Editor’s Note: Here are columns by Roger Simon and a counter statement/petition from the Ohio University E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, along with local columns by Jonathan Tobias, Keith and Pat Throckmorton and poems by Ron Ben-Dov.

We’re posting Simon’s wonderful column in case it gets swallowed up/shadowbanned by the Internet. Following Simon’s column is a principled statement for leading journalists affiliated with the prestigious E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

If you have a column you’ve written that you’d like to share, send it to mileslayton1969@gmail.com

The AP’s Dangerous Language Dictatorship (Updated)

Bending words to justify terrorism

BY ROGER SIMON

Racket News’ Matt Taibbi tells us Donald Trump is trolling the Associated Press by, according to the news organization itself, “telling them what words to use.”. Mr. Taibbi points out the AP’s hypocrisy since its Stylebook has been dictating American English usage for practically all our media for decades. (I vastly prefer Strunk & White, but what do I know?)

The dispute of the moment centers around the AP’s refusal to adopt the president’s executive order to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. I have no dog in that particular hunt. They could call that body of water the Gulf of Swordfish for all I care (reference to the great Marx Brothers film “Horsefeathers” deliberate).

Nevertheless, the Biden Administration made similar executive order changes galore, many of them considerably more fraught, to which the AP evinced not one objection and adhered to like well-trained circus animals.

They also did not object to years of acts of “woke” destruction as disgusting (and terroristic) as “militants”—the term they used— pulling down the statue of Theodore Roosevelt in front of New York’s Museum of Natural History when Roosevelt was the man responsible for our national parks. BLM were “militants” to them as well, not terrorists, as they attempted to burn down Minneapolis for their political purposes (also personal gain). The Associated Press linguistically normalized almost every extremist action of recent years, foreign and domestic.

But current rhetorical decisions of the AP are far worse with consequences that enable evil in its most extreme forms.

Most disturbing is their inability to use the word “terrorism” to apply to, well, real terrorists. They claim they rely exclusively on Merriam-Webster for their definitions but there is reason to be skeptical. MW defines terrorism as “the unlawful use or threat of violence especially against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion.”

Wouldn’t that perfectly define Hamas that breaks into a neighboring country, shoots as many random civilians as possible, blows up their cars, destroys their buildings, abducts their citizens, including children and tiny babies, killing many, torturing or raping others, male and female, or starving them to death, in hidden tunnels for now over 500 days. How much “attack” and “coercion” do you need? And it hasn’t stopped.

But no, Hamas are not terrorists. In AP parlance they are “militants.” But because it is the Associated Press, this appellation spreads, surprisingly often even to conservative media. AP journalism, according to its website, is read by 4 billion people a day globally.

So I asked Grok AI about why the AP still persists in calling Hamas “militants” and refuses to employ the word “terrorists”. Said Grok:

“The Associated Press (AP) does not typically use the word ‘terrorist’ to describe Hamas in its reporting. Instead, AP tends to use terms like ‘militant group’ or ‘militants’ when referring to Hamas. This approach is part of AP’s editorial policy to avoid using the term ‘terrorist’ without attribution, as the word is considered highly politicized and emotive. They will mention that certain governments or organizations have designated Hamas as a terrorist group, but they do not label Hamas as such directly in their reporting.”

Is there such a thing then as a terrorist in AP’s lexicon? Evidently not. (I asked Grok a similar question about ISIS and got back a nearly identical response. No, they are “militants” in the AP’s words, beheadings notwithstanding.)

Grok, like most AI, did not really delve into the “why,” but it should be obvious.

The AP is to a great extent a propaganda operation masquerading as a news agency.

As for Merriam-Webster’s definition of “militant” (as noted, AP’s choice), I got this from Google’s AI (we’re equal-opportunity):

“According to Merriam-Webster, militant means to be aggressively active or engaged in combat, especially in support of a cause. For example, you might describe someone as a militant conservationist or a militant protester.”

MW gives these as their three examples of “militant” in a sentence:

• “Militant conservationists”
• “Militant protesters rallied against the new law”
• “Militants within the movement insisted that there could be no compromise on the issue”

None of these sound much like Hamas. The third—no compromise— sounds like someone running for Mayor of Philadelphia before the actual election, after which compromise is inevitable.

