Still Not Seeing Clearly As Year 2020 Approaches

Quoted in part below is from American Optometric Association [1]:

20/20 vision is a term used to express normal visual acuity (the clarity or sharpness of vision) measured at a distance of 20 feet [6.1 meters]. If you have 20/20 vision, you can see clearly at 20 feet what should normally be seen at that distance. If you have 20/100 vision, it means that you must be as close as 20 feet to see what a person with normal vision can see at 100 feet [30.5 meters]. [Emphasis original.]

Having 20/20 vision does not necessarily mean you have perfect vision. 20/20 vision only indicates the sharpness or clarity of vision at a distance.

How close does one have to stand facing the mirror to be able to see clearly all of one's imperfections?  That all depends on what one wants to look at.  The external parts will look much better with professional lighting in a studio than just having overhead florescent tubes in a warehouse, but no artificial staging will conceal defects hidden in the interior.

Those who are the most honest with themselves will be able to see more clearly than those who rely on "worldly lights" such as the media and self-promotions on Twitter, You Tube, Instagram and so on to shine upon themselves.

Worldly lights are ephemeral.  They dim gradually with the passage of time and eventually go dark and are forgotten about.  Some people think that creating a lasting legacy is important, but does it truly last?  How many of those at the time they are being awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize  even for an instant reflect upon Alfred Nobel, his genius as a explosives inventor, an arms manufacturer and dealer [2] amid all the accolades and applause during the ceremony?

Alfred Nobel died in 1896 [3].  Fast forward to the 1940's, a time when nuclear weapons were first produced "led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada." [4].

Nuclear explosions above ground can "emit large amounts of thermal radiation as visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light" [5].  The visible light from such an explosion extinguishes quickly along with the lives of many.

In contrast, God's eternal Light leads to eternal life.  Those who continue to strive for perfection in accordance with God's Will will always have a clear overall vision of the bright and forever shining path ahead of them that leads to the Father in Heaven despite the many misguided detours along the way.

As time proceeds with 2020 on the horizon, arriving in less than a week from now, the world's death merchants are still unable to see clearly what is possible--world peace.  Instead, they find their enlightenment in the creation of weapons of destruction in the name of defense, rather than using the same resources to reduce conflict, poverty and suffering around the world, to increase job opportunities that bring families and communities together to raise new generations across the globe that want to and know how to co-exist in peace, to respect differences and to celebrate diversity of life among all living creatures that inhabit the earth.

When people are kind to each other, are good custodians of the environment in which they live, and go out of their way to help one another, even in small ways, then every moment is a moment of thanks giving that warms hearts.  Kindness is contagious.  Let it spread far and wide and bring a smile to every face on earth.

A sincere hope for world peace ends this blog for 2019, and heartfelt thanks to the few regular and all the occasional visitors who had to put up with nonsense throughout the year, with more similar postings, God willing, in 2020, sans any improvement to the same fogged-up 20/ ∞ vision.


[1] https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision-problems/glossary-of-eye-and-vision-conditions/visual-acuity
[2] https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-thoughts-about-war-and-peace/; https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2017/07-08/Alfred_Nobel_Founder_Prize/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions

A Christmas Thought

Whether December 25 is the day that the Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus is accurate is not important but Jesus' birth is.

Christ reveals himself throughout his earthly life as the Saviour sent by the Father for the salvation of the world. His very name, "Jesus", expresses this mission. It actually means: "God saves".  It is a name he was given as a result of heavenly instruction: both Mary and Joseph (Lk 1:31; Mt 1:21) receive the order to call him by this name. In the message to Joseph the meaning of the name is explained: "for he will save his people from their sins". [1]

The name Jesus meaning "'God saves'" is confirmed by hebrew-streams.org, quoted in part [2]:

... linguistically, the name "Yehoshua—Yeshua—Jesus" conveys the idea that God (YHVH) delivers, saves, rescues — eventually through his servant Messiah, who bears God's name.

