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The Z-List
ClearStation's Z-List, updated throughout each market day, culls the most promising stocks from Tag & Bag and ClearStation's Community--underperformers ready for a tumble. If you like to play the short side, the Z-List is your new best friend! If you don't, the Z-List is a great way to familiarize yourself with the other side of the equation--the only way to make money in any market!.
http://clearstation.etrade.com/#
you should center the Cheveron or fill on the right?
OCS Newswire "the" don't like it
I thought a funny play on spelling and words- LOL
I think that's a water pill - LOL
I see it like Ken has this marketing spirit (fresh and naive) of a young fellow that been on his first date that got to first base and now we're thinking a triple to homerun potiential.
naive in a positive way
Matt?
how does a guy get access to post images at:
http://adserv.stocksite.com site?
TIA
Day High 75.00
someone has to be the high bidder
NOW that is most funny
hey I want in on the ground floor on a money making machine
so what is 5% going to cost me?
I meant SCD sequential compression device
you are most wise and have good wisdom -and it will show in the organization being built
Is this cool or what?
I don't really understand it - but there is something happening it an might just be my PC security setting to high and that OCS might not be in my trusted list I could have forgotten that I have custom security levels set or something like that.
Where is Val? Hey baby! (kidding)
I have my IE security set pretty tight and the sharing between OCS and IHUB is looking like a problem.
It could be I do not have OCS as a trusted site yet - will need to check it out.
big joke just hit the submit button(do not enter numbers) and open the mp3 - lol
dirty SOB
yes - can you tell?
Look at BPT today!!
Day High 72.69
what's (where) the location for the new server(s)?
well I forgot to post a picture but this pretty much spells out the words "Grates my arse"
http://www.myspokane.info/media/buttwipe.jpg
I think it happened already
trying to be - was in for 4 days - going to Doc in a few minutes for a post hospital follow-up - fricking infection - cannot get the sucker out of my system.
sorry for the absence - was in the hospital again
I think if I can get it resized I'll use it as my avatar on a highly non-believer site I belong to.
I need that "Letter from Jesus gif to be in a 95x95 size?
any help?
TIA
chew on this writing by Howard
On love, forgiveness, and thanking my mother
by Howard Go
A few days ago, my mother left for another country to stay there for a few months. Until that very decision was made, I never really thought of missing her. Although I lived about six hours away from her and seldom visited her, I always felt she was close enough for me not to miss her. But, with so great a distance now separating us, I am plagued by a sense of longing. It is for this reason that I write this. It is partly to tell her how much I miss her, partly a way of expressing my inner thoughts and feelings, partly a way to thank her for all she has done.
There are two parables in the New Testament of the Bible that have always stood out for me as the best visions of love and forgiveness. These are the parable of the workers in the vineyard and the parable of the prodigal son. But, it seems only culturally correct (and maybe historically accurate) to use images of men as the ones who do the unconditional and equal loving and forgiveness. From experience, I would say that the figures of love and forgiveness in these two parables should be women—or, rather, mothers. This is not to say that fathers are poor examples of love and forgiveness, nor am I saying that mothers are always good models of love and forgiveness; rather, I prefer the image of the mother because mothers carry these virtues more often than fathers do.
I.
The former parable shows an equal amount of pay being given to all who have accepted the offer of work. To the first group of laborers hired, a price is clearly stated and it is seen by all parties concerned as fair and it is easily accepted by the laborers. However, to the subsequent laborers hired, no price is agreed upon, just the promise of the landowner to give what is right. From the second group to the last group of laborers hired, acceptance is made without the definite knowledge of what is being offered.
But, the first group of laborers who made a clear and definite deal became unhappy with what they are given, though it is exactly what they agreed upon. They were the first, but they became the last not because they were the first, but because they thought they deserved more because they were the first. It is an interesting point made on the feeling of “deserving more”—and the parable stresses this when it describes how these laborers thought that they would get more than the rest—by thinking they deserve more, they ruin their ability to appreciate what they are given. In expecting more they decrease their ability to appreciate the work they had done and the wage they had earned because they will think more about what they could have gotten instead of what they had accomplished and what they had received. It is through this that the first became the last.
