Does the successful outcome of the Donor-Conceived rest on their personality (dull-minded vs. curious-minded)?

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Please first read the following link -  http://www.npr.org/2011/09/18/140477014/donor-conceived-children-seek-missing-identities

Can we ethically give away our children to comfort childless couples?

Are we using the children in that way for something they would rather not have been a part of?  Something that perhaps even they have the right not to be subjected to?

Questions arise. Was the knowledge of there family history carelessly sold away from them?

I think there is a tough (or maybe not so tough) moral question here.

Even in the presence of both good and bad outcomes, there is a dilemma, and it argues that children are not a commodity that we can rightly buy and sell.

To me, it makes abortion look pretty good; in that, abortion effects a living, not-conscious, developing physical entity, but a sperm/egg donation effects a conscious fully viable soul - one standing in front of us holding us accountable for his/her technologically enabled life.

Should the donation require that the donor accept his/her identity will be available to the adult donor-conceived child?  Would this significantly change the number of donations, or merely the quality of donors? Would doing so head off these bad outcomes in a humane way that could be acceptable to both the donor and and the donor-conceived?

Feel free to share some thoughts.

If you think this is a challenging issue, then wait until we get to In Vitro Fertilization.

Since last post of January 19, 2011

It all started here. . .

. . . my mother Jeannette Saunders-Schossow died after her second bout with an agressive form of uterine cancer in two years. She was 84 years old. This is a picture of she, myself, and Deanta. It was the last time she was to be sitting outside in the sunshine, alive. I'll talk more about her later.



I bought a house. Great location. Nice neighborhood. Not much of a house (nice little house next door came with it) on 2.2 acres of land. But. . . a nice little spot underneath the heavens.





Then I tore the second story off . . .

...tore everything else off...

...put a new second story on, and then tore the kitchen off.

And rebuilt it.


I'm trying to finish it up before the snow flies. I'm starting a new job in a month as a CNA. I'm trying to keep from being buried by a pharmacology course which I seem to have to put about 6 hours-a-day study time into. I'm out of horseshoeing. I'm also presently having the long-time bookkeeping methods of my farrier business tested with an audit from the WI Department of Revenue, and my bookkeeping is not faring very well. I am looking forward to not being as busy in about 2 months; after which time I am looking forward to adding on to The Useful Record.

I'm also going to add a lot more house pictures to this post.

 
 

Almost back.

But not quite.

Hymn: Faith is a Living Power from Heaven.

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Words: Petrus Herbert, in the Bo­hem­i­an Breth­ren’s Kirch­en­ge­seng, 1566; translated from German to English by Catherine Winkworth, Lyra Ger­man­ica, se­cond ser­ies, 1858.

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Faith Is a Living Power from Heaven
(Listen)

Faith is a living power from Heaven
That grasps the promise God hath given,
A trust that cannot be o’erthrown,
Fixed heartily on Christ alone.

Faith finds in Christ whate’er we need
To save or strengthen us indeed,
Receives the grace He sends us down,
And makes us share His cross and crown.

Faith in the conscience worketh peace,
And bids the mourner’s weeping cease;
By faith the children’s place we claim,
And give all honor to one Name.

Faith feels the Spirit’s kindling breath
In love and hope that conquer death;
Faith worketh hourly joy in God,
And trusts and blesses e’en the rod.

We thank Thee then, O God of Heaven,
That Thou to us this faith hast given
In Jesus Christ Thy Son, who is
Our only fount and source of bliss.

And from His fullness grant each soul
The rightful faith’s true end and goal,
The blessedness no foes destroy,
Eternal love and light and joy.

(What a beautiful translation this is)

We'll have to give the voice another year or two.

The Parable of the Prison Wall

I had found this Mennonite handout which I then took the liberty to change a little bit. Now it captures the spirit of what happened to me after I got rid of my television set. I began to detoxify and intensify my mind apart from the T.V., which I never had watched excessively anyway. That thing which had always been considered the "idiot box". The seemingly harmless, very entertaining, seemingly miraculous moving picture screen, which can make anything and everything seem real, when, of course, none of it is. And in the course of presenting it's own make-believe reality (I'm talking about movies and stories), it competes with real life to define our reality for us. And it wins.

