Television

The primary resource many individuals commonly turn to is found with the possibilities related to television and television programs. This resource is not pursued as a effect of high quality financier suggestions although as a result of the familiarity a lot of people share with watching television on a normal basis. Most of these programs include people who are eager to share their opinions related to exact futures or Economical savings although may not have the portfolio which supports their own history of success. Any recommendations you discover through the television shall be taken with a grain of salt and additional study is always suggested.

Trading Magazine

Outside of the opportunities of watching TV to collect pertinent information associated to investing, the next best options are discovered with the solutions of a trading magazine. With this source you will be able to recognize a number of different benefits to support you in your efforts of locating quality purchase options. The very first advantage to utilize is discovered with the new ideas generated within these magazines. Along with new ideas, you can also identify excellent analysis done by marketing experts who can help you in seeking exact trends as well as determine the best expenditure options for you to follow.

Online Environment

The very next source popularly used by investment experts is found with the solutions of the online environment. In this environment individuals take benefit of online investing platforms and free assets that provide detailed information on several other businesses or probable savings you can make. It is important to make out where you are getting your online information from to make certain that you are using resources that deal excellent analysis rather than a desire to benefit off of marketing. A carryover from the previous trading magazine possibility is found with the on-line resources utilized by these firms.

Here you will gain from up-to-date information to help develop trade analysis and increase your ability to discover positive Economical return.

Each and every source offers its own different take on possibilities of making investments and if you are involved in the possibilities that exist with a trading magazine, utilize the assets seen at http://www.PitNews.com. PitNews.com is a targeted market website for traders. Their mission is to deliver valuable, timely information to traders of the Futures, Forex and Stock Market. Lan Turner is the Editor in Chief of PitNews Magazine; he has been working in the financial industry for over 19 years, and has taught his Stocks, Futures & Forex trading ideas and concepts to clients, professional traders, and brokers from around the world. You can find Mr. Turner online at PitNews. Visit the website and get your free eMagzine subscription today!

Step One: Develop Relevant Branding

The first step to take when attempting to enhance the quantity of your Facebook page fans is to make sure you are following the resources of brand development. A brand represents a very vital part for an organization to require advantage of so it helps to make an image for consumers to relate to when considering making any investment. When your Facebook page matches the brand, colors, logos, company message, and other resources of your website, this will increase recognition which will improve the chance of capturing new friends.

Step Two: Improve Communication

One among the biggest attractions to social profiles is that individuals are frequently updating information, posting comments, furthermore providing visual entertainment such as photos or videos. Creating a profile through Facebook is not enough to capture a massive amount of Facebook page fans. You need to also improve your communication efforts through the utilization of the social network. This includes answering any questions your customers may have, frequently putting on new data to your website, as well as updating the resources of entertainment so your profile does not go stale.

Step Three: Invest in Facebook Marketing

The third step you’ll utilize in order to extend Facebook page fans are seen with investing in Facebook marketing. Facebook participants frequently post information such as hobbies, job descriptions, and interests which Facebook then collects. When you’ll utilize this marketing it allows for a distinctive type of target promoting where you’ll be able to come in direct contact with customers who might have an interest in your business. This will help in drawing in new consumer attention and create a low -value resolution for bringing fans to your Facebook profile.

By utilizing these 3 steps you will usually realize an improvement in gaining client attention that can facilitate capturing new Facebook page fans. Make sure you continuously update relevant info that will attract customers and keep them constantly interacting together with your social profile.

Doing analysis on a worldwide scale is essential if you want to obtain the marketing insights you should operate your business on a global platform. Totally different cultures require different varieties of marketing, thus by performing effective marketing analysis you can find out how to adapt your marketing strategy to the demands of an international business. Sensible and accurate research would furnish you with affordable global marketing insights that would enable you to create new strategies of promoting your business to people from totally different cultures. Without these insights, which analysis provides for you, any marketing strategy might be misinterpreted or a financial waste of your business’s investment cash.

Marketing insights may teach you important factors regarding your potential customers elsewhere in the world. While you have set up a small online business, it is easy to forget that your country is not the center of the universe and that other individuals could have totally different expectations to your own. For instance, simple global marketing insights such as the information that some Asian countries view reduced things as being tainted or close to to an expiration date, whereas within the US it’s normal practice to market an item by giving a certain amount off the sale price. If you were to try and promote your business in China, for example, by reducing the price, you may lose sales or make individuals unsure about your products.