I often wonder why the last is given so much credit in this parable. I would hazard an intelligent guess that the reason behind this is that accepting work at so late a time makes the laborer in this situation assume that he will hardly receive a wage that will make him survive the day. And yet, in accepting the offer of work, with no price agreed upon, one basically is giving intense trust to the employer’s sense of fairness. Perhaps, even more than this, there is even gratitude in the employer’s willingness to hire them at so late a time; add this to the fact that no one else was willing to hire them and the gratitude in intensified. I would even hazard a less intelligent guess that a further idea is being conveyed: To bring the images of the parable to what I believe they signify, to receive the Word of God (the offer of work) at so late a time (the eleventh hour…an hour before all work ends)—centuries, if not millennia after the Christ walked the earth as a man—is to give intense trust in God. I have always had the idea that the closer you are to the period of the Christ’s life, the more miracles you would have seen, the easier it is to believe, even with (and perhaps even intensified by) the persecution the early Christians experienced. But, with so much time between those strangely hopeful days (they repeatedly thought the Second Coming was but a few years or months or days away and signs were seen with regularity) and our less than hopeful years (where trust it put more in science and in what merely appears constant and probable), faith in God’s Word is a difficult task. To believe, to truly believe, in the Word now is perhaps what makes the last be received as the first.
This parable carries what I believe is the essence of love; after all, it is a parable of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like, and this, we believe, is filled with God’s Love. Love, in its essence, is something given. The question of whether God’s Love can make the beloved happy, however, depends on the beloved’s ability to receive it. To follow the great writer, C.S. Lewis; Heaven is us telling God, “Thy will be done,” while Hell is God telling us, “thy will be done.” If we want to be or feel unhappy, dissatisfied, depressed, unloved, or unforgiven even when we are given the gift of love, we are free to do so. And the Lover loves us enough not force us to change our minds. Our will, after all, is part of God’s gift to us; it allows for us to be lovers, too.
This, I believe, is best captured on earth by a mother’s love.
As an aside; though it is true that favoritism can sometimes be seen in a family, mothers, in general, wish the best for all their children. They might wish it more often for one child or another, but it is often dependent not on who they seem to favorite, but more on who they hope is about to succeed or whom they fear is about to fail. And this hope and fear applies to all children; for we are all on the brink of either success or failure (sometimes both) most of our lives (sometimes, it is a question of whether or not the mother knows that this is happening to the child—and even when she does not, she still wishes the child well, though not as consciously).
A mother’s love hopes for the success of each child. And so, whether the success of a child is great or small, the mother experiences joy for and with the child. And this, in its own way, is a reward for the child who reveals his or her little and great successes to the mother. This, I believe, is what separates most mothers from most fathers. Fathers, in general, seek successes of a specific magnitude once their children hit a certain age; the reward of a smile for the child is thus constrained to these expectations. I feel, because of these reasons, that I must picture the landowner as a woman and a mother.
II
I mentioned earlier the idea of C.S. Lewis concerning Heaven and Hell; this idea can be better understood through the latter parable mentioned. In fact, both parables should be read in turn and in a cycle; they bring light to each other in so many ways. It is also of interest to note that the two parables, which shows more love and forgiveness than any other parable (excepting one other which I will mention at the end of this work), are each unique to one and only one Gospel. Many of the parables shared by the Gospels (and a number of those unique to specific Gospels) are not so much about love and forgiveness as they are about requirements one must fulfill or penalties one will have to face for not fulfilling these requirements (which I find to be distant from the whole point of love and forgiveness—I think their points must be put into a certain context, before they can be properly understood; perhaps someday I’ll delve deeper into their wisdom).