Notably missing from the definition are any mentions of murder,, shootings, kidnapings, rapes, knifings, forced starvation, Kornet missiles, suicide drones, machine guns, Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, IEDs, etc.—all SOP for Hamas.

By using “militant”the AP softens Hamas and—consciously or unconsciously—contributes to the vicious, psycopathic organization’s survival that now weighs in the balance. The AP, through this bowdlerization of terrorism, is placing lives at risk—Israeli, obviously, but also the Gazans themselves by excusing and ignoring the violent indoctrination Gazans have undergone since early childhood. This will lead to disastrous lives for many of them, assuming they survive. But the AP doesn’t to really think through the implications of their words. From Memri.org:

“Hamas operates a vast and diversified apparatus to indoctrinate children from a very young age to love jihad and devote their lives to fighting the Jews, and to seek martyrdom as the ultimate glory that is highly rewarded in Paradise. This indoctrination is complemented and amplified by parents, especially mothers, who express joy over their children’s martyrdom and willingness to sacrifice all their children to the cause[1].”

Just to underscore everything, Kfir Bibas was ninth months old when he was kidnaped by Hamas from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023. As we have recently learned, he is now dead.

Who does things like that, ladies and gentlemen of the Associated Press, a militant or a terrorist?

Words count.

UPDATE: I wrote the above on the night of February. 19. I woke up the morning of February 20 to see reports and photos of the insanely gleeful dancing and singing handovers of the corpses of the Bibas family and Oded Lipchitz who was 83 at the time of his abduction. This was a barbarian display by Hamas almost beyond human comprehension. The AP, in their coverage, did not mention this, making what I wrote above an understatement. Via ZeroHedge: I read the following statement from Israel’s diaspora minster Amichai Chikli:

“One of the West’s greatest failures is its refusal to acknowledge the existence of pure evil. We have raised generations to believe that monsters exist only in fairy tales, that there is no true right or wrong, and that all cultures are equal,” the Likud minister wrote on X.

“And then comes this accursed day, a day of horror and shame, when an elderly man, a mother, and her two children: Oded Lipschitz, Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas — who were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists, paraded like trophies before a cheering, flag-waving crowd in Gaza. Pure evil. And against such evil, there can be no excuses, rationalizations, or compromises.”

* * *

Reports of photographers affiliated with the AP, Reuters, CNN and the NY Times having extraordinary access at the start of the Oct 7 may have been exaggerated but have not been fully investigated. The bias of those organizations is obvious.

The AP may be the worst because of its global reach and because it pretends to even-handedness, the NY Times seeming to have finally dropped the mask. (Reuters is pretty bad too.)

Nevertheless, they accuses President Trump of “bullying.”

Now that DOGE has revealed Politico to be a government shill supported by $8 million in subscriptions and the BBC has been getting US taxpayer money, it will be interesting to see where other media organizations fit in this equation. Which ones are getting such a subvention? Will it be the AP? Axios that like Politico appeared out of blue with a raft of sudden scoops? Time will tell.

But not about CBS. We already know all we ned to about that laughable institution.

Roger Simon is author of 14 books including award-wining Moses Wine mysteries, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder PJ Media, former ed-at-large Epoch Times. In myriad publications from NY Times to National Review. 

Thanks for reading AMERICAN REFUGEES: THE ROGER SIMON/SHERYL LONGIN SUBSTACK! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.Subscribe

Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Statement in Support of the Associated Press and the First Amendment

The Associated Press is objectively held up as one of the most ideologically neutral, fact-based sources of news in the United States and across the free world. Only radical ideologues and corrupt despots find fault with the AP’s devotion to objectivity in its role as a government watchdog.

Recent efforts by the Trump Administration to block the AP from covering the presidency is an affront to the principles of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press. In an early draft of the First Amendment, James Madison wrote “The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.”

We agree with James Madison and the other Founders of the United States in that regard. Banning the nonprofit, nonpartisan, and unbiased Associated Press from the White House press corps, especially for something so petty as a style guideline, is a serious violation of the First Amendment and an irrational, petulant act heretofore seen only among the world’s worst dictators.

We urge President Trump to respect the Constitution of the United States he swore to uphold and reinstate the Associated Press as a full member of the White House press corps.