Important global marketing insights like these have to be fully understood in order to confirm that you just effectively market your business throughout the world. Mistakes like these are simple to make but pretty tough to rectify, therefore you may find yourself losing business until you take the time to analyse your audience thoroughly. By giving yourself an insight into the business traditions of a culture, you may set your marketing strategy with those traditions in mind. Performing correct analysis will help you to stay further of your competition in the global marketplace.

Just like with a financial audit from the government, a website audit can undergo your actions very carefully, holding a magnifying glass up to your problems and errors when giving you a clear report at the end detailing what the search has found.

Businesses often need to have regular information like this performed in order to keep a grasp on what is precisely happening within the company. Even if you are only running one website and work with no-one else you can still seek that a business audit report could throw up problems and issues that you would have not otherwise spotted. This type of auditing can also show you where you are going wrong in terms of your SEO and targeted marketing, making a really big difference to the final appearance of your website.

Though it is always possible to do the business audit report yourself, through carefully following each of your clients back to their beginnings or looking at the individual links on your site and check ranking in Google it’s simple to overlook something. It’s much better to have your business audit report done by a specialist who is not likely to be influenced by your own input into design features or SEO composition. They are more probable to be ready to spot instant flaws in your website which will be fixed in some seconds after you realize they exist.

The importance of having a third party check your work cannot be overestimated. By being able to look at your website neutrally, the corporate making the business audit report can help to focus your attention to issues you regularly overlook. It will guarantee you get exactly what you need to begin bringing in more targeted traffic and capture larger earnings. Therefore even if you are not very keen on the concept of a business audit being performed on your website, it makes perfect sense and can save your cash in the long run.

However, different types of social media would attract different individuals and it may generally be difficult to know the best social network platform for the business that you have. If you make mistakes now, then you may seek yourself saddled with a load of social media sites that are not useful.

One of the best ways to start out is to begin using professional social networking sites. They are often job sites or contract sites, however they could push your business out into the internet, which encourages hits from search engines.These professional social networking sites could also be useful as a means to develop your networking skills while you attempt to do something which could be seen by the general public. Not that you must not take such sites seriously. If you are a contractor offering services, for example, then you may surely profit from using such locations.

Selecting an open social media site can be rather daunting. For example, you can be wondering about whether to use Facebook or Twitter. These are both good sites, but for different reasons. Facebook is probably the best social network platform if you are aiming at a younger audience, perhaps if you are selling music or clothing, whereas Twitter could be the best social network platform for someone who needs to attract slightly older, more affluent clients to their site.

Some of the best social network platforms around are those which are not yet popularised, since they are often used by individuals on the cutting edge of social media awareness, which will be nice if you are trying for clients with greater interest in technology. These may also be the best social network platform for you to create a buzz by posting videos, or articles, that cause interest. Several businesses utilise such social platforms successfully, and have reached many individuals through this than from any other kind of connection. Businesses with an understanding of technology always do much better on social media than those with arts or creative backgrounds.

I’ve never pictured myself as having any aptitude for hospital work.

I appreciate that hospitals are an ideal context in which to offer care and compassion to persons in need, but such relationships are always short-term, and hence seem somewhat artificial to me. Certainly I could never see myself as a hospital chaplain – managing a constant turnover of such intense, short-term relationships.

Even so, when I found myself in hospital, not through any deliberate planning on my part but through the unpleasant workings of providence, I figured I’d have to make the best of the situation and take whatever opportunities the Good Lord put in my path. I was sorta hoping though that He’d give me a bit of a break.

Maybe it was that desire for a break that led me to introduce myself to the other blokes in my ward as ‘Dave: fight trainer and former pro fighter’, rather than as ‘Father Dave: Parish Priest’. What was the difference anyway? I had ‘Father Dave’ written on the label above my bed in case anybody cared to look, and, in truth, the other blokes didn’t really seem to be overly interested in anybody else‘s business anyway (God bless them).