Instead of watching the T.V., I've gone about to learning the German language, science, health, about God's miraculous words, His presence here on earth, and even about the many provocative little curiosities that come to mind throughout the day (thinking and reading about how this and that works, and about how this or that is made). With that computer in front of you, you, as well, have a beautiful tool with which to do that. And beautifully, I managed to find a rich, plain, spiritual people to be around (that is, when I need to be around someone), who build their 'real lives' meaningfully and plainly on the words of God, with which, in the company of His Spirit, He did not leave us here alone.

I found this handout (granted, especially after changing it a little) to be a nice illustration of what happened when I made a break through the hole in the wall; and now, what it's like looking back at the problematic world of the T.V. from the outside.

The picture on the prison wall was impressive -- a quiet lake, forests of richly colored trees, rolling hills , and clear, blue skies. Three inmates worked long hours to paint the scene.

Then they added one more outstanding detail. All around the edge of the picture, they cleverly painted in the gray of the prison wall to look like a broken wall. Now it appears that one is looking through a gaping hole in the high block wall to the beauty beyond. Apparently they are reminding themselves that the full reality of the scene can only be realized outside the prison walls. -- they are restricted in the enjoyment of that beauty.

What a lesson for us! Without the gift of the Spirit we are bound in a prison of temporary and fleeting pleasure. Inside the prison we try to find pleasure and satisfaction. We create illusions and imagine all sorts of things that may bring fulfillment. We pursue watching sports and entertainment. We seek wealth and try to buy our way out of boredom or stress with money. But again and again we are brought back to the cold hard reality of our prison wall.

The artistic inmates understand an important element of their condition. They can get a moments satisfaction when they view the scene on the wall, but the true beauty is beyond. They cannot sense the calm of the quiet lake, the stately grandeur of the trees, and the peace of the rolling hills. They can only imagine it and long for it.

Likewise we cannot find true peace while being held captive by the t.v.

We turn it off and it has left us with nothing; nothing, but further dependence on it.

Be careful. It's easy to be one of these captives. And, if you are one, then you truly may not know what you are missing outside of it's walls. High definition t.v. will truly bring a life which is highly defined by t.v. . . ., creating a distant, distorted view of things for you that only has meaning within it's own walls. Staged, concocted, highly scripted, if not - most of the time - purely pretend. And it's fun. At least what little there is that has any creativity or artistry left in it. But the danger is that it can, and does, take the place of things that we should have a more real perspective of.

As it continues to create it's own manufactured reality, I often wonder what is happening as . . . it out-competes the larger reality.

All I'm sure of is of the good things that have happened to my time since I've set it aside. May you experience the same.

Leave the nasty thing behind. Visit the T.V. on your computer once in a while. Wean yourself from it slowly. There's a whole big world out . . . don't let the T.V. completely twist it and dumb it down for you! Science..., literature..., reinvigorate your curiosity! Reality is so much neater than fiction. Inexhaustible, incredible, real.

There. I had to get that out.

The Unrighteous Steward (Let's call it done for now, but, with a whole lot more to be said)

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I have heard this passage used in several different interesting ways.
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Luke 16:1

1 Now He was also saying to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and this manager was reported to him as squandering his possessions. 2 "And he called him and said to him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.' 3 "The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig ; I am ashamed to beg. 4 'I know what I shall do, so that when I am removed from the management people will welcome me into their homes.' 5 "And he summoned each one of his master's debtors, and he began saying to the first, 'How much do you owe my master ?' 6 "And he said, 'A hundred measures of oil.' And he said to him, 'Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.' 7 "Then he said to another, 'And how much do you owe ?' And he said, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, and write eighty.' 8 "And his master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly ; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light. 9 "And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings. 10 "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much ; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. 11 "Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? 12 "And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?

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Of course, for those of you who prefer God's word rendered in the 400 year old (Pre)Middle English poetic literary style used in the King James Version, then you have the interesting word, Mammon, used in this passage.

