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Gone Fishin'

~ …“Come after me, and I will make you fishers for men!”

Gone Fishin'

Daily Archives: January 9, 2009

Does America Have Just A Few Good Teachers?

09 Friday Jan 2009

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Education

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Americans, Asians, disciplines, left behind, multiple languages, passion, pluralism, teaching profession, teaching qualifications

James, Jesus’ brother, makes the following statement about teachers: “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1, NIV). Of course James is speaking about people who choose to become teachers of God’s Divine Truth, even though they have not been appointed by God to follow that calling; nevertheless, the message still is applicable. That message is that teachers should be held accountable for the good or bad influences they have had on their students. Therefore, if the United States of America ever hopes to improve her educational systems throughout this nation, in addition to expecting her teachers to multitask as mentors, counselors, nurses, substitute parents, and so forth, today’s American public and private school teachers should be expected to know their disciplines, to be passionately committed to their teaching profession, to know how to teach their disciplines to every kind of learner, to promote the idea of students learning multiple languages, and to be committed to teaching pluralism.

As a former teacher of American secondary and post-secondary students, I do know how important multitasking is for today’s American educators; however, I also have worked in Asia and witnessed how Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean educators also are expected to be teachers, classroom managers, counselors, nurses, mentors, and so forth. Yet, for the most part, Asian teachers still succeed in motivating and educating their students without complaining about being overworked, underpaid or unappreciated. Moreover, in most situations, these Asian teachers succeed in motivating and educating their students without relying on teaching assistants, without having any “prep” periods, and without using modern-day conveniences like a personal computer and a color printer.

Two of the biggest differences in Asian and American teachers that I have witnessed are that: (1) Asian teachers tend to be the best and the brightest in their fields; and (2) Asian teachers tend to be in education because teaching is their passion. Personally, I did not find the cream of the crop hiring criterion or the teaching-passion allure to be primary considerations of most American school districts or collegiate communities. Therefore, two of my reasons why America just has a few good teachers teaching in today’s public and private elementary and secondary schools, or colleges and universities, are because far too many of this nation’s educators graduate with only a “C” grade point average, and far too many of American educators only are in the teaching profession to collect a paycheck.

That is not to say that I didn’t meet any less than brilliant Asians who also were in teaching just because it was a job that offered them a fairly decent paycheck. The point here is that the difference in how some of the Asian and American educational systems have dealt with these kinds of teachers was that many Asian ineffectual, apathetic teachers soon were forced by their “establishments” to learn their disciplines and change their lackadaisical approaches to teaching, or find themselves without a job! Consequently, the Asian teachers who were neither brilliant nor committed to their profession were required to either put their whole heart into bringing themselves and their students up to the appropriate learning standards (which for the teachers could include going back to school themselves) or avoid letting the door hit them where the good Lord split them. The bottom line in the Asian countries I visited was that the bigger picture was all that ever mattered to these countries’ political leaders. That bigger picture was these political leaders’ demand for all of their country’s teachers to produce students who were able to surpass European, Canadian, and American students in mathematics, science, and the other liberal arts studies, which include languages, art, literature, philosophy, theology, and history.

Indisputably, there are far too many of today’s literate Asians who have far too many of today’s literate Americans beat, not only in the categories of mathematics and science, but also in languages. I mainly learned this language fact firsthand, when I lived and worked in China, Japan, and South Korea.

I went to these Asian countries without knowing how to communicate a word in either the Beijing Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) or the common Standard Cantonese Chinese languages. I also could not read the Chinese Kǎishū, Zhuànshū, Cǎoshū, or Lìshū scripts. Likewise, I neither knew how to communicate a word in the Japanese Nihongo language, nor could I read their Kanji, Hiragana or Katakana traditional scripts. However, I could handle the more modern Japanese Rōmaji texts. Lastly, I neither knew how to communicate in the South Korean Pyojuneo (or Pyojunmal) language, nor could I read the Korean Hangul script. Nevertheless, I effectively communicated with these Asians and successfully performed my teaching and ministry duties, because my Asian students could speak and read English!

