“Gaza strip was gettin’ bombed, Obama didn’t say shit // That’s why I ain’t vote for em - next one either // I’m apart of the problem - my problem is I’m peaceful // and I believe in the people…”
—Lupe Fiasco x LASERS x Words I Never Said
May 2011
31 posts
Play
Longest Married Couple in the World →
praisehouston.com
Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher have an extraordinary story to tell. They’ve been married for 86 years. Together, they endured the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam, they have seen the impact of the Civil Rights Movement, watched man land on the moon, the dropping of the atomic bomb, lived through the terms of 15 presidents and still live to tell about it. But there are many centenarians for whom the same holds true so what makes Herbert and Zelmyra so extraordinary? Throughout everything, they have remained married.
Married on May 13, 1924, 105-year old Herbert, and 103-year-old Zelmyra do not pretend to know any secrets to a lasting marriage. They have been married longer than any known living couple, had five children and have watched countless grandchildren and great-grandchildren come into the world. They are a sweet, aging pair that will tell you truthfully that they were married because Zelmyra “did not give [Herbert] any trouble” and Herbert “was not much to look at… [but] he was quiet and kind.” After 86 years, they remain in the home where they raised their five children, sleep in different bedrooms and love each other all the same. They hold the world record for length of marriage for two living persons. Is your union built to last the test of time?
Marriage Advice:
Question: You got married very young – how did u both manage to grow as individuals yet not grow apart as a couple?
Answer: Everyone who plants a seed & harvests the crop celebrates together. We are individuals, but accomplish more together.
Question: At the end of bad relationship day, what is the most important thing to remind yourselves?
Answer: Remember marriage is not a contest – never keep a score. God has put the two of you together on the same team to win.
Play
“39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, (John 5:39, New International Version)”
—
“My opponent says, “nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral.” But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow South; not when Negroes are denied housing, turned away from schools, hospitals, and not when we are lynched. St. Augustine said, ”An unjust law is no law at all,” - which means I have a right, even a duty, to resist… with violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter.”
—James L. Farmer, Jr. x Wiley College | “The Great Debaters”
Play
Pray for our area.
The death toll resulting from the tornado has surpassed 100. The weather has yet to let up, and we’re expecting more severe storms tonight and tomorrow.
Pray.
“
The people can never err more than in supposing that by multiplying their representatives beyond a certain limit, they strengthen the barrier against the government of a few.
…. The countenance of the government may become more democratic, but the soul that animates it will be more oligarchic.
” —~ Alexander Hamilton & James Madison // ‘On Congress’
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit”
—Aristotle (via paperlover)
Agency | Speaking and Doing
Some people pose as if ‘speaking’ about an issue isn’t ‘doing’ something about it. Speaking is doing something; it’s a physical act, an event. The real question is whether or not ‘speaking’ about the issue at hand is ‘doing’ enough; more often than not, it never is.
“But a life centered on God is solid because God cannot be taken away from you.”
—Rick Warren
“Do not be fooled. Bad companions ruin good character.”
—1 Corinthians 15:33 (TEV)
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”
—Hellen Keller. (via thereincarnationofapoet)
Faith ≠ Certainty
I don’t know where life will go for me from here. And that’s overwhelmingly daunting and fear-inspiring at times. But I gotta live; because challenging as it may be, it’s no excuse not to. To be sure, indeed it is one powerfully lucid contradiction to be allow oneself to be defeated by the abiding, looming uncertainty which attends all humanity - notwithstanding the fear and doubt it engenders - when you say, and genuinely think and feel and believe, that there is something bigger than yourself.
But you see that’s the rub I’m finding: to have faith and to believe in God, doesn’t mean that you are certain about your security; it doesn’t immediately imbue you with certainty about the future or even the present. To believe in God, first of all, is a giant leap of faith; it’s an act and expression of invested emotional, physical, mental, intellectual, and spiritual energy and conviction. To believe is no easy task. Just coming to that conclusion in itself is pretty challenging. What one says is that though they’ve never seen, felt, spoken with or otherwise had tangible contact with God, they believe anyway. Indeed it’s a premise which breaks down with atheists, agnostics, and all others who deny the existence of God. For them it’s unreasonable to logically derive the existence of the divine from little more than what they perceive to be extremely tenuous connections with something ethereal that cannot be empirically or tangibly sensed.
But there is step beyond the tangible which those who profess belief seem to be convinced exists.
Now this isn’t an Christian apologetic piece, so I will not go on there.
But what I really want to express is simply that regardless of the means which bring one to belief and faith, it should not be taken to be tantamount to certainty. Faith itself is not certainty. It’s essentially believing something without the “proof”; at least any proof that would satisfy human perception. You may believe with all your heart and all your mind, but you have faith, not ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY. I think absolute certainty isn’t reserved for us. The bible says, ” Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” (Heb. 11:1)
As far as evidence goes, if one has faith, that’s all the evidence to be expected. Of course that evidence is something God and that person must navigate in whatever way that personal relationship entails. But faith is unseen, God is unseen, love is unseen. These things can’t satisfy that physical, tangible, empirical longing to justify the belief with proof that is so unequivocal that it cannot be refuted. But that’s faith. It’s believing that there is something more. It comes by hearing. It’s sustained by the God we believe and trust in. But certainty does not mean faith. Faith says I am not certain, but I believe that there is a loving, just God who is there. As much as I can in my imperfection, I believe HE is who HE has revealed himself to me to be. I know nothing. I’m not certain. I have faith.
