Archive for the ‘My view of the world’ Category

Everyone Did Right In Their Own Eyes…maybe we need to look in a mirror

Posted: January 31, 2020 in Christian, My view of the world
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I was raised in a denomination that believes in replacement theology and also believe because the Israeli religious authority were responsible for the crucifixion of Christ that Israel blew their chance at the brass ring and that the church is the “new Israel”. They also believe the old testament was a great collection of stories that really have no bearing on our salvation and because of these factors, Israel didn’t hold a lot of significance to me for other than being the genetic ancestors of Christ. Therefore some of the more ‘boring’ books of the Old Testament (which there were many back then) just got glossed over to fulfill the ‘reading the scripture’ requirement that my mother enforced on me while growing up.

In January 15, 2010, the Lord saved me from myself and I started on a marvelous journey of discovery that has taken me all through the ancient history of God’s people. I quickly discovered that the bible has more than twenty seven important books and that the other forty nine books are much, much more than a bunch of filler, as I was taught as a child. Now that I have realized that the significant part of the word of God starts in Genesis and ends in Revelation and that every fact entered into the scripture by the Holy Spirit has been placed there for our learning, if we are willing to pay attention to detail. It also reveals to us throughout its marvelous pages that it is a continuous web that is woven into a cohesive structure, designed to stand up to the forces throughout the ages that have been, and still are, trying to destroy the veracity of the word of our Lord. Once those facts sunk into my head, then those ‘boring’ books became exponentially less boring and I began pouring through these wonderfully educational and eye-opening books.

Judges was one of those ‘boring’ books to me growing up. Other than the story of Sampson and Delilah, I knew almost nothing about the book. Now that I have actually sat down and read the book with my new understanding, it seems quite interesting and lays out a four hundred year decline from an appreciative, worshipful people into a nation that continually turns its back on The Lord. One of the curiosities of Judges is the opening; everyone did what was right in their own eyes. The author (which many commentators believe is Samuel) used this phrase to open a couple of different chapters to explain the attitude of the Israelites throughout this four hundred year period of the history of the Lord’s chosen. This is not a pleasant comment, rather it’s an drear judgement stating that they had turned away from following the statutes laid out in Deuteronomy 12:8 when the Lord warned them of doing just this before they crossed the Jordan to possess the land. While this topic I’m writing isn’t a synopsis of the book of Judges, the opening statement written during this dismal period of Israel’s history and contained within the pages of Judges, should be a warning to us all. So, what does it mean and why should we care?

Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (NKJV)

This is a scathing indictment against Israel’s attitude. The Lord chose the Jews to be his people. He brought them out of Egypt using supernatural powers that scared the wits out of the leader of the world. He guided them throughout their wanderings in the Midian wilderness and protected them with a special cloud that was unmistakable in it’s unnaturalness during the day and an astral object of fire at night, preparing them to come together as a nation so they could defeat the Satanic kingdoms in Canaan, and what happens…they lose faith in the Lord at the last minute, even though they have all this extraterrestrial stuff going on around them. He punishes them for ‘doing right in their own eyes’ by causing all the unfaithful adults to die in the wilderness, while protecting them with more of the supernatural stuff for thirty eight more years and do they learn their lesson? No. Within a couple of generations, they revert back to ‘doing right in their own eyes’ again.

In first Samuel, the Lord is explaining the Israelites rejection of the Him as their king, to Samuel.

I Samuel 8:7-20 And the LORD said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. “According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day—with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also. “Now therefore, heed their voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them.” So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who asked him for a king. And he said, “This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots. “He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. “He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. “And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. “He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants. “And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. “He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. “And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the LORD will not hear you in that day.” Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No, but we will have a king over us, “that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” (NKJV)

The book of Judges is a dismal account of the continued breakdown of faith and the patterned slide into a self-reliance spiral of failure that can be explained in a nutshell in the above scripture when the Lord tells Samuel they have totally rejected Him. This passage is sort of a companion to the book of Judges and helps enlighten us to the meaning behind the indicting phrase: “everyone did what was right in their own eyes”

