Her surgeon believed she’d been living with that condition for more than 25 years; and he also believed there was “no good reason” for her not to recover and get better. As I have worked to come to terms with Wilma’s death, and the first 23 years of our life together, I am surrounded by — and often hunted with — the memories of my mother’s life, her successes, her disappointments, and her ability to continually confound the unwary. I have also realized, but not quite yet accepted, that no matter how hard I try, or how fast I may run, I will always be “Wilma’s Boy.”

When you are born into, and grow up in, a small village in Nebraska — North Loup, to be exact — there is an exacting sort of lingering punishment of social norms that always percolate and surround your every moment. You must always behave. Everyone knows who you are. You are a stranger until you have been defined by someone else. I quickly learned, in my many visits to my mother’s hometown of North Loup as a young child, that associations and relationships matter more than character.

When you’re a stranger in town, you don’t get introduced as yourself by name. Others introduce you to those who ask about you by using your familial ties. You are constructed in space by their name, not your name in time.

“Oh, that’s Bill Vodehnal’s grandson.”

“Sure, this is Wilma’s Boy.”

With those credits you do not own, you’re in.

Once those small town ties have been mentioned, and accepted by others, you are bound into a new community in a strange and fitful way. You now echo in the hills of your kin and you scream in the valleys of your ancestors as if you yourself were born and bred along the banks of the Loup River.

But there’s an expectation that comes along with all that sudden belonging.

You don’t speak up.

You don’t misbehave.

You are quiet until spoken to.

You are being watched by the town, and analyzed by unseen eyes, and you are immediately, and always, judged by societal agendas; and if you do the wrong thing, even by a little bit, you not only bring shame upon yourself, but upon your family as well.

“Wilma’s Boy, indeed!”

And that’s how the small town mentality inks its way in your bloodstream. You are always aware of timestamp belonging, you always want to fit in, you always become hypersensitive to those around you who are trying to look for the smallest fault to exploit and conquer.

In response, you become harder, more stubborn, colder, and inflexible, imagining yourself as stoic and suffering. You have values. You have strong beliefs. You don’t like strangers without association. You define first, lest you be defined last.

You are embedded into not wanting to stand out, but also wanting to be someone, and yet you are expected to always do your humble best. That dichotomy fosters an immobile sense of self that is always in motion while completely requiring stasis. You survive that way just fine in a small town, even as a young, named, visitor, but when you take that communal baggage out into the deeper, wider world, the temptation for flexible social norms to break you becomes even more powerful the harder you try to escape and not just settle for being where you’re from.

My mother was the daughter of WIlliam Henry Vodehnal, the village pharmacist: “Bill’s Girl.” Wilma was born into the malingering dust of the Great Depression, and she was slender, and beautiful, her entire life. She had Scarlet fever as a child, and became Deaf in one ear. She struggled to understand, to listen, and to communicate, the rest of her life. She never accepted her disability.

I would have loved to have met my mother when she was in her early teens — just to get a real sense of who she was born to be, and to try to understand what she believed. I wanted to know her childhood dreams before life turned on her, and before the promise of her future just became about survival and belonging.

My mother left North Loup. She toured Europe. She graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. She got out! And then, for some reason that I still do not understand, she decided to get married to a university classmate. A classmate who, after several years of a strained marriage, would become my father.

And that’s when it all changed.

That’s when the collapse of a life happened.

That’s when “Wilma’s Boy” was born to save a marriage that was still doomed to fail, and yes, not even being a first born son was enough for my father to stay married to Wilma. The divorce judge ordered him to stay with Wilma for five days after my birth, and then he was free to go live and cheat with the woman he was seeing. He later sired three additional children.

His alimony was to pay, for 10 years, the mortgage on the new home they built together and to pay $100 a month in child support until I was 18. That is the sum total of me knowing anything of value, or of substance, about my father. I do not understand him. I would not recognize him on the street. I have not set eyes upon him for 55 years.

I never understood why my mother chose to marry my father. My mother was not a romantic. She was a hard realist. From their start together, there was no real excitement, or engagement into a sustainable future. I get the feeling there was some sort of slow motion, underwater, push, neither of them fully understood that, after each left their own small town for a bigger city, and after earning a university education, the next natural step expected of them was to get married as soon as they graduated. That’s what you did back then in the radical Sixties. You got married, built a home, and had a child. That’s how you fit in the new modern world. That’s how you named your family with tendril roots.