Most of the other blokes weren’t overly forthcoming about themselves either – a quiet but decent bunch. The exception was the guy in the bed immediately opposite me – a guy who increasingly showed himself to be neither quiet nor decent – a guy named ‘Homer’.

I won’t mention his surname, as I want to respect some confidentiality, but I will say that it wasn’t ‘Simpson’. In many ways though it should have been. As time wore on, Homer gave an increasingly clear impression that he was as rude, lazy, unintelligent and as all-round self-obsessed as his three-fingered counterpart but had few of his animated namesake‘s redeeming features.

Homer would start his whinging early in the morning, and it seemed that the less people listened to him, the louder he became. He would complain about the food, the service, the bedding, the medication, the heat, the cold, and the lack of meaningful viewing alternatives on the television.

For the most part I was happy enough to just let this wash over me, but it was when he started honing in his attacks on a particular member of the nursing staff that I really started to lose my patience.

It started at 4am one morning. All of us in the ward were woken from our slumber to hear Homer loudly scolding Nurse Lee because she wouldn’t give him more pain-killers.

“But I’m only allowed to give you 2 tablets every 6 hours” the nurse said.

“No!” Homer would reply. “The doctor told me that I was allowed to take them every two hours!”

“He couldn’t have possibly told you that, Mr Homer”, the nurse replied.

“I know what I heard”, Homer shouted in response.

And in such manner the stoush continued, with the unfortunate nurse holding her ground while Homer became increasingly obnoxious in his use of language. At one point he even suggested that the good nurse should go and re-read her Hippocratic oath – ‘that the customer is always right!’

Homer’s knowledge of Hippocrates pretty well summed up the wisdom of his position as I saw it. He neither understood manners, history, nor what was good for him. Even so, if it were possible to compensate for a lack of substance with an increase of volume, he was the guy to do it!

Eventually the supervising doctor was found and the moment of truth arrived. “You told me I could take these every two hours!” Homer exclaimed. “I most certainly did not. You can only take them every six hours!” replied the doctor. “Oh”, said Homer. “… I thought you said every two”

Now you would have thought that this would have spelt the end of the conflict. What other options were there at this point for the defeated Homer except to apologise to the doctor, the nursing staff and his entire hospital audience, and to walk away quietly with his tail between his legs.

If Leonidas, king of Sparta, had found himself in this position at Thermopylae he would have apologised to the rapacious King Xerxes, rounded up his troops and returned home. If Luke Skywalker and his mates had found themselves in this position at the Battle of Endor, they would have surrendered to the nearest storm-trooper and sworn loyalty to the Emperor. If the Devil himself … ok, you get the idea. My point is that Homer was no ordinary human being. He didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘defeat’ (or many other words for that matter), so instead of backing down and apologising he upped the attack.

Homer found new reasons to criticise the middle-aged Asian nurse who had done so well in putting up with his vitriolic assault. He focused on the multiple personality defects that he had detected in her. He attacked her lack of fluency in English. He even tried to report her to the supervising nurse for having shoes that he was sure didn’t meet Occupational Health and Safety standards!

Long after Nurse Lee’s shift had ended Homer’s tirade continued to be broadcast to anybody and everybody that would care to listen to him, and his comments became increasingly sleazy and racially orientated.

On reflection I’m not sure why it took me so long to make a meaningful response. My only defence is that I was rather ill – running a temperature, on high levels of medication and attached to a drip. Even so, I’m not proud of the fact that it took me half a day before my tolerance ran out.

I can’t remember now the specific Homerism that set me off, but I do remember calling over one of the nursing staff and asking her to pass on a message to Homer from me: “will you please tell Homer that if he makes one more sleazy or racist comment about Nurse Lee that I’m going to detach my drip and walk over there and break his nose?”

Happily the nurse was saved from the predicament of having to actually pass on the message as Homer overheard most of what I had said. He responded with some mild, low-volume swearing that indicated to me that he hadn’t really got the message. I repeated my plan more audibly and added: “It’s entirely your call, brother. Keep you mouth shut and you’ll be fine. One more sleazy or racist comment and you’ll find yourself in a pool of your own blood!” This colourful P.S. proved rather effective, and an ominous silence then descended on our room.