Mammon, on one hand, is a term derived from the Christian Bible used to describe material wealth or greed. The word itself is a transliteration from the Hebrew word "mammon", which means "money.

Mammon means money. In these passages -- that is in the KJV -- mammon has the connotation of money based wealth.

I've heard a number of pastors render the Parable of the Unrighteous Steward as being less than ideal behavior that we somehow nonetheless should model.

In fact, I've never heard it rendered any other way.

Which is unfortunate.

This, to me, is the core lesson:

9 This I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into eternal dwellings.

It may as well be a curse.

Making friends through unrighteousness will get you a place, along with your new friends, in their eternal dwellings. You don't want to be in those eternal dwellings. You've made friends with the world; not with God. You've squandered God's goods and now have tried to reverse your fortunes by making friends with the world through unrighteousness. Now, you've got a big problem. You are an unrighteous steward.

I've seen pastors portray this passage in two ways; one, as a legitimate example of a sort of biblical shrewdness; and two, as all money/wealth (mammon) being unrighteous, and us as being out in the world just doing the best we can in spite of it.

The later is wrong because the Lord "has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant". He doesn't begrudge financial wealth, at times he is complimentary of it, but He does always put His own value on it. That value is temporary. Even often times merely carnal; nonetheless, "Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity". He told Jerusalem that if they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. Financial and spiritual; each sphere according to it's need. He does not begrudge wealth or prosperity. He does, however, warn us of it's distracting, defiling nature; which, in turn, is impossible to overstate.

Let's go back to the Steward. When called to give an account to his master for his performance he was found to have squandered his master's goods and was going to be fired.

After the Steward concluding he was to weak by himself to labor, and too proud to beg, he resorted, basically, to stealing by which to make friends and buy his way into their good graces. In fact, all the way into their eternal dwelling places.

The master praised him -- for acting shrewdly like the sons of the age, not like the sons of light. Let's ask exactly what kind of praise that is? It's the kind of praise you don't want to here coming from the Father of light. It is judgment.

Our master, tells us that He is opposed to the proud, gives grace to the humble. He tells us that friendship with the world is hostility toward Him. That whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy to Himself.

There is a clear distinction in each verse between the unrighteous actions of the Steward and the alternate correct actions.

That is, to be, not unrighteous, but faithful, both in the very little and in the very much. If you are unrighteous in some of the small, then how can you be faithful in the big? And therefore how can you be entrusted with any of it?

If you are going to opt for the wealth of unrighteousness, then who is going to trust you with true riches?

If you cannot be trusted in the use of that which is others, then, who will give you something as your own?

Here is a nice reminder about exactly what is what . . .

1 John 2:16 -

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but it is from the world.

Finally, Paul, after being said to have been breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord; and being guaranteed rich financial gain and esteem, instead, gladly makes tents for the rest of his life, enduring the constant stonings and beatings and imprisonments, just to be able to now serve the Lord, and write the most powerful and earth shaking letters to the world about the fullness and the breathtaking beauty of the Spirit left within Him there by God; the Spirit of His Son Jesus , who's crucifixion Paul would no doubt have been in hearty agreement with. God on earth, crucified, who had soon visited Paul with a divine stewardship for him, to pass along to others, that Paul now wishes us all to comprehend and experience and take hold of . . . .

" For this reason I, Paul, . . . if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace . . . , as I wrote before in brief. . . to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. . . to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, . . . for this reason I bow my knees before the Father, . . . that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith ; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God…Amen.

It's a "stewardship", in the arms of an unfathomable love by the Creator of the universe, which we are freely invited to comprehend, who, would like to have His love reciprocated; and all of which, delivers to us the amazing gift of an undeserved inner strength, and a joy, that does not come to us by means of the "wealth of unrighteousness", after all, the wages of the wealth of unrighteousness is darkness, sorrow and death, but which comes instead from 'the wealth of righteousness' that is abundantly supplied to us through the Spirit of God, working in us.