And that was the beginning of the landslide disappointments for my mother. Divorced at 26, stuck with a five-day-old infant, and no job — she was lucky to find a fourth grade teaching position at a public school right across the street from her new home that provided for her for the next 35 years.

I know my mother felt held back by me, even if she didn’t directly blame me, because I know my mother had higher ambitions than just being a single-mother-divorcee in the 1970s and only teaching the fourth grade.

A bit later, Wilma married again, settling for another loser who came with three sons, and was subsequently divorced again a few years later.

Double divorced, but still stuck with a son who failed to save the first marriage, my mother sank into a deep, lifelong, depression. She vowed never to be married again, and to never tempt the perils of love another time.

That glowering darkness scraped the bits of joy and the residue of life from her every second of every day. She was an expert at covering her real feelings in public. Her upbringing in a small town — where you put on the mask in public, and you wept, and let loose your monsters, and invented new demons, but only in the privacy of your own home — served her well at work.

However, living with her was an entirely different experience.

Later, she privately lamented that in each of her failed marriages, she had to buy all the diamond rings. Her second husband kept his ring, and put the diamond in a tie clip.

As a child, as long as I did exactly as my mother said, no questions, no quibbling, life was acceptable.

In order for me to survive, and to try to escape into safety and sanity, I became her “performing puppet” where I would act in plays, and make her proud, and I was pressured by her to be involved in community events in order for her to appear to be a good and supportive mother. It was all staged without any underlying substance or passion, but Wilma was never happier than when she was receiving an award, or while she was shouting out support when I found success in her shadow.

My misbehaving was never an option; and I was the perfect child: the perfectly miserable, malformed, disconnected, and forlorn child stuck in a distant, cold, and loveless relationship with his mother.

Yes, over the years, I’ve learned the hard way that not all mothers are willing, or capable, of loving their sons; and not all sons are capable of loving unloved mothers.

It all can spiral into a vicious circle of regret, and pain, and failed expectations that all ultimately become so untenable that either things will explode, or things will slowly, and deliberately, break apart.

And that’s what happened.

We broke apart.

Together, my mother and I tentatively, but without saying so, came to understand we really didn’t ever like each other. Love? Sure. Like? Not so much.

Oh, we played well together when others were watching — I know how to act the role of “Wilma’s Boy” really well — but deep down there was never any real connection to family, or to love, or to respect, or to understanding what was really happening between us.

I sometimes wonder if it may have been too painful for her to ever really love anyone for fear of losing that idyllic small town adoration she longed for, but never really found in her personal life beyond North Loup. Thinking about that often makes me terribly sad for my mother.

After graduating from the university, and at the tender age of 23, I escaped to New York City and graduate school. I never looked back. I grey-rocked my mother for the last 20 years in order to preserve my own independent sanity, and to try to come to terms with the fluffy confection of a braided prairie education.

Wilma had her secret life without me.

I had my life without her.

I always considered myself her third divorce that was never consecrated in a court of law.

There was no tidy paper ending or proper emotional closure.

What is real, and what remains, is emptiness and longing.

A circle unclosed.

And so, here I am at age 60, burying my mother at 85, and the childhood feelings of sorrow and regret are overwhelming, even in the fading light of an old man — but I also realize, and accept, that we each have one life, there is no repeating, there is no going back. You own what’s happened.

You give other people the right to live, or end, their own lives, and you try to find meaning in what’s left behind; and the answer is the meaning is only what you choose to bring to it, and what you use to define it, and there’s no way to guarantee a satisfying end except to accept the life that was offered to you, and to make the best of what’s left of the fractured path ahead.

As I said my final goodbyes to my mother in the North Loup Hillside Cemetery under a steamy, and unforgiving, disc of an afternoon sun on July 12, 2024, I recalled the last thing I said to her a few weeks before, in the early morning, while she lay dying in a Lincoln, Nebraska hospital emergency room. I had been her Durable Power of Attorney for four days. I was half a country away in New York.

My mother was flowing in and out of consciousness, defiantly and stubbornly trying her hardest to die. A few hours earlier, her medical team and I decided to place her in comfort care. The nurse let me call her cell phone, and the nurse put me on speaker, and she held the phone close to my mother’s good ear so I could say one last thing to Wilma before she died.

