Tag youth

In Search of the Fountain of Youth

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

A View from the Nest
Random Ramblings from the Resident Raptor
Insight from the Journey across the Sky
By Allen Scott

And he said to me, It is done. I am the First and the Last, the start and the end. I will freely give of the fountain of the water of life to him who is in need. Revelation 21:6

 

The lamb in the center near the throne will be their shepherd. He will lead them to springs filled with the water of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.” Rev 7:17 (GW)

 

Ponce de Leon was the first European to sight ...

Image via Wikipedia

Juan Ponce de Leon was born in San Servas, Spain, in 1460. In 1493, he sailed with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. From the Hispaniola, Ponce de Leon led a successful expedition to the island of Puerto Rico and established its first permanent European community. It was in Puerto Rico that he began hearing stories from the natives of a “fountain of youth.” The natives said that on the island of Bimini, a small island in the Bahamas, there was a fountain that if you drank or bathed in its sweet, perpetual waters “it would make old men young.”

Excited about the prospect of finding a fountain of eternal life, he convinced King Ferdinand of Spain to authorize an expedition to Bimini. Ponce de Leon agreed to underwrite with his own funds the expenses of the voyage. On March 3, 1512, he set sail with sixty men in three small ships.

On April 2, he landed in Florida and claimed it for Spain. For seven months he traversed the peninsula looking for the fountain. One of his ships eventually did find the island of Bimini, but no one has ever located “the fountain of youth.”

A great deal of money is spent today searching for that fountain of youth. Companies hawk age defying products with ever more frequency. Each year more and more baby boomers are reaching retirement age. These elderly citizens represent a large part of the population of the United States and they control a great deal of its wealth. Playing on the vanities of this age group, companies are trying hard to create products that will potentially prolong the life of these consumers. Plastic surgery is the fastest growing field of medicine with many doctors living a rather lavish lifestyle because of the number of clients seeking their services.

Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well
Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr

A certain Samaritan woman went to fetch water one day from Jacob’s well, in Sychar and when she got there she found a Jewish man sitting by the well. A conversation ensued whereby the Jewish man asked the Samaritan woman to give him something to drink. This struck the woman as odd because Jewish men did not associate with Samaritan women and she asked him why he would ask her for something to drink. The man replied back that if she knew with whom she was speaking she would be asking him for something to drink. In her defense she did not know this man so she replied with and who are you? Are you more important that Jacob you actually dug this well, besides you have nothing to fetch water from this deep well so how do you suppose you are going to give me something to drink?

 

The man replied that if she drank from Jacob’s well she would be thirsty again, but the water he was offering would give her eternal life. (John 4:4-14 (GW))

Ponce De Leon went looking for the fountain of youth and only found water, while the Samaritan woman went looking for water and found the fountain of youth.

Living forever or at least as long as one can is the goal of everyone born under the sun, and yet it is as elusive as Juan Ponce de Leon’s fountain of youth. Scripture tells us a fountain of life really does exist. Jesus said when he was on the earth that he was the water of life, and that anyone who would drink of that water would never thirst. A fountain of water that provides complete refreshing. A fountain that provides a drink that completely satisfies. Pure living water, Jesus proclaimed, would gush up and give them everlasting life. Now that sounds like a fountain of youth to me.

But those who are waiting for the Lord will have new strength; they will get wings like eagles: running, they will not be tired, and walking, they will have no weariness. Isaiah 40:31 (BBE)

Along for the journey

 

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Government Program Aimed at Teen Pregnacy Fails

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

Once again the enlightened and educated amongst us prove COMMON SENSE has died. These government programs in England and in New York are destined to fail because of the very foundation they are attempting to build upon. Instead of teaching these AT RISK young ladies about self-esteem, and the virtues of a chaste lifestyle, they reason that since these girls are going to have sex anyway we might as well teach them about sex. And like every other government mandated program IT FAILED! Not only did it fail it FAILED miserably.The truth is it made the matter worse than if they would have left the girls alone.

