Now I've gone and made it public. I'm sure if I ever do settle down, I'll fall in love with someone who's nothing like most of these. This is totally going to come back to haunt me.

Essentials:

• Serves Jesus of Nazareth

• Dedicated to being part of a congregation wherever she lives.
• Does not consider divorce an option.
• Trusts and respects me.

Would be Nice:

• Accepts (good)/Appreciates (better)/Shares (great!) my obsession with foreign languages.

• Would be interested in living abroad for extended periods of time.
• Holds libertarian political values.
• Thinks reading is fun.
• Her idea of a great date is staying home, renting a movie, and snuggling on the couch. (movie optional)
• Could let me pamper her for a day without feeling guilty in the slightest.
• Could pamper me for a day without feeling used in the slightest.
• Loves to receive and give back rubs.
• Knows the difference between good cartoons and poor ones.
• Tends to see the best in everything and everyone.
• Takes genuine compliments as they are intended.
• Sometimes/frequently leaves the house without wearing makeup.
• Thinks being 5 - 10 minutes late for most events is normal.
• Would be bored after 30 minutes of shopping for clothes.
• Thinks living without Cable TV is a good idea.
• She is a great personal communicator.
• Never uses their when she means they're or your when she means you're.

Just Icing on the Cake:

• Thinks making unsolicited sandwiches for her future husband would be fun.

• Her first reaction to the words "family vacation" is to wonder which tent we should bring.
• She likes karaoke.
• Enjoys good-natured ribbing (i.e. thinks insult wars are funny).
• Holds the following pet hierarchy: Large Dogs, Ferrets, Cats, Sea Urchins, Small Dogs.
• Thinks waking up at 6am voluntarily would be ludicrous.
• Does not find the making of a future wife wish list to be insane and/or creepy at all.

The truth, though, is that I feel like teaching on suffering is pretty pointless for me. Pointless because it's been taught and explored by people far more intelligent and studied than myself. Pointless because to teach about suffering, you have to know of suffering. No matter how much I might feel I'm hurting at some particular point in time, I know that mine is merely a speck of sand compared to the mountains others have faced.

But perhaps more significant than any of those reasons, it feels pointless because I don't know why God doesn't intervene to stop it. Why doesn't He sit down and warn us Himself before we walk into worlds of pain? If His final plan is to wipe away every tear from our eyes, why is He letting us cry so many now? And I'll give you a heads up, this isn't one of those posts where I have some solution waiting in the wings. I've got nothing. I don't understand it. I have no answers.

Naomi lived in Israel with her husband and two sons. There was a famine, though, and so they moved to a different country to try and make ends meet. But Naomi's husband died; so she was left with two children and no husband. She could have moved back, but what good would that do with no food to eat? So she took care of her sons, and they married women in the foreign land. After living ten years in this new place, some of which she spent alone and sad because of her husband's death, her sons died too. That was the last straw. She was now an older widow taking care of two younger widows, neither of them even from her own country.

When she heard there was food back home, she found no more reason to stay. She told her daughters-in-law that they'd be better off staying where they were, to find new husbands, and to move on with their lives. One stayed, and the other refused; her name was Ruth.

When Naomi made it back to her home in Israel, it had been over ten years. When her people greeted her, she had some interesting things to say:

"Don't call me Naomi," she told them. "Call me Mara, because El Shaddai has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; El Shaddai has brought misfortune upon me."

Naomi is a Hebrew word that means 'pleasant'. Coming home minus two sons and a husband, Naomi didn't feel very pleasant. Mara means 'bitter' -- and that is how she felt. That seems fair. She had been on a very hard road. What strikes me as odd, though, is that she attributed her hurt to God. Both El Shaddai and LORD refer to the God of Israel. So, "God has made my life very bitter. God has brought me back empty. God has afflicted me. God has brought misfortune upon me." She never says God did anything wrong here, but she believes He is responsible. By far, the most interesting thing to me is that never once, in the entire remainder of the book, does God or the author reject that claim.