Here is what I struggled to say out loud — to try and finally close our circle: “You are safe now. We will let you go. I love you. Thank you.”

Wilma did not respond.

Three hours later, she died.

I hope she heard me.

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#davidBoles #depression #haunting #lincoln #marriage #nebraska #northLoup #smallTown #suffering #surgery #wilmaBoles #wilmaSBoy

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Atheism Actually @[email protected] · 2024-01-29 · 17:06 UTC

-- FAILING to defend the monstrous | Casually Debunked --
(from Rationality Rules)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct08EveI9NA

#theodicy #problemOfEvil #suffering #Christianity #God

#god #christianity #suffering #problemofevil #theodicy

Atheism Actually @[email protected] · 2023-09-30 · 15:51 UTC

Ensemble examination of animal suffering and the claims of God's goodness, at skydivephil's channel, with Peter Singer, Alex O'Connor, Joe Schmid, and more.

-- Atheism's Best Argument? The Problem of Animal Suffering --

#suffering #theodicy #problemOfEvil #skepticalTheism #theism #apologetics #God

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM3y7AviNU8

#god #apologetics #theism #skepticaltheism #problemofevil #theodicy

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2023-04-08 · 02:42 UTC

In 2021, William MacAskill defended the view that caring about the long term should be the key factor in deciding how to act in the present.

When judging the value of our actions, we should not consider their #immediate effects, but rather their effects a #hundred or even a #thousand #years from now.

Should we help the poor today? Those suffering from the devastating effects of climate change, which disproportionately affects the Global South?

No, we must not let our emotions get the best of us: we should instead follow the numbers, and the numbers clearly imply that ensuring the birth of 10 to the 45th power of digital people — this is the number that MacAskill uses — must be our priority.

Although the #suffering of 1.3 billion people is very #bad, MacAskill would admit, the difference between 1.3 billion and 10^45 is so vast that if there's even a tiny #chance that one's actions will help create these digital people, the #expected #value of that action could be far greater than the expected value of helping those living and suffering today.

Morality, in this view, is all about crunching the numbers; as the longtermist Eliezer Yudkowsky once put it, "Just shut up and multiply."

#immediate #hundred #thousand #years #suffering #bad

Belgian Ecclesia Brussel - Leuven @[email protected] · 2016-10-15 · 12:39 UTC

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #5 Temptation, assault and curse

After the choice Adam and Eve made to go against the Will of God, eating of the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, God came to deal with three parties in the fall of mankind: Adam, Eve and the serpent. An alleged fourth – the devil – is not mentioned in Genesis narrative. This for the simple reason the symbolic tempter (satan), the serpent, or the evil thoughts in Eve’s mind are the evil itself.

Book of Genesis, Fall of Man. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The most common presentation of Adam and Eve does not reflect clearly enough their theological significance, at least as seen in the New Testament. Too many people forget where the trouble started and do not come to see the essence of our suffering today being the cause of man its own choice. Eve decided herself, by her own choice to go against the wishes of God. She herself wanted to be like God. The apostle Paul, being a Jewish scholar knew very well the problem of evil and suffering. For him it was also clear what choice Adam and Eve had made and why.

For Paul the wrath on mankind was caused by the anger of God (Romans 5:9) It does not have to mean we are enemies of God, but Eve her action showed God how man doubted His position. For the opposing attitude of Eve God reckoned against the sinner. In the story of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis, we hear God giving a first commandment: not eating of the fruit of the tree of conscience (the Tree of knowledge of good and evil). He is aware that they could see death reigning in the world form Adam’s time to the time of Moses (Knox).

Romans 5: 14 1But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over 2them also that sinned not after the like 3manner of the transgression of Adam, 4which was the figure of him that was to come.

In his letter to the Romans we get to hear that Adam foreshadows another person who had to come. The first Adam or the first man, corresponds in some degree to the man who was to come, and whose birth 2020 years ago we remember this year. That man being born was a gift to mankind, from God, which more powerfully affected mankind.

Romans 5: 15 1But yet the gift is not so as is the offense: for if through the offense of 2that one, many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

Adam and Eve committed an offence on which God had to react. He could directly destroy them and start all over again by creating some new living beings in his likeness which would keep to His commandment. Moreover, the boon of God exceeds the fruit of Adam and Eve’s sin. On that contrast between the gift and the results of that one sin, we shall come back in later chapters.

