Not Too Green?

Below is an interesting article I found to be quite true. I do not know the author.

Being Green

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't

good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment f or future generations."
She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were truly recycled.
But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.
But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.
But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But we didn't have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Common Sense Observations

"Only In America"

Observations - by a Canadian:

1) Only in America, could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000.00 a plate campaign fund-raising event.

2) Only in America, could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when they have a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly 18% of the federal workforce is black while only 12% of the population is black.

3) Only in America, could they have had the two people most responsible for the tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.

4) Only in America, can they have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.

5) Only in America, would they make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege while discussing letting anyone who
sneaks into the country illegally just 'magically' become American citizens.

6) Only in America, could people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be thought of as "extremists."

7) Only in America, could you need to present a driver's license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.

8) Only in America, could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).

9) Only in America, could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a Trillion dollars more than it has per year - for total spending of $7-Million PER MINUTE, and
complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.

10) Only in America, could the rich people - who pay 86% of all income taxes - be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't pay any income taxes at all.

We don't have to!

I read the following Facebook quote from Pastor Mickey Hale and it really spawned a message I preached at Mt Calvary Tabernacle recently.

“Your ability is what you are capable of doing, your motivation determines what you do, and your attitude determines how well you do it.”

Romans 6:12-15 (KJV)
¹²  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
¹³  Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
¹⁴  For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
¹⁵  What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

If I am a diabetic & the doctor says, “If you eat these sweets you will die.”

I then have a choice, no one forces me to eat them, I might be tempted, but it is my choice.

That is the way with sin, no one forces you to sin it is a choice, you can be tempted, but you don't "have to sin".

The bible is clear that sin shall not have dominion over us, when we know the truth & ignore it, it then becomes willful sin, & the wages of sin is death.

Excuses are shields put up to deflect personal responsibility. As long as I blame everyone else for my failures, there will be no opportunity for me to change. Let us walk & live in the victory!

A Prophesy from an unlikely place?

Alexis de Tocqueville had it right eons ago — but nobody gets it today?

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”

I think they call this “hitting the nail on the head.”

Who Will Replace God?

People will say that it is none of our business what two people do behind closed doors when arguing for the right of same-sex marriage. The argument continues that it has no bearing on heterosexual marital unions, and that it is a right, just like the plight of racial equality. We must understand that there is an enormous difference between race and sex. There is no way to bring about a moral equivalence between the two. We no longer divide people by the color of their skin by putting placards over the doors of restrooms “black restroom” and “white restroom” based on the fact that there is no difference. However, we do separate the sexes in sporting events, bathrooms, clothing departments, and the list goes on. We make this discrimination based upon the fact that the male and female sexes are different, and these differences warrant different treatment when it comes to clothing, restrooms, and sporting events. This argument is making a comparison between apples and oranges.

There is a problem that bothers me more than the arguments being made for or against these unions, and it is the government redefining the bedrock of society. If marriage is being redefined by our lawmakers that will now include the covenant of two people of the same sex, then what will stop them by eventually redefining it to include 3 or 4 people as marriage, or make marriage a renewable contract on a yearly basis? Once we remove these standards, then who are the people who make the new ones? The bible was our compass and standard bearer. Once we remove God and his standards of behavior, we then take it upon ourselves to redefine the order of conduct we will live by. In other words, who will replace God in setting society’s order for our future? 

What does it matter if I take out my backbone... the foundation of our house... the moral backbone and foundation of this country?

Just things we need to think about!