I'm usually pretty reticent to lay any of my suffering on God's shoulders, because it could be Satan, right? Or maybe someone else made choices that were wrong and it's affecting me? Or maybe I made choices and I'm facing the consequences. Sometimes things happen for which no instigating party can be given credit. But when I hear Naomi's assertion, I can't help but think of Job:

Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away.

I remember that nowhere in the text of Job does God deny responsibility for taking away Job's wealth and family. Here, we have more details than we do for Naomi; God actually allowed Satan to hurt Job and those he loved. In the end, it was Satan who instigated the pain, but God clearly let it happen. In fact, Satan had to ask God's permission, so in this case, is God not ultimately responsible? Apparently, Job did not sin in thinking so.

For a moment, let me just assume that Naomi and Job were right... that God is responsible for your suffering and for mine. What God gives only departs when He takes it away, and when those we love are hurt, it is not without God's permission. I've thought about whether that assumption makes God no longer good, or whether it makes Him too unpredictable or scary to serve. In the end, I think it really just means my assumptions about Him were wrong. The idea that a good and just and loving God could simultaneously be responsible for bad and unjust and hate-inspired suffering -- that is a hard pill to swallow. Of course, it's easier to leave that pill in its academic bottle when you, or those you truly love, are not suffering.

When it really hits home, though, when you are hurting, or when it's someone you love (and you'll know you love them when you truly wish you could take their place), then that hard pill grows jagged edges and lodges itself right in your throat. And how do you breathe like that, much less function? How do you keep putting one foot in front of the other without falling over?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions. I do know this, though: whether or not I love God, whether I do good deeds or evil, I will suffer in this life. If I had to choose one entity to be responsible for that suffering, it would be the God who gave his Son.

King David, the sinner, the adulterer, the murderer, the man after God's own heart, once found his people in trouble with God.

By the text's own admission, God influenced David to do something that would cause Israel to suffer. David commanded his armies and fighting men to be counted, which was forbidden in the law. This count resulted in a punishment for Israel, and David was offered three possible options for that punishment: Either there would be seven years of famine, or three months of military defeat, or three days of pestilence in the land.

David did not try to get out of the punishment, but rather reasoned that if the suffering was to come from any source, He would rather it come from God and not from man, "for His mercies are great."

In the end, that is what I choose. If I must suffer, I'd rather it be at the command of a loving God, rather than at the remorseless hands of man or Satan. If God gives, I will praise Him, and be glad. If God takes away, I will praise Him, and not be afraid to cry out in pain. God's mercies are great, and I will trust Him to do what is best.

We lived in a house with wooden floors then, and my mother kept them clean and polished. She would always tell us to be careful, because they could get pretty slick. Barefoot, it was no problem, but with socks you could lose your traction. My brother saw this as more of a feature than anything else. He recognized the potential for a rink, and thus began his experiments with inertia.

He made it look easy. He would take a running start from our room, grab the door post as he swung out, sliding in a half oval down the hallway, and end up in the adjacent guest room. It was cool. I don't say that just because I was 7... you would think it was cool if you saw it now.

I watched him 2 or 3 times before the thought occurred: "I can do this." I put on some socks, and even had him give me a final demonstration to make sure I was clear on the mechanics. My running start went very well, but the thing about inertia is that it's a real problem if you don't manage it. My speed stayed up... my direction did not. By the time I'd picked myself up off the floor, one tooth had cut entirely through my upper lip, and I was pouring blood out of my mouth.

My Dad was out working on the car while all of this was going on. Both of my parents had told me not to run on that floor, and now there was blood all over. I couldn't keep it from dripping through my fingers. Mom had just cleaned. I had no interest in her finding the floor that way. I wasn't crying, because it didn't really hurt, and I couldn't see my own face, so I didn't know how bad it was. My idea was to ask Dad if we had any band-aids. Once I stopped the bleeding, I was going to clean up the floor before anyone saw the mess. It was the perfect plan.