Signed,

By majority vote of the faculty of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University with supporting signatures from emeriti, alumni, and other supporters of the School:

• Faculty of the School of Visual Communication, Ohio University
• Ann Bainbridge Frymier, Ph.D., director, School of Communication Studies, Ohio University
• Andrea Lewis, director of student media, Scripps College of Communication
• Kevin Z. Smith, executive director, Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism
• Corinne Colbert, Athens resident
• Erin Roberts, Scripps College of Communication Director of Student Development, Ohio University
• Hebah Abdalla Lehmann, Scripps College of Communication Dean’s Advisory Board
• Tom Hodson, director emeritus
• Robert Stewart, director emeritus
• Patrick Washburn, professor emeritus
• Ellen Gerl, associate professor emerita
• Marcy Nighswander, professor emerita, School of Visual Communication
• Terry Smith, longtime former editor of The Athens News and current instructor
•Natascha Toft Roelsgaard, journalism Ph.D., assistant professor of journalism
• Anne Saker, retired journalist, class of 1981
• Andy Alexander, visiting professional, Scripps College of Communication, and formerly with Cox Newspapers and Washington Post
• Dan Sewell, Class of ’78, retired 40-year AP veteran
• Pete Costanzo, chair/owner, Marsh Ideas, and member, Journalism Advisory Board
• Marc Rosenweig, member, Journalism Advisory Board
• Alan D. Miller, journalism professor of practice at Denison University, former Columbus Dispatch executive editor and past president of the Associated Press Media Editors association
• William G. Schulz, managing editor, Photonics Focus/SPIE, and Class of ‘81
• John Batteiger, deputy managing editor, The New York Times News Service
• Sydney Dawes, journalist, Dayton Daily News
• Marlene Shostak, department administrator, Scripps College of Communication
• Izzy Keller, 2023 journalism graduate
• Aliza Dutt, student, School of Visual Communication
• Matt Barnes, anchor, WCMH-TV, Columbus, OH
• Amy M. Browns, BSJ ‘98 and MA ‘02
• Maddie James, 2024 graduate, School of Visual Communication
• Matthias Agganis, student, School of Visual Communication
• Liam Syrvalin, journalism student and president of OU YDSA
• Gracie Stengel, journalism student
• Abby Burns, creative director, Backdrop Magazine
• Riley Brown, director of communications, Variant magazine
• Olivia Lutz, Ohio University media student
• Claire Del Vita, grants coordinator, Providence House, and BSJ class of 2024
• Erin Brogan, journalism student
• Riley Clark, co-head of PR, Variant Magazine
• Zoë Cranfill, photojournalist
• Sophia Parrillo, dual major in journalism and visual communication
• Grace Koennecke, journalism student
• Aslyn Fannin, student, School of Media Arts and Studies
• Maggie Amacher, journalism student
• Emily Stokes, journalism student and news editor, The Post
• Nora Barnard, journalism student, Backdrop Magazine
• Ally Parker, social media director, Backdrop Magazine
• Layne Rey, managing editor, Backdrop magazine
• Maddie Harden, WOIO-TV, Cleveland, Ohio
• Alicia Szczesniak, founder and EIC at The Lynx Rufus and reporter for The Post
• Ava Jelepis, opinion writer at The New Political and journalism student
• Scarlett Fried, media arts and production major
• Lilia Santeramo, Ohio University student
• Abby Neff, BSJ, Inside Appalachia associate producer
• Drew Hoffmaster, journalism major and reporter for The Post
• Bailey Giannini, visual communication major
• Taylor Linzinmeir, BSJ and technical writer at Chartis Research
• Carolyn Sweeney, Athens resident
• Ceceilia Weldon, Athens resident
• Dave Westrick, Class of ’77 author and historian
• Brittany N. Murray, MS ‘19, former Ohio journalist
• Abbey Marshall, reporter at Ideastream Public Media/WKSU
• Jess Bogard, 2013 journalism graduate and former copy chief at The Post
• Skip Peterson, BSJ ‘73- retired photojournalist Dayton Daily News.
• Sarah (Franks) Fries, BSJ 2017 – former Dayton Daily News reporter
•Erin Gardner, journalist, The Daily Standard, BSJ 2021
•Celia (Shortt) Goodyear, 2010 Scripps M.S. graduate, former newspaper reporter in Georgia and Nevada
•Tom Krisher, 1980 graduate and retired AP Detroit-based automotive writer.
•Rosemary Pennington
•Cristine Antolik Cravens, ’94 Scripps grad
•Judy Polas Dashiell, BSJ ’86 and member, Dean’s Advisory Board
•Maya Morita, WEWS, Cleveland

A Song for Zero Summer

BY JONATHAN TOBIAS

When I took Wendell outside for his morning ablutions last Friday morning, it was only nineteen degrees. Fahrenheit that is, not the more forgiving Centigrade.  

