Yes

Mt. Sinai:

Thermopylae: “O stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians
That here we lie, true to their laws.”

Mt. Everest: 29,035 ft.

Crater Lake: Second deepest lake in North America behind the Great Slave Lake in Yellowknife.

Armageddon, apparently:

Mt. Vesuvius, Pompeii:

Loch Ness, also very deep:

In response to Ibrahim’s post and the following comments, a few thoughts:

That there is exorbitant debt in America is only too clear. What isn’t so clear is the primary cause. As Abe mentioned, there are two possibilites:

1) The borrower is at fault.

or

2) The lender is at fault.

Clearly, it’s the borrower who carries the majority of the blame. Credit cards do not force you to go into debt. Merely possessing a credit card does not, through some strange, inexplicable force, compel you to swipe the plastic whenever you start salivating. Neither does merely having a credit card mysteriously shut down your ability to click “Pay Current Balance” and submit it.

This is obvious. As Ludwig von Mises said, never does someone do something that they do not fundamentally want to do. (Granted, you can be truly compelled to do something entirely outside your own will if your members are physically manipulated, but otherwise, von Mises is correct. Plus, in this exception, you’re not really doing it anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I digress.) Volition at the core.

However, lenders do not make it easy. This applies to many different types of lenders, but credit card companies immediately come to mind.

How do these companies make their money? Clearly, by the interest payments they receive from late-paying (or never-paying) customers. And how much do they charge? Typically 18-22%.

If a financial advisor could guarantee his clients an 18% rate of return on their investments, he’d have a monopoly on the business within days. Yet that’s exactly what the credit card companies are doing for themselves: a guaranteed 18%+ return.

This, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily wrong. However, their advertising and “perks” are often rather shady. Consider the fact that paying the minimum will never, ever, ever let you pay off your debt, no matter how long you live. They’re smart. The “minimum payment” isn’t the smallest payment amount that you can eventually pay off your debts with. It’s the amount whereby the credit card companies can profit the most from your stupidity.

Also consider the constant advertisements that attempt to lure in the customers with bad credit. “Got bad credit? We can help!” Yes this is true, except they haven’t finished the sentence: “We can help . . . destroy you even further in the long run!” Having bad credit is a disease, and credit card companies are most certainly not doctors. It’s the same rationale as “I’ve gambled all my money away, so I’d better gamble even more so I can get it back.” If you have a debt problem, credit cards that “don’t care about your bad credit” are the last place you want to go. But what was that about a 0.00% APR? Right, for 6 months, and then they yank it up to 20%+ when you already have a $2500 balance because you thought you could get away with it because of the “0.00% APR.”

Proverbs says not to go into debt. So do your mommy and daddy if you’ve got good ones. And frankly, so does your common sense if you listen to it. Borrowers have no excuse. Lenders don’t make it easy, though. If they aren’t engaging in unethical business and advertising, then they’re pretty close.

The Hudson Bay at Churchill, Manitoba, lying on the western side of the bay just beneath the Arctic Circle.

We are always trying to use scripture for our purposes: scripture uses us. God’s gracious purpose in giving us his Word in written form is not to turn us into Bible students, but to provide a means by which we can hear him speak and be turned into Christians — awed worshippers, sacrificing sufferers, devout followers.

Eugene Peterson

Tricky things, emotions. Anger. Sadness. Infatuation. Frustration. Depression. Elation.

We’ve been given the capacity for an enormously wide range of expression, and none of them are innately wrong. But I’m sure we’d all agree that they are all horribly abused.

Let’s say we get a stimulus. We’re always getting one, of course. But in this case, it’s a particularly annoying one: a driver inexplicably honks at you and then cuts you off dangerously, trying to “teach you a lesson.” Confusion! Disbelief! Anger! Spluttering!

Feelings and emotions immediately explode without a moment’s notice. Then, you mutter a version of “What in the world?! What a loser!” and proceed to fume about how inconsiderate people are nowadays, about exactly what you would say to that driver if you had the chance, because by golly, you’d give him a piece of your mind.

This is, of course, entirely silly.

The feelings immediately following the incident are hardly controllable. Your following thoughts in response to those feelings are, however.

First comes the stimulus. Then the feeling. And then — crucially — the following thoughts. Let’s say you feel a quick flash of anger. What’s to keep you from then grabbing hold of your mind and saying, “What a peculiar display! Well, there are more important things to worry about in life, like what I’m going to accomplish this weekend. . .”? And then off you go, planning out your weekend, forgetting the driver altogether.

Thoughts are entirely under our control. They dictate following actions as well. They dictate whether we will fume, brood, and tailgate the driver down the highway, or whether we will shrug, think maturely and with perspective, and forget about the incident.

Stimulus –> Thoughts –> Actions.

The silly driver is an easy one, though. The real test comes with the stimuli that you think are really, honestly unjustifiable, and by golly, they’re the exception. That’s where the rubber meets the road.

There is a time and a place for everything. Anger, frustration, and sadness included. But if you think you cannot control your thoughts and resulting actions based upon a negative event in even the toughest situations, you are quite mistaken.

And I daresay that with a little practice curbing and focusing thoughts and reactions, those negative feelings will mysteriously dissipate. A strong armor, emotional competence.

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

[Thomas Hardy]

It keeps an extremely costly school. People are not satisfied with a rule or advice at face value. They must see for themselves. Until then, the advice is at best merely inapplicable and at worst stuffy, too-conservative hogwash.

This isn’t just something that immature folks do; little tikes, after all, immensely enjoy frying their bare hand on the hot burner even though Mommy has told them “Don’t touch the burner.” Of course, they never do it again, but not because Mommy said so. Experience hurts. But children aren’t the only offenders; “mature” adults fall prey as well.

Why is there rampant debt in America? Mothers and fathers who always said, “Save, don’t spend” were obviously spoil sports and weren’t interested in fun. An opinion held until the collection agencies call 3 times a day and you have $25,000 of credit card debt at 20% interest, a $35,000 BMW with a $30,000 note, and a $50,000 income with $75,000 yearly “expenses.”

The young, blissful lovers are also at the height of wisdom: parents couldn’t possibly know anything of their love, for it will conquer all obstacles. They really shouldn’t restrict such a beautiful thing, especially when it so obviously is meant to be for all time. Then the baby comes before the job comes and suddenly the parents were right. Experience hurts, but it sure does teach.

Good wisdom and advice do not restrict. They open up more possibilities and allow more freedom. Why did King David so strangely and passionately say, “Oh Lord, how I love Your Law!”? He realized the freedom and joy that true adherence involved. Sure, you have to think long-term, generationally, and eternally. But the freedom and joy involved most certainly do not take that long.