The Bulletin Board:(Please SCROLL DOWN this page to find the article titled on this post in LARGE CAPITAL LETTERS. Thank you.)
PRAY FOR AMERICA: THANK GOD for His many blessings on America throughout it's history. May we then ask that AMERICA once again be a blessing TO GOD, by once again submitting to HIS will in our affairs - both personal and national - that He may truly "heal our land." (2 Chron. 7:14)
UPDATE: Brittany Maynard Planned to Die on Nov. 1. Now, Her Plans Have Changed.
Katrina Trinko / October 30, 2014; http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/30/brittany-maynard-planned-die-nov-1-now-plans-changed/ "Brittany Maynard, the Oregon woman who made news earlier this month with her plans to die on Nov. 1, has released a new video announcing a change in plans. Maynard, who has terminal brain cancer, still intends to choose when she dies, “I still feel good enough and I still have enough joy and I still laugh and smile with my family and friends enough that it doesn’t seem like the right time right now,” although “it will come, because I feel myself getting sicker. It’s happening each week.”
URGENT PRAYER REQUEST: Save Christian Mom Asia Bibi from Execution - A Christian mom has been sentenced to death in Pakistan for her faith. Asia Bibi was falsely accused of “blasphemy” – speaking against the prophet Muhammad. Now this wife and mother of five will hang for her Christian faith.She would be the first woman executed under Pakistan’s Shariah blasphemy law.This is the ultimate human rights violation. We’re mobilizing our international affiliate – the European Centre for Law and Justice – and its partner in Pakistan to stop this atrocity. Add your name to our letter to the government of Pakistan demanding Asia Bibi’s freedom.Go to http://aclj.org/persecuted-church/save-christian-mom-asia-bibi-from-execution; please add your signature to mine and over 35,000 others AND pray for Asia Bibi.
U.S. Supreme Court has Reconvened: Let's be praying WHENEVER the Court is in session as their decisions can have impact on GENERATIONS to come. The fact that they may have an opportunity this session to actually vote on same-sex "marriage" where it has the same impact on this country that Roe v. Wade did should be motivating enough!
ELECTION DAY, NOV. 4th. Let's begin praying that the American people will have wisdom in voting into office those who will lead our communities and nation with integrity and wisdom from God and DO NO HARM!.
WORLD-WDE PRAYER REQUESTS:
Friday, Sept. 26th - Two Year Anniversary of Pastor Saeed Abedini's Imprisonment in Iran! - [NOTE TODAY'S POST!]
We need to continue to pray for Pastor Saeed - that his health will improve and that he will be re-united with his wife and two young children who live in the United States. [If you have not yet, please sign the petition for his clemency- http://beheardproject.com/saeed#sign]
"Not Everyone Happy with Religious Ambassador Pick," Caitlin Burke,July 29, 2014;
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2014/July/Obama-Taps-Rabbi-for-Religious-Freedom-Ambassador/ "..An estimated 76 percent of the world's population live in countries where religious freedom is restricted. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States must take a strong stand against those violations. "Around the world repressive governments and extremists groups have been crystal clear about what they stand against, so we have to be equally clear about what we must stand for," Kerry said. "We stand for greater freedom, for greater tolerance, greater respect, for rights of freedom of expression and freedom of conscience," he said A key development in the 2013 report is the large number of displaced members of religious communities, including entire Christian communities in Syria and Iraq that have been forced to flee their homes because of persecution."
SIGN A PETITION TO THE UN FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHRISTIANS :" The church in Syria has shone brightly for 2,000 years. But today violence and persecution threatens its survival. Thanks to an incredible response, Open Doors is helping 8,000 families in Syria survive each month. We believe the signatures and prayers of 500,000 people will encourage the UN to act and protect the rights and lives of all Syrians, especially the vulnerable Christian community." Go to: http://lp.opendoorsusa.org/emails/nov-13-action/save-syria.html?utm_source=action&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button&utm_campaign=november
Of course, let's CONTINUE PRAYING FOR AN END TO THE EBOLA CRISIS IN WEST AFRICA AND THE HEALING OF ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN INFECTED.