Later at noon when I went out to feed the birds, “heaven’s candle” (which is the handsome word the Anglo-Saxons had for the Sun) was at it zenith in the azure dome, and so bright was its radiance on the unmarked blanked of ice and snow that I regretted not wearing my sunglasses.

Even though it was still only five or six degrees higher than it was earlier, it still felt warm. Maybe this, I thought, was what T S Eliot meant in the first lines of “Little Gidding,” the fourth and final peroration of his masterpiece, “The Four Quartets”:

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic …
This is the spring time
But not in time’s covenant …
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?

Hmmm, “zero summer.” That’s exactly what this is I thought, fire and ice wrapped in one moment, in one gaze. My back yard became, at that noon, Little Gidding.

The actual Little Gidding is a remote village in Huntingdonshire in England. Eliot visited the place on May 25, 1936 in the foreboding throes of war, as Hitler was making his first moves toward setting the world ablaze in conflagration. 

Little Gidding had been a religious community established in 1626 for contemplation and prayer by Nicholas Ferrar. It was one of those rare and peculiar combinations of Anglican high church prayer and liturgy on one hand, and on the other a lifestyle of simplicity and social service. “Their apparel had nothing in it of fashion, but that which was common … They gave no entertainment but to the poor,” wrote John Hacket in his “Scrinia Reserata” of 1639. Hacket continued: “Four times every day they offered up their supplications to God, twice in the words of [Thomas Cranmer’s Book of] Common Prayer in the Church; twice in their family.”

The great Christian and metaphysical poet George Herbert was a friend of Ferrar, and spent a great deal of time at Little Gidding. Herbert is par excellence the poet of Anglicanism. Along with that, he proved with his holy and simple lifestyle in his parish at Bemerton the best of what a country priest could be. He read the Morning and Evening Prayers daily “at the canonical hours of ten and four.

His poetry seemed to bloom from his deep life of prayer, Scripture, and loving service. Here’s a taste from my treasured volume of “The Oxford Book of English Verse” (edited by Christopher Ricks):

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
  Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
  From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
  If I lack’d any thing.

You’d be charmed to know that in the hymnal we use at St Paul’s, there are five hymns with Herbert listed as lyricist.

Little Gidding was a refuge. It was an island of peace in a time of insanity, when rage and hatred had infested so much of politics and religion. The English Civil War had been simmering long before it broke out into the open in 1642. The Puritans didn’t think the English Reformation had gone far enough. They wanted to do away completely with bishops and liturgy and the Mass. Not to be outdone in partisanship, William Laud and other church officials didn’t at all hesitate to use the cruel arm of the law to prosecute and persecute their opponents.

The fault – and there was grievously too much of that – lay on both sides. And good people suffered and died on both sides. Laud had people pilloried, beaten, and their ears sliced off before they were beheaded. And Laud himself, in a grotesque legal embarrassment of a show trial, was beheaded on January 10, 1645.

It’s this sort of wretched religious political extremism and violence that has so often given Christianity a bad name. I’ve taught Christian History for over thirty years, and the true telling of that story is marked by great joys, but pockmarked with shame. If there’s one thing I know and will never stop saying it is this: the Church should never wield governmental power, and should never resort to violence. In so doing, it denies Jesus, and more than Peter ever did before the cock crowed thrice on that bloody morning.

But Little Gidding was a refuge of love and prayer. That is why King Charles I fled there for shelter on May 1st 1646 after his disastrous defeat at the Battle of Naseby. He stayed there two nights, then left to pursue his worsening fortune (he, too, was beheaded in 1649). Little Gidding was ransacked by the Puritan troops of the Parliament, and finally closed in 1657.

But for thirty years, the hope and dream of peace kept that “zero summer” stillness, even when the country had gone insane. 

If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road …
You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid.

