Christian testimony on forgiveness

Great Christian Testimony on forgiveness on 60 minutes tonight. You missed out if you didn’t see it.

A man wrongly convicted of rape and imprisoned for 11 years and his forgiveness for the women who put him in prison। Very powerful. Story on link below


Ronald Cotton

MEMOIR ON THE STORY AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.COM. BOOK IS ENTITLED PICKING COTTON.

The Key to Forgiveness

What would you pay to find the key to forgiveness? $5,000? $10,000? More?

It is actually priceless. I would like to give it to you free. 

Go to the following link:

The Jesse Lee Peterson Show

Listen to the Hour 3 of the program dated Tues, 24 Feb 2009. The key is there. 

Thank God for BOND, Jesse Lee Peterson, and the work they are doing. 

Scientology and Narconon

My experience with Scientology was limited. 35 years ago or so, when I was using drugs, some people invited me to a Scientology meeting of some sort at their Long Beach facility. I went along but somewhere on the ride over I got a funny feeling about the whole thing. I decided to just stay in the car and not go in; I'm glad I did.

Narconon is a Scientology related program which says they help people get off drugs. I would stay as far away from it as possible.

Here's an interesting video from a former Scientologist who worked at one of their missions.

Scientology: What I saw while working on staff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaP2Y75Hqa0


Certainly not an organization that has anything to offer.

An open letter to Alcoholics Anonymous

Here are some thoughts this morning. Certainly, the homosexual population ( I don't want to use the word Gay to describe something that certainly isn't gay) has a major
problem with drinking or "Alcoholism" if you will.The question is what to do about it. AA's response these last 30 years has been allowing Gay AA meetings to be listed as "special purpose" meetings. Something that did not happen in AA's early history. It looks like a good thing doesn't it? After all, the homosexual suffering from alcoholism is thrown a life saver and , no doubt, some or even many stop drinking. But is that real love for the Homosexual Alcoholic?
Some would say yes no doubt. It really boils down to whether or not you believe Homosexuality is intrinsically immoral or not. 2000 years of Christian tradition and teaching says that it is.If homosexuality is intrinsically evil, then by giving them a stamp of approval and acceptance that would not be the essence of true love for them would it? In fact, you would be encouraging their aberrant behaviour.

No sane person would argue that thieves or adulters be given thier own special purpose meetings would they? Many alcoholics are thieves when they come to AA. I was. Probably most
are. In fact, I could present a powerful argument that I was born a thief since it started at a relatively young age. So why shouldn't thieves have their own special purpose meetings?.
After all, they have their own special problems and many do not want to stop stealing.

How does AA deal with thieves that are alcoholics? Generally, people are encouraged to stop drinking, take a fearless and searching moral inventory, and commit their lives to God. They are discouraged from stealing arent they? In other words, they are encouraged towards self-
examination and change. I might even use the word "Repentance". That is love isn't it? It is correction. In fact, a powerful argument could be made that correction is the essence of true love. After all, isn't that what good Parents do for their children? Isn't that what God does for us?

Therein lies the rub. AA, as a matter of group policy, does not correct Homosexuals. It accepts them the way they are. It doesn't do that with thieves, adulterers, or other sinners. It only does it with homosexuals. Why? Because radical homosexuals, to proud to admit they were wrong,
pushed for it for years and liberal elements within AA gave in to it. So AA has become like some of the more liberal and heretical "Christian" denominations":Metropolitan Community Church, Episcopal Church, or the Reformed Catholic Church. AA hides behind the tradition 10 "Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into
public controversy."

If asked I'm sure representative at World Services would say that AA has no position on the homosexual controversy raging in our society at large. But what they say conflicts with what they do by their actions. I accuse Alcoholics Anonymous World Services of equating being
Homosexual with being Black or American Indian. I accuse Alcoholics Anonymous World Services of not adhering to the tradition that "Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues" through a cooperative relationship with the Internation Advisory of Homosexual Men and Women in Alcoholics Anonymous. accuse Alcoholics Anonymous World Services of promoting the radical homosexual agenda in violation of AA traditions. I accuse AA members involved in Round Up committes of promoting the acceptance of homosexuality. I accuse AA of promoting the acceptance of homosexuality in conference approved literature. I accuse AA of promoting the acceptance of homosexuality in a personal story in the fourth edition of the the Big Book. I accuse AA members of a failure to speak out about this in AA
meetings.I accuse AA of a failure to love.

Post traumtic stress and drug/acohol abuse

"Traumatized people who cannot spontaneously dissassociate may attempt to produce similar numbing effects by using alcohol or drugs.Observing the behaviour of soldiers in wartime ,Grinker and Spiegel found uncontrolled drinking increased proportionately to the combat groups losses; the soldiers use of alcohol appeared to be an attempt to obliterate their growing sense of helplessness and terror..........In another study of 100 combat veterans with severe post-traumtic stress disorder,Herbert Hendin and Ann Haas noted that 85 percent developed serious drug and alcohol problems after their return to civilian life...... The largest and most comprehensive investigaton of all , the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study, reported almost identical findingsza; 75 percent of men with the disorder developed problems with alcohol abuse or depence" *

*Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman, M.D.