Having been born and having led the life He led, "Christ Jesus, [H]imself human,...gave [H]imself as ransom for all." [3]

Self-sacrifice is rare.  Most people much rather hunger for more of what they already have.  They want to satiate their insatiable ambitions and greed.  Many who are lacking in means are not necessarily any better than those with plenty.

The modern man is addicted to technological conveniences.  He is unlikely to let go of them in order to lead a simple and humble life.  Yet, it is humility and simplicity that mark the birth of Christ on Christmas Day.

How often do people who busy themselves constantly with their phones stop to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas -- the birth of a Saviour Who sacrifices Himself on a cross for the salvation of souls?

[1] http://www.vatican.va/jubilee_2000/magazine/documents/ju_mag_01101998_p-18_en.html

[2] http://www.hebrew-streams.org/frontstuff/jesus-yeshua.html

[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/1timothy/2, at 5, quoted without references.

Underwater Mining

Is there no end to greed?

Below are excerpts quoted from an article published by The Atlantic  on December 18, 2019 [1]:

Many people imagine the seabed to be a vast expanse of sand, but it’s a jagged and dynamic landscape with as much variation as any place onshore. Mountains surge from underwater plains, canyons slice miles deep, hot springs billow through fissures in rock, and streams of heavy brine ooze down hillsides, pooling into undersea lakes.

...

These peaks and valleys are laced with most of the same minerals found on land....For more than a century, oceanographers continued to identify new minerals on the seafloor—copper, nickel, silver, platinum, gold, and even gemstones—while mining companies searched for a practical way to dig them up.

...

Today, many of the largest mineral corporations in the world have launched underwater mining programs. On the west coast of Africa, the De Beers Group is using a fleet of specialized ships to drag machinery across the seabed in search of diamonds. In 2018, those ships extracted 1.4 million carats from the coastal waters of Namibia; in 2019, De Beers commissioned a new ship that will scrape the bottom twice as quickly as any other vessel. Another company, Nautilus Minerals, is working in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea to shatter a field of underwater hot springs lined with precious metals, while Japan and South Korea have embarked on national projects to exploit their own offshore deposits. But the biggest prize for mining companies will be access to international waters, which cover more than half of the global seafloor and contain more valuable minerals than all the continents combined.

People have continued to exploit and modify genetically natural resources grown on land for profit leading to negative consequences such as climate change, bees and other insects "disappearing in unprecedented numbers." [2]  The "extinction rate [of insects] is eight times faster than the observed pace of extinction for mammals, birds, and reptiles." [3]

In the past, mass extinctions have been caused by the emergence of ice ages or asteroid collisions. This mass extinction, however, is driven by human activities — namely deforestation, habitat destruction, mining, and carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming. [4]

Who knows what consequences will result by the industrial mining of the world's seabed?  Will sea water become so toxic from having high concentrations of certain known and unknown chemicals hidden below the sea bed leaking into the oceans resulting from the seabed disturbed so that nearly all marine life will have to struggle to survive in it, if they survive at all?  Will the water's salinity and temperature change as well?

By the time people realize the negative consequences of digging up the ocean floor, it may already be too late to reverse the damages done but just in time to bring Revelation Chapter 21, verse 1 to life [5]:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. [Emphasis  added.]

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/historys-largest-mining-operation-is-about-to-begin/ar-BBY7fU8?ocid=spartanntp
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/insects-dying-off-sign-of-6th-mass-extinction-2019-2
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/revelation/21

Politicizing The Navtivity Scene

Quoted in part from USA Today [1]:

The 64-year-old pastor [Steve Josoma] at St. Susanna, a Catholic Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, located just outside Boston, wasn’t trying to make waves or cause controversy last  Christmas when he decided to put a cage around the Baby Jesus in the St. Susanna’s nativity scene, and wall off the Three Wise Men —  he was merely trying to start a conversation. [Emphasis  added.]