The Lord ended up granting their wish for an earthly king and we find that Moses in Deuteronomy explained about the roles of a future king and the rules he was expected to follow. God knew they wouldn’t stay with it, but gave them the statutes to follow anyway. One of the statutes was a commandment for each King to write out his own copy of the Torah. It sounds like a time-consuming process, and I’m sure it was, but it was designed to burn the Mosaic Law into the brain of the King by the time he had finished this massive project. One look at the history of the kings of Israel and Judah tells us that very few bothered to give more than a cursory nod to the statutes laid out by the Lord. The priests had all had intimate knowledge of the Torah, but that doesn’t mean every Jew did. Handwritten copies of the law would have been rare and expensive and also required the ability to be able to read. The practice of having the king write their own copy of the Pentateuch was designed to make sure the King intimately knew the law and would deny him an excuse when he would ultimately break it. The Lord may have put it into place for the same reason as the rest of the Mosaic Law, to expose the weak and sinful nature of the Jews which were a small insignificant nation of people chosen to represent the Lord, hand-picked from a sinful, broken human race.

Just because the Lord allows us to do things, doesn’t mean that is what he would have us do. The Lord wanted the Jews to accept him as their ruler, their King to rule from the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies, but as He told Samuel, they rejected him. In fact, the whole history of the Jews is a history fraught with rejection and disobedience spattered with small periods of time of faithfulness and trust and love. The book of Judges as well as the books of the prophets are written records of failure to follow the Lord, time after time. We have a compressed history of the Israelite nation to look back on and shake our heads in dismay as we read of their apparent lack of faith in their deliverer, savior, guide and father, but we need to be conscious of the time periods we are dealing with. We are looking at a history of thousands of years this record has recorded. By perspective, we have just a little over two hundred years under our belts and look how far the United States has slipped from a country founded on freedom of religion and principles based on the bible and faith in our Lord to one that wholly rejects God and anything associated with Christ, Christianity or support of Israel in it’s short history. Comparatively, Israel is the shining example of faith and redemption and loyalty, because overall, they were faithful for much longer at a time before sliding into self righteousness.

The bigger problem though, is that it is simply a reflective attitude of all of us humans. People have to make a concerted effort to rely on the Lord and not their own inflated and contorted views of their own abilities to manage their lives and the lives of others around them. Unfortunately we as a modern people do no better than the Jews of the time of the judges and we have their failed examples to learn from and to fall back on, or to use the words of George Santayana, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

God Bless, Jim
updated 11-28-20

Is our reality nothing but a sim game?

Posted: January 26, 2020 in Christian, My view of the world
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I personally have come to the conclusion from reading the scriptures as well as biblical commentaries and also from physical evidence we can see and derive about our universe, that our existence is nothing but a huge sim game. Quantum physics proves that our local reality is just that…a reality that only exists only within the boundaries of the physical universe and outside of those physical limits, our reality that we so glibly refer to as the real world, ceases to exist (something in quantum physics called the Planck length…Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein also spoke about these boundaries). Therefore, from this observation, the eerie, sort of smokey and mysterious reality we refer to as the “spirit world” suddenly takes on much more significance, for there are inferences and direct references all throughout the bible about how we are pawns in the spiritual warfare taking place all around us. The book of Job is a microcosm and a cliff-note version of the rest of the scriptures including the behind-the-scene script of Satan. The prophet Daniel was given a glimpse by the angel of the massive warfare going on and a hint of the demonic forces behind the world powers. Isaiah asked for his servant’s eye to be opened so he could see a small example of the army of the Lord that was present but unseen. The Psalms are riddled with pictures of how we are helpless without the Lord, and his immediate protection from the evil that is intent on destroying us. There are many more examples of the ultimate reality of the multi-dimensional world of our Lord, but I feel those example above are enough to prove my point.

God bless, Jim

1-25-20

Is America a post-Christian nation…are Christians to blame?

Posted: December 11, 2019 in Christian, My view of the world
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During the middle of the twentieth century, it was common for preachers in America to teach about how we were blessed to live in such a God-fearing nation, a nation born with a freedom to worship our Lord, Jesus Christ as we desired without interference from the government. This sentiment was echoed in our schools, the halls of Justice, The White House and Congress.