Thus Eliot closes out his first movement of “Little Gidding.” And thus I stood in my own zero summer, in my own house of Ferrar and Herbert having left “the rough road,” thus I came to “kneel where prayer has been valid.” 

For this land is now a lot like the England of the Puritans and the Laudians, the Roundheads and the Chevaliers. There is too much shouting, too many Christians too bent on power and coercion, too willing to deport and rend apart safety nets and civility. My Ukraine is being abandoned. The NATO that my father-in-law fought for is being shattered. Now I worry, wretchedly, that some of my local friends will be able to stay here, that they will not be “disappeared.”

I come to kneel in this zero summer. Last Sunday, the St Paul’s choir sang a heartrending anthem, which was written by Lindy Thompson and Mark Miller in response to the June 2015 mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Remember? Nine people in a Bible Study, including the pastor, were shot to death by a white supremacist. 

This anthem has become my prayer:

In the midst of pain, I choose love.
In the midst of pain, 
sorrow falling down like rain,
I await the sun again, 
I choose love.

In the midst of war, I choose peace.
In the midst or war, 
hate and anger keeping score,
I will see the good once more,
I choose peace.

When my world falls down, I will rise.
When my world falls down
explanations can’t be found,
I will climb to holy ground,
I will rise.

I really wasn’t able to “keep it together” when we sang this piece.

But nevertheless, in this “zero summer,” you and I, hand in hand, will rise.

——————–

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FOUNDING FATHERS-CHRISTIANITY

BY KEITH THROCKMORTON

America was founded as a Christian Nation. President Woodrow Wilson, 28^th President of the United States, said: “The Bible is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God, and spiritual nature and needs of men.  America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify the devotion of the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scripture.”

Founding Father James Madison was responsible for our three-part government. He was inspired by Isaiah 33: 22 (KJV), “For the Lord is our judge (Judicial Branch) “The Lord is our lawgiver” (Legislative Branch) The Lord is our king” (Executive Branch); he will save us”

In God We Trust, Our National Motto was adopted as the Official Motto of the United States in 1956.  The phrase has appeared on coins since 1864 and on paper currency since 1957. Our National Motto was no doubt derived from Psalm 18: 1-3 (KJV). Although the earliest mentions of the phrase can be found in the mid-18 century, the origins of this phrase as a political motto lie in the American Civil War, where Union supporters wanted to emphasize their attachment to God and boost morale.

What and how was the influence of Christians on our founders. During July 1775, tensions with England grew.  The Continental Congress called for a day of prayer and fasting.  Most ministers were involved in preaching and supporting dissent from Great Britain.

At the bottom of the original Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress ordered the first copies of the Declaration to be sent to parish ministers, who must read it to their congregations. As soon as worship service ended, the first Lord’s Day after they received it.

Not all of the Founding Fathers were Christians, but the principles of Christianity influenced them.  They almost all thought from a Biblical perspective, whether they believed it or not.  The Declaration of Independence documented the source of all authority and rights as “Their Creator” those individual human rights were God-given, not human-made.

Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, the core group of Christian Founding Fathers who shaped the foundations of our nation included 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 Unknown, and three deists (who believe in an impersonal God). Thus, 93% of its members were from Christian churches.

Our Christian heritage through Biblical teachings and prayer continued to make America great.  One example that readily comes to my mind is the Battle of New Orleans, which took place on January 8, 1815.  The British suffered 2042 casualties during this battle: 291 killed, 1,267 wounded, and 484 captured.  The Americans had 71 losses as follows: 13 dead, 39 wounded, and 19 missing. 

History records that many spent the night in the Ursuline Chapel, praying and crying. Finally, at the moment of communion, a courier arrived and advised of the victory.  General Andrew Jackson proclaimed, “By the Blessings of Heaven, directing the bravery of the troops under my command, one of the most brilliant victories in the annals of war was obtained.

Many other testimonies from United States Presidents and others affirming America’s Christian Heritage resulted from nothing to the greatest nation on earth in 350 years. Yet, as we look at where America is today, the answers are apparent when we look at the causes of our decline into soon-to-be oblivion.

Answers can be found in 2 Timothy 3: 1-7 (KJV). 

God bless America and restore us to the great nation that we once were.

