What art Thou

What art Thou


Art thou

             A convenient Christian

Hiding away

              Away hiding your face

Unknown

              A Christian

When ’tis

              Convenient for thee

Is that

             What ye be

A Christian of convenience

              Hiding

                          Hiding

Lest someone see

                         That you are

A Christian

                   Making the accusation

Do you remain safe

                    No danger brave

To prove

                   That

A very inconvenient

                    Christian ye’ll be!?

© 2010 Vic jones

Lesson 58 from The Hard knocks School of Life

Evil seems to me to be made up of three basic behaviors: greed, envy and lying.

Greed may be (I believe is) the underlying disease for the behavior for which envy is the motivation, and most of the time greed is also the motivation for lying.

The only motivation I have ever seen for lying other than greed is fear. This then brings up the question of whether or not fear motivated lying is as evil as greed motivated lying. Another issue that muddies the all lying is evil is the fact that at times lying can be very necessary to stop someone from carrying out an evil act. An example of this is those people who hid Jews from Hitler’s SS during world war two. These people obviously lied and did good. Thus lying became not only a necessary evil at that time but became an actual active good.

© 2012 Vic Jones

Lesson 56 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Men only dare greatly if they expect great rewards. The government that seeks to limit the size of reward that a man may hope for or expect is foolish at best and tyrannical at worst.

Some say that greed, or need is the mother of invention and I would have to say that the first is closest to the truth. That is because no matter how great the need of a people group is the only reason something new is attempted (which is the essence of invention) is if the person who is making the attempt believes he will reap some reward that he feels is adequate to his effort.

The only difficulty I have is in calling the self-interest that inspires invention greed. This is because I do not believe that wanting a better life in and of itself is a manifestation of greed. It seems to me that greed is when you try to prevent other people from having a better life. Or when you desire something and steal it rather than work for it.

The characterization of profit as evil is one of the many ways in which the lazy and greedy rulers of a society work to make it easier for them to steal from those who work and produce the good things they desire but do not wish to soil their hands with the production of.

© 2012 Vic Jones

Lesson 41 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

If you seek peace through weakness you will have peace; you will also most likely be a slave! It may seem to be a contradiction that you will live a more peaceful life if you are willing to work and fight for what you have than if when threatened with violence you give whatever is demanded by the person or group issuing the threat but it is true.

Another way to express this is that bullies only pick on those they perceive as weak.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 3 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Courage is being willing to tell the truth when everyone around you says, 'don't say that!' or, 'if you say that about me I will kill you!'
Of late I’ve noticed that courage has become a slippery concept, but I don’t believe that should be true. Then again I think the tyrants of the world are working hard to keep as many people as possible ignorant of true courage.

© 2010 Vic Jones

Courage is

 

Courage is facing your fears,

No matter what they are,

Courage is not just on the battlefield of war,

Though that is surly one of its most prominent places of display,

Courage is the child who faces the dark,

And the woman who leaves an abusive relationship,

(Or the man who leaves an abusive relationship),

Courage is the quiet man who sees evil and does what he can to overcome it,

Courage is knowing you have to change,

And knowing that change hurts,

But choosing to change because it makes you a better person,

Because the whole world is better when one person is better,

Courage is denying the crabs who say it is impossible,

And learning what is possible.

© 2010 Vic Jones