Today, as we look around, it’s glaringly obvious to see that the America we currently live in is not the America of my youth. What has happened to our God-fearing nation? We as conservative, God-fearing Americans happened, or rather, we didn’t happen. The voting citizens of this great nation became so comfortable with our easy lifestyle and we as Christians (or people like me who turned his back on Christ) became so apathetic in our belief that this nation would never reject God, that we decided that someone else would take care of things as we grilled and played sports and watched television in the comfort of our cushy existence. We, the conservatives and Christians of America let the erosion of the culture of conservatism happen right under our noses. The American Christians have been like the proverbial frog placed in tepid water that is boiled alive before he realizes what happened. We allowed Satan to create holidays promoting the occult and demonology right under our noses as we blindly voted for his minsters and those at his beck and call. We allowed Satan to invite himself into lives and our government offices a step at a time while we smiled and welcomed him in, one vote at a time, and then went back to munching our popcorn and watching our movies while he silently and skillfully manipulated our lives with lies and deception behind our backs like a quiet, effective slow acting poison.

In the 1960s when elected radicals like Madeline Murray O’Hare appeared on the American political scene and became instrumental in influencing the United States federal courts into enforcing legislation that forced public schools to stop reading the bible, where was the tidal wave of public outcry to force the courts to reverse their decision? There was a small murmuring but we were generally politically quiet. When the famous 1973 landmark court decision named Roe VS Wade was enacted, forcing all American taxpayers to fund the legalized murder of our children, where was the explosion of conservative Christians voices to force the lawmakers to create amendments to the State Constitution to override the Court’s decisions? It wasn’t there, or at least it wasn’t loud enough or forceful enough to be heard, for it would have taken more effort to fight this baby-killing, population-control legislation than most Americans were willing to exert.

One of my father’s favorite sayings was, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. Agnostic and atheistic anti-Christian groups have been allowed to dictate law and legislation on the state and national levels of the American government, while the ‘silent majority’ sat back and kept their complaints and grumblings to themselves, to the point where the ‘silent majority’ is swiftly becoming a ‘silent minority’ and we are no longer considered a “Christian Nation” as was proudly stated by former president of our nation, Barack Obama. I recall listening to an interesting radio interview in 2001 where the guest stated, “for the aberrant to become normal, what is considered normal has to be marginalized.”. That was a very interesting observation at the time and when I started thinking about the odd events that America accepted as “progression” during the Clinton administration, I became afraid that this was a foreboding of what was beginning to happen in America…little did I know that was just the tip of the iceberg.

It is now eighteen years later and if you are a conservative, a Christian, a constitutionalist today in America, you are considered the fringe elements of society and potential terrorists according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Look all around us, our government, schools and society today accepts the precepts of all world religions with the exception of two; Christianity and Judaism.

Where personal responsibility and respect used to be the norm, they have now been replaced with; “I’m not responsible for anything”, “the government will take care of it” and “I’ll sue you if I become offended,”. People grew up feeling safe and didn’t lock their doors, now they are afraid to walk down the street. Our youth used to respect the laws, now it is a badge of pride if you’ve been arrested for a violent crime. We as a nation have forgotten our heritage as Israel did, and the bible brings the parallel between Israel and America to light in the following scriptures in Deuteronomy and also in Hosea: Deuteronomy 32:18-22” You neglected the Rock who begot you, And forgot the God who gave you birth. “The LORD saw this, and spurned them Because of the provocation of His sons and daughters. “Then He said, ‘I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be; For they are a perverse generation, Sons in whom is no faithfulness. ‘They have made Me jealous with what is not God; They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation, For a fire is kindled in My anger, And burns to the lowest part of Sheol, And consumes the earth with its yield, And sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.(NASV) Hosea 4:1-3 Hear the word of the LORD, You children of Israel, For the LORD brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “There is no truth or mercy Or knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying, Killing and stealing and committing adultery, They break all restraint, With bloodshed upon bloodshed. Therefore the land will mourn; And everyone who dwells there will waste away With the beasts of the field And the birds of the air; Even the fish of the sea will be taken away. (NKJV)

I fear unless we learn from history and this once great nation makes a sudden change of course, we will go the way of the northern kingdom of Israel and be destroyed because we have already far surpassed it in corruption and idol worship. For example: from within our schools and from the seats of government, United States citizens are being inundated by scholars and elected representatives on a daily basis and we are slowly being forced to accept that homosexuality is an acceptable alternate lifestyle and the current iteration of ‘civil rights’, while at the same time, the God of Israel and Christianity for all practical purposes, have been rendered illegal in the United States. Today modern science wholly rejects the reality of creation as a silly myth and has replaced it with absurd and unprovable theories to elevate their religion of randomness while denouncing the Christian God. The bible has a few words to say about where we as a nation are currently in Paul’s letter to the Romans where God passes specific judgment upon nations and cultures that rejects the creation: Romans 1:18-32 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. (NASV)