A nice adjustment of resolution in the Big Picture - and - To which "Degree of Usefulness" do we go?

It's probably about time to write something. That's not to say there is not a lot to write about; but that there's just not the time to do it right.

My attentions have been filled with a wonderful mix of things which have all been complementing each other lately. School, work, German language study, bible study, household duties; and it's all had to happen in the course of recovering from a horseback riding injury (a sprained pelvis - I mean really sprained).

I just finished a most fascinating early part of nurse's training early on in my new career track; and that would be the Anatomy and Physiology course. And in a class where 1/3 of the students flunked out, I tied for the highest grade (a frequent "older student" achievement I'm going to guess).

I love the subject material. But more importantly, I am enjoying how my plans for a useful place in the nursing profession are starting to come into view.

Until two days ago I was determined to flunk out of medical school. I'm serious; while I already knew I wanted to go into psychiatric nursing, I was determined to first take a run at something that sounded even more interesting, psychiatric medicine, even flunk out if that is what it took to finally nudge the whole notion from my head; maybe then I could take "no" for an answer? The worst thing that could have happened is I would have been a psychiatrist. However, I feel that I could accomplish everything I need to accomplish as just a psychiatric nurse (doctorate). I could conduct psychotherapy (which is simply just reasoning with folks), I could prescribe many medications, and I could work in an area of intense interest to me.

On the one hand, I realize that I don't need to to be a psychiatrist to become involved in what I'd like to become involved in, but, on the other hand, I thought it would be an interesting challenge and far from a waste of time. I think I'm over it.

Two days ago I think I caught sight of something far more interesting. My church (along with three other nearby sister Conservative Mennonite churches) have started several churches in SE Uganda in recent years. They've been eking along and, for me anyway, have been a source of real frustration. Almost to the point where I need to stop even thinking about it, and talking about it. Criticizing it. Until Wed. night that is, when listening to one of the brethren who had just returned from there give a report, I learned that one of the "sister church" members had a while ago come up with the grant of a few thousand dollars to provide one of the church members there, a Pakistani doctor who had had to flee Pakistan after writing a Christian book, with finances ample to start a small upstart medical clinic. And the clinic is going along very well.

This is the kind of nursing I have wanted to do. A Christian owned medical clinic in a desperate place. And then after hours, teaching the gospel with good Christian brethren whom I had really come to appreciate before they left. A great mini-barn builder and a terribly faithful fellow willing to serve the gospel.

Do you realize what a medical basket case Uganda is? Between diabetes becoming pandemic, A.I.D.s, and, with people generally suffering a lot of abuse from other machete wielding people, they are a physical mess. I've got Christian brothers who went over there with large families of small children to a dangerous and strange place, from building mini-barns, to now bumping along and getting run off of dirt roads all over creation, way outside of most peoples comfort zone, taking to the people a plain gospel.

My kind of folks.

Oh, that's all a while from now that I would go myself; and. . . I'm not ready now anyway! That is, not to do the kind of job I want to do. But it has given me additional perspective.

In a year and a half, I can take the LPN board exam, get pre-certified for Uganda, and, so as to not be tied down to a job here that I can't get away from for a month or two at a time, I will set one of these young lads here to taking care of my farrier customers while I'm gone. And try to arrange a local part-time nursing job.

Get over there, buy a laptop, a little elephant repellent, and continue on in my studies and writings.

And then in my spare time, finish up my registered nurse degree over here, and go on and specialize in psychiatric nursing.

Whew.

Well that all opens the door to one more point. In most respects (at least, in all of the important ones), a theology degree is one of the most useless degrees of higher education that I can think of. In spite of what the halls of higher theological academia would desire us to believe, the bible can and indeed, is designed to, and, indeed, can only "teach itself".

Alright, there is one other good exception in which one may have adequate reason, good reason that is, beyond one having excessive amounts of spare time and intellectual resources, to spend time in "academic theology". And it's all exposed in Jude. That is earnestly contending for the faith, 'within' in the faith. In other words, disproving the false teachers among us who lose themselves, and the gospel, in deceptive,faulty academic reasoning. Don't forget, that while Jude starts out referring to ungodly people who have crept in, he finally moves on to the many otherwise godly men inside the church, who have all sorts of other personal agenda and biased teachings.

