The Wood's Secret Garden

Have We Built Our Own Tribunals? Or Just a Louder Mistake By Ernest DeJure Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. “Give us your keys,” they say, at the church door, “We’ll drive the mind that brought you to this floor.” Use your private mind to choose our holy sect, Then crush that very mind to keep our status checked. Use your judgment, seeker, to see that we are right, Then blow out your candle and trust our guided light. They curse the modern age, the lonely "me-and-God," And paint the individual as arrogant and flawed. They say the text belongs to the community's embrace, A corporate guardrail to keep you in your place. But ask them who decided which community is true, And the finger of the logic points right back to you. You must choose between the councils, the synods, and the popes, Weighing fallible tradi...

  Have you heard this story before? It begins like this: Once upon a time (isn’t that how most good stories begin?), a rather odd, older woman (who had never really fit in most of her life anywhere, regardless of what group she might have decided to join), sat behind a lovely couple whom she had never met before who also had two little girls with them. On this day, it just so happened that the older woman and her husband decided to sit on the other side of the church and this family were sitting in the pew directly in front of them and just to the right. The thing that stood out initially was that the two little girls, who had to both be no older than five or six, were able to remain quiet and well behaved without a coloring book or any other items to keep them busy. This both surprised and delighted the older woman, since most children today must be kept entertained in order to not become noisy and disruptive. In fact, most parents now-a-days simply have no other option (because t...

Little Susie was not only scared to death of bees, she was also highly allergic. In fact, her fear kept her indoors most of the year accept for those months where the temperatures dropped low enough to keep the bees and wasps asleep. Susie had never heard about "winter bees" so she was shocked to find one getting a drink at the bird bath just outside the kitchen door. The little bee startled her and instead of filling the bird bath with more fresh water she ran back into the house. She was torn between her desire to make sure the little birds had fresh water each day and her fear of the bees. She waited a few hours in hopes that they would all go away. She looked out the window and it appeared that the coast was clear so she ventured outside with her two gallon jugs full of fresh water. As she approached the bird bath everything initially looked fine. No bees flying around. But, as she got closer she saw a little bee floating face down in the water with its wings spread. It h...

 DRAFT - RUSH POST - FORGIVE THE TYPO'S This story is a true story and has absolutely nothing to do with the Celtic legend about an island named Avalon, represented by an earthy paradise in the western seas, to which King Arthur and other heroes were carried at death.   No—nothing in common with that at all; accept the miraculous!   This story begins in 1998.   In 1998, at the age of 38, I had the opportunity, for the first time in my adult life, to purchase a “good car”.  You know what I mean, right?  A car that you would not need to make sure you put in neutral at the stop light and keep your foot on the accelerator so that it would not die, kind of “good car”.  I car with a moon roof, leather power seats that had seat heaters in them (WHAT?); and a 12 pack CD player in the trunk.  When I had finally found myself in a position to buy such a car, I wasn’t even sure how to go about finding one.   The first thing I did was to research al...