He's far from the only one. Churches across the country are using Christmas nativity scenes to make political statements and protests, from putting the Holy Family in cages, in a nod to the Southern border crisis, to depicting animals in the manger underwater and a creeping tide about to overtake Jesus, Mary and Joseph, in a nod to climate change.

...

This year, St. Susanna opted to set up a nativity scene under climate siege, with drowned animals and plastic water bottles floating in water, and the encroaching tide inching closer and closer to the Holy Family, threatening to pull them under. The banner this year reads, “God so loved the earth … will we?”

Perhaps in order to answer the question properly one has to go back in time, before the industrial revolution [2] and begin there.  The answer back then would likely have been a resounding no.

Going back to the beginning to the Garden of Eden, the answer to the question was a definite no.  Since Adam and Eve did not love God enough to obey His one and only command back then, to not eat the Forbidden Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, why would they love any of God's other creations?

Just as Adam blamed God for creating Eve, and Eve blamed God for creating the Serpent for having eaten the Forbidden Fruit, pastor Steve Josoma can blame every single one of their descendants including himself for every single societal ill as a result of Original Sin.

Would Jesus have asked pastor Josoma how big is his own carbon footprint since he appears to be self-righteous enough to satirize the Nativity Scene which in this blogger's opinion is tantamount to committing sacrilege.

Is there no limit to the number of evil ways that can be used to crucify Jesus again and again?

Why not focus on the humility surrounding the birth of Christ and become humble like Christ?

With humility, there would not be a need to deplete the earth natural resources at an ecologically unsustainable pace so that more and more people can have higher and higher standards of living which is unceasing.

For those who had already profited and benefited and are now living comfortably, and using disposable coffee cups for those who want their caffeine fix, to then turn around and point the finger at other people, blaming deforestation in part, after having met their demands for new homes, renovations, new furniture, and so on, leading to climate change is simply hypocritical.

This is reminiscent of these words of Christ [3]:

“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/12/14/nativity-christmas-scene-cages-churches-political-statements-border-crisis/2638344001/
[2] https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/water-and-air-pollution
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/8, at 7.

Death Threats Made In Brussels Basilica Being Investigated

The Brussels Times  published an article on 9 December 2019, entitled Death threats made towards worshipers at Koekelberg Basilica, investigation launched.  The paragraph below is quoted from the article [1]:

According to reports, two men entered the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Koekelberg on 30 November and began making death threats towards those present for prayer.

What is the world coming to?  Are people not allowed to pray anymore without the fear of being killed?

Why must people see themselves as "us" versus "them"?  What difference does it make as to who wins and who loses?  Everyone is scheduled to die.  Why not celebrate the only life that one has together?

Everyone shares the same air, the same planet.  One who is breathing and living today has only a limited time to get to know and appreciate one another, with the understanding that nobody is perfect.  The moments that one is able to spend time to get to know a stranger, to share a few laughs and maybe even walk a few steps in the same direction, are something to treasure for a lifetime, and an eternity beyond it.

Why choose to hate when everyone wants to be loved?


[1] https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/82746/death-threats-made-to-brussels-churchgoers-investigation-launched-koekelberg-basilica/

The Catholic Church Uses The Poor To Raise Funds

From MSN  news, quoted in part [1]:

VATICAN CITY—Every year, Catholics around the world donate tens of millions of dollars to the pope. Bishops exhort the faithful to support the weak and suffering through the pope’s main charitable appeal, called Peter’s Pence.

What the church doesn’t advertise is that most of that collection, worth more than more than €50 million annually, goes toward plugging the hole in the Vatican’s own administrative budget, while as little as 10% is spent directly on charitable works, according to people familiar with the funds.

...

Local church leaders echo the Vatican’s line when soliciting contributions. According to the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: “The purpose of the Peter’s Pence Collection is to provide the Holy Father with the financial means to respond to those who are suffering as a result of war, oppression, natural disaster and disease.”


