Reply to: kurtmaddox
You and pastordave seem to be having a great time, I’m just going to step back and let you two go at it! I’m not getting involved here. It's fun to read and watch. I enjoy the huge amount of intelligence being swung around here these days. It's refreshing to spend time with such smart people (I mean ALL of you, who drop by of a visit, chat or full throttle debate :D )

Smart people aren't a dime a dozen ya know, just look at nullfactors neighbours, I’m enjoying being surrounded by intelligent conversation.

Right now my son is wandering around the house flicking his tongue in and out of his mouth while making a noise in the back of his throat, it sounds like he's about to swallow his tongue and a bit like the sound one of my cats makes just before she pukes.

I need this! I need these conversations and mental stimulation!

Thanks,

but Kurt, lay off the references to me being like Jesus, that freaks me out!

lol :D

FM

Hey.

I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader, and I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber, or own a dog sled, and I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada, although I'm certain they're really, really nice.

I have a Prime Minister, not a President. I speak English and French, not American, and I pronounce it 'about', not 'a boot'.

I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack. I believe in peacekeeping, not policing; diversity, not assimilation; and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal.

A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch, and it is pronounced zed: not zee – zed!!

Canada is the second largest land mass! The first nation of hockey! And the best part of North America!

Serious Graphic Artist Needed

I can maneuver my way around graphic arts okay, but I’m having issues with my latest project, the cover of my new book. What I need is a Graphic artist who can put together an image for the cover. I know want I want, or at least have a pretty good idea, I just can’t do it myself. So if you like being told what to do, this could be the job for you.

Requirements my graphic artist needs to have:

The big one: FREE I can’t pay you squat. Nada, nothing. Got it? What you do get out of the deal is your name, design company name, email, website, whatever printed on the back cover of the book saying who did such a cool job designing the cover. You’ll get you name etc in the ‘acknowledgements’ section too.

Second: you’ve got to be good and able to prove it. Show me some of your work.

Third: not be squirmy, sensitive, offended by books that get the label Erotica. While my book isn’t of that genre, and the cover certainly won’t be ‘graphic’ in anyway. I fear that my book will get tossed into thatsubcategory. It’s either that or ‘romance’ and if given the choice I’ll choose Erotica. So you have to be okay with your work connected to a book ‘like that’, okay?

Fourth: did I mention I can’t pay you? I’ll ask you to sign (how we’d do that over email I don’t know) one of those affidavit thingies saying you won’t sue me later cuz I didn’t pay you squat for your work. There are no royalties in it for you, just my undying gratitude and respect, and some free advertising. I’ll toss in a free copy of the book when it’s done, for you to show off to your friends if you want, and if you aren’t squirmy, sensitive, or easily offended- see number four.

Five: it’s likely that I’ll use the graphic you create for me for cards, posters, flyers, and other advertising paraphernalia, which I haven’t worked out yet, so in a sense you’ll have to willing hand over the copyright of your work to me so I can legally use it all over the place (crediting the source of course), again another reason for some sort of written agreement so you don’t sue my poor ass. And I mean poor; I have zilch money, that’s why I need this work for FREE, please!

Bitter Waters

Coming Jan 2006

For anyone who reads this and is interested in being updated as my book publishing thing moves along, email bitterwatersthenovel@hotm ail.com to get added to the mailing list. And don’t worry I’ll never give, sell, or otherwise abuse email addys given to me. You will only get junk mail about my book, and nothing else. Promise.

As of right now the book is at the editors, after editing is complete a blog will be created for viewing the first chapter of the Book. When it’s up, I’ll send an email to the people on the mailing list- see that’s what I’ll use the list for, stuff like that.

I do not think that selfishness is wrong. Loving ones self is crucial. If we do not love ourselves, how can we love others? It seems that when someone talks of compassion, they have the notion that entails a total disregard for ones own interest-a sacrificing of ones interests. This is not the case. In fact genuine love should first be directed at oneself.

To be genuine, compassion must be based on respect for the other, and on the realization that others have the right to be happy and overcome suffering just as much as you. On this basis, since you can see that others are suffering, you develop a genuine sense of concern for them.

Genuine compassion is based on the recognition that others have the right to happiness just like yourself, and therefore even your enemy is a human being with the same wish for happiness as you, and the same right to happiness as you. A sense of concern developed on this basis is what we call compassion; it extends to everyone, irrespective of whether the person’s attitude toward you is hostile or friendly.