The silence was broken by the arrival of a mate of mine who had come to pay me a visit. As providence would have it this particular brother (who I’ll refer to simply as ‘Bugsy’) is an enormous bloke with a face that tells a story of a thousand pub brawls. He’s recently found God and is a big-hearted guy, but he’d still make a fantastic standover man. He’s the sort of guy that mob bosses love to have accompanying them when they go to collect debts – ‘rough him up a bit for me, Bugsy!’

Anyway, Bugsy had come to see how I was going and there was no avoiding explaining to him the tangible air of tension in the ward. Bugsy thought it was great fun, and he did consider walking over to Homer’s bed and just confirming with him that he’d got the message, but he hesitated on the grounds that he was still on parole, and I think that was a wise decision.

At any rate, I think the mere appearance of this Caucasian version of Mr T helped enormously to reinforce my message to Homer. I didn’t hear a squeak out of him from that moment on, right up until they moved me to another ward about an hour later. Moreover, I was told that the next morning he had bought a big box of chocolates for all the nurses!

And things only got better for me from that moment on. I was moved to a much quieter room and I was the darling of the nursing staff for the remainder of my hospital stay. Best of all, I received a visit from Nurse Lee at the conclusion of her next shift. She said to me in her lovely broken English, “You are my knight in shining armour”.

The whole experience has cast hospital work in a new light for me. I still can’t see myself as a chaplain, but maybe I could be on call for certain special cases that suit my particular style of ministry?

Back at home no one was surprised when they heard what had happened. Indeed, my colleague, Father Elias, began his sermon the following Sunday by saying, “I think if it had appeared in the paper that a priest had threatened to beat up a fellow patient in a Sydney Hospital, the most common response would have been, ‘I didn’t know Dave was in hospital!’”

I’m not entirely sure whether I should feel pleased or horrified by Elias’ analysis, but it did make me laugh.

And it was good to be back amongst those lovely people, and it was good to a part of the live Skype linkup with Mansour back in Esfahan (in Iran) and it was to once again enjoy the experience of being kissed by an enormous number of bearded men (an experience that [sadly] I just don’t get anywhere else).

And I was reminded very clearly, while I was there, of one particularly endearing thing that one of the members of that community had said to me on a previous visit. It wasn’t Sheikh Mansour who said it to me or any of his family members but one of the elders there – a retired professor from Newcastle University.

This man had been looking after me on one of the previous times that I’d been there and we had been talking very warmly and candidly, when said to me, “You know, before I was a Muslim, I was a Christian!” And I was taken aback and said, “Really?” He said, “Yes, and before I was a Christian, I was a Jew”.

Then I understood, of course, that he didn’t mean that he’d actually been a convert from Christianity, but that rather he was expressing our common spiritual heritage.

And of course I could not share his perspective – that Islam fulfils the Christian hope, just as we believe the New Testament Gospel fulfils all the hopes and dreams of the Old, but I appreciated that this elder in the Islamic community was basically just expressing his closeness to me, and I found that touching.

And I’ve thought of that man and his message to me often because I think the whole world needs to hear what he has to say!

I do sincerely believe that if we could somehow get rid of all the dirty politics, we’d find that the common heritage of the three Abrahamic religions is so great – at least in terms of basic ethics and values – that we really have no ideological basis for enmity, let alone for any ‘clash of civilisations’!

‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian, and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’ – it was an impressive thing to say, but it was also a statement that required a response, I felt – a response that I wasn’t able to give at the time, but I’ve thought of one since – a good response – and I got it from the story of Noah!

One thing that always comes to mind for me when I think of Noah and the Flood is an old Peanuts cartoon, featuring Linus and Lucy sitting at home, looking out of the window, and it’s raining!

Lucy says to Linus, “I can’t believe how long it’s been raining for! Perhaps it will just keep raining until everything is flooded and we are all drowned?” Linus replies, “No, in Genesis chapter 9 God tells Noah that He will never again allow a flood to take over the whole earth”. Lucy says, “Wow! Thanks”. Linus pauses and says, “Good theology is a beautiful thing!”

Good theology is a beautiful thing, and it’s the theology of Genesis 9 and the flood story that has interested me, as I think it’s a story with a very important message.

The Noah story is a tale of pain and passion – the pain caused by humanity on the one hand, through their violent and reckless behaviour, and the passion of God, who is grieved by His creation and seems to be ready to throw up his hands!