Now, my father is a very smart man. That doesn't always come out to everyone, but it's true. He's smart in mathematics, physics, and radar engineering. One of his best qualities, though, is that he reacts intelligently in an emergency. He stays calm, and has a good idea about how to keep other people that way. So I know that when I asked whether we had any band-aids, he knew that a band-aid wasn't going to cut it. He also knows me very well... he is my Dad, after all. He took a look at my mouth and told me that we needed to show Mom when she got home.

I forgot to mention that my Mom was out grocery shopping at the time. If Mom had been home, none of this would have ever happened in the first place. That mommy sixth sense of hers would have been tripped before my brother even put on the first sock. It must have been tingling anyway, because she was home within minutes of my accident (for those who don't realize it, this was before cell phones, so we couldn't call her). In the few seconds it took my Mom to figure out what was going on and to look at my mouth, she also knew a band-aid wasn't going to fix this. Unfortunately, her knowledge about me was temporarily overridden by her motherly care, and she blurted out the truth: "that's going to need stitches." This was not what I wanted to hear.

In that moment, I transformed from a very calm little boy who was bleeding profusely out of his mouth to a very terrified one bent on avoiding the hospital. Someone sewing my skin shut was not in my game plan, and I let everyone know it. Minutes later, my poor parents were experiencing the horror of trying to get me into the car. I refused, and physically resisted every effort they made. In the process, our entire neighborhood got to spend that Saturday morning hearing my screams that my parents were trying to kill me. At one point I landed a fist into my Mom's throat as I was flailing around and trying to get loose. Before it was over, my Dad was vocally considering tying me up with a rope, and he wasn't kidding.

It wasn't much better when we arrived at the hospital. I was outnumbered by my parents and doctors, but had no intention of giving up. I had my hands clamped over my mouth and felt like I could keep that up indefinitely. In retrospect, I think I probably terrified other children at the hospital that day, what with the insane look on my face and blood dripping out through my hands. In the end, they managed to pry my fingers back and confirm the need for stitches.

I remember very specifically one of the orderlies asking me whether I was going to do this "like a big boy" or whether they were going to have to "strap me down." At 7 years old, I said: "you better strap me down."

In the end, they sewed up my lip, but it was a lot harder than it had to be. My parents even made me go back and apologize to the doctors for my behavior.

I was just so afraid of those stitches. I didn't like needles. I was scared of the pain.

It was clear to everyone but me that I needed them though. It's hard to believe that I actually wanted to use a band-aid. I was so busy protecting myself that I didn't have time to look in the mirror and see how bad it was. I was terrified.

The doctors knew what they were doing, though. They knew that even as the needle and thread pierced my flesh, it would also bind. It would put my body in a state of healing. The pain was minimal, but it would truly stop the bleeding -- the way a band-aid never could. Though I resisted and fought with every ounce of my strength, they did what was best for me.

How often does this happen in our spiritual lives? The wound is there. We cannot stop the bleeding. We desperately want to cover it all up before anyone can see. We fear the pain of legitimate treatment to the point that we're willing to accept the superficial. We are terrified.

But the God of all creation has the solution. The psalmist wrote: He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.

I still bear the scar today from my experience in the ER. If I hadn't struggled so much, I might not still have a fat upper lip on one side.

Our God is the master Healer, though. When He binds up, there is no scar. When He treats, there is no trace of infirmity. When He is finished, we are just as good as when He created us.

Every now and then, I still trip and fall. Even today, I nearly knocked over a girl as I was coming out of a restaurant. So it is with my spirit. I make mistakes; I stray from God's will. I am encouraged to know that when I am bruised and broken, the Lord is gracious to me and will heal me if I am willing.

I shudder to think what would have happened if I'd been allowed to try band-aids as I wished, or if I'd been left to continue bleeding. The wound could have become infected and festered; I might even have died. May we never be so afraid of the treatment that we remain bleeding and broken. The master Healer is always ready to treat us, if we will trust Him long enough to work.

