New Links

Just a quick note to take a look at all the new links I have added.

If you like John Wayne, Bruce Lee, Elvis Presley or Charlie Daniels your gonna love these web-sites I have linked to. There is other good stuff there too like bible.org I use it all the time in my research for my bible study groups.

So check it out and enjoy your weekend!

By the way here is a picture of me and my buddy for you to enjoy too!

Thanksgiving message 2006

Once again we come to the time of year to give thanks to God for what we have, who we are and all that we cherish in life. What am I thankful for today? I am so very glad to tell you!

First and foremost I am thankful to God and his son Jesus Christ for my mortal life and for my eternal life given by the grace of God and the sacrifice made on the cross. The faith I have is also a gift I am thankful for as it is what allows me to believe in the everlasting life promised to us by Christ.

I know many non-believers in the world and there are far too many of them, who think we, the people who follow Christ and worship God are just a bunch of nutty zealots. However, the one thing I would say to them all is that this faith fills the void in our souls. When we live in the world there is an emptiness within us that we try to fill with worldly passions. Sex, booze, drugs, entertainment, money, and stuff will never make you happy or fill that void within your soul. I have found that only God fills that void in me and my cups now are overflowing with joy!

Praise God!

Yes friends I am truly a thankful man for my story is much like yours I am sure. Living in a world where I did not know God was a lost world for me. I stumbled around blindly and made hardly any progress in life getting hurt every time I turned around and finding myself clawing my way out of some deep pit of sin an despair. When I finally came to God and gave my life up to Christ, surrendered all my worldly power, submitting that I can do nothing without him, I was truly reborn. Now I am a different man. Sure I may look the same and even sound the same but if you dig a little deeper you will find I do not behave the same or think the same as I did before.

My needs and desires have changed for example. I no longer crave the all the worldly treasures that I once did. I can now take it or leave it and it means nothing to me. Now does that mean I will sell all my belongings and live in a shack? No, not at all, I still want to live a comfortable life and have nice things but my life no longer centers on the pursuit of these things. Now I am focused on constantly improving. I want to improve my relationship with God first and foremost then my wife and family. I want to be a better father, friend and co-worker, I want to be a better business man and customer. I want to be a better neighbor and a better Christian. The Lord gives us the desire to be a better human being and to work hard at being someone who is helping others, in and out of the Church here on earth. The Church meaning the body of Christ or all his chosen. We are called to be his hands and feet doing his bidding while we are here, spreading the word of his glory and helping our brothers and sisters, yes including the faithless and the non-believers along the way. Remember Christ said he was here to save those who needed saving not the righteous men, as illustrated in, Luke Chapter 5:

"I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

I am very thankful for his love and what he has taught me about sharing my gifts. It is all his anyway he just lets us have some to use while we are here. If we use it wisely he gives us more. Now does this mean everyone who is rich has been blessed by God? No I think not. Remember Satan has rule over the earth so he loves to use wealth as a tool to get some folks to do his bidding, so do not be mistaken on that matter.

If you are a true believer you will find your treasure in heaven but if you are a good steward here on earth you will also be able to partake in the bounty here as well. If you are not a believer I pray that you will pick up a Bible and read God's word. Once you do that you will become curious and want to know more. This will be the first steps on your journey to find peace with God.

Peace be with you as you journey towards the light of the world. Once you reach that light and accept Christ (who is the light, the truth and the way) you will find that your heart will be filled and your soul no longer empty.

May the blessings of Christ be with you all today and each day until his glorious return!

Amen.

Lost Lore EBook Update!

Back in February of this year I posted a blog about finishing up a project I have been working on for a loooong time.

Actually over fifteen years in the making if you mark the very first short story I ever wrote as the beginning of this project. I really only started putting this thing together a few years ago after I decided I had enough material for my own anthology. After having several stories and poems published in various other anthologies I decided why not just put my own together and now here it is.