If you’re familiar with this part of the Bible you know that the Noah story is a component part in a series of similar stories that span the first eleven chapters of Genesis – starting out with the very beginning of creation – where things just seem to go from bad to worse.

First there is Adam and Eve and the incident with the snake. Next thing, there’s a murder in Adam and Eve’s immediate family, and things just seem to degenerate from there until, by the time of Noah, we’re told that “every inclination of the human heart was only evil all the time”. (Genesis 6:5)

And I appreciate that that’s a very black and white way of looking at the world, but if you look at what’s going on in the world today, you could be forgiven, I think, for coming to exactly the same conclusion!

And it makes you angry! I find myself getting angry about things all the time! I’ve been getting angry this week about Syria, though not so much over what’s going on in the country itself, but over the way it’s being reported out here!

I’m convinced we’re being hoodwinked again by our media on this one, and I spent extensive time on Friday evening with a guy who had just returned from Syria, and he said exactly the same thing. He said that he and his friends would watch the foreign media coverage from Syria, where CNN or BBC would tell them what was going on in the area they were living in, and it was clearly entirely inaccurate!

And it makes you angry, and people do crazy things when they’re angry. They take up arms and they strap bombs to themselves and they commit acts of violence.

But God is not exactly depicted as getting angry here, but rather as grieving.

“The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” (Genesis 6:5-6)

And perhaps that depiction of God strikes you as sounding ‘all too human’, but perhaps that is the point!

The God we read of in these early chapters of the Bible is not one who sets the whole machine in motion and then steps back and lets it rip. On the contrary, this is a God who engages with his creation from the outset, and engages passionately!

And so this God gets frustrated, exasperated, and ultimately regrets ever having created the human race. And so the flood comes, not so much as an act of angry vengeance on God’s part, but more out of a desire for a fresh start.

Even so, the flood is a violent act, and there’s no getting around that. It’s exactly the sort of incident that leaves people shaking their heads and asking “why would God allow such a thing to happen?” to which we are generally respond by trying to excuse God from blame.

Here though God seems happy to take the blame, and yet the conclusion to the story is rather telling. God makes a covenant with Noah, and with all flesh through Noah, such that God will never allow another act of such universal cataclysmic violence to ever happen again.

And so God hangs up His bow as a sign to all flesh that such violence is never going to come from His hand again. Just as the modern-day farmer might lock away his rifle in the shed, or the master swordsman sheaths his sword, so the warrior-archer hangs up his bow! And this is what God is does – hangs up His bow above the mantle-piece (so to speak) as a sign that He will never be using it again!

And it’s a covenant. It’s a promise. And if you know your Bible at all you know that the concept of ‘covenant’ or ‘testament’ is a very key Biblical concept.

We divide our Bible into covenants (or ‘testaments’) – the Old Testament and the New Testament, which would suggest that there are only two covenants. In fact, Biblically speaking, I think there are five:

•#This one

•#The covenant with Abraham and his children forever (Genesis12)

•#The covenant with Moses and his people at Mount Sinai

•#The covenant with David – that one of his children will always reign as king

•#The ‘new covenant’ with Jesus

And in each case what we are dealing with fundamentally is a promise – a commitment on the part of God to His covenant partner.

And you can see that there’s a progressive narrowing of the focus of these covenants. They begin with Noah, with a commitment to all flesh. After that there is a commitment to a particular race of people, then to those members of that race that make it to Mount Sinai, then to one particular family within that group (the line of David) and finally to one particular individual (Jesus).

And my dad used to say that it was like a funnel, with the promises of God becoming increasingly focused – from the children of Abraham to Moses, to the specific line of David, and finally to an individual – Jesus, through whom the Grace of God becomes available again to everybody!

And that’s a good way of looking at it, with the funnel ending with a universal shower of love, and it’s appropriate too because it all begins here with Noah with a universal and unconditional commitment to ‘all flesh’, and it is a commitment of mercy – a promise on the part of God that He will deal gently with His children – with ALL His children, and with animals too!

God has hung up His bow. The days of divine violence are over. No matter how bad things get, God is going to find another way of working things through.

It’s a bit of a strange parallel, but I don’t know if you’ve been following the story of Khader Adnan Muhammad Musa –the Palestinian hunger-striker?