The parable of the prodigal son is perhaps the most beautiful parable ever told as it captures the whole experience of love on both the part of the lover and the part of the beloved. Again, the Lover is God and the Love is given to all. But, the point here is the rejection of this love as done by the younger of the father’s two sons. The son asks for his share of the inheritance and leaves his father soon after receiving it to enjoy the wealth he has been given. Notice that the father does not question the son or hold him back in his decision. And note that tradition at the time held that for a son to ask for his inheritance is to wish his father dead (for there should be no other time that a son may receive it). The son eventually spends all his wealth in cheap thrills and joys, and a famine arrives. Throughout all this, the father’s land remains rich, and the father remains waiting for his younger son to return (for the father saw him at a great distance; one can imagine him waiting each and every day, on the lookout). The son makes the decision to survive by working for a citizen of the foreign land he has come to squander his life in (and, according to the tradition of the time, to work for a foreigner was a shameful act, a sin). He is made to feed swine (again, according to tradition, this was a shameful act, for pigs were considered dirty). He even ends up eating the food of the pigs, what little is left, just to survive. Throughout all this, his father waits for his return (searching the horizon for his lost son). Suddenly, the son realizes that even the hired servants of his father are fed well. He then convinces himself to ask for a job under his father, to become a servant; to ask for forgiveness hardly even crosses his mind. He goes to his father’s land, but even before he sees his father, even before he can finish saying what he planned to say, his father has already forgiven him and gives him his love…the father rushes to him and kisses him, saying to the servants that the son be given the robe, the sandals, and the ring that signifies him to his son. A great feast is made to show the father’s joy (using the fatted calf, the one prepared for the most special and solemn of occasions). The elder son, however, returns from work (he appears to have remained obedient to the father) and sees the festivities. Upon finding out what has happened he becomes furious and would not even enter the house. The father is the one who comes out to plead for his son to come in. But the elder son raises his complaint. He asks why his obedience was never rewarded, while the disobedient son is given so much after all the evil he had done. The father then says that the elder son is always with him, and that all he has is his son’s. Then he adds that it is right to rejoice the lost son’s return. The parable then ends, we are not told what the elder son does and what happens between the brothers.
This powerful story adds an image to the idea of Heaven and Hell that C.S. Lewis provides. The younger son’s period of hardship was never the father’s wish. Rather, the father’s love allowed the son to do as he wished. And, as long as the son chose to remain away from his father, the hellishness of his life remained. But, a heavenly life awaited the son, if only he would choose his father’s will. As for the elder son, he felt he deserved rewards for his obedience, but this belief made him unhappy in seeing a person he believed unworthy made happy through his father. And the elder son’s pain is complicated because he never found his obedience to be rewarded. Ultimately, both failed to see that the love and forgiveness was unconditionally given. Thus, both had a hard time understanding how a bad son could be loved and how the good son was loved despite the seeming lack of evidence for this. Neither could really enjoy the father’s love.
Henri Nouwen, discussed this same parable, wrote on this problem and pointed out how we have been accustomed to the view that love and forgiveness are conditional and cannot be unconditional. Because of this, we feel that our past errors, if known, can make someone stop loving us. We also end up thinking that we have to pay someone back for us to be forgiven by them. But, this misses the whole point of the parable. The parable is about love and forgiveness, and neither son is asked to say they are sorry and neither son is asked for obedience. Both are simply and sincerely loved and forgiven. Until they see that the love and forgiveness is unconditional, the conditions the sons set for themselves will always hinder their happiness.
Perhaps a line that introduces one of the songs of the Christian band DC Talk would prove useful here: “The greatest cause of atheism in the world is Christians; who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door, and deny him with their lifestyle.” What most people misunderstand about Christianity is that it is ultimately about forgiveness. The whole point of the New Testament is to renew the old view that one had to remain totally faithful to the covenant. The whole point of the sacrifice on the cross is that no person can fulfill that requirement, and that the requirement of the past is to be forgotten. As Paul wrote in one of his letters, one no longer needs to do repeated sacrifices in order to be forgiven, the sacrifice on the cross is a sacrifice that is once and for all time.
This does not mean that one can therefore abuse the forgiveness and love that is given. Rather, the more we realize that we are loved and forgiven the harder it becomes for us to commit immoral acts. From experience, I have found that one of the strongest forces that can contain me from doing something I know is wrong is the thought of someone who believes in me and loves me and is always ready to accept me for who I am (i.e., forgive me). Often, if I just listen to reason, I even try to convince myself that what I am doing or am about to do is not really that bad; but, when I use my heart, and remember who loves me, I can resist the temptation to do what is wrong.
If the younger son only realized how much love he receives at home, he would never seek joy elsewhere (note that elsewhere, it is the money that buys him joy and friends…the love and happiness there is conditional).