PRAY FOR THE CRISIS HAPPENING NOW IN IRAQ (see post #907) Pray that allied forces will be able to drive the group ISIS back (see post #964)
/PRAYER ALERT- UKRAINE: As the Lord leads, please pray:
*For God to suppress President Putin’s ambitions to "restore" the Soviet empire.
*For the people of Ukrainen [esp. for the church 'to be THE church'] as they wait to see if the Russian troops will advance.
*About President Obama and to use wisdom in crafting our foreign policy, and wisdom for his advisers.
Continue to Pray for EGYPT - Continue to pray for the tense situation in Egypt and especially for the Christian believers who are being targeted with violence by Muslim Brotherhood members.]
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"OF MICHAEL LANDON AND BRITTANY MAYNARD - THE CHANGING MEANING OF COURAGE IN THE FACE OF PENDING DEATH" - by Wesley J. Smith, 10/17/14; http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/10/of-michael-landon-and-brittany-maynard [NOTE: I just happened to come across this article and think it's so-o good. I hope you'll also enjoy it. - Stan] ALSO, SEE UPDATE ABOVE! Praise God! But let's keep praying
Michael Landon, the hugely popular television star of Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, and Highway to Heaven, died in 1991 at age fifty-four. Landon’s last act—if you will—was widely hailed as his best: He publicly announced his diagnosis with terminal pancreatic cancer, appeared on the Tonight Show to openly discuss his pending death with Johnny Carson (almost unprecedented back then), and gave several interviews announcing his determination to hang on until the end. He told Life, “If I’m gonna die, death’s gonna have to do a lot of fighting to get me.”
Landon’s grit and determination inspired the nation. When he died a few months later, praise for his unshrinking courage led the obituaries. “Goodbye Little Joe,” in People, exemplified the media’s approach:
"As word of his condition spread, thousands of letters of encouragement and sympathy arrived daily. Scores of friends visited the house and stood vigil at the gates of the ranch. “I have X amount of energy,” said Landon, “and what I have, I want to spend with my family.” Landon’s youngest children, Sean, 4, and Jennifer, 7, were “emotionally distraught,” says longtime friend and business partner Kent McCray, “but Michael passed his strength along to them.” According to colleague John Warren, Landon also spent time videotaping his last wishes to family and friends.
If his friends and family had solace, it was in Landon’s extraordinary calm. Says Flynn of his old friend’s last hours: “It was like going off a diving board. He knew it was coming, and he was brave to the last."
Attitudes have changed about disease and death since then—and, in my view, not for the better. Indeed, today, many might secretly consider Landon a chump for choosing to struggle until his natural death.
If that seems harsh, consider the ongoing international media swoon over twenty-nine-year-old Brittany Maynard, who has announced her plan to commit assisted suicide—legal in Oregon, where she moved from California after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Maynard is the subject of a well-planned PR campaign orchestrated by the George Soros-funded assisted-suicide advocacy group Compassion and Choices (formerly known as the Hemlock Society). C & C’s press release applauds Maynard’s “courage to tell her story as she is dying and alert all Americans to the choice of death with dignity” as “selfless and heroic.”
It’s one thing for a special-interest advocacy group to spin Maynard’s story in its ideological direction—and to be sure, Maynard is cooperating in that endeavor. But it is odd how eagerly the media has picked up this narrative of “courage” and “heroism.” There have been more than seven hundred assisted suicides in Oregon, and none—not even the first one—received the attention being devoted to reporting Maynard’s intentions.
More, it is striking how the reporting about Maynard’s decision to die resembles the reporting about Landon’s courage twenty-three years ago. For example, People, which once applauded Landon for fighting to the end, now has the mirror-opposite take about Maynard. It even made her a cover story: "For the past 29 years, Brittany Maynard has lived a fearless life—running half marathons, traveling through Southeast Asia for a year and even climbing Mount Kilimanjaro."