I find that story really fantastic, because Khader Adnan is a leader of Islamic Jihad, which is an organisation committed to armed resistance against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. Islamic Jihad believes that dialogue and so-called passive resistance are useless. As I understand it, he’s openly encouraged people to strap on bombs and do whatever they have to in order to bring an end to the injustice.

And this guy has been arrested a lot of times, though it seems the Israeli authorities rarely have anything to charge him with. So this time when he was arrested, he insisted that he get a trial or be freed, and when they refused to do either he went on a hunger strike!

And he fasted for 66 days, which I believe is a world record (so long as you don’t count the famous Irish ‘terrorist’, Bobby Sands, who didn’t survive his hunger strike). Anyway, Khader Adnan was successful, and the Israeli authorities have said that they are going to let him go! Islamic Jihad, it seems, have one a victory though, ironically, it has not been through armed resistance but through using a form of protest that Mahatma Ghandi made famous!

Yes, there are better ways of dealing with evil and injustice than the resort to violence, and God Himself, according to this ancient story, has committed Himself to finding other ways of dealing with evil and injustice. God will not punish without mercy. God will be gracious because God has made a commitment – a solemn promise of love – to us and to all flesh!

‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian’, he said to me, ‘and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’. And my response is, ‘and before we were men of faith, we were men’ – brothers in the flesh (so to speak) and still, as brothers in the flesh, recipients of the promises of God and beneficiaries of His Grace!

For the Covenants begin here, with Noah, with a commitment from God to be merciful to all flesh.

And yes, we enjoy the Grace of God made ours through Christ, but let’s remember that the promises of God were extended to us first not as Christian people but simply as people – simply as creatures of flesh, for God has made a commitment of love to all creatures of flesh.

Good theology is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? And the story of Noah, while many elements of it may be difficult to come to terms with, is ultimately a beautiful story too, I think, for it affirms the fundamental equality of all flesh before God, and it proclaims the unconditional commitment of God to all flesh.

‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’. And before I was a man of faith I was a man, and before being a man (in a sense) I am simply a human being – a creature of flesh. But that is nothing to be ashamed of. For on the contrary, it is creatures of flesh that God is committed to, and He has committed Himself to all of us!

Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

This failure is usually the result of the website failing to function as anticipated and a lack of clients coming through the Home Page. If you cannot get visitors into the web pages, you cannot then sell them your products, therefore the significance of creating traffic cannot be denied. Many businesses react to a slow-down in the number of people going to the site by increasing the number of money that they put into dedicated website promotion, but in fact they must rather be trying at other areas for a solution to the problem.

Many of the guests are brought to the site by search engines, so in order to be ready to bring individuals in, you have to rank highly in search results. It looks easy, however may be very tough because websites would not permanently keep the same state as they were initially intended, however are constantly shifting. For instance, you would have broken links that you do not know about, or perhaps errors in your SEO that make you hard to understand. So as to totally assess whether your site is functioning correctly, you need to do a website audit. This is an examination of the site from the perspective of a visitor, and is meant to reveal flaws in the current look of your website. When you get your full website audit, you may then make the changes before you start working on a website promotion strategy. The audit could enable you in making corrections to the site, and this would profit you when you attempt to draw in guests to the site. When customers realize that you have a clean, fully operating website, they will be happy to come to the site and utilise it as a place for business. An audit is probably the best way to dramatically better your website’s rankings without having to change the fundamental design for the site.

Presently when most business proprietors consider the chances of internet based marketing they have a targeted opinion on utilizing totally different marketing strategies to persuade a service their business is based on. The trouble seen with this promoting concept is most business proprietors share a similar plan to assist create oversaturation not only within the business environment but also in the promoting world. The introduction of the niche reaper launch has altered the opinions of online technique as companies look to discover new niches instead of a new keywords in an oversaturated environment.

When a business owner has the chance to spot new internet niches it aids them in finding a unused market where economic growth is available. A niche reaper invitation can guide your business in finding these fresh niches. Your company can then make a website devoted to the current niche so it is accessible for consumers to take benefit of while service you promote becomes a powerful online trend. Your business then has the potential of taking this chance one step more during the utilization of market domination.