This passage from Romans sounds like it was written specifically for America where we have already been given over to our degrading passions and depraved minds. Also, about the attitude of the Scientific community and it’s arrogant attitude about the scriptures it has this to say: II Corinthians 2;14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. (KJV)

Why hasn’t America been judged yet? I agree with Chuck Missler‘s opinion on why the United States hasn’t been judged and conceivably, it is because of this passage in Genesis. We are basically alone in the world in our support of Israel, and that support is quickly slipping away. Genesis 12:2-3 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (NASV)

What can we do to turn things around? This scripture from Chronicles, even though it was given by The Lord to King Solomon regarding Judea, tells us that there may still be hope, but we, as people who are called by His Name, have to become diligent in our plea to the Lord and we also have to become diligent in our self-examination of our sins and shortcomings. II Chronicles 7:14 “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (NKJV)

I personally have to rely on the Lord and the Holy Spirit to teach me to become much more diligent than I have ever been. I saw an email in the fall of 2010 relating to the November elections. It stated that every evening at 8 PM, central time, Christian should devote a few moments to create a mass prayer for our nation and the candidates. I thought it was a wonderful idea, but I couldn’t seem to find the discipline to set aside, even that small amount of time. Before the 2016 elections there were signs around asking folks to prayat4.com for our nation. As has been proven by the lack of interest and the massive amount of inaction on the part of purported Christians in America over the last several decades, we are our own worst enemy, or, to quote Walt Kelly: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”.

Jim Bussell

updated 10-29-20

The Current Culture and me

Posted: October 28, 2019 in My view of the world
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In the last several decades I have seen an extreme change in the culture of America. Thirty years ago the majority of Americans were still somewhat shocked to see open nudity, overt sexual acts and debauchery in the visual, audio and print media. Americans still expected their elected officials to be morally upstanding and they expected the newspapers and news media to be fair, unbiased and correct.

Don’t get me wrong, the eighties were raunchy and decadent enough, but it seems after that decade drew its last breath, it became open season on respect and morality as open nudity, sexual acts and debasing subjects became more and more frequent. The media accelerated its campaign to make people feel personally responsible and guilty for “judging others” that were different from themselves, while movies and television shows depicting perverted church leaders and religious extremists nutjobs seemed to explode onto the scene with the protagonists emerging as a kind, non-judgmental hero that seems to protect us from these wacko extremists. It has continued to worsen to the point where Christians are no longer considered members of the mainstream and the current generation of ideologues and leaders are emerging from the indoctrination centers we used to call public schools and universities with the attitude that there is no right and wrong, there is no moral compass we need to follow, biology is simply a fading fad and anyone that doesn’t readily accept and embrace the new “civil rights” issue called the LBGHQXYZ movement should be either jailed, expelled or cursed and spat upon.

To see our current society treat Christians as bullies, thugs, weirdos or criminals causes a certain amount of anxiety for me. However, I refuse to play ball with them, so to speak, and I cope with this pervasive insanity in this way: I have stopped watching the news and I have stopped listening to the daily rants of the left. Instead I concentrate on the things in life that make me happy and serene. I also have begun to read or listen (read with my ears) to the bible more frequently so to arm myself against the times I will need to confront the antagonists that look on me as a bully, thug or weirdo. Many of the people that rant and rave and wave their fists about cannot be reasoned with for they seem to believe anyone with an opposing idea to their government supported agenda is already committing a “hate” crime by simply not agreeing with them…but there are some that can be reasoned with. I feel the only way we can effectively communicate with those who do not share our views or values is to make sure we do not attack them, but to communicate love and kindness toward them for we are to love them, even though we hate their sin.

Jim Bussell

10-28-19

A Mother’s Love

Posted: November 14, 2018 in Life and Memories, My view of the world, Parents
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Throughout my life, I have read striking novels and seen dramatic movies where a character is placed in an impossible situation and asked the question, “would you die for him?”. About the only people I can think of that would unhesitatingly answer “Yes!” to that question are parents. Of course, I hope none of us will ever be faced with such a horrific and odious decision as long as we exist upon this fair earth. However, several decades ago, my mother came close to forfeiting her life for me as I was entering the world for the first time and even that was just a portion of the love she exhibited toward her children as she ceaselessly dedicated her life to my sisters and I as we grew, and continues to do so to this day.