So, it’s no surprise she is facing her death the same way. On Monday, Maynard will launch an online video campaign with the nonprofit Compassion and Choices, an end-of-life choice advocacy organization, to fight for expanding Death with Dignity laws nationwide.
Suicide has made Maynard an international celebrity. Partly, that’s because she is the perfect icon: young, pretty, newly wed, tragically dying, and transgressive for wanting to kill herself rather than face the rigors of late-stage brain cancer.
But that alone doesn’t explain why she has received the kind of high-profile attention usually reserved for movie stars, rock stars, and presidential candidates. She has been the subject of stories in Time, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USAToday, CNN, PBS, ABC, CBS, CNN—the list goes on. I mean, you know you’ve hit the big time when Rosie O’Donnell lauds you on The View!
But what if Maynard followed Landon’s path instead? She’d still be young, pretty, newly wed, and tragically dying—but there would be no cover stories in People or applause from Rosie O’Donnell. In fact, we would never have heard of her.
That speaks volumes about the state of our culture: If assisted suicide is now considered “courageous” and equates with “death with dignity,” doesn’t that imply that people like Landon who choose to “fight against the dying of the light” are undignified and perhaps less courageous?
Maynard isn’t nihilistic. She is just scared. Those using her tragedy for their own purposes—policy advocacy, ratings, Internet hits, etc.—can’t say the same. The words of Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne keep ricocheting around my brain: “A society that believes in nothing can offer no argument even against death. A culture that has lost its faith in life cannot comprehend why it should be endured.”
[bold and italics emphasis mine]
Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant for the Patients Rights Council.
"Brittany Maynard Attacks Hospice Doctor Urging Her Not to Kill Herself" - by Wesley J. Smith | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 10/28/14; http://www.lifenews.com/2014/10/28/brittany-maynard-attacks-hospice-doctor-urging-her-not-to-kill-herself/
"Brittany Maynard: The Vultures Circle " - http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/390006/brittany-maynard-vultures-circle-wesley-j-smith;
PRAY FOR AMERICA: THANK GOD for His many blessings on America throughout it's history. May we then ask that AMERICA once again be a blessing TO GOD, by once again submitting to HIS will in our affairs - both personal and national - that He may truly "heal our land." (2 Chron. 7:14)
UPDATE: Brittany Maynard Planned to Die on Nov. 1. Now, Her Plans Have Changed.
Katrina Trinko / October 30, 2014; http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/30/brittany-maynard-planned-die-nov-1-now-plans-changed/ "Brittany Maynard, the Oregon woman who made news earlier this month with her plans to die on Nov. 1, has released a new video announcing a change in plans. Maynard, who has terminal brain cancer, still intends to choose when she dies, “I still feel good enough and I still have enough joy and I still laugh and smile with my family and friends enough that it doesn’t seem like the right time right now,” although “it will come, because I feel myself getting sicker. It’s happening each week.”
URGENT PRAYER REQUEST: Save Christian Mom Asia Bibi from Execution - A Christian mom has been sentenced to death in Pakistan for her faith. Asia Bibi was falsely accused of “blasphemy” – speaking against the prophet Muhammad. Now this wife and mother of five will hang for her Christian faith.She would be the first woman executed under Pakistan’s Shariah blasphemy law.This is the ultimate human rights violation. We’re mobilizing our international affiliate – the European Centre for Law and Justice – and its partner in Pakistan to stop this atrocity. Add your name to our letter to the government of Pakistan demanding Asia Bibi’s freedom.Go to http://aclj.org/persecuted-church/save-christian-mom-asia-bibi-from-execution; please add your signature to mine and over 35,000 others AND pray for Asia Bibi.
U.S. Supreme Court has Reconvened: Let's be praying WHENEVER the Court is in session as their decisions can have impact on GENERATIONS to come. The fact that they may have an opportunity this session to actually vote on same-sex "marriage" where it has the same impact on this country that Roe v. Wade did should be motivating enough!