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Imagine the probabilities of being one of the first businesses completely devoted to a particular service that is about to get a highly common trend. Further imagine having the ability to maximise search engine optimization possibilities by finding in the most popular keyword resources specially for your business. All of this is doable when your business gains access to the options of the niche reaper invitation.

Looking through the Gospel text this week I was reminded of the story of the priest who gets pulled over by a policeman after running a red light, and when the window is wound down, the officer is immediately confronted with the smell of alcohol emanating from the car!

“Have you been drinking, Father?” the policeman asks. “Not a drop”, the priest replies.

“Well … would you mind telling me what you’ve got in that flask”, the policeman asks. “Ah … that would be water”, says the priest.

The policeman picks up the flask, opens it and sniffs it. “I believe this is whiskey, Father”, says the policeman.

“Mother of God!” says the priest, “Another miracle!”

And as I read through the Gospel reading today I find myself making the same response: ‘Another miracle!’

We’re actually only in the first chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark, and yet already we have been confronted with a whole series of miracles!

No sooner had Jesus entered the synagogue to teach than he was confronted by a wild, crazy man, screaming out at him, and Jesus healed the man.

And within a day of that event, or so it seems, everybody who is sick or possessed is crowding around Jesus, and Jesus is healing them of their illnesses and driving out demons, and the activity becomes all-consuming, though the irony is that Jesus seems to be engaging in the whole process a little reluctantly!

We sense a degree of frustration, I think, with Jesus early on, as He tries to quieten the testimonies of the possessed – “You are the Holy One of God!” – lest the whole thing get out of hand. And yet it does get out of hand, and Jesus seems frustrated by the hordes that press on him. It appears that He wants people to listen to what He has to say, and not just to get carried away with His miracles or His mysterious identity.

This is made quite explicit at the end of our reading today, where we see Jesus, having escaped from the crowds that were pursuing him to a ‘lonely place’ (vs.35), telling His disciples that it’s time to move on.

“Let’s go to the neighbouring towns so that I can preach there, too. For that is why I came out here.” (vs.38)

And it seems that Jesus, after having taken some time to think things through, realises that His priority has to be spreading His word of hope about the new world coming. The great well of human need that He sees round about him is, it seems, a distraction that threatens to divert Him from His real work.

Surely there were any number of others who could take up the task of healing the sick. Jesus must focus on spreading the word, “for that is why I came out”!

As I say, there is a fair degree of irony in this because despite Jesus’ words, He never actually acts in accordance with His own pronouncement!

Perhaps indeed the ordinary needs of ordinary human beings are a distraction from the greater work of spreading the Gospel, but if so, Jesus seemed to consistently allow Himself to be distracted!

So many people come to him, we are told, that there isn’t room at the door, and yet we don’t see Jesus standing up and saying, “Look! I want everybody to put their physical issues on hold for a moment. I have some things I’d like to say.”

No! There is a well of human misery surrounding Jesus as He begins His ministry, and Jesus wades right into it!

Jesus does not detach Himself. He allows Himself to be distracted. He reaches out. He heals. He liberates both the infirmed and the possessed, and He does so knowing full well that this is detracting from the work that He was sent to do, but He does it anyway!

Yes, at the end of the day he creates some distance for Himself and He decides that it’s time to focus on preaching, and yet the immediate follow-on from this pronouncement is that a person afflicted with leprosy finds Jesus and asks for help.

And Jesus doesn’t say, “Not now, buddy! I’ve got other things I need to be doing. At least wait until the end of the sermon!” On the contrary, St Mark records that Jesus was ‘moved with compassion’ for the man (vs.41), and so He healed him. And so the pattern of preaching AND healing (where there always seems to be a lot more healing than preaching) continues!

Now that story of the man with leprosy is in next week’s reading, I think, and I don’t want to snatch the thunder from next week’s sermon, so perhaps I should focus on the main healing that is dealt with in this week’s story – namely, the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law – a healing that I must say has to be one of the least spectacular healing stories ever recorded in any of the four Gospels!

It is preceded by the healing of the crazy demoniac and proceeded by the story of the man with leprosy, and it seems like a rather innocuous example to focus on relative to those two!