But for at least the past five years, only about 10% of the money collected—more than €50 million was raised in 2018—has gone directly to the sort of charitable causes featured in advertising for the collection, according to people familiar with the matter. Donations can also support charitable causes indirectly if the Vatican invests them and makes a profit.

...

The total assets of Peter’s Pence now total about €600 million, down from about €700 million early in the current pontificate, largely on account of unsuccessful investments, said the people familiar with the funds’ use.

Is that what the Catholic Church does, use the poor to raise funds to plug its deficits and pay sex scandal settlements?  Does the Catholic Church have any credibility left?

Catholics around the world ought to say out loud repeatedly to the many clerics of the Church, including Bergoglio, the three words [2] made famous by the 2019 TIME Magazine Person Of The Year [3] Greta Thunberg: How dare you! How dare you!


[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vatican-uses-donations-for-the-poor-to-plug-its-budget-deficit/ar-AAK1fzd?ocid=spartandhp
[2] https://youtu.be/TMrtLsQbaok?t=26
[3] https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/

Rising Temperatures In The Arctic

USA Today  reported as follows, quoted in part [1]:

"Unprecedented" warming and "exceptionally low levels" of sea ice are bringing rapid, dramatic and disruptive changes to the Arctic, according to a new report released Tuesday[, December 10, 2019.] by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

...

The speed and trajectory of many of the changes sweeping the Arctic are "occurring faster than anticipated,” said retired Navy Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, acting NOAA administrator.

HuffPost.com  filed a report on 2019 weather, quoted in part without hyperlink [2]:

...extreme temperatures have smashed records around the world this year, with parts of the Midwestern U.S. seeing the mercury drop as low as minus 38 degrees Fahrenheit as Australia endures triple-digit high temperatures, reigniting concerns about a changing planet.

...

“In a warming world, you’re still going to have unusually hot and unusually cold events happening in a particular part of the world,” Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather also told the AP. “Weather is not going away.” 

NASA  has this to say about global warming, quoted without hyperlink [3]:

Scientists attribute the global warming trend observed since the mid-20th century to the human expansion of the "greenhouse effect" — warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space.

But greenhouse gases are not necessarily bad.  Wikipedia  has this to say, quoted without references [4]:

Without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earth's surface would be about −18 °C (0 °F), rather than the present average of 15 °C (59 °F).

It could be an overabundance of greenhouse gases that is causing temperatures to rise.  The evidence shows that glaciers are melting in areas where there should be glaciers year round.  Nobody knows when this warming trend will end and what trajectories it will take before weather returns to what is considered normal.

This planet is not static.  Earth is continuously moving around in space.  Perhaps at times, like the present, it orbits slightly closer toward the sun and warms it, and at other times, it orbits slightly farther away from the sun and cools it.  Based on this speculation, the earth can therefore warm up or cool down, independent of greenhouse gases.

Today, many people are concerned because the earth's temperature is on an upward trend.

What if the opposite happens, when the earth's temperature cools continually?  Sea levels will begin dropping instead of rising while glaciers at the north and south poles will continue to form and gradually cover land that lies farther and farther away from the poles with thick layers of ice.

"At one point during the Ice Age, sheets of ice covered all of Antarctica, large parts of Europe, North America, and South America, and small areas in Asia. In North America they stretched over Greenland and Canada and parts of the northern United States. The remains of glaciers of the Ice Age can still be seen in parts of the world, including Greenland and Antarctica." [5]

If humanity can have either global warming or global cooling, which will it choose?

Perhaps it would choose neither, preferring instead to return to the Garden of Eden where everything is perfect.  Is that even possible?

Anything is possible with God.  After all, it is God Who created the universe.  When God's will is done on earth as it is in Heaven, earth will once again be the Garden of Eden.


[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/12/10/arctic-report-card-temperatures-rise-sea-ice-melts-exceptionally-low-level/4385182002/
[2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/extreme-weather-2019_n_5c51ba5ce4b00906b26f9360
[3] https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
[5] https://www.livescience.com/40311-pleistocene-epoch.html