ELECTION DAY, NOV. 4th. Let's begin praying that the American people will have wisdom in voting into office those who will lead our communities and nation with integrity and wisdom from God and DO NO HARM!.
WORLD-WDE PRAYER REQUESTS:
Friday, Sept. 26th - Two Year Anniversary of Pastor Saeed Abedini's Imprisonment in Iran! - [NOTE TODAY'S POST!]
We need to continue to pray for Pastor Saeed - that his health will improve and that he will be re-united with his wife and two young children who live in the United States. [If you have not yet, please sign the petition for his clemency- http://beheardproject.com/saeed#sign]
PRAY ALSO : - For comfort and peace for Saeed’s wife and children here in the U.S.\
- For a strong witness and testimony from Pastor Abedini in the prison where God has placed him
- For Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ
- For leadership from the White House and State Department in defending the freedoms of Abedini and other Americans
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2014/July/Obama-Taps-Rabbi-for-Religious-Freedom-Ambassador/ "..An estimated 76 percent of the world's population live in countries where religious freedom is restricted. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States must take a strong stand against those violations. "Around the world repressive governments and extremists groups have been crystal clear about what they stand against, so we have to be equally clear about what we must stand for," Kerry said. "We stand for greater freedom, for greater tolerance, greater respect, for rights of freedom of expression and freedom of conscience," he said A key development in the 2013 report is the large number of displaced members of religious communities, including entire Christian communities in Syria and Iraq that have been forced to flee their homes because of persecution."
SIGN A PETITION TO THE UN FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHRISTIANS :" The church in Syria has shone brightly for 2,000 years. But today violence and persecution threatens its survival. Thanks to an incredible response, Open Doors is helping 8,000 families in Syria survive each month. We believe the signatures and prayers of 500,000 people will encourage the UN to act and protect the rights and lives of all Syrians, especially the vulnerable Christian community." Go to: http://lp.opendoorsusa.org/emails/nov-13-action/save-syria.html?utm_source=action&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button&utm_campaign=november
Of course, let's CONTINUE PRAYING FOR AN END TO THE EBOLA CRISIS IN WEST AFRICA AND THE HEALING OF ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN INFECTED.
PRAY FOR THE CRISIS HAPPENING NOW IN IRAQ (see post #907) Pray that allied forces will be able to drive the group ISIS back (see post #964)
/PRAYER ALERT- UKRAINE: As the Lord leads, please pray:
*For God to suppress President Putin’s ambitions to "restore" the Soviet empire.
*For the people of Ukrainen [esp. for the church 'to be THE church'] as they wait to see if the Russian troops will advance.
*About President Obama and to use wisdom in crafting our foreign policy, and wisdom for his advisers.
Continue to Pray for EGYPT - Continue to pray for the tense situation in Egypt and especially for the Christian believers who are being targeted with violence by Muslim Brotherhood members.]
"OF MICHAEL LANDON AND BRITTANY MAYNARD - THE CHANGING MEANING OF COURAGE IN THE FACE OF PENDING DEATH" - by Wesley J. Smith, 10/17/14; http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/10/of-michael-landon-and-brittany-maynard [NOTE: I just happened to come across this article and think it's so-o good. I hope you'll also enjoy it. - Stan] ALSO, SEE UPDATE ABOVE! Praise God! But let's keep praying
Michael Landon, the hugely popular television star of Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, and Highway to Heaven, died in 1991 at age fifty-four. Landon’s last act—if you will—was widely hailed as his best: He publicly announced his diagnosis with terminal pancreatic cancer, appeared on the Tonight Show to openly discuss his pending death with Johnny Carson (almost unprecedented back then), and gave several interviews announcing his determination to hang on until the end. He told Life, “If I’m gonna die, death’s gonna have to do a lot of fighting to get me.”