***************
I don't endorse this book by Judith Herman as it seems to be written from the perspective of a
somewhat radical feminist. Judith Herman is married to Jerry Berndt but, as the book cover reveals, she doesn't even use her husband's name which says something about her. However there are some interesting facts and footnotes to some interesting studies in it.

Alcoholics Anonymous (Narcotics Anonymous also) continue to describe drinking and drug use
as "diseases". This is a disservice to people suffering from these conditions. The link to post traumatic stress is firmly established. And I hasten to add that combat soldiers are not the only ones suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. There are also the millions of victims of child abuse, rape, and incest to name just a few.

Recovery Conference

http://www.anewwayout.com/

A New way out

Christian Recovery conference to be held in Southern California . I'm not involved in this yet but it does look interesting. I thought I would pass it along to you.

Overcoming difficult resentments

This is just my experience on how to overcome difficult resentments.

First of all, I haven’t always been able to determine I had a resentment or that I had gotten over it. I can’t really say how common that is.

In my case I had severe resentment for my mother due to childhood traumas but they were so traumatic I blocked the incidents and the hatred out of my conscious mind. I believe it was a kind of defense mechanism to make the unbearable bearable. Then in my early teenage years drugs made me even more oblivious to it.

So for many years I wasn’t even conscious of the resentment. After decades of sobriety the traumas came back to mind and I became aware of the resentment. At times I would be around my mother and feel a subtle quiet seething anger towards her even though she wasn’t doing anything to me in the moment. It was just a quiet subtle thing which was triggered by her presence.

I confronted her about her abuse and apologized for the resentment. I thought I was over it. I even wrote an article entitled “Hate: the root of addiction” (you can find it on this website) where I identified forgiveness as the cure. I even said in Church I had forgiven her and indeed I thought I had.

A month or so ago, while getting a haircut, I watched a young Father with his 5 year old daughter. I couldn’t help thinking I had been an innocent child like that.Then, at a Church meeting a few weeks ago, the minister asked me if I had given up resentment and anger. I think he suspected I hadn’t, although he did say I was getting better when I said I refused to put my mom in an old folks home about 6 months prior to that.

I began to tell him about the barber shop incident and then yelled out “How could someone do that to another person?” and the anger surfaced. It was just too obvious to deny.

At that point the minister just said, “Ted, you haven’t forgiven your mother”.

Then he said “ Your mom couldn’t help what she did to you.”

I said,“ I realize that.”

His reply was that I just knew it intellectually but didn’t really know it. (You know like reading something in a book but not seeing it for yourself). Then he said “Ask God to show you that she couldn’t help it and he will, and then you will go free.”

Too make a long story short, in prayer I asked to God to see she couldn’t help herself. Several days later as I was driving I began to remember an incident when I was about 10 years old when I had been extremely cruel to another young boy. I don’t want to go into the details now but it was an extremely cruel thing to do and involved physical abuse. And I could see at that time that something evil had just taken me over and acted through me. In short, I had become just like my mother I hated. I was beginning to see.

Around that time I had a talk with the office manager of the Church about the meeting and what I had seen. When I described my being taken over by evil as a child, he said “That’s how it is with adults too”. We also chatted about the compulsiveness of sin and how many people think they chose to do evil and see it as a sign of unwillingness to take responsibility for your actions to acknowledge your compulsiveness.

Through my own experience of being cruel and being taken over by evil as a child, I was slowly seeing that my mom was just as compulsiveness in her cruelty as I had been in mine. She couldn’t help herself anymore than I could help myself. I don’t know the details of her childhood but she was once an innocent child also who had experienced her own traumas that made her a slave to sin. Somehow in seeing all this, I have begun to have compassion for my mom.

*************
“Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.’”
John 8:34

A Guide to True Peace

Hall V. Worthington and Joan Worthington have put a downloadable pdf file of the Guide to True
Peace on their website. Thanks Hall and Joan.

Guide to True Peace

BOND ACTION , Inc.

I dont endorse many organizations but I do endorse this one.

http://www.bondaction.org/

What is BOND Action, Inc.?

BOND Action, Inc. is a new cultural action organization that is totally separate from BOND, legally. It has been created by separating out of BOND those activities which constitute lobbying under the IRS code so that they can be expanded in scope. It exists to educate, motivate, and rally Americans to greater involvement in the moral, cultural and political issues that threaten our great country.

Every Prisoner was once a child

Heres an interesting blog entitled "Daily Life as a Spiritual Exercise".

I especially like the article entitled: Every prisoner was once a child



Here's an excerpt:

"Resentment opens the portal of your mind and allows infection and infestation to enter in. That is how evil works, it tempts you to hate it, and when you do it gets inside you and grows up in you. It is for this reason that Jesus said "do not hate your enemy, overcome them with good" He was warning you about not opening your mind to evil, which is exactly what resentment does."

Amen