The earliest memories I have of life are predominately ill-defined images, but the early memories I have of my mother are crisp, clear and precise. The birthing process that allowed me to start the mystical journey we call life was only the precursory step I took with my mother. Whenever I was ill, frightened, in anguish, sad, joyous or proud, my mother was there by my side. She was there to give me succor, relief, a kind word or perhaps, simply silent encouragement. She seemed to always be there to share in my accomplishments as well as my tears. I still recall the words to the first songs I remember hearing. Those songs came from my mother’s lips as she would sing to me as I sat in her lap as she rocked me or at bedtime as she soothingly bathed me with her sweet, melodious voice while stroking my hair as my eyes grew heavy from the sandman’s visit after a busy day at play.

She also read to me as a child, opening up countless vistas of exploration of the world, the the universe and life as she would bless me with her words from children’s books, classic literature, stories from the scriptures and more as she attempted to instill in me the lessons learned from all those fantastic pages. She taught me practical lessons also. For instance she taught me to read, write and to count before I was old enough to go to school. She directed and educated me to be functional as I learned how to cook, sew garden and to fix things around the home. My mother did all this and more while suffering from ill health…for the first ten years of my life, she was in and out of the hospital while battling several anomalies including anemia and severe, lingering complications from a difficult, almost deadly, childbirth…yet, I never heard her moan, complain or cry and at no time did she mention her problems, instead she chose to concentrate on the positive aspects of life. Critical and essential lessons such as kindness, honesty, giving, sharing and personal responsibility were not only taught to me by mouth, but more importantly, she drove home all these lessons daily by her life and actions.

Growing up I considered myself a model child, but the factual reality is I caused my mother an endless assortment of agonies and woes, probably on a daily basis, but she continually opened her heart and poured out her love upon me as if I actually were a model child, instead of the hellion I most likely was. Even though I can’t at the moment recall any specific instances, I’m sure I was the source of a joy or two to my mother growing up, but even if I weren’t, I could never tell by her words or actions toward me.

Today my mother is in her seventies and she has had the pleasure of watching my sisters grow and develop, becoming loving mothers and wives themselves. She has also watched me grow into adulthood with children of my own and I can only hope and strive to be able to teach and instill at least a portion of the lessons the she taught me so well all those many years ago. Though I have not been as successful as an adult on the home front as my sisters, you could never tell, for my mother still demonstrates to me daily that she loves just as much as the day I was born…I love you Momma.

1998 written under the pseudonym, Richard Corey

Addendum…

Both of my parents passed away peacefully in their home in the autumn of 2013, three months apart at the ages of ninety years for my mother while my father enjoyed ninety-two fruitful years. My father had been a successful business man, neighbor and WWII veteran and was well known and respected in the community, while my mother dedicated her life to her children and husband. Really, for her, the only thing that could be considered work outside of her home, was as a Sunday school teacher in their church, a role that she enjoyed for over fifty years, only stepping down and passing the mantle of responsibility for the children’s religious education to others while in the eighth decade of her absolved life, when she reluctantly acknowledged she was becoming too old to continue effectively.

During my parents funerals, I earnestly anticipated many people would come to pay their respects to my father, as he had been very well known in our community, and I was not disappointed, as a generous number of folks came to pay their respect to my father and his memory that he had shared with so many. However, what stunned me and caused me to revisit and re-evaluate my thought process on roles in life, was the enormous turnout for my mother’s visitation and funeral. Hundreds of people from several states came to pay their respects to “Miss Mable”, a person that they remembered as a role model and leader and teacher during the formative years of their young lives…memories that stuck with them for decades following as they grew into adults themselves.

As I had mentioned earlier, my sisters and I were unexpectedly surprised when we saw that there were almost double the amount of condolers and well-wishers that came forward to eulogize my mother, as well as to console and provide empathy to us, than attended my father’s funeral, and as I reflect and look rearward, I fully understand that this in no way, demeans the impact my father had on those he touched in his long life, rather it celebrates the gigantic impact my mother had on the all the children she loving educated and nourished, giving each one of them a small portion of the love she gave to my sisters and I every day until she passed. In retrospect, I feel my parents celebrated life as fully as they could and the most paramount and significant legacy they have left everyone was the life lessons they taught us just simply by the way they lived.

Jim Bussell

2018

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