One thing you may not be aware of is the fact that, if a friend of yours adds an application, it might now have access to any information your friend can see about you.

Some people (like myself) are not a big fan of that. Here's how to stop it:

Personally, I choose to eliminate any information for those applications, like so:

Good luck, and feel free to leave any questions in the comments.

"U Better not be squirtin brain Juice all-over! Don't let your Brain overload with smartness! My speech was better than yours Remember This quote!" - Ebony

"Have a nice summer and don't bother me!" - Tanya

"Hey Lloyd (Nerd) How life? Stay Smart Nerd, (Sike) [indistinguishable signoff] - BabyFace (I do remember that this was a guy)

"Don't show anyone my pic. k? Have a nice life" - Tina

And... the photos.

7th grade honor roll

Lady's Man

You don't have to push me there any faster than I'm already going!

I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you -- a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries -- a world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you. - Neo

If you've managed to stick with me thus far, congratulations. I expect this will be my last big "economy lecture" for some time. If you're just tuning in, I suggest reading my previous posts on this subject. At the very least, please do yourself a favor and watch Money as Debt. The key is that you understand how money is created in the U.S. and how the fractional reserve lending system works. I will continue under the assumption that you have a grasp of those concepts. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments and I will address them.

After I condemned the bailout as a disastrous plan and flooded Facebook with Ron Paul videos, many of my intelligent friends asked me some important questions:

Matthew: "Do you think that shrinking credit is not a problem? ... it is likely that most of you were only able to go to college b/c of the system of subsidized loans. Do you now oppose the existence of that system? I mean, do you realize that if the credit market fails, then one casualty might be school loans? ... Do you think that an ad hoc bailout with little benefit to taxpayers is a better alternative to a systemic bailout where taxpayers may benefit?"

Daniel M: "Where do you go from here? Do we allow the stock market to continue to rise a little and then fall into a deeper downward spiral until most Americans have lost all of their savings, thereby depleting the economy even more? What is the solution? ... I am not sure how the free market can make a course correction when it seems to be in a gradual (but ever growing) tailspin ... credit is needed to buy these necessities of life ... Lending/borrowing is a necessary part of our market economy."

Daniel L: "I know that borrowing/lending is a necessary evil. The big issue isn't as much the borrowing/lending itself, but the overuse/abuse of it. If this were something that could be fixed, it would've been already. I think we've gotten ourselves to the point where we have to "hit rock bottom" to reset this scenario."

Jeana: "if everyone just stops freaking out, won't the economy and market just gradually balance itself back out?"

Bryan: "who does this most directly affect? the constituents who are opposing this bill shout “WALL STREET,” thinking that these executives with their golden parachutes are the ones who will bear the brunt of this fall. they couldn’t be more wrong ... the people who will pay for this will be baby boomers ... now, at 65 years of age, they can either sell their homes (at record low home values) or find a new job."

"on merely a tidbit of news that congress might actually reach an agreement before the apocalypse, the stock market rallied significantly. yes, $700B adds to our $10T national debt ... i’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it’s better than a world-wide financial meltdown where my 401K becomes worth nothing at all."

Philip: "In free market enterprise, folks have to be able to borrow money. What’s the alternative?"

The fact is undeniable... we live in an economy that is addicted to credit. Daniel was right; small businesses can hardly start up without either selling stock (borrowing from individuals) or getting a bank loan (borrowing from a corporation). You cannot purchase a house without credit. You need a loan. You cannot go to school without credit. You need a loan. Worse than that, you can't obtain credit for those things or even rent a car unless you establish credit with something smaller.