Indeed, the majority of literate Asians not only can speak two or three languages but also can read these other languages, because, beginning at the elementary school level, Asian students are taught their own language plus the languages of their intellectual and economic competitors. For example, Chinese elementary students learn Standard Mandarin, plus British or American English, and/or Japanese and Korean languages. Furthermore, China’s political leaders consistently are stressing the need for their educators to recognize how important it is for their students to be able to relate their studies to global perspectives.

This global perspective issue brings up a third challenge that American educators face, which is that many teachers refuse to put into their lesson plans state-required Standards of Learning (SOL) relating to global perspectives. Moreover, many American teachers also refuse to put into their lesson plans each state’s required SOL pertaining to domestic ethnic groups’ culture(s) and religion(s). Nevertheless, in order for American teachers to be the “best and the brightest,” they not only need to be universities’ cream of the crop graduates, but also these teachers need to have studied and learned how to develop a curriculum framework through which an educational commitment to pluralism can be and will be achieved.

Now pluralism is the condition of a society that has distinct ethnic, religious, and/or cultural groups that are coexisting genially as fellow citizens within one nation. Pluralism, thus, is not just acknowledging or celebrating the diversity that exists in an educational institution. American educators need to realize that a commitment to real pluralism is when educators search for “common ground” while they are preparing their students to be able to function harmoniously as America’s future heterogeneous citizens.

Three areas where that “common ground” has not been achieved 100 percent are in the teaching of different styles of learning, the teaching of multiple languages, and the teaching of all religions. Although in the last twenty years or so, much attention has been given to promoting effective ways to teach students who process information differently; however, too many students still continue to struggle academically because of their different learning styles. Consequently, these students continue to slip through the cracks until they reach their middle teenage years and finally have their visual, auditory, and/or kinesthetic learning styles assessed correctly.

Furthermore, even though there are many teaching professionals who have studied and learned, for example, Spanish as a second language and, therefore, could teach their discipline in a classroom in which there might be non-English speaking Hispanics, nationwide, there still are not enough students who know Spanish well enough that they could help their Hispanic classmates who might have a question about their teachers’ explanations and/or instructions. Then too, even if all of the teaching professionals who speak and read multiple languages also know about global perspectives (religious and nonreligious), there is still a definite shortage of teachers who are able to teach global perspectives, effectively, to their heterogeneous student populations in today’s multiethnic and multicultural schools.

The number of teachers who know how to be religiously neutral is even smaller than the number of teachers who know how to teach about global perspectives. Being religiously neutral means knowing how NOT to favor one religion over another, and/or how NOT to favor religion over non-religion. Indeed, few educators are religiously neutral, because most educators: (1) cannot or will not acknowledge the existence of various other beliefs, and they (2) cannot or will not guarantee justice to supporters of these other beliefs who are enrolled in America’s public or private schools. A case in point is the current debate on whether intelligent design should be taught in public schools’ science classes as an alternative to the Theory of Evolution.

It is unfortunate that America just has a few good teachers who actually are teaching in today’s public and private school systems. It is even sadder to know that America will continue to have just a few good teachers, as long as the existing “average” teachers are not expected to learn their disciplines very well, are not expected to become passionately committed to their teaching profession, are not expected to teach their disciplines to every kind of learner, are not expected to promote (along with the “best and brightest” teachers) the teaching of multiple languages, and are not expected to become (along with the “best and brightest” teachers) committed to preparing their students for citizenship in America’s pluralistic society. For these reasons, penalties for failing to provide the best education possible for every student must be established and enforced. However, before thinking about dismissing any teachers who presently are teaching but do not meet what should be America’s cream of the crop and passionate about teaching minimal qualifications, these teachers not only should be made aware of their deficiencies but also should be given some time to correct their deficiencies before penalties are enforced.