If the elder son only realized how much he is loved by his father, he would see that it is a joy to be obedient to his father (note that his response at the end of the parable shows that his obedience was rooted in something conditional). And he might be able to enter the house and feast with his brother like his father did.
In many ways, a mother’s love works along the line of the unconditional. This is why we have lines like, “he has a face only a mother could love” and “he would sell his own mother.” One points out how the mother’s love is so great that it cannot be hindered by nay force, and the other points out that to betray it would be a sure sign of how evil one has become. I don’t think I can recollect any lines like these for the father, though it can apply to some fathers.
A father’s love, as I’ve said before, is more concerned with specific types of successes. It borders on the conditional more often than not. A mother’s love, meanwhile, is present for the ups and downs. The hope a mother carries for her child is, it seems to me, for the most part, permanent. She will always believe in the goodness that the child carries—the potential to be successful, good, loving, honest, etc. Thus, in the smallest moments of success and goodness a child is able to show, the mother sees more than any one else can in her child.
And a mother worries over her children enough to wait on some point of her home, looking far away, to check if her child is in the midst of returning.
III
The parable of the lost sheep carries so much weight as well for the image of love and forgiveness; and it completes the image of love and forgiveness very nicely.
The lost sheep brings so much joy not because the sheep that is lost is loved more than the others, but because, by being found, it is able to fulfill its place in the will of God. This is what brings joy; the goodness that is believed to be in the sheep is brought to realization.
Likewise, when we become good, we bring so much joy to those who love us. And, this works both ways, when we realize that we are loved in obedience and disobedience, and when we are able to really accept this unconditional love, we are able to become truly happy with ourselves. Then, obedience becomes easier. And happiness follows suit.
Again, Heaven is us saying to God, “Thy will be done.” In so doing, we discover our true selves, and true love becomes possible for us as well.
Many have said that the two commandments of the New Testament are all we really need: “Love God more than you love yourselves” and “Love one another as you love yourselves.” But, most have missed out on the last commandment given by the Christ. And this is one of the most important of all commandments if one thinks carefully about it: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Here is a commandment that is separate from the rest. It asks not for human love, but God-like love. We are asked to love one another the way God loves us, unconditionally. This, we are told, is what will make us be identified as followers of the Christ.
Ultimately, love like this is possible only when we can love ourselves the way God loves us, unconditionally. This means being able to see that all our sins our forgiven. Then, we must see that this is true also for all those around us. We are all loved, and we must love all.
Perhaps this is why some mothers, and most people, have a hard time showing their love. As long as a person feels unloved, that person cannot love well. As long as a person feels that he or she doesn’t deserve (a conditional view) to be loved, that person cannot truly love others. As long as we hide parts of ourselves, thinking we ought to be ashamed or hated, we cannot really love or accept another’s love.
Love is a gift, and a gift is truly meaningful only if it means something precious to the one who gives it. And we ought to receive this gift as it deserves to be received. Not as something we deserve, but as something that is freely given, unconditionally. A mother’s love is closest to being given this way. And a child should learn to see that this is the case, and receive the love rightly.
I have always wondered why my mother could love me so much, as I am the black sheep of the family. In many ways, I have taken the path that none in my family would reasonably praise. Professionally and personally, I sometimes wonder if I am a disappointment to them. But, in the end, I am still always received. And, with my mother, in the worried frown I see lining her face I see the love that she has for me and the belief that I can be the best that I can be. Of all the people who believe in me, in many ways, my mother, who complains the most of the paths I have taken, is the one who is most open to what I can become and who I really am. And I thank her for always looking for and looking out for this poor lost sheep.
And I love her so.
that could be mostly good news but I still have a small doubt
Day High 68.42
which type product fits into the OCS future?
maybe you can mixnmatch? or have 2?
Day High 64.17
or like waiting new marching orders
MIkey
you think timing is good to take a position?
have a board set-up and ready to go off-site - just waiting for Ken and Matt to give thumbs up or down - if down no problem here
thumbs up you get the link
Just found this place! - I'll check things out
I agree - however I've recently created a couple sites where new windows open on links and you cannot believe the negative feedback I got on that. Maybe it's not in style - I dunno - cause I'm of the thought that opening a new window still leaves the user the opportunity at our site.
where is Matt today?