QUARANTINE BLOG # 428

June 1, 2021

A physical education teacher at Leesburg Elementary School has been placed on administrative leave after telling the School Board that, based on his religious beliefs, he would not comply with draft polices concerning the rights of transgender students.

Tanner Cross addressed the School Board during the public comment section of its May 25 meeting.  “I love all my students, but I will never lie to them regardless of the consequences,” he said.  “I’m a teacher, but I serve God first and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl, and vice versa, because . . . it’s lying to a child, it’s abuse to a child, and it is sinning against our God.”  Two days later, Cross was placed on administrative leave pending an investigations of allegations that he engaged in conduct that has had a disruptive impact on the operations of Leesburg Elementary School. 

And the rights of Christians continue to whittled away.  The late Ben Haden was right – Christianity will be outlawed in the United States.

👉  A Colorado sheriff’s deputy died from COVID-19 complications shortly after sharing a string of anti-vaccination posts on his social media.  Daniel Trujillo, 33, died last Wednesday. Three weeks before his death, Trujillo had updated his Facebook profile picture to include a border that read, “I have an immune system.” The sheriff’s deputy had also captioned a TikTok post, which he shared on his Facebook profile, with an anti-vaccine message: “I’ll get it later on after y’all start growing appendages out of y’alls foreheads.” Trujillo shared an Instagram post in July 2020 that suggested he refused to wear masks. “Before you shame me in public for not having a mask, ask yourself one simple question,” the post said. “Will this mask stop an uppercut?” Trujillo is the second Denver Sheriff Department deputy to die of COVID-19 complications this month. Both had been eligible for a vaccine since January.  Neither had been vaccinated.

👉  No comment:

👉  Vast tracts of land in Australia’s New South Wales state are being threatened by a mouse plague that the state government describes as “absolutely unprecedented.”  At night, the floors of sheds vanish beneath carpets of scampering mice.  Ceilings come alive with the sounds of scratching.  One family blamed mice chewing electrical wires for their house burning down.  Just how many millions of rodents have infested the agricultural plains across the state is guesswork.

New South West Farmers, the state’s top agricultural association, predicts the plague will wipe more than 1 billion Australian dollars ($775 million) from the value of the winter crop.  Wet weather in New South Wales produced the region’s largest grain crop ever recorded.  The crop has provided ample food for mice and likely contributed to the sudden plague.

The only hope for overcoming the mice seems to be a pesticide that the Australian government has outlawed.

👉  If you use Alexa, Echo, or any other Amazon device – as far as I can determine, Firestick is not included – you have until June 8 to opt out of an experiment that leaves your personal privacy and security hanging in the balance.  On June 8, the merchant, Web host, and entertainment behemoth will automatically enroll the devices in Amazon Sidewalk.  The new wireless mesh service will share a small slice of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors who don’t have connectivity and help you to their bandwidth when you don’t have a connection.  If you have Alexa or other affected devices, you can use this link to disable Sidewalk  But do it before next Tuesday.

👉  Let’s visit some more spectacular waterfalls.

Dropping for 256-feet, Fall Creek Falls is the highest free-fall waterfall east of the Mississippi River. Located in the eastern portion of the rugged Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee – north of Chattanooga – the waterfalls are part of Fall Creek Falls State Park and can be accessed via a three-mile round-trip hike that gains about 715 feet total.  Beyond the main falls, the park is home to five other beautiful waterfalls, as well as cascades, gorges, and 34 miles of hiking trails.

On the Hvita River in Iceland, Gullfoss (meaning “Golden Falls”) gets its name from the glacial sediment in the river that makes the falls glow gold in the sun.  The 105-foot-tall waterfall crashes down in two stages that are aligned at nearly right angles.  In the late 20th century, there was much speculation about using Gullfoss to generate electricity.  The waterfall was rented by its owners to foreign investors.  The investors’ attempts were unsuccessful, partly due to lack of money.  The waterfall was later sold to the state of Iceland, and is now protected.  Enjoy this video of Gullfoss. 

👉  Here’s the last of the Minion comics.

👉  Today’s close is from My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers.

“The Patience To Wait for the Vision”

Though it tarries, wait for it, because it will surely come (Habakkuk 2:3).

Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God’s true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. “…he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue – he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God.

“Though it tarries, wait for it.” The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, “Now I’ve got it! Now I can endure.” Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on…” (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.

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