Jude makes it clear at the beginning of his letter that he is taking time out from the gospel, the message of salvation, to deal with other serious man-made house cleaning problems within the household of Christ.

Let me make it clear, for the sake of balance, that I humbly believe that I can take any academically based argument and shake it right back down to being resolved with only the Bible. The science(discipline) of Textual Criticism is very handy in helping to produce the best possible representation of the original manuscripts which we use, but the original text is still there with or without the specific science we used improve their organization. The message which is there handily pushes aside anything, such as a higher academic training, between us and God's revelation to us.

But just as I tell the Mennonites that we can't leave the Internet to the Lutherans or the Catholics, but instead are obliged to offer the plain gospel there; likewise, we can't leave the extensive tools of academia to be misused by the hucksters and word-spinners.

There are many who have gone to the underpinnings of man's wisdom, used the legitimate (and fun) tools of academic pursuit, have taken them, and have misused them to mislead others on behalf of their own agenda's and teachings, at Christ's great expense.

So yes, there are some inside of Christendom who have piled their own biased teachings so high with carefully crafted words and self-deceptive and tangled writings that it takes others trained in the academic arts to wade in and unpack them. Defuse them for the protection of others, and bring the gospel back to simply walking in faith and obedience from the bible, with an awe and respect for the love and the power of His Spirit which He freely gives to those who call on His name. And may their hearts be especially blessed for doing so. There is [a] degree of usefulness. But, going out to work each day as a workman, with capable spirit-filled hands and mind, as a highly trained bible-witness of God's knowledge and wisdom, and power, to a desperate world that couldn't care less about the academic God, is altogether apart from, even preeminent, and surely of a much broader usefulness, than trying to academically outwit each other toward our own complex and intellectually self-indulgent version of the gospel.

And on into the new calender year we go.

Pride

Pride: Failing to recognize in all you do that, if it were not directly God Himself doing it, then, it was at least He who let you.


--T.S. not Elliot

Da Hunt!

Diss is where last deer season, which was also the final year of an eight year long drought, I wood walk across da river to some public land that was very hard to get to any other way. There I would sit, pretty much all alone, not bothering anybody (for a change), and enjoy waiting for all the deer to come along. I thought I would do the same thing this year.

Diss year the water was way over da tops of my booots and sow I could no longer just walk across da river into hunterless paradise. So I taut, what do I have ta dooo, drop a tree across or get my canoe, er what? Well, I taut, why not walk up treem a liddle bit and maybe sumptin will come to me. And it did!

I looked up stream, and, whether it was intended as such or not, there was a nice big blessing from God. A tree, right across the river. Taaaaaaannnk yoo.

A nice big Balsam had fallen across the river sometime since last year and pretty toon I was scouting ta udder side of the river wid dry boots.

A little farther on at what was left of the base of the tree was a nice clean break (no saw marks).

It was kind of high up there to get on the thing but, IT WAS DRY. And that was nice.

After stomping off a few braches it became a veritable boardwalk.

And on the other side, looking back, it felt a little too good to be true (and very dry).

Through the brush and up the river bank and whoops. Just barely visible through the brush I could see a little glaze orange peeking through the thin harwood covering. You probably can't see it unless you zoom in. But that's o.k. because in order to avoid that hunter and his "blind", the deer will all be walking over to my side. Well that's how it's projected to go in theory anyway. But I will probably spend most of my time hunting down stream to the south and try not to bother him. I just can't sit in one place very long. To much to see, to many places to go.

There was an interesting specimen of a tree which had been struck by lightning. And that fella's stand was straight behind it only by about 20 yards.

And there was some "sign" around where that big critter I was hoping to trick into walking in front of me had scraped the velvet off of his antlers a couple months ago.

I'm still sort of pinching myself over such a nice tree across the river. What a day. Season opens tomorrow.