In the years since I wrote this (28th July 2016), I have discovered there is more than the oblivion I ascribed
There is a story told about Jesus interviewing people at the gate to Heaven. He comes across a man who might be Joseph, who is elderly, failing eyesight and hearing and understanding. Jesus asks him if there is anything Joseph left behind. Joseph replied there was a beautiful boy who had wisdom beyond his years, and yet was childlike. He had nails in his hands and feet. Jesus looked significantly at Joseph, and Joseph looked back, and then asked "Pinocchio?"
It is said that all writing is rewriting. And so the story of Pinocchio has tensions mirroring the Christ story. Pinocchio goes to hell, and is reborn as a good boy. Literary analysts connect this progression with Homer's Odyssey. Pinocchio wants to be a real boy. Christ was God made a real person. And so the joke laughingly suggests the true story of Christ is the fantasy of Pinocchio, but highlights the truth that all writing is rewriting.
There is no escaping God. God has forgiven all of us. Not that God approves of sin, but that God has made a way by which we can be with Him even though we are sinful. We are often, for a time, captured by our memory. We have made choices which don't include God. And every bad choice we make makes it harder to make a good one. The Devil points to our past and tells us that there is no way God can accept us. But we know the Devil's future. And we don't have to share it. Even though we have a past.
The point was driven home to me powerfully recently when I learned an elderly woman was suffering dementia. She has spent her whole adult life opposing God. Cursed as a child by betrayal from her father, two of her three sisters suicided. Her mother was strongly religious without having awareness of God as saviour. She had married a man who gave her children, but she rejected her husband when a child died and she never remarried. She raised her children to hate God, and told her dying child that there was no hope with God. And she would sleep with the ashes of her child. And she would drink and sweat alcohol. And no one who knew her casually knew to help. And so she has aged. And one day she will die. But what of her pain and her choices? Her dementia robs her of choice, as it will eventually rob her of life. And yet there is mercy too. And maybe, some nurse will show her love which she would never accept from others, kindness.
I now know I was wrong. The woman has still not succumbed. Her dementia has advanced. No one person can give her redemption. But God can. He is there for us, regardless of our circumstance. We can turn to God and wrongly hope for a better quality of life. It is good to hope for better. It is better to embrace God.
addendum, the detail in this missive is personal. I'm not betraying any trust, but many might feel I'm being fast and loose. I don't write about my family because family is separate from my mission, for many bad reasons. I have written a little of my mother and father, but nothing of my living siblings and very little about my sister Pamela, who died on Feb 14th 1978, when I was 11 years old. Feb 14th 1978 was when I first dreamt of meeting God. I am in poor health and could reasonably expect to die in the next few years. The explosive nature of some of what I have written in the past is likely to allow sibling rivals to mischaracterise what I have written on mission. I have done no wrong, no outrage of public decency. I'm very conscious that my step mother is failing in her duty to protect my father's legacy. I cannot protect my self and him at the same time. She is his advocate. He is a great man whose life work in education greatly enriched humanity. I was estranged from him at birth, when he named me 'o'DDBall and at the end of his life, with my last words to him being a sarcastic "Stay in touch, don't be a stranger." I won't explain why. It has nothing to do with my mission.
David Daniel Ball
26th July 2021
AUAWN0726321
https://rumble.com/vkbyiz-faith-exploration-on-forgotten-forgiveness.html
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bells swing and jingle bells ring
Snowin' and blowin' up bushels of fun
Now the jingle hop has begun
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time
Dancin' and prancin' in Jingle Bell Square
In the frosty air
What a bright time, it's the right time
To rock the night away
Jingle bell time is a swell time
To go glidin' in a one-horse sleigh
Giddy-up jingle horse, pick up your feet
Jingle around the clock
Mix and a-mingle in the jinglin' feet
That's the jingle bell rock
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bell chime in jingle bell time
Dancin' and prancin' in Jingle Bell Square
In the frosty air
What a bright time, it's the right time
To rock the night away
Jingle bell time is a swell time
To go glidin' in a one-horse sleigh
Giddy-up jingle horse, pick up your feet
Jingle around the clock
Mix and a-mingle in the jinglin' feet
That's the jingle bell
That's the jingle bell
That's the jingle...