So, I am finally ready to really put a finished product our there for you folks to take a look at. I did send out a few copies before but it was rough, unedited and without artwork. I am very pleased with the way this came out as an ebook considering I did it all myself and it was mostly by trial and error. I downloaded most of the software I used for free. I am still not exactly sure how I did it but it finally started falling into place the other day while I was playing around with it in my MSWorks word processing program and found a way to get the art in there and save it to my .pdf file without losing it.

I have not found an outside publisher as of yet so I am self publishing it for now. I still have some copywrite issues due to much of the artwork inside being borrowed from the web, (smile) so I can not sell this work but can give it away until I get my own artist to illustrate it for me then I may try and sell some.

In the meantime I hope you find time to read some of the work within. I had some help with the editing by my good friend Alan Woods, I appreciate his efforts. The Cover art was done by a nice lady named Alistar Fall, I found her on the web somehow and she was extremely patient with me when I kept asking for changes. I think she finally had enough of me and moved on but I was able to change the colors too get the effect I wanted for the most part. I want to thank her for bringing the concept I had in mind to life for the cover. She was terrific!

I have posted a note in the links section of this blog that will give you access to the ebook as well as the title of this blog page itself! You will need a .PDF reader to open it. I converted it into an Adobe Acrobat .PDF file which is pretty standard on most Windows based PC's. Once you open it it is best to click the "fit in window" icon on your reader to scroll through the book and see the artwork and how it is all laid out. Then when you want to read it you can enlarge it as much as you need to be comfortable for your own eyes. I will add an additional link to it here as well.

Lost Lore from an Ancient Future

I would love to get some feedback on this so feel free to post comments here in the blog or email me directly.

Enjoy your Sunday and Gob Bless you all.

JD

GOP Defeat

What does a GOP defeat mean for Conservatives?

To begin with this was a defeat for the GOP, not conservatism. From what I have read so far this morning the conservative agenda is alive and well in America. Our main guy “Tom Tancredo” on the illegal immigration issue won by a handy margin in Colorado. Gay marriage bans won in 3 states and imminent domain was squashed as well. The conservative agenda in fact does not correlate well with the GOP agenda in many cases but since the alternative to the GOP is the DNC we have no choice but to stick with the horse we rode in on or “elephant” in this case. If you consider that many of these house races were run by ‘Blue Dog” Dems posing as conservatives you can understand why this nation is truly a conservative nation with real family values. If Dems have to act like conservatives to win then that obviously speaks volumes.

Being the eternal optimist I have to say that this defeat is a good opportunity to wake up the GOP and force them to recognize why they lost. It seems that their open border agenda is a big part of it, many conservative voters may have walked away from this one and the GOP also failed to gain the independent votes needed to retain control in this contest. The Iraq war may be a big issue for some folks out there due to the constant hype and 24/7 negative reporting by the OLD media or MSM and the coverage of the scandalous behavior of some Pubs (Republicans) no doubt but I have to believe it was just as much the borders and the outrageous spending that defeated the GOP on this one. When Republicans govern like Democrats they will loose support from the conservative base.

On thing is for sure, my simple mind cannot process the War in Iraq being a reason to vote for Dems since their policies will cause us to loose this war all the while we are capturing and killing terrorists by the thousands over there after deposing Sadaam and sentencing him to hang. We have done this all the while freeing over 20 million people from the bonds of that tyrannical regime who brutally killed millions over a 30 year rule. If we did the same thing in Darfur we would be hailed as saviors but letÂ’s not go off on a tangent here. The fact that the GOP has managed to keep terrorists from hitting us again with the Patriot Act, the NSA surveillance program, and the offensive tactics of fighting the jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan are all positive things in my eyes. I think the big screw up here is the fact that the Pubs did not force the closing of the borders and crack down on illegal immigration within months of 911. This to me has always been a big problem and hit hard at the credibility of the Bush administration.