Because we use fractional reserve lending, the banking industry literally can create unlimited amounts of credit, as long as those loans are mostly paid back. (It is mathematically impossible for all debt to be repaid; the amount of debt exceeds the money supply, and new money can only be created with more debt.) When loans are not paid back, it limits their ability to create money. Usually, interest from the rest of the loans being paid covers the loss, and they still earn a nice profit. When lots of loans default simultaneously, we run into the problem known as a credit crunch, and that is what we're seeing today. When you have an economy addicted to credit and the source begins to dry up, there are withdrawals. When you take drugs away from an addict, they often feel as though they will die if they can't have more. We are terrified that if our credit source dries up, our economy will die. While it is true that the loss of easy credit will cause us pain and discomfort, it will not kill us. More of the drug -- more easy credit and inflation -- will eventually do so.

The Federal Reserve and the government have been using credit to prop up this system for a long time. However, even they recognize that too much credit in the system will increase inflation beyond the point where people will continue to accept paper money as payment for anything. Hence, they have resorted to obtaining funds in a different way; not through taxing the American people, but through borrowing from the governments of other countries. We provide them with IOUs, and they provide us with oil, food, electronics, or whatever else we wish to buy. Those IOUs are denominated in U.S. dollars, and that is what constitutes the national debt you always hear about on the news. Most of it is currently held by Japan and China. This increasingly large bailout package will be paid for by borrowing even more from other countries.

Somehow, people forget that the consequences of debt are extrapolated even for a huge account like ours. However, there is no such thing as Chapter 13 on a national scale where we get to start over and keep our home. When a government goes bankrupt, other nations will simply stop lending it money. When our credit becomes so poor that other governments will no longer lend to us, an even greater consequence will accompany that move. They will no longer accept our dollars at all.

"We've had a huge debt for a long time," some will undoubtedly argue. They'd be right. Why is our credit so good with other nations, exactly? There are several reasons, including our military influence. More important than that though is an agreement we struck up with world governments in 1941, near the end of World War II, called the Bretton Woods system. The world governments agreed to use the U.S. Dollar as the reserve currency, thereby guaranteeing that most trade would rely on our dollar. In return, we promised to allow foreign asset holders to convert their dollars into gold on demand at a fixed rate. This worked out very well until our dollar began to lose value due to our over-extension of credit. Many asset holders began to demand their dollars in gold, and we had what amounted to a run on the U.S. Treasury stores. In 1971, Richard Nixon disallowed this conversion to gold, thereby ending the Bretton Woods agreements and ensuring that the dollar was not backed by anything of inherent value. He staged this suspension as temporary, but it has not been lifted to this day, nearly 40 years later. Since then, the dollar has continued to lose value, despite Nixon's promises. Because the system was already in place, other governments continued to use the dollar even without gold backing. That practice is coming to a close. Once we create enough money through credit extension that these foreign governments no longer see value in our huge debt to them, they will stop lending and begin to demand repayment.

Because of the bad debts in the system, many banks may no longer extend credit and some have faced runs on their deposit stores. The proposed bailout would authorize more borrowing for the purpose of extending more credit, which will further inflate our money supply. This will lead to other nations refusing to accept dollars as payment and refusing to lend to us any more. When that happens, our currency will be valueless, since most of the actual resources and goods in this country are coming from outside. Imagine what happens when China stops sending us all the cheap goods we buy from them. Can you think of many clothes, toys, household items, or nearly anything that is not made in China? And what happens when Japan and Korea cease sending us their vehicles and electronics? Now you can see the problem. Few real goods inside our nation and a huge monetary supply will translate into a worthless dollar, even within our own boarders. The greatest fears expressed above about the lack of credit will come to pass in a much harsher way if we consent to inflate the money supply as this bill requests. It will delay the current crisis for a short time, and then bring about an even more serious crisis from which there will be no quick escape.

One option at that point would be to accept a long-lasting depression in which America must begin to produce its own goods and services and severely reduce our standard of living. That could cause civil unrest and political radicalism, or it could pass peacefully, assuming other nations leave us alone during this time. There is no way to predict those factors. Another would be to look at a completely new currency system and attempt to start over at the bottom of the chain. If you think that unlikely, perhaps you should google the word, "Amero."