We are told that Simon Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever, but there is no suggestion there that it was life-threatening. It may have been, of course, or she may have just had a slight touch of the flu!

It does make you wonder why the Gospel writer chose to include this particular incident when it does seem to detract from the action-packed nature of the adventure that’s unfolding.

Was it just that the Gospel writer and his first readers all knew Peter’s mother-in-law personally? If so, it’s a bit of a surprise that she doesn’t receive a name in the story!

Some scholars suggest that there is a movement in the story of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law that is archetypal for the process of discipleship.

As you read the narrative, you do feel that movement:

• Jesus goes to her

• He takes her by the hand

• He lifts her up

• She is healed!

And it’s almost like a dance that Jesus and the woman are sharing in together, where Jesus leads the dance but where, you will notice, the woman makes the final move, for we are told that no sooner has she been healed than she begins to ‘serve’ Jesus – literally, to ‘wait on Him’ but the implication being that she has now become a disciple, and so the dance of love and healing and service will continue!

I’m sure this story has deliberately been framed to encapsulate this movement, as a sort of template for discipleship. Even so, there’s no reason the Gospel writer could not have overlaid that template on any number of other more spectacular healing stories too

My guess is that Mark deliberately included this story of the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, in all its ordinariness, simply because it is so ordinary, and hence so familiar!

We see healings like this all the time, don’t we? We are often involved in healings like this, are we not?

It may be that you, like me, have seen a handful of spectacular healings and/or exorcisms in your time, but for the most part it is these little miracles that we are familiar with, and perhaps part of the point of this passage is that little miracles are still miracles, and the fact that they are small and familiar does not mean that they are unimportant!

I think of all the little miracles I’ve been privileged to be the beneficiary of over the years – not normally directly from the hand of Jesus, but more often through the healing touch of one of Jesus’ people.

I think back to the time when I was struggling with depression, trying to survive my own family breakdown many years ago. And I remember all the little acts of healing that took place back then – the little miracle of a friend who would sit up with me and share a beer with me and let me talk until I was able to go to sleep.

We’ve been remembering the lives of dear old Margaret and Thelma today, and I remember well the small miracles that they would dispense – nothing spectacular, but a gentle word, a loving embrace – coming to me, taking me by the hand, lifting me up and giving me healing and strength. Life’s little miracles!

“Let’s go to the neighbouring towns so that I can preach there, too. For that is why I came out here.” (vs.38)

As I say, there is a subtle irony in this pronouncement, in part because Jesus seems to be incapable of following His own advice!

If Jesus really was psyching up the team for a more focused ministry where words came first and acts of healing second, it was a program He never carried through with. His compassion got the better of Him.

And yet there is another irony here too, and it’s found in the text of the Gospel itself!

Jesus’ priority, we are told, is preaching and teaching, and yet if you read through this extensive first chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark, there’s not a single word of Jesus’ teaching recorded! It actually not until we get to the latter part of Mark chapter 2 that we get any of the actual teachings of Jesus recorded!

I’m not suggesting that this makes the teachings of Jesus any less important – not at all – but I am suggesting that (at least so far as the Gospel-writer Mark was concerned) these were not the things Jesus was best remembered for!

And this is true to life!

As we are remembering today the lives of dear Thelma and Margaret, I must say that I remember them very well, but it’s not their wise words I remember, though I’m sure Thelma (in particular) had plenty for me. It was her compassionate touch, her loving looks, the affectionate kiss, the healing embrace …

St Francis of Assisi is said to have said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary use words”. I don’t know if he really said it, but it makes sense.

Of course we don’t do anybody any favours by holding back the words of the Gospel, for indeed these words can be the source of life and hope. And yet words by themselves can be very hollow.

When we die it will most likely not be our words that we are best remembered for. Most likely it will be the little miracles that we were a part of. And it may seem sometimes that our contribution is not that great (‘ah … another miracle’) and yet every miracle – great and small – is a part of that great dance that Christ is leading us in.

For Jesus is more than just a teacher, just as His teaching is more than mere words. He is “the visible image of our invisible God”, says St Paul (Colossians 1:15).

Or in the words of Charles Wesley:

Jesu, Thou art all compassion.
Pure, unbounded love Thou art.
Visit us with Thy salvation.
Enter every trembling hear!

‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.