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crayons

09 Friday Jan 2009

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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aggregated, animated, Crayolas, cultural, differences, economic, ethnic, montages, pigment, political, religious, separate but equal, social

Box of Crayola 64 Crayons

crayonists,  we  are

coloring  outside  boxes. 

world’s peopled,

 tightly  packed with non-threatening, classic Crayolas

confidently projecting their diversity

governed  by  external  creative  force

setting  them  in  motion,

blending

within  and  without.

 reds  and  yellows, blues  and  greens, purples  and  oranges, browns, blacks  and  whites, 64 arranged pigmentary images,

animated  inanimate  waxes—

hues

        creating  impressive,  unified  patterns—

moving  from

individual  to  collective  whole, composing

aggregated  montages;  combined … separate  but  equal

Godhead  reproductions—resembling  one  Father, one  Lord, one  Spirit—

 changing  world’s  perception:  acknowledging

social, economic, political, ethnic, religious, cultural 

differences’

collaborative, complex, connected, agreeable confluence.

~ from Montage of Poetic Imaginations

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My Coal Miner Dad

09 Friday Jan 2009

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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abrasive, cave in, coal miner, coal-cracker, cuddling, danger, Emery Board, tragedy

Excitedly stirred by the palatable scent

Bacon, eggs and grits make,

My understandably restless body spun wildly

‘Til topsy-turvy I landed,

Shrieking non-stop before a pair of weathered

Hands reached down and lifted me.

These hands worked twelve-hour shifts

Under the Susquehanna River, mining

Fearless, day after day,

Embracing the most dangerous job

He’d ever do just to put food on our

Table, clothes on our backs,

Shoes on our feet, and a better-life

Hope in our minds,

Only to be wronged by illegal harvest

Precipitated by human greed.

Egregious violation caused

Twelve unfound, unmarked

Underground gravesites in flooded, closed-off

Knox’s Anthracite colliery tunnels that

Signified the end of an era.

Mines’ rising death-tolls ceased temporarily with

Nineteen Hundred Fifty-Nine Common Era disaster;

Even still, over seventy-five hundred

Wronged locals that day mimicked the

Slow-burning coal they mined; they

Experienced slow deaths, like

Age thirty-five Dad.

Forced into unemployment, then early retirement.

Encountered struggle after struggle,

Trying to make ends meet,

All of my school-aged years, while

Battling Black Lung disease complications and decades of

Suffering pain from work done by

Worn-torn hands that accentuate his

Discolored fingernails.

Emphysema claimed his life

But not before we enjoyed

Many days like today, when

Breakfast smells awake me,

Hyper activity drops me

Head first on uncarpeted bedroom floor, and my

Hero rescues me, by making

His Emery Board hands my buffer.

Though abrasive and rough,

With much love they handle me with care,

Placing me in his arms, cuddling me, and

Wiping my tear-filled eyes.

Then with softened voice

He assures me he’d never

Let anything bad happen to me on

His watch, for I am a

Gift from God who

Has great plans for me,

Plans He’s just beginning to unfold, but

Will see them through.

Quieted by his soothing tone,

Contented by his comfort and love,

Secured in his arms, I lovingly whispered,

“HAPPY FATHER’S DAY,” DAD.

I thanked God that day for his

Twin towers: Mercy and Grace.

They protected Dad from

Knox Mine disastrous collapse

Six months back, giving me

Precious score plus seventeen to celebrate

“Father’s Day,” every day, of his life.

Truly, God honored this coal-cracker

When He gave me my coal miner Dad.

That’s why thanking God for His Mercy and Grace

Continues to be an every-day desire and an

Every-day occurrence

Twelve years beyond Dad’s passing.

~ composed June 14, 2008 for Father’s Day June 15, 2008

 

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COVENANTED VOW

09 Friday Jan 2009

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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color line, covenanted vow, hatred, loathing, penchant, rainbow, sign

God’s Rainbow Sign

Belief reinforced by rainbow’s presence,

Coloring doubt with yellows, and greens, and purples, and oranges, and blues, and

reds.

Pastel picture pigment depicts nuances on a grander scale.

Weigh the matter, checks and balances will

Show the immeasurable bouquet touch God gave humanity,

Promising deliverance that crosses

Color line, every shade complementing bow’s design.

World’s destruction not possible by water.

Increased hatred, annihilation foreseeable.