The Doukhobors base their religious philosophy on the Law of God which consists of two commandments: "Recognize and love God -- the spiritual Force of Goodness and Creativity with all thy heart, mine and soul"; and secondly, "Love thy neighbour as thyself."

"What is God?" they are asked, to which they respond: "God is a word, God is spirit, God is love." "What is soul?", to which they say: "The soul of a person is the reflection of God's spirit in that person. Where there is love between people, that is where God dwells."

The Doukhobors understand Jesus Christ to have been born as a normal human being and to have lived and died in the flesh. His example exists into eternity. He arose in spirit and continues to arise in those people who follow his teaching, not in word but in deed. The Doukhobors believe that Jesus, both in his teaching and his life, showed that the meaning and purpose of life is to do good (meaning, fulfilling God's law of love). They believed that God's law is manifested through loving attitudes between people. The attainment of such attitudes, in the true sense, would mean renunciation of all violence and wars and the attainment of a life of peace and goodwill, a true heaven on earth.

Possibly their highest development and achievement was manifested by the Doukhobors at the end of the 1800s. Inspired by the high ideals and dynamic leadership of Peter Vasilevich Verigin together with some brave individuals who were willing to take a conscientious stand on matters of belief and practice, the Doukhobors made a decisive move against militarism and all forms of violence. On Easter Sunday, Matvey Lebedev and ten of his officers serving in the reserve battalion at Elizavetpol began rejection of war by refusing to go to church parade and dropping their guns and their military insignias. "War", they said, "was incompatible with Christianity, and Christ had commanded them "Resist not him that is evil." The men were arrested, beaten to submission, threatened with death, then seen to Siberian exile.

This brave example was followed in June 29, 1895 with some 7000 Doukhobors burning all their weapons, as a symbolic act marking the total renunciation of the taking of life. Alcohol and tobacco were rejected because they serve to harm the body; it was also an argument of support for the expected persecution that would follow.

The tsarist state and church authorities reacted strongly against the ban on killing; instead, they tortured and exiled these Russian dissidents, and took away their normal freedoms. Many people died, Suffering of such proportions attracted world wide attention, and with the help of humanitarians such as Lev N. Tolstoy and the Society of Friends (Quakers) one third of the persecuted Doukhobors were able to emigrate to Canada as "as a home away from home, a haven, a refuge".

They reject several items considered orthodox among Christian churches, including church organization & liturgy, the inspiration of the scriptures, the literal interpretation of resurrection, the literal interpretation of the trinity, and the literal interpretation of heaven and hell. They avoid the use of alcohol, tobacco, & animal products for food, and involvement in partisan politics. Doukhobors believe in the goodness of man and reject the idea of original sin.

The religious philosophy of the Doukhobors is based on two commandments: "Love God with all thy heart, mind and soul" and "Love thy neighbour as thyself." The Doukhobors have several important slogans. One of the most popular, "Toil and Peaceful Life," was coined by Peter V. Verigin.

You may ask what good it will be to us if we do not understand it. [Speaking of Christ’s death] A man can eat his dinner without understanding exactly how food nourishes him. A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works: indeed, he certainly would not know how it works until he has accepted it.

We are told that Christ was killed for us, that his death has washed out our sins, and that by dying he disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. …

If God was prepared to let us off, why on earth did he not do so? And what possible point could there be in punishing an innocent person instead? None at all that I can see, if you are thinking of punishment in the police-court sense. …if you think of a debt, there is plenty of point in a person who has some assets paying it on behalf…

“Footing the bill”, not “paying the penalty”. Then of course it is a matter of common experience that when one person had got himself into a hole, which the trouble of getting himself out usually falls on a kind friend.

Now what was the sort of hole man had got himself into? … Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement; he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down you arms, surrendering, saying your sorry… that is the way out of the hole. This process of surrender… is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. … It means killing a part of yourself under going a kind of death. In fact it needs a good man to repent [but the catch] only a bad man needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the les you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be the perfect person- and he would not need it.

… Can we do it with Gods help? Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us? … He lends us a little of his reasoning powers and that is how we think: he puts a little of his love in to us and that is how we love. … now if we had not fallen [it wouldn’t be a problem] … we now need Gods help in order to do something which God in his own nature never does at all- to surrender, to suffer to submit, to die. Nothing in Gods nature corresponds to this process at all. So that the one road for which we now need Gods leadership… God has never walked.

… But supposing God became a man- suppose our human nature which can suffer and die was amalgamated with God’s nature in one person- then that person can help us. He could surrender His will, and suffer and die, because He was man; and He could do it perfectly because He was God. You and I can go through this process only if God does it in us; but God can do it only if he becomes a man.