One thing is for sure millions of Americans are FED UP with politicians in Washington in both parties and see the entire political process as a sham. The government does not seem to be working for the people at times but working against us. The Dems claim to be for the poor but their policies have kept the poor in the same poverty stricken, inner city neighborhoods by giving them hand outs instead of teaching them to work and move up and out of the projects. The Pubs on the other hand have not learned how to govern as true conservatives and keep trying to placate everyone instead of doing what it takes to protect our borders, cut spending and stop all this PC nonsense and win this war.

They are fighting an uphill battle no doubt sine the vast majority of the media is on a 24/7 jihad of itÂ’s own trying to defeat conservatism wherever it exists and the GOP has not figured out how to combat that enemy as of yet. The rise of the NEW media is having itÂ’s own impact but it is not nearly as powerful as the OLD media or MSM as I call them. Someday perhaps that foe will be vanquished but until then it will be like going into battle with 50 pound boots and a 100 pound rifle.

I do know this, The Lord works in ways we cannot comprehend at times and this must be one of them. I am sure there is a hard lesson to be learned for the GOP and I hope they wake up and smell the napalm on this one. If not, they will surely get pummeled again the next time and in this seriously dangerous world we live in today it could mean life or death for the USA.

Election Day

This is one of the most crucial elections I can remember in my lifetime. With it being a mid-term election that makes it even more astounding since most mid terms are yawners since there is no Presidential race to get the folks really revved up and motivated. This one is very different. Now I am a partisan political animal who follows this stuff daily all year long. So I know it is different for the normal Jane or John Doe who could care less about politics. I hope that some of those folks who really do not follow it or really care nothing about it just stay home because it is dangerous for an uninformed voter to vote in my humble opinion. However if they do by chance go to the polls today it is likely they will vote Democrat. Why? Because the Old Media or MSM as I fondly refer to them, has done nothing but support Democrats and Bash Republicans for so long most of the regular folks out there have been brainwashed into believing George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and most House Republicans are nothing more than hellish demons who want to molest your children and dominate the world, all while they are taking gobs of cash from Exxon and Haliburton under the table and doing there very best to fry the planet with complete global warming as their true and ultimate goal.

Does this sound a bit extreme to you? It should but if you watch CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and read the NY Times and about 250 other liberal papers out there this would pretty much sum up what they say about the Bush administration and the Republicans in general.

The truth is that the MSM is no longer a viable source of news. It is nothing more than a propaganda machine for the Democratic party doing it's utmost to get all Democrats elected in each and every election. The problem is that the vast majority of the country is conservative and these liberals just can't or won't admit it. If you look at the red and blue map of the country you can see it plain as day. Why do you think the rise of conservative talk radio has been so indomitable over the past 10 years or so? Look at the success of FOX News. These came about and shot to the top of the ratings due to the complete and utter collapse of sanity and fairness in the MSM. The pundits of the MSM are still so arrogant that they will not admit talk radio is anything more than entertainment but they better wise up before all their profits dry up and blow away. They are destined to become the fringe news if they do not open their news departments up to a more conservative POV and try and serve all their potential customers with fair and balanced reporting. For more proof of my claim here I read a story this week that stated that out of all the stories done by the MSM in the run up to this election 77% were favorable to Democrats while only 12% were favorable to Republicans.

How's that for leaning left? Click here for that report.

If the Dems do not win this election by a major landslide it is a prophecy for the future demise of the Democratic party and their lackeys in the media. With all the power of the MSM at their disposal it looks like the Conservatives will still put up a very good fight in this election. Trouble is looming for us all if the Dems do win but it is even more telling for the liberals that they can't beat us hands down with all their buddies in the media pulling for them 24/7.

As you can see many of the Dems are running their House races as conservative Democrats, they know you have to be conservative to win in fly-over country and in the south but will they govern as conservatives if elected? I say no. Their liberal party leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, and John Kerry will not allow it. Pray for a miracle my friends because if we can beat them at the voting booth today that would mean the end of the Democratic party as we know it and the MSM will have to change it's tune or it will sink along with their liberal brethren .

In the words of a once great liberal Icon, Dan Blather, I bid you good luck and farewell with one final word, "Courage".