Man’s penchant…loathing the differences

Yellows, Greens, Purples, Oranges, Blues and Reds make.

Yet, it’s true, believed or not,

Evilness of heart taints the goodness of peace

‘Til no Olive branch offering can be reached.

Destruction by water? Rainbow sign denies.

It won’t be water but Fire next time.

~ from Montage of Poetic Imaginations

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VISION

09 Friday Jan 2009

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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20/20, bygone, cataracts, cloud gathering, Documentary, headlines, sight gag, status quo

20...20 Vision

He answered, ‘Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’  And they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from. The man answered, ‘Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out. ~ John 9:25-34, ESV

Twenty-Twenty
Not ABC documentary news—
Flash; get the picture?
Out of focus, sharp images set in contrast,
Good and Evil—Life and Death—Black and White.
Adjustment preeminent, gray areas eventually erased, but not before
Hindsight is out of sight—
Blinded by status quos,
Mirroring bygone likenesses’
Illusory forms, intellectually misled—spiritually dead.
Sight gag, cataracts with panoramic view—
Now you see them, now you don’t—
Cloud gathering by invitation only.
Yesterday’s headlines:
Could have, would have, should have!!!!

~ from my manuscript – Montage of Poetic Imaginations; March 14, 2000

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In The Spirit

09 Friday Jan 2009

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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deliverance, fermentation, fire-birthed, Holy Spirit-Filled, new wine, spiritual dancing, uninhibeted

Uninhibited Holy Spirit-filled, Spirit-controlled, Spirit-guided

Concerted lively movements,

Submissively bending, yielding in honor of, in praise to, in thanks

for the Lord.

Dancing’s inspiration, the Word of TRUTH: Salvation, Deliverance,

Peace, Love, Joy, Faith, Temperance, Goodness, Mercy, Grace.

Empowered emotionally charged spirits,

Supernaturally electrified, highly

Excited…fire-birthed responses from innermost will

Hearkening to even a still small voice.


Living: Walking, Singing, Dancing,

In the Spirit, necessary daily power

Required “light,” a sober act resembling New Wine’s

Fermentation.

Praising, glorifying, honoring, thanking always, in all things, in

Every way to Father God

In Jesus’ name.

~ from Montage of Poetic Imaginations

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Phases of the Coming of Christ

09 Friday Jan 2009

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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brands, business as usual, Kingdom of God, phases, salvation, Second Coming, sorrowful, unyielding, wretch

Kingdom of God “is at hand.”

Nearness, though, in stages.

John the Baptist’s repent warning, phase one:

Christ, God’s suffering servant,

Arrives incognito;

Anointed Messiah, Father’s only begotten

Clothed with humanity Son,

Rejected, betrayed, crucified Lamb who’s resurrected.

Revealed, glorified Son of Man,

Returns triumphant King of Kings,

Lord of Lords,

Descending on cloud,

Bringing host of saints from Heaven to Earth.

His beautiful Gospel carrying feet

Split Mount Olives,

Ushering in Kingdom of God, really “is at hand”;

Phase two: fully manifesting after

Horrific seven-year Tribulation’s

Rapid increase in labor pains

Cease from troubling.

Second Coming sneaks up on church-players,

Catches them off guard, living in

Spiritual darkness, baring spiritual nakedness.

While stripped of all supernatural

Power, authority, discernment, they stand before their

Creator, uncovered; guilty of

Compromising God’s Divine Truth with

World’s repulsive, duplicitous, seductive,

Misogynous, misanthropic, depraved imaginations that now

Infect the music, print, motion picture, broadcast, and

Electronic communications’ brands…causing

Greedy for gain pursuits to become

Strongholds ‘til perverse activities are

Tolerated business as usual,

Instead of shunned ungodly habits.

The evil ways of the world steadily

Drown out contemporary prophets’

“Prepare to meet God” warnings ‘til

Get-ready time is spent.

Divine Judgment’s hour for

Church-players and the unyielding unsaved,

Already is closing in.

Now is the time to sorrowfully repent and

Cry: “Lord, save a wretch like me.”

