Framework. 14" x 26.25" oil.

The Joy

A compassionate doctor has travelled deep into the jungle to provide medical care to a primitive tribe afflicted with a contagious disease.
He has had his medical equipment flown in. He has correctly diagnosed the problem, and the antibiotics are prepared and available. He is independently wealthy and therefore doesn’t need any kind of financial compensation.
But as he seeks to provide care, the afflicted refuse. They want to take care of themselves. They want to heal on their own terms.
Finally, a few brave young men step forward to receive the care being freely provided.

What does the Doctor feel ?
Joy

His Joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing.
It’s the whole reason he came !

Dane Ortlund
Gentle and Lowly

I say to you that in the same way there will be joy in heaven over one sinner repenting, rather than over ninety nine righteous ones who have no need of repentance
Luke 15:7 (The Lord Jesus Christ)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind.
And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:1-5,14

The Way Out

Recovering the understanding that produced the American Revolution.

The nature of a thing is the essence of a thing.

In condemnation of slavery, Abraham Lincoln loved to say that every man was created with a head, hands, and mouth, the implication being that the head should guide the hands in the feeding of the mouth. The alternative is dependence, which does not make us happy.

The right to work and to store up the product of our labor so that we and our families can thrive. The American Founders put this in terms of our natural right to property.
The natural right of mothers and fathers to raise their children.

To interfere with these rights is to interfere with the nature of the human being and so is anti-human.

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-way-out/

If Dewey’s theories had been accurate, it should have been the beginning of a bright new age of understanding.
Instead, the world of the young has become uglier and increasingly self-centered.
What really happens when you couple Dewey’s pragmatic and collectivist ideas with the value neutrality that grew out of Mann’s non-sectarianism ?
The product is a philosophy that sees the student as merely an animal who functions in a kind of stimulus/response/adaptation cycle.
Education is tedious because its utilitarian nature subverts development of the ability to see the beauty that underlies much literature, history, and the natural sciences.
At the same time, its collective nature devalues them as individuals.
Their souls deadened, students see only an ugly world - one which they do not care to understand.
Progressive education has ultimately failed because its premises are anti-human.
https://www.intellectualtakeou....t.org/article/how-jo

Thought for Friday, 01/28:
"Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes." ~ Voltaire

Find the full video and watch

https://rumble.com/vtamrn-covi....d-19-a-second-opinio

I love his explanation of how his company has handled COVID, and in my opinion better than our lame government...

Quote from this segment, "But again, for the Left, it’s all about the power. If they don’t force you to do a thing, then you will definitely do the wrong thing. You need old slow Joe Biden telling you what to do…"

Any clear-eyed survey of our current situation is baffled by the abject stupidity and rampant contradictions that we are immersed in. (One example out of many: requiring masks and vaccines which don't prevent you from getting OR spreading COVID--a fact we've known for a LONG time). If you try to understand it by assuming that people are acting in good faith, but just making mistakes, etc, you can still make no sense of it, because many of these things are SO insane, you can't imagine anyone being so DUMB. There is one scenario, however, which makes sense of it all: They literally are trying to kill you.

I'm not saying this is the scenario in play. I'm saying that this scenario is at least as consistent with the observed facts as any other, and cannot be ruled out. And since it cannot be ruled out, one must live as thought it might be true.

Thought for Thursday, 01/27:
"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." ~ John Viscount Morley