Landon’s grit and determination inspired the nation. When he died a few months later, praise for his unshrinking courage led the obituaries. “Goodbye Little Joe,” in People, exemplified the media’s approach:
"As word of his condition spread, thousands of letters of encouragement and sympathy arrived daily. Scores of friends visited the house and stood vigil at the gates of the ranch. “I have X amount of energy,” said Landon, “and what I have, I want to spend with my family.” Landon’s youngest children, Sean, 4, and Jennifer, 7, were “emotionally distraught,” says longtime friend and business partner Kent McCray, “but Michael passed his strength along to them.” According to colleague John Warren, Landon also spent time videotaping his last wishes to family and friends.
If his friends and family had solace, it was in Landon’s extraordinary calm. Says Flynn of his old friend’s last hours: “It was like going off a diving board. He knew it was coming, and he was brave to the last."
Attitudes have changed about disease and death since then—and, in my view, not for the better. Indeed, today, many might secretly consider Landon a chump for choosing to struggle until his natural death.
If that seems harsh, consider the ongoing international media swoon over twenty-nine-year-old Brittany Maynard, who has announced her plan to commit assisted suicide—legal in Oregon, where she moved from California after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Maynard is the subject of a well-planned PR campaign orchestrated by the George Soros-funded assisted-suicide advocacy group Compassion and Choices (formerly known as the Hemlock Society). C & C’s press release applauds Maynard’s “courage to tell her story as she is dying and alert all Americans to the choice of death with dignity” as “selfless and heroic.”
It’s one thing for a special-interest advocacy group to spin Maynard’s story in its ideological direction—and to be sure, Maynard is cooperating in that endeavor. But it is odd how eagerly the media has picked up this narrative of “courage” and “heroism.” There have been more than seven hundred assisted suicides in Oregon, and none—not even the first one—received the attention being devoted to reporting Maynard’s intentions.
More, it is striking how the reporting about Maynard’s decision to die resembles the reporting about Landon’s courage twenty-three years ago. For example, People, which once applauded Landon for fighting to the end, now has the mirror-opposite take about Maynard. It even made her a cover story: "For the past 29 years, Brittany Maynard has lived a fearless life—running half marathons, traveling through Southeast Asia for a year and even climbing Mount Kilimanjaro."
So, it’s no surprise she is facing her death the same way. On Monday, Maynard will launch an online video campaign with the nonprofit Compassion and Choices, an end-of-life choice advocacy organization, to fight for expanding Death with Dignity laws nationwide.
Suicide has made Maynard an international celebrity. Partly, that’s because she is the perfect icon: young, pretty, newly wed, tragically dying, and transgressive for wanting to kill herself rather than face the rigors of late-stage brain cancer.
But that alone doesn’t explain why she has received the kind of high-profile attention usually reserved for movie stars, rock stars, and presidential candidates. She has been the subject of stories in Time, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USAToday, CNN, PBS, ABC, CBS, CNN—the list goes on. I mean, you know you’ve hit the big time when Rosie O’Donnell lauds you on The View!
But what if Maynard followed Landon’s path instead? She’d still be young, pretty, newly wed, and tragically dying—but there would be no cover stories in People or applause from Rosie O’Donnell. In fact, we would never have heard of her.
That speaks volumes about the state of our culture: If assisted suicide is now considered “courageous” and equates with “death with dignity,” doesn’t that imply that people like Landon who choose to “fight against the dying of the light” are undignified and perhaps less courageous?
Maynard isn’t nihilistic. She is just scared. Those using her tragedy for their own purposes—policy advocacy, ratings, Internet hits, etc.—can’t say the same. The words of Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne keep ricocheting around my brain: “A society that believes in nothing can offer no argument even against death. A culture that has lost its faith in life cannot comprehend why it should be endured.”
[bold and italics emphasis mine]
Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant for the Patients Rights Council.
"Brittany Maynard Attacks Hospice Doctor Urging Her Not to Kill Herself" - by Wesley J. Smith | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 10/28/14; http://www.lifenews.com/2014/10/28/brittany-maynard-attacks-hospice-doctor-urging-her-not-to-kill-herself/
"Brittany Maynard: The Vultures Circle " - http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/390006/brittany-maynard-vultures-circle-wesley-j-smith;
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