 

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New Orleans: My Personal Ruminations

09 Friday Jan 2009

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Natural Disasters

≈ 1 Comment

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aftermath, breached, decadence, distress, flood waters, focus, French Quarter, homeless, hurricane, impoverished, ineptitude, judgment, levees, looting, loss, Natural Disasters, saints, sexually abused

Written in Foshan, China on September 3, 2005

After viewing nearly hundreds of photographs depicting Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, surprisingly, the dominant image that is on my mind is that of what I witnessed when I was in New Orleans in 1992. As the President of Kappa Delta Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., I was expected to attend as many of the Regional and National Sorority Boules (Conferences) that were held while I was in office. The 1992 Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. National Boule, then, is what took me to New Orleans, or the Big Easy as it also is called. There I discovered that the Big Easy is everything that this nickname suggests, which is how easy it is to find, here, in the city of New Orleans, that which a person might not be able to find elsewhere.

While attending my Boule, I had the opportunity to see firsthand what my college students had reported to me after they had returned from their spring vacations spent in New Orleans. Moreover, what I had witnessed, either from my Canal Street hotel window or from my stroll down the infamous Bourbon Street, as well as throughout the French Quarter, was how big and easy this city’s residents and visitors were on sexual immorality, underage drinking, and every form o debauchery and abuse that is associated with boozing, drugging and wild partying that New Orleans seemed to encourage doing—anything and everything that was so big and, therefore, so easy to spiral out of control. These images I saw far exceeded those I had imagined from my students’ tales. Indeed, of all of America’s major cities, it would seem that only in New Orleans could the world witness people’s basic nature that not only was thriving but also was continuing to be condoned.

I do not want to diminish the distress, loss, hurt and pain that sufferers from New Orleans and other cities recently encountered, nor do I wish to diminish the hope and faith that Hurricane Katrina’s survivors and their families, as well as countless caring observers, have shown. Nothing but disaster was blowing in Hurricane Katrina’s winds, and noting but relief, comfort, mercy, and unconditional love should be given to the persons these destructive and deadly winds have touched. Yet, as I look back at the time when I visited New Orleans, I remember how distressed my spirit was from seeing the in-my-face unrighteousness and ungodliness that I had beheld when I walked those French Quarter streets. Furthermore, at any time of the day on any given day, anyone could witness the same kinds of in-your-face wickedness that I saw–sex shops, sex dens, year-round Mardi Gras drunkenness, muggings, fisticuffs, and so forth.

During the whole week or so that I was in New Orleans, I often thought of the Scriptures that Christ spoke about in reference to the end times and His second coming:

And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. (Luke 17:26-29)

With these Scriptures in my mind, I also couldn’t help but think that some God-ordered judgment awaited this city if the people in it, specifically in the Bourbon Street French Quarter area, did not turn from their wicked ways. Then I wondered why something like Hurricane Katrina would hit New Orleans and affect so many of the innocent, poor, destitute, and the God-seeking individuals more so than it affected the French Quarter degenerate folks. Fact of the matter is, the majority of these degenerates had hightailed it out of the French Quarter on Sunday, before the storm hit.

Whether Hurricane Katrina is a form of God’s Divine wrath on New Orleans, the epicenter of the crisis, or not, only He knows for sure. But what is certain is that He allowed this hurricane to leave behind a deluge that resembles, in some measure, that of the flood in Noah’s (Noe’s) day. Ironically, though, unlike Lot’s Sodom and Gomorrah that completely were destroyed, and are today the Dead Sea, the French Quarter, although damaged somewhat from the hurricane’s winds and the rising floodwaters resulting from two breached levees, seems to have been spared from the worst flooding. The out-of-control looting is what is taking its toll on the French Quarter.

Still, as aforementioned, the innocent, poor, destitute, and God-seeking individuals who died from the floodwaters, and those who died in the Superdome, Convention Center and other refugee shelters while waiting for food, water, and medical assistance, have seemed to suffer the most in Katrina’s wake. Human lives and property losses for the surviving family members have reached astronomical highs. For these reasons it is plain to see how so many believers tend to have their will to serve God broken by what they may perceive to be as God’s crushing yoke–the deaths and homelessness caused by the hurricane. Disaster like this one often have become too much for many believers to bear.