By their act, going against God’s Will, and by wanting to be like God, their Maker gave them the opportunity to show how much they themselves could make of it all. God’s right to govern was doubted, so know they could come to govern themselves and could come to make something of the world. Because all the children of Adam and Eve came after their choice of adversary they all fell under the spell or curse God came to bring over them. Adam and Eve after eating of the Tree of knowledge came to know the difference between good and evil and became weaker than before, because they now had knowledge. We can not escape the relationship from the first human beings. For just because of their relation to Adam and Eve all men fall under the spell of God and have to bear the consequences of that rebellion of the first carnal man. Being the descendants of Adam and Eve we all became members of a sinful race and we all shall have to face death.

1 Corinthians 15: 21 1For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be 1made alive.

In the letter to the Corinthians we are also told there is a solution. In those Greek Writings we find another confirmation of the same consequent: for Christ is to be considered as opposite to Adam, that as from one man Adam, sin came over all, so from one man Christ, life comes unto all: that is to say, that all the faithful, as they die, because by nature they were born of Adam, so because in Christ they are made the children of God by grace, they are quickened and restored to life by him. {annotation of the 1599 Geneva Patriot’s Edition}

The way the apostle Paul looks at the 1° and the 2° Adam places the Adam-story within a royal context, because the essence of the matter were Adam and Eve impeaching the Divine Creator. Them to query God His Most High position, is the biggest issue. This way a battle over kingship and its relation to the universe was initiated. The position of the one sent from God as a solution is too often missed by the majority of people, even by those who call themselves Christian.

In the Garden of Eden sin entered in the world of man. In a royal garden or orchard Jeshua (Jesus Christ) accepted the fact he must follow not his will but the Will of the Most High God, and should go to the stake. (Matthew 26:36-46)

In the Holy Scriptures a garden is used to express joy, peace and satisfaction.

Jeremiah 31: 12 Therefore they shall come, and rejoice in the height of Zion, and shall run to the bountifulness
of the Lord, even for the 1wheat and for the wine, and for the oil, and for the increase of sheep and bullocks: and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall have no more sorrow.

Adam and Eve by Peter Paul Rubens (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Adam and Eve had no sorrow in the Garden of Eden. They had everything they needed. But God did wanted to teach them a lesson and did not want them in His Garden any more. Since Adam listened to his wife and ate from the tree whose fruit Jehovah God commanded him not to eat, the ground is cursed because of him. So his deed became the cause of the earth coming in problems by man. It is often by the wrong actions of men that something bad happens in the world, for example mudslides because men took away all the trees.
All our life now we will have to struggle to scratch a living from it. God told man that it will grow thorns and thistles for us, though man will eat of its grains. This time not for nothing any more, like it was in the Royal Garden. From then onwards man had to make his own garden and work with his own hands for it. By the sweat of our brow, will we have food to eat until we die, i.e. return to the ground from which man were made. Because we shall have to be reminded that we were made from dust, and to dust we will return.
But woman certainly could not escape. For him and her there was first no pain, but knowing now good and bad they also came to know pain and sorrow. The pain of woman’s pregnancy was going to be sharpened, and in pain she will give birth. She still was going to be able to give children, but concerning having control over things it would be more difficult. God warned her that though she still will desire to control her husband, it will be him who is going to rule over her.

Genesis 3: 16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly increase thy 1sorrows, and thy conceptions. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thy desire shall be subject to thine husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17 Also to Adam he said, Because thou hast obeyed the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, (whereof I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it) cursed is the earth for thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth: for out of it wast thou taken, because thou art dust, and to dust shalt thou return.
20 (And the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living)
21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God 1make coats of skins, and clothed them.
22 And the Lord God said, 1Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil. And now lest he put forth his hand, and 2take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever,
23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the earth, whence he was taken.
24 Thus he cast out the man, and at the East side of the garden of Eden he set the Cherubims, and the blade of a sword shaken, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Adam, Eve, but also we should see that the transgression of God’s commandment was the cause that both mankind and all other creatures were subject to the curse God spoke in that Kingdom of God, the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve, fell from the estate of integrity in which God had created them and now had to build their own kingdom (a kingdom of man) in their own world.

