Conference yukon::christian_v7

    Mark:
    
    Your entries have been very enlightening.  Thanks for all the effort
    you put in to this!
    
    -Jack

I'd like to add my personal appreciation to Mark for his faithful
dedication and commitment here too... We'll miss him as a moderator, 
though trust we'll continue to enjoy what the LORD gives through him 
as a participant, as time permits...

							Andrew

Indeed.  Thank you Mark.  Andrew said it well in -1.

Thanks also for the detailed explanation.  I was glad to learn that the
conference did not impact your job performance.  I did worry sometime,
since I have so little time myself.

Too bad though.  I had planned to add an "Official Mark and Glen Debate"
topic soon, which would have saved you a lot of skipping around :-).

Lew

    
    
    Thank you Mark for contending earnestly for the faith......
    
    Bob

    "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the rest of thy L_RD."

Okay, okay.  Thanks.  In the words of a relative of mine (through two
maternal branches): "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

I appreciate the warm thoughts, very much.  You're very kind.

MM

      Hi Mark,
    
        Thank you for your efforts in this Conference, but most
        especially for the purity of motive behind the efforts.
    
        I don't want to say too much.  We had a pastor leave our
        church just over a year ago and there was such a temptation
        to flatter instead of to encourage.
    
        I just want to encourage you to continue to drink from the
        waters.
    
                                                  Tony

	Markem,

	You're related to Mark Twain ?

>	You're related to Mark Twain ?

My Great-great-great-great grandfather and Samuel Clemens' grandfather
are the same man.  I'm not sure but I think it makes him a first cousin,
four times removed.

My father is a Metcalfe. My grandmother was a Purchis (Metcalfe by marriage).  
Her mother was a Clemens (by marriage).  Her father was Guy Clemens 
(cousin to Sam).  His father (Tom) was the brother of Sam's father (John), 
whose father is my great-great-great-great grandfather.

Now, if you trace the family tree back far enough, you and I are related 
through Noah.  :-)

So the family branch to Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) goes through two
maternal lines before picking up the paternal ancestry again.

Mark Twain Metcalfe

> Mark Twain Metcalfe
    
    But my real middle initial is 'T'. :-)
    
    Markel T Lovik

I'd be more impressed if you were related to Roger Clemens.  :^)


Sandy

Roger can pitch, but I can give a pitch.
The difference?  About 15 million or so.
Who knows, though, where His family branch traces back to?
Let's see, assuming age and roughly the same generational time-span,
would he be an eighth cousin, twice removed, or a removed twice cousin,
eight times?

And I am no relation to Terry Metcalf, an NFL player, nor Gary Metcalfe,
producer of M*A*S*H, nor Mark Metcalf, who played on Animal House.
Unless these people trace backtheir ancestyr to some hamlet in Britain
where the Metcalfes go back at least 900 years and blew the horn at dusk
to bring any villagers in from the woods, lest they be lost at night.

Mark not_Twain Metcalfe, father of Miranda, Jessica, Emily, and Andrew

    I too would like to thank you Mark for the good food you've given
    us to chew on.
    
>Okay, okay.  Thanks.  In the words of a relative of mine (through two
>maternal branches): "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

    Reminds me of a true story a friend told me. He was at a worship
    service when it came to the intimations. The intimator said "It
    is with great loss that we announce the death of our brother MR X
    who has gone to be with the Lord", at which Mr X stood up and said
    "No I'm not I'm here !!!".
    
    Erich

    Mark,
    
    You've been faithful in much here in the conference.  Thank you for
    your commitment as moderator.  Hope you have time to join in as a
    participant!
    
    -greta

I don't like participating in a personal defense, but being guilty of noting
the most (in the past), criticism comes with the territory, and a defense is
cathartic to me from time to time. I was once considered the understanding
moderator by the counterculture; the one who understood the dialog of alternate
views.  That was when I first became a moderator with Jamey Nordby and Irena
Pulkstenis and others.  That consideration changed over time when I consistently 
came down on the side of Biblical Truth, no matter how one tried to "reason" 
their way into an alternate position.  The Bible always had more and better 
reason.  It was very easy to be accused of turning my mind off and spouting 
a "party line."