Meanwhile, those who seem to go untouched by the hurricane, like many surviving French Quarter people, are reported as celebrating their survival by visiting a bar on Bourbon Street where they are enjoying some of their favorite drinks. One such French Quarter person is quoted here:

‘You know what? There’s a reason why we’re called Saints,’ the 53-year-old tour booker said Monday as she communed with 20 or so other survivors. ‘Because no matter what religion you are, whether you’re Catholic, whether you’re voodoo, whether you’re Baptist or so on, so on, and so on–we all pray. We all pray. I’m not a religious fanatic. But God saved us.’ (”French Quarter survives onslaught” by Allen G. Breed)

God forbid if the ungodly actions that take place on Bourbon Street and throughout the French Quarter are considered in the least bit to be “saintly.” Furthermore, if indeed the prayers of these French Quarter Catholic, voodoo, Baptist, and whatever denominations or religions of people represented here by this speaker, were answered, then it is easy to see why born-again, totally-surrendered believers often have their will to serve God broken by what appears to be His alleged answering of the perceived “lost” souls’ prayers but supposed denial of the perceived “true” saints’ prayers. It is, thus, in times like this, that even real “saints” question: if God really loved all of His people and really didn’t want any of them to suffer, then how does He account for what has just happened in New Orleans?

I have asked myself this question, starting on day two of the storm, and I have continued to ask myself it as I look at the rampant lawlessness and senseless deaths now occurring on the streets in New Orleans. I don’t have any answers that would help people who were in the midst of this kind of storm, other than to tell them my usual, which is “to focus on God, and to trust that God will work everything out for your good because only He sees the bigger picture. Things aren’t always as they seem so that is why it is important to remain Christ-centered at all times.”

This answer, to me, even as I write it, in light of all that has happened in New Orleans, sounds weak and somewhat depressing, when it should sound powerful and always uplifting. Nevertheless, things aren’t always as they seem, and God, despite how things look at present, is still in control. While it might appear that the floodwaters did less in destroying the sexually immoral, drunken, proud, indifferent-to-the-needs-of-others people in New Orleans’ French Quarter, as it did in destroying innocent, poor, destitute and God-seeking lives of born-again believers and doers of good who did not patronize the hotels, sex stores, and bars in the French Quarter, the end-time promise is not that the wickedness in this world will be wiped off the Earth again by water, but rather by fire!

Consequently, I have determined that only the hope and faith that born again, sold out for Christ believers have in this, or similar, disastrous situations are what matters most to God. We must have the hope and faith that our God, indeed, will see all of His people through any and every storm, especially when His true saints (whites, as well as every person of color) keep their eyes focused on Him. We must cling more to this hope in His promises and our faith in Him to fulfill those promises, instead of questioning why me, or why them. No matter how much we really might want to know God’s every move, we must understand that how and when He moves in our lives might not be ours to know. What we can count on is His Divine Intervention manifesting itself in mysterious ways. We can count on the biblical Truth that He knows what the end will be. We also can know with certainty that we will reap what we sow, and that God will be the final judge of every deed that we say and do in our bodies—no matter whether our works are good or bad.

So, let us, therefore, continue to pray for Hurricane Katrina’s sexually abused, impoverished, homeless, missing and grieving kin of deceased individuals, and let us move forward, doing all that we can to help this storm’s survivors rebuild that which can be rebuilt in their lives. This is not the time to focus on New Orleans’ decadence or our government’s ineptitude and poor response to the needy, but rather it is a time to look inside our own hearts and determine if we are truly the people we say we are–if we are the redeemed, justified, sanctified, holy and righteous children of a merciful, loving, forgiving, and “living” God.

Furthermore, everyday of our lives, let us do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8), for this is what is required of those of us who love the Lord. God’s dealings with and judgments on the New Orleans French Quarter lifestyles, as well as the other unholy and unrighteous kinds of living going on in various places all over this world, will be, as Paul Harvey says, “the rest of the story.”

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Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen

Sanctified Child

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