Grandpa’s Final Investment

Grandpa, tell me ’bout the good old days
Sometimes it feels like this world’s gone crazy
Grandpa, take me back to yesterday
When the line between right and wrong
Didn’t seem so hazy

-The Judds

“Missing Grandma and Peace of Mind”

The Vault for Broken Promises”

“The Glory That Once Was America”

“Grandma Told Him, ‘Store Up Treasures in Heaven'”

When I resigned my third church as senior pastor, I ventured into the insurance world and first sold insurance and variable products before working a career as an insurance adjuster between ministries. In the 1990’s I was hired by a nationally known life insurance/securities company and teamed with an experienced agent. I was shocked to see every hallway in the office was crammed full of boxes of papers and was ordered place any paper I used for notes or writing into the discovery box. I asked my trainer, “What’s up with the boxes?”

He explained, “There was a lawsuit due to insurance sales people who churned customers out of solid existing policies into variable annuities by promising customers that they could invest in their variable annuities and, after a period of time, they would not have to pay any premiums using the “vanishing premium fraud that dividends will pay their premiums.” When dividends did not pay the premiums, the policies were canceled and the customers lost their money. So, my trainer and I drove to the homes of former defrauded customers and explained their variable annuities were “back in force,” which gave us an opportunity to try to sell them additional product. Suffice it to say, these customers were none too eager to invest again in what we were selling.

Both insurance and church work are based on “utmost good faith,” considering that one bases its faith on a contract and the other on the Bible. Utmost good faith means, “You are only as good as your word.” The old farmer’s “handshake deal” represents the gold standard that you can stand on the promise. This is different from basing a contract on what you can sneak by. While lying as a business practice has spread like measles to the highest offices of our land, may we return to that utmost good faith dealing that will not require us one day to right the wrongs that festered due to our own deceptions.

Pastor Jim

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[c] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[d] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

-Matthew 6:19-21 from the Sermon on the Mount

Up Next “Five Bullet Points … of a Last Week”

Yo-Yo Tariffs

White House Unveils “Yo-Yo Tariff Equations”

Yo-Yo Lift = Tariffs Gift. Yo-Yo Down = Markets Frown

And Now the First Trick, “Around the World!”

“Rock the Baby!”

Meet the Final Trick, “Brain Twister!”

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
- James 1:8

Pastor Jim

Up Next “DOGE Miners Find Blood Diamonds”

Drink DOGE Café

“Make America Jittery Again”

White House orders that all coffee plants be uprooted from Columbia and shipped to Washington. Tariff Bean Czar, Juan Valdez, appointed to “Make America Jittery Again!”

14 “You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether one of your brethren or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates. 15 Each day you shall give him his wages, and not let the sun go down on it, for he is poor and has set his heart on it; lest he cry out against you to the Lord, and it be sin to you.
-Deuteronomy 24:14-15

Pastor Jim

Up Next “Abuelo’s Final Sacrifice”

Only You Can Prevent Fascist Liars!

There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

-Proverbs 6:16-19

Up Next “Voice of America Gagged”

Gold Standard Traded for Fool’s Gold

Trading the Gold Standard for DOGE Standard

The Rich Man and Lazarus See St. Luke 16:19-31

Quote from St. Ambrose

 "Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasure in the last days." - James 5:3

Pastor Jim

Up Next “Neobigotry: A Genteel Racism”

United States Through the Looking Glass

Occasioned by “Liberation Day” of U.S. Tariffs

Chicken Dance Polka declared Trump’s Liberation Day song due to price of tariff eggs through the roof and the crazy dance on Wall Street.

Trump announced his next term will reign 3,000 years. “Liberation Day” from nasty democracy. “And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he said, ‘I couldn’t care less. Let them eat eggs!'”

The White House taps a new “Tariffs Czar”! As markets crash, critics call him “The Mad Hatter”!

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

-The White Queen to Alice in Alice Through the Looking-Glass

White House deploys its expert to Wall Street to force tariff medicine fix of stock market.

The Great Depression Started 1929, fueled by tariff led collapse of stock markets.
They believed it was easier to convince us of the lie than to tell us the truth. - Pastor Jim

Up Next “The Sermon on the DOGE”

Voice of America Gagged

Introducing “Views of America”!

“Voice of America Signing Off”
North Korea’s “Pink Lady” News Anchor

Dallas man may have been deported to notorious El Salvadoran prison over autism awareness tattoo | KERA News

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.
-Proverbs 31:8-9

The Rocks Will Cry Out,

Jim Butler

“Move Fast … and Break Things:” The Game Played in the Devil’s Basement

While a sitting President’s adoption of “Move Fast and Break Things” might work for teenage savants in Silicon Valley, this process does not work for a Nation which lacks the shelter of a parent’s basement. Bulldozing government agencies and enterprises, citing that Advanced AI will save us, actually forces us into the servitude of AI.

“Move Fast and Break Things … Before You Get Caught”

Service Animal Delay

“Dog Inefficient.”

We Salute The U.S. Marine Band! Courage is gender and color blind. The United States is not the President’s play thing to break like some rich brat whose Daddy will buy another … unless it’s Greenland.

While “Move Fast and Break Things” may work for 20 year-old’s who can hide in their parents’ basements upon failure, the real world requires care and due diligence. Due diligence does not mean unnecessary delay but proceeding circumspectly when addressing critical infrastructure. A brain surgeon removing a tumor entwining speech and higher reasoning would likely not run the ad, “We Move Fast and Break Things.”

Follow All Rules While We Break Them

“Follow All Rules While We Break Them”

The inspiration for this post was the following 60 Minutes Story :

“We are suppressing the very essence of what makes us human…”

Unbroken,

Pastor Jim

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15-16

Up Next “Missouri Seeks to Add Pregnant Women Fair Game”