Lew mentioned that I have "carried the banner" (which I take as a compliment)
often in the Christian notes conference.  And I have acknowledged by penchant
to do so. For having the ability to rattle off many lines in a single bound, I
have contributed far more than my "fair share" of discussions.  It has been 
cause for some criticism, as well as accolades from appreciative people.   My
participation has been since curtailed, (though NOT eliminated), partly in
hopes that others will pick up the banner; so while I won't be hogging  notes
as much, I will continue to speak when I feel compelled to do so.  I'll be
hanging around and watching as long as Christian Notes, my job, and the premise
of the conference exists.

In the many lines and blocks of ASCII text, some of my words have come across
harsh at times.  Those who are able to recognize the thread of history, the
conversations that have transpired, and other things, can view these "harsh
words" in context and see their appropriateness.  Further, when one traces the 
history, one begins to see who really incites responses only to claim being 
victimized afterward.

Those who do not know the history see something different.  Had someone come on
the scene for the first time to witness Jesus upbraiding his disciples for
being slow to understand, or upbraiding the Pharisees for their doubleminded
and wickedness, one might have thought that Jesus was being very "unchristian"
just then.

Some criticism against me is deserved.  I don't claim to be perfect and with
infinite patience.  Some criticism against me is not deserved and the result of
misperceptions, sometimes willful by people who are looking to take offense. 
Such people go to great lengths to show how "unchristian" some Christians
"really are."

Biblical Truth is uncompromisable and those who will compromise it are whores:

Exodus 34
 14  For thou shalt worship no other God: for the Lord, whose name is
jealous, is a jealous God:
 15  Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go
a whoring after their Gods, and do sacrifice unto their Gods, and one call
thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;
 16  And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a
whoring after their Gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their Gods.

Intermarrying was prohibited to keep the nation holy (set apart).  (This is not
talking about interracial marriages - it is talking about interfaith marriages
and it's ramifications on the society as a whole.)  if the Old Testament is
anything, it is a clear indicator that when individuals, a group, or a nation 
bring in other gods, catastrophe was just around the corner.

And it goes way back to Adam and Eve.  "Ye shall not surely die."  The message
of the serpent is the same: "You won't be compromising your belief; you'll be
expanding it; expanding your horizons; you're too narrow; there is so much more
to life than you have experienced in this narrowly-defined confining
lifestyle."  And some of us never learn from the experience of others, nor do 
we understand why things go wrong and we can mix gods.  ("Why can't these gods
all get along with each other?  We people are attempting to do just that!")

In examining Christ's love, for the world, which included everyone, even the
Pharisees whom He called a "brood of vipers," we also must see Christ's
uncompromised stance for the Truth and His opposition to those who willfully
opposed the kingdom of God, as some of the Pharisees did to protect their own
concept of the world.  Jesus was being less than "kind" to these people; he got
angry with them for their insistence on perpetuating evil and unwillingness to
change in the face of Truth, but instead chose to attempt to change the Truth.

And Jesus is not the only one to use such language.  God's anger and words are
recorded also.  He told Job to shut up.  He told Moses to quit his whining. 
His anger burned against idolatrous Israel.  He told Peter to shut up and
listen to His Son on the Mount of transfiguration.  Each of these in varying
degrees of  what might be considered "less than christian" in speech; less than
a loving, caring response.

In adopting an absolute morality, based on the absolute authority of God, which
is based in His character of being immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, and
omnipresent, we become part of the immutable.  We become narrowly defined in
that we reject that which is counter to the absolute morality.  The argument
that claims that one cannot know which morality is absolute is a red herring,
because one must first believe that there is an absolute morality (whatever it
may be) which is given by an Absolute Authority (Whoever that may be); see
Hebrew 11:6.  See also notes 31.*.