Many of you have asked for alternatives. I would like to propose one here. Let us examine what would happen if we just allowed the unstable banks to fail and did not inject our system with additional credit. Banks would fail, yes. There would be a recession, yes. That is what we are already seeing now. People would not be able to get loans, and the assets (houses, cars, etc.) would have to be liquidated in some manner. They might be sold at a low price, destroyed, or used by the government to aid the poor and those on welfare. Either way, the banks lose out and many go out of business. Some jobs would disappear, while others would be created. Many more people would work in factories, industry, and farming. Less people would retire early. Less would go to college. More would sell their big screen televisions and pay off their debts so that they could begin saving for the future. Folks, someone has to do these jobs. We need clothing, food, and textiles. Long have we enjoyed other nations doing that for us while we borrowed from them to pay for it. That cannot last, nor should it. The people in charge of those countries sell their citizens into slavery for their own gain, and we are the buyers. Do you doubt the leaders of our own nation would do the same when it's time to turn the tables? They are doing so already, and this bailout is merely moving that process along.

No one wants to face a serious recession, but the good news is that it wouldn't last that long. After the government finally stopped attempting to spend more money to make jobs through projects like FDR's Tennessee Valley Authority, the Great Depression ended within a year. Our own recession would not be so severe nor last so long if we allowed the market to correct itself now. So many are worried about the stock market and their 401K plans, but such changes are also temporary. Once companies have actual capital and are not experiencing major debt, they will be free to increase in value and once again, and investors will lend their money with confidence. Even after the House blocked the last bill, the market dropped less than 800 points. In percentage terms, this does not even make the top ten list of worst adjustments. The numerical figure is misleading because it has been inflated along with the monetary supply. The sky will not fall without this bailout.

Finally, for those willing to hear it, I'd like to propose a second option. Once this correction takes place (it will eventually, with or without the bailout), why would we want to become slaves to the bank again? Why should those who simply manage money be master over those who produce the goods and services that make our country wealthy? Do you really want to re-enter massive debt for a few comforts? Whether we are called slaves or not, we remain under the control of lenders until our debt is repaid. When you consider that they lend without even having the money to give us in the first place, this is even more sickening.

The first step toward freedom is to sever our relationship with central banks and fractional reserve lending. In our case, that means dismantling the Federal Reserve. They are not elected, they have no oversight, nothing stops them from creating unlimited credit, and they have vast wealth gained simply by manipulating symbols of value and enslaving others in debt. I cannot support that, and I doubt anyone would wish to do so. At this level of freedom, debt would still exist, but lenders could only lend money if they actually had it on deposit to lend. In this way, they risk their own assets first and then those of depositors if someone should default. They are thus encouraged to make responsible loans and to work with debtors to salvage the debt if there are problems in repayment.

The second step would be to abolish interest on loans, known by many people as usury. Most world religions condemned usury, some even ascribing the death penalty for those who took interest. What if private corporations, friends, or even the government, lent out money without interest? For one thing, far fewer loans would be held, and less people would be in debt, forced to use their income to pay back a lender. This is a good thing. Second, loans would not be given for frivolous entertainment or wasteful spending. Accountability keeps people out of debt. Of course the new American dream is to make lots of money and to "let your money work for you." We need to re-examine whether this is even ethical.

The final step would be to do away with debt altogether, relying on the good will of people and the protection of the government to help care for the poor. In this way, no one is ever in debt, and hard work is rewarded.

The very rich will usually reject this proposition; it is not in their interest. The bankers and certainly the Federal Reserve owners will reject it. It relieves them of control and power.

A world without debt may not be likely, but we can certainly avoid allowing our lending institutions to control us and to lend out money that does not exist. With a vote on this bill planned for today, we are able to tell them how this will begin. We are also able to remain in our current position and march toward economic chaos.

Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

His what?