Temptation was the occasion; it was not the cause. To be subjected to temptation is not sinful for the tempted. Embrace and acquiescence constitute sin, i.e. going in against the Will of God.
Eve succumbed to the ideas in her head. Her heart wanted to have so much as God. She herself made the choice to take the fruit and to eat it. She came to the point of overt disobedience to the divine prohibition. Adam trusted his partner and with her in the adventure, hoping also to get the knowledge of good and evil and wanting to become wise (Genesis 3:6 ASV)

The tempter had gained the trust of the first human beings. Eve had accepted as true what was a blasphemous assault upon the veracity of Good and came to regard the tree as desirable in the direction that contravened the divine prohibition. Eve served herself as carnal creature rather than the Divine Creator.

The mannin her failure to recoil with revulsion from the temptation and the idea that she would not die (Genesis 3:4) is evidence that defection had already taken place and that she exemplified the invariable psychology of sin that overt action proceeds from the inward disposition of heart.

Proverbs 23: 7 For as though he thought it in his heart: so will he say unto thee, Eat and drink: but his heart is not
with thee.

Man loves to give the fault of their wrong doing to others or say it is not from them. But In the Messianic Scriptures the sent one from God clearly warns man that there is nothing outside man. Summoning the multitude rabbi Jeshua (Jesus Christ) addressed the crowd close to him and told them that we should worry about what comes out of man. It is that what is inside and comes outside that pollutes or defiles man. It is from inside, out of man’s heart that come evil thoughts and actions, like self-seeking, pride, jealousy or envying, slander, malice, double-dealing, lying, deceiving, misleading, betraying, sexual vice, adultery, fornication, theft or stealing, wickedness, murder, all things that make a person unclean.

Mark 7: 21 For from within, even out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, uncleanness, a wicked eye, backbiting, pride, foolishness.
23 All these evil things come from within, and defile a man.

We may not be mistaken, it is all from within ourselves. The satan or adversary comes from our inner thoughts which we allow to go wrong and where we give in. We can choose not to follow certain ideas, but when we chose to follow the wrong path then we sin. There may be manyfold temptation but it is how we react on them.Whenever you find yourself surrounded by various temptations do know that it all depends on your choice and on your faith which shall demand action (works of faith), leading to steadfastness, developing endurance. But to withstand such temptation man shall need now the courage to choose the right path and let patience finish its work that you may become fully developed and perfectly equipped, lacking in nothing or in no respect deficient. So when you are drawn away, enticed and baited by your own evil desire, like Eve was, let yourself not be beguiled and allured by your own evil desire and enticed by a bait. Remember that when passion or desire conceives and gives birth to sin, than when the bad act or sin runs its course and get fully matured it shall give birth to death. We may not be mislead and make no mistake about this.

James 1: 14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own concupiscence, and is enticed.
15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth 1sin, and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
16 1Err not my dear brethren.

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* Bible quotes from 1599 Geneva Patriot’s Edition

Preceding articles

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #1 Beginning of everything

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #2 Beginning of mankind

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #3 With his partner

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #4 The Fall

The Seed Of The Woman Bruised

Jesus begotten Son of God #10 Coming down spirit or flesh seed of Eve

Sayings of Jesus, what to believe and being or not of the devil

Not about personal salvation but about a bigger Plan

A book of life and a man born more than two thousand years ago

When having found faith through the study of the Bible we do need to do works of faith

Next: The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #6 Curse and solution

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Additional reading

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Further reading of interest

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Belgian Ecclesia Brussel - Leuven @[email protected] · 2016-02-09 · 13:44 UTC

When having found faith through the study of the Bible we do need to do works of faith

When we have found the Word of God and started reading the Bible with an open mind, letting the words come to us like they are written, it shall transform our inner self, if we allow it to do that.

When we do come into the faith, believing in One God and believing in His only begotten son, to be the sent one from God and the Messiah, our saviour, we shall have to take actions. We shall not be able to continue to live like we did before.

Faith demands action. Faith demands works.

We do know that there are lots of pastors who say contrary, but be aware that rabbi Jeshua taught his followers to be prudent and to be alert, doing the right things are otherwise they could miss the opportunity to enter God’s Kingdom.

It is true that we have received the free Gift of the Grace of God by the Blood of Christ. But it is not because we are giving a whitewashing of sins by the ransom offer of Christ Jesus, that we can do whatever we want. No. Once we come into the faith we shall have to do the works of faith. In case we do not do those works of the Law our faith shall be like a dead faith, not bringing us far.