For all my failings, I do not intend to prostitute myself by compromising the
Truth that I find in the Bible.  I am sorry for some of the offense that some
of you have taken, but not sorry for some of the offenses I have given.  To be
clear, there are some offenses I have given for which I have been sorry, but
we may not agree on which "offenses" they are or should be.

Truth has a way of offending some and separating the wheat from the chaff. And
some of us go "away sorrowful: for he had great possessions."  (Matthew 19:22;
Mark 10:22) Each of us has something at stake, and we can keep all the
commandments except the one Jesus asks of us.  Then it's one step too far. and
we go away sorrowful because we cannot accept the morality of the Absolute
Authority.

Mark Metcalfe

    I'm so glad we had this time together...
    (Boy, is Carol Burnett old or what!?)
    (Pardon me my verbosity.)

    My last day at Sykes Enterprises, Inc. as a leased employee to 
    Digital is April 7, 1995.  I have accepted an offer elsewhere.
    Thanks for the good times, folks.

    I have worked for Sykes since January 1, 1995 and wish them the
    best of luck in their endeavors in the Boston area.  They are a
    good bunch of people who hired a bunch of people from SES who were
    disgruntled because they were forced to go or get fired. 
    Unfortunately for Sykes, some people transferred their anger at
    SES to SEI.  This was not the case with me.  My reasons for
    leaving extend to before my transfer of employment.

    I had worked for Digital since December of 1986; six and half
    years of fun and enjoyment which isn't bad out of the eight years
    I was employed by DEC, I suppose.  I started out supporting VAX
    DOCUMENT (watch the tomatoes) by writing the Tag Translator's
    Guide and helping the other writers on getting the V1.0 docs out
    the door.  After this, I moved over to CASE tools and won the
    Award of Distinction from the Society of Technical Communications
    for the Guide to DEC/Test Manager; a project where I had to wrest
    control of the documentation (gingerly) from the development
    group.  (Vindication for doing it my way.)  I worked on DEC's bid
    at an OO repository (COHESION Framework, aka IPSE) which slowly
    disintegrated.  (I did a lot of fire fighting during this
    project.)  Then I moved over to OpenVMS while it was still VMS and
    had five supervisors for around 40 writers.  I wrestled the DCL
    Dictionary into submission, took on more responsibilities with
    online help, and wrote for a couple of projects on a small team of 
    excellent engineers.  As verbose as this is, it is the abbreviated
    version of my career at DEC.

    The lessons learned throughout this time is that "do the right
    thing" is the correct philosophy and that integrity does count for
    much.  Some people are giants in my eyes largely because of their
    integrity and some people have disappointed me by their lack of
    spine or scruples.  I think that's as close as I'll get to
    pointing a finger.

    Prioritize your life and constantly examine those priorities. 
    Determine what is important and what is simply nagging and put the
    nagging in the place it deserves.

    I'll be accessible on the Internet after April 17.  Some of you
    will be getting mail from me then.  Till then, drop by to say
    adios, sayonara, auf wiedersehen, au revoire, or goodbye.

    Mark

 Mark, thank you for the wisdom you've left with us over the years, and may
 God bless you as you move on.




 In Christ



 Jim

Good bye, folks.  TOKNOW is going down in moments.

God bless each of you.  
Seek Him *diligently*.
Never compromise the Truth.
Climb over any doctrine for the Truth.
Renew your minds to prove what is the perfect and acceptable will of God.
Be holy.

Mark

    I don't know if you'll see this, but...
    
    Mark, thanks for being an example and teaching me much over the years.
    
    God Bless and I'll see you up there if not sooner,
    Mike

 I have Mark Metcalfe's new E-mail address should anyone want it.  Please send
 mail.  I'd post it, but it's likely to change soon.  Once he has a permanent
 address I'll post it.




 Jim