David Daniel Ball calls himself the Conservative Voice.
I'm a teacher with three decades experience teaching math to high school kids.I also work with first graders and kids in between first grade and high school. I know the legends of why Hypatia's dad is remembered through his contribution to Math theory. And I know the legend of why followers of Godel had thought he had disproved God's existence.
I'm not a preacher, but I am a Christian who has written over 28 books all of which include some reference to my faith. Twelve blog books on world history and current affairs, detailing world events , births and marriages on each day of the year, organised by month. Twelve books on the background to and history of Bible Quotes. One Bible quote per day for a year. An intro to a science fiction series I'm planning, post apocalyptic cyber punk. An autobiography with short story collections.
I'm known in Australia for my failure as a whistleblower over the negligence death of a school boy. ...
In Tanami’s red sands where spinifex grows,
Where waterholes gleam ‘neath the sun’s golden glare,
Lived Yaparla, sweet maid, with a heart pure as snow,
Her kindness a light in the desert so bare.
Her father, a wise man, kept songs for the land,
To guard the soak’s waters where life held its sway.
But drought gripped the earth with a merciless hand,
And he sought a new spring to ease their dismay.
Deep in a gorge where the rocks hid the sky,
He found a clear pool with fish dancing free.
But a voice shook the stones with a thunderous cry,
“Who steals my sweet water without leave of me?”
Out slid the Wanyarra, half-man, half a snake,
His scales flashed like opals, his eyes cold with pain.
“For your kin’s life,” he hissed, “one price I must take—
Send Yaparla to me, or your land drinks no rain.”
The father returned, his heart heavy with woe,
And told his dear daughter the serpent’s demand.
“I’ll go,” said Yaparla, her voice soft and low,
“For my people, my country, I’ll walk that red sand.”
She came to the gorge with her digging stick strong,
Singing songs of her kin ‘neath ...
AI adapted
To adapt the story of Bambi to the Dreamtime of Warlpiri culture in the Tanami Desert, we’ll reimagine the tale with respect for Warlpiri storytelling traditions, cosmology, and the desert environment. The Dreamtime (Jukurrpa) is a sacred framework where ancestral beings shape the land, law, and life, so Bambi’s journey will reflect Warlpiri values like kinship, connection to country, and survival in harmony with nature. I’ll keep the essence of Bambi—a young creature’s growth amid loss and discovery—while grounding it in the Tanami’s ecology and Warlpiri worldview. Since Bambi is a specific narrative, I’ll translate its core themes rather than reproduce the original text verbatim, ensuring cultural sensitivity. The story will be concise yet vivid, as requested.
Bambi in the Jukurrpa of the Tanami
In the Jukurrpa, when the Tanami Desert glowed under the first stars, the ancestral beings shaped the land. From the spinifex and red sand, they formed Jampijinpa, a young red ...
Created with Grok, Pictory, And Topmediai
Content from listening to podcasters Hunley and Groubert of America's Untold Stories. They tell it better than me
Folk Song: "The Ballad of Lee Harvey Oswald"
Verse 1
Oh, Lee Harvey Oswald, a man they did frame,
The deep state and CIA, they tarnished his name.
They said he went to Mexico, a lie they did spin,
While he fought for his service, his honor within.
Chorus
Sing for Lee Oswald, innocent and bold,
Framed by the shadows, a story untold.
With courage he stood, though the truth they denied,
A patriot’s heart in a nation that lied.
Verse 2
On that dark day in Dallas, they said he shot Tippit,
Left a wallet behind, but the tale didn’t fit.
Arrested with his own in hand, the proof was right there,
But the deep state kept spinnin’ their web of despair.
Chorus
Sing for Lee Oswald, innocent and bold,
Framed by the shadows, a story untold.
With courage he stood, though the truth they denied,
A patriot’s heart in a nation that lied.
Verse 3
They trained him in Russian, sent him off to the East,
A ...