Quiet The Storms, Lord

“That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’  Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat.  There were also other boats with him.  A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion.  The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’  He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the waves, ‘Quiet!  Be still!’  Then, the wind died down, and it was completely calm.”  Mark 4:35-39 NIV.

Although seasoned fishermen, this particular raging storm caused them to panic – they were fearful all would perish!  They believed Jesus seemed unaware and unconcerned of their impending fate.  Theirs was a physical storm, but what about other types of storms we encounter?

Any number of circumstances may cause us unease.  Being bullied, losing a loved one, divorce, loss of income, failing health, and having an “empty nest” are just a few situations that elicit angst, worry, and anxiety. 

Read Psalm 107.  It speaks of four types of people in distress:

Wanderers (v. 4-9): The Israelites were lost, weary, and hungry.  But they are also an example of anyone who has not found the comfort of knowing God.

Prisoners (v. 10-16): We do not have to be inmates in jail cells to be prisoners. Many of us are held prisoner by our emotions, actions, and behaviors (gambling, gluttony, pornography, foul language, gossiping, alcohol, and illegal drugs).

The sick (v. 17-20): Matthew Henry said, “Sinners hurt their bodily health by intemperance and endanger their lives by indulging their appetites.  It is by the power and mercy of God that we are recovered from sickness, and we must be thankful.”

The storm-tossed (v. 23-30): Navigation among the Israelites was so little practiced that their craft was considered singular daring and peril.  The power and majesty of God is revealed in His ability to calm the winds and waves.  “He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.” (v. 9 NIV).

No matter our calamity, God is there for us to assuage our fears and unease. 

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good: his love endures forever.”  Psalm 107:1 NIV.  Those who have never genuinely suffered may not appreciate God as much as those who have matured under hardship.  We have seen God work in times of personal distress and have a deeper insight into His loving kindness.  If you have experienced great trials over time, you will understand what I am discussing.  You are poised for great praise!

The beloved gospel hymn, “Peace!  Be Still!” penned by Mary Baker in 1874, is one of my all-time favorites.  “Master, the tempest is raging!  The billows are tossing high!  The sky is o’er-shadowed with blackness, No shelter or help is nigh;  Carest Thou not that we perish?  How canst Thou lie asleep When each moment so madly is threatening A grave in the angry deep?”

“Master, with anguish of spirit, I bow in my grief today; The depths of my sad heart are troubled; O waken and save, I pray!  Torrents of sin and of anguish Sweep o’er my sinking soul!  And I perish!  I perish, dear Master; O hasten and take control!”

“Master, the terror is over.  The elements sweetly rest;  Earsh’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored, And heaven’s within my breast.  Linger O blessed Redeemer, Leave me alone no more, And with joy I shall make the blest harbor, And rest on the Blissful shore.”

“The winds and the waves shall obey My will.  Peace be still!  Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea, Or demons, or men, or whatever it be.  No water can swallow the ship where lies The Master of ocean and earth and skies; They all shall sweetly obey My will; Peace, be still!  Peace, be still!  They all shall sweetly obey My will; Peace, peace, be still!” Indeed, these lyrics must have been framed around the reading from Mark 4:35-39.

“The Lord, your god, is with you; he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”  Zephaniah 3:17 NIV.  The Prophet Zephaniah points out that gladness results when we allow God to be with us.  We do that by faithfully following Him and obeying His commands.

Grief, distress, abuse, hopelessness, and despair can be overwhelming at times, but Zephaniah gives us hope.  “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands.  Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.”  Zephaniah 2:3 NIV.

We will be encouraged by his words.  We will turn from sin and walk with God.

Poet Who Knows It

Lastly, here are a few faith based poems by Ron Ben-Dov — thanks for the poetry!

Worship Strength

Blow a hole in the roof,

With the strength of your worship,

So that your prayers reach God,

Unhindered, unencumbered, and true.

You Must Trust in God

You look around,

Oh see the majestic heavens,

Ultimately looked upon with awe;

Many say they love Him,

Unless they truly mean it, and

Stand by Him, shoulder to shoulder,

To the end of the world, He with us;

Together we are strong,

Repent all our sins,

Unhesitantly confess,

Sins no others know,

The Lord He will heal you;

If you put your faith in Him,

Never will you lose your way;

Go out in the world,

Only armed with His Word,

Deliverance will be yours.