Random Things

Ok, this is just a random post that may or may not go anywhere or mean anything - pretty much the story of a life - action or procrastination, guess like Hez says in his post on Good & Evil it's a choice thing!

So anyway today whilst getting the coffee in Starbucks I caught the headlines of the Guardian Newspaper which annoyed me a little - though to be honest why Starbucks insists on stocking the Guardian as its paper of choice is beyond me - though to be fair the Guardian Media section and it's books reviews are not so bad and only a tad dry!

Anyway as I was saying the front page was screaming about Israeli War Crimes and an apparent investigation done by the Guardian that has exposed these shocking crimes!
Now if what they say is true then it is wrong - no doubt about that, as my mum likes to say, ' two wrongs don't make a right' and as Hez says choosing to do good over evil or vice versa is always a choice. So sometimes there are circumstances that colour the picture other than black or white, but in the end we all know the rules and have a choice to make. make the wrong choice or put forward the wrong justification and as Hez and Michael point out we could end up before the supreme court and be found as guilty as Jobs friends, but without Job to intercede for us!
but what got me about this article was the unbiasedness of it - a small menton of Hamas, even though they admit 'Amnesty International has said Hamas should be investigated for executing at least two dozen Palestinian men in an apparent bout of score-settling with rivals and alleged collaborators while Operation Cast Lead was under way.'
Still at least they did allow one pro-israel comment so they couldn't be called totally unbiased, and Uri Drom does a good job of pretty much putting forward my feelings on the situation in a much better way than I could!

So my coffee was almost spoiled, but I asked ofr a shot of caramel in it to take away the bitter taste of the newspaper headlines and things immediately felt better after that! (after all if life is about choices then choosing not to hold on to anger should probably count as a good choice! even with the extra calories attached!).

So then later on I found out one (the main one!) of the Christian book wholesalers over here are doing things like looking to lay off staff and then doing a recruitment and asking for volunteers to in effect fill those paid staffers positions, and then claiming to be 100% Charity! well sorry to me that's playing a foul semantics card. 100% charity does not involve looking for ways to make your life/business better at the expense of people you are meant to have a duty to care for!! Add to that given it is a commercial business it's trickery to try to convince the customers that they through supporting them 100% goes to charity - actaully it doesn't as most of it goes on admin, stock, overheads etc - very little of the customers spend makes it to the charity component - I should know I spent 14 years working for the same sort of retail/publishing/worldwide charity as these folks - and believe me the final sum going to the missions was less than 5% ! So again it's misleading and unfair to make these sorts of claims and do this sort of thing.
Heck my business isn't a charity - it provides for me and my family with not much left over and then most of that goes to the taxman as I render unto ceasar, but I give willingly to charity from that money because yes it is the right thing to do - and yes I have a nominated charity for my shop, and this year even though times are tough I am still giving - and last year I gave too, twice in fact! This is not to brag, but it's to point out that saying 100% charity is not saying anything if it isn't backed up by real action, (Mark 12:42) if you have thousands and give little, or have little and give as much as you can - well draw your own conclusions.
Again this issue is the unfairness and biasedness of the situation, the misuse of words and ethics to deliberately report something in a way not honestly truthful, if that makes sense!

So anyway there's my gripe - and you know what, somehow this seems to fit in to the bits of Ross's ViYikra teaching on sunday that I caught and that caught me!. It's the justice element - a pure or truthful heart, a just soul, rightness before God, a pureness that we should have and that is so missing it seems.

So there we go - there's obviously a message being given here - lets hope I am listening and catch all the words! speak lord, your servant is listening - and hopefully not sleeping through the lesson.

Ohh and I nearly forgot the good thing that happened!!
My copies of James' ' Restoring Abrahamic Faith' are here!!
yes yes yes! and just in time for my day off tomorrow - so I can spend the day reading it, I'm hoping the sun shines and its not too windy (it was absolutely freezing today even though the sun shone) so I can sit outside in my swing chair with the birds singing and read it, if not then I will sit in the swing chair in the conservatory and read it instead - but whatever happens I am going to enjoy the day off reading the book - so look out there could be questions coming and certainly another group is likely to get a new member inflicted on it! (grin).

ok, last thing, I am now truly a twit!
that is to say i am now on twitter.com, so if any of you are also on there and want to chat/follow or be followed then you can find me at: @unicorntreebks

Thanks for bearing with me if you got this far - as ever feel free to comment, criticise, agree or disagree - and honestly feel free to tell me to stop whining if you want! ;0)