When from our bible reading we got to see that Jesus is the Way and that we have to become one like he is one with God we shall have to work on ourselves to become like Jesus. It shall take many works to come in Christ and becoming “a new creation“. Than the old person has to be set aside and a new person has to take you over, like you are reborn in this system of things, you not any more being of the world but being of God.

Thanks to the sent one from God and God accepting Jesus his offering as a payment for sins, salvation has come over us. But when becoming a Christian we are at a new starting point, saved from the curse of death. This we have to keep so, which shall demand lots of works, keeping ourselves under control.

God reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Given a free way now we have to keep our good relationship with This Divine Creator and with His son. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them does not give us now a free way to continue sinning. God has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we have to be Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. Jesus asked his disciples to go out into the world and to proclaim the Gospel message of the coming Kingdom of God. This is a very important work we do have to do. This we only can do properly when we live according to what we preach.

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God and start doing the works of faith.

Let us have a look at what the Bible itself says about Faith and Works.

“17 Wherefore if any man is in Christ, {1} [he is] a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. {1) Or, there is [a new creation]} 18 But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having {1} committed unto us the word of reconciliation. {1) Or [placed in us]}

20 We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech [you] on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-20 ASV)

“3 For this is the will of God, [even] your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication; 4 that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who know not God; 6 that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in the matter: because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified.

7 For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. 8 Therefore he that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you.

9 But concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another; 10 for indeed ye do it toward all the brethren that are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more; 11 and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you; 12 that ye may walk becomingly toward them that are without, and may have need of nothing.” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-12 ASV)

“2 Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations; 3 Knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience. 4 And let patience have [its] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.

5 But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.

7 For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; 8 a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways. 9 But let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate: 10 and the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.” (James 1:2-10 ASV)

“12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which [the Lord] promised to them that love him.

13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man: 14 but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.
15 Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death.” (James 1:12-15 ASV)

“19 Ye know [this], my beloved brethren. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 20 for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. 21 Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves. 23 For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror: 24 for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25 But he that looketh into the perfect law, the [law] of liberty, and [so] continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing. 26 If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man’s religion is vain. 27 Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:19-27 ASV)

“1 My brethren, hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, [the Lord] of glory, with respect of persons. 2 For if there come into your synagogue a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, and there come in also a poor man in vile clothing; 3 and ye have regard to him that weareth the fine clothing, and say, Sit thou here in a good place; and ye say to the poor man, Stand thou there, or sit under my footstool; 4 do ye not make distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?” (James 2:1-4 ASV)

“8 Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well: 9 but if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one [point], he is become guilty of all.

11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou dost not commit adultery, but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

12 So speak ye, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty. 13 For judgment [is] without mercy to him that hath showed no mercy: mercy glorieth against judgment.

14 What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works? can that faith save him?

15 If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food, 16 and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit?

17 Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.

18 Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith apart from [thy] works, and I by my works will show thee [my] faith.

19 Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well: the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren?

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect; 23 and the scripture was fulfilled which saith, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God.

24 Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.

25 And in like manner was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works, in that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.” (James 2:8-26 ASV)

“13 Who is wise and understanding among you? let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom. 14 But if ye have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth. 15 This wisdom is not [a wisdom] that cometh down from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace.” (James 3:13-18 ASV)

“1 Whence [come] wars and whence [come] fightings among you? [come they] not hence, [even] of your pleasures that war in your members?

2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend [it] in your pleasures.

4 Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God.

5 Or think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying? 6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore [the scripture] saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.

7 Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded.

9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you.

11 Speak not one against another, brethren. He that speaketh against a brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. 12 One [only] is the lawgiver and judge, [even] he who is able to save and to destroy: but who art thou that judgest thy neighbor?” (James 4:1-12 ASV)

“7 Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receive the early and latter rain. 8 Be ye also patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged: behold, the judge standeth before the doors. 10 Take, brethren, for an example of suffering and of patience, the prophets who spake in the name of the Lord.” (James 5:7-10 ASV)

“12 But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath: but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; that ye fall not under judgment.

13 Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise.

14 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15 and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. 16 Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.” (James 5:12-16 ASV)

“19 My brethren, if any among you err from the truth, and one convert him; 20 let him know, that he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:19-20 ASV)

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Prestbury war memorial – northern face “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”. On 864428. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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