Sound familiar?

clipped from www.dailymail.co.uk
A multi-million pound initiative to reduce teenage pregnancies more than doubled the number of girls conceiving.
The Government-backed scheme tried to persuade teenage girls not to get pregnant by handing out condoms and teaching them about sex.
But research funded by the Department of Health shows that young women who attended the programme, at a cost of £2,500 each, were ‘significantly’ more likely to become pregnant than those on other youth programmes who were not given contraception and sex advice.
A total of 16 per cent of those on the Young People’s Development Programme conceived compared with just 6 per cent in other programmes.
The failed YPDP, launched in 2004, was based on a similar scheme in claimed to have significantly reduced teenage pregnancies.
However, attempts to replicate the work elsewhere in the U.S. did not lead to a fall in teenage pregnancies, casting doubt on the project as a whole.
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Bailing out of Main Street, Wall Street and Capital Street

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

Thanks but no thanks Uncle Sam. Thanks but no thanks to your plan to saddle me with the burden of bailing out Main Street and Wall street. There is only one street I wish to see bailed out and that is Capital Street.

I can choose not to shop on Main Street, I can avoid investing in Wall Street but I really have no say in what Capital Street decides to do to me. They can pick my pocket anytime they like and I can not bail out of the program. I do have choices in where I shop and where I invest. I can even avoid borrowing money from anyone if I choose not to but I can not avoid paying taxes. This so called crisis on Wall Street has little or no effect on my personal finances but the failure of Capital Street sure does effect me adversely. Even when I do not invest in the stock market I have been forced to do so by the federal government in this bail out. Although I do not borrow money or have a sub-prime mortgage I have been forced to buy them by the federal government as well. Although I do not have personal debt my government has heaped a huge debt upon my shoulders and the shoulders of my offspring if I chose to have some.

Spare me the chatter about saving Main Street and going after the villains on Wall Street, what I much prefer you do is clean up your own house at Capital Street before you even think about trying to clean up either Main Street or Wall Street. We the people and the free market can clean up the mess on Wall Street as you can tell from the falling stock values. People are leaving Wall Street in droves. Main street too suffers when people decide they no longer wish to shop there. Now I ask you congressmen, how does one bail out of Capital Street? Sacs Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus I can avoid, but Capital Street keeps coming around taking money from me without asking.

Perhaps it is time ‘We the People’ Bail out Capital Street! Bail out all the graft and corruption! Bail out all the pork barrel spending! Bail out all the lying, thieving congressmen! Bail out the uncontrolled spending sprees these politicians love to wage with our money. I think it is time to CLEAN up the environment of the filth in Washington. I think it is time to renovate Capital Street and clean out all the old cronyism and nepotism that seems to infest the place. Perhaps it is time to clean out the moldy politicians and get a breath of fresh air on Capital Street. What say ye?

Kids in the Kingdom

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

“Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 17 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” Luke 18:16-17 (ESV)

00005543-360901CBS is the home for the reality show Kid Nation, a social experiment in which 40 children from 7 to 14 are dropped off in a deserted town to build it and run it themselves without adult supervision. I have been amazed at how well the children have been managing and dealing with their life as they make it.

 

 

On one episode the children had to deal with the social concern of religion. Prior weeks the town had to deal with curfews and government. They divided the town into 4 districts. Each has an elected leader and representative on town council.

 

They compete for social standing in the community by winning challenges. The first team to finish a challenge is the upper class, second place are the merchant class, third kitchen staff, and fourth laborers. Every three days there is a new challenge to see who will be serving in each class, and who is going to do the assigned chores.

 

 

Every third day there is a community meeting. One person from the community is picked to win a gold star worth $20,000. Truly, a prize worth its weight in gold. The council must decide who is to receive this reward for their hard work and leadership.

 

The young people governing this group to date has been refreshing, they have shown moments of greatness and, of course, there were moments when they are kids. Many of them would make any mother proud. Some of them perhaps bring a bit of embarrassment to their family but for the most part I have been moved with the performance of these fine young people.

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