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“Taming The Tiger” by Tony Anthony.

Tony Anthony came and spoke to us during Chaplain’s Hour at Inverness Prison a few days ago, and there was a most attentive audience of prisoners, staff and Prison Fellowship visitors. Tony Anthony is the author of the book “Taming The Tiger” and it is basically his life story but well written with page turning detail.

At an early age he was taken from England to China where his grandfather trained and taught him Kung Fu. His description of these eight years is graphic and at times ugly. Returning to England after eight years in china, Tony continued training and teaching in the area of Kung Fu becoming World Champion three times. This gave him a degree of confidence. He became self-assured and physically powerful, and certainly was not a man to be tampered with or ignored if he came to you on business.

Because of his physical abilities he became a bodyguard for various important people ending up looking after the very rich and those attached to Embassies. Following his involvement in some criminal activity in Cyprus he ended up serving a prison sentence in Nicosia’s notorious Central Prison. He had no interest whatsoever in anything Christian or even remotely religious. He thought that all there was was him!

With no letters and no visitors, one day he received a letter from a Christian missionary who had read his awful story in the Press. He agreed to see this man called Michael Wright out of the most unusual reasoning, but after weeks of talking with each other he came to know the reality of the forgiveness and love of God. He speaks of Michael Wright loving him like a father and he began to come to love Michael as one of his sons.

Michael had spoken about how in a man’s heart there is a hole which only God can fill, and many try to fill it with money, sex, ambition, Tony is not embarrassed or ashamed to speak about tears. Most men cry but not everyone is prepared to admit it. Having been treated like an animal it was now so very different to be treated with respect and love as a human being.

On his release he flew to Heathrow where he was met by caring concerned Christians and over the next months various mature disciples of Jesus Christ kept an eye on this young believer. What had happened was real, and yet Tony did not find it all easy in various challenging walks of life. He found work and after a few years was led into what is called Avanti Ministries, which I am sure you know that Avanti is Italian for “go”, and Jesus commanded disciples to go into all the world.

This is a powerful and worthwhile read, not only giving you the background and story and highly interesting character, but also depicting how hard it can be when someone’s life is totally transformed and changed by the living God.

Sandy Shaw

Would you desire to peer inside the mind and thoughts of a godly woman? Interested in reading a fictional story of how godly women react to the various events of their lives?

The Salt Garden by Cindy Martinusen is adventure into the minds of three women from the small town of Harper’s Bay and the providential events centering around the discovery of the journal of a shipwreck survivor.

Presented in 1st person narrative, reading this book is like sitting along with these women and watching their lives unfold before you. Memories of the past, thoughts of the present, and the ever changing plans for the future are all found in this novel.

There is Sophia…
The reclusive novelist and prayer warrior with the adventurous thoughts that fill notebook after notebook of fictional stories that may never be published. Reading of her thoughts and recounting the memories of her life reminding me of the character Wendy in the novel Peter Pan. Sophia is defined in this novel with this comment “Contemplation has been my companion.”

There is Jospehine…
The romantic, enduring, steadfast wife of the shipbuilder. A shipwreck survivor, it is Josephine’s journal Sophia discovers during a ocean side walk. Her papers, donated after her death to the local historical society, spark media interest to seek more answers to what really happened the night the ‘Josephine’ sank. Reading from her journal thoughts sparks devotion, strength and empathy. Josephine is defined in this novel with this comment “I would have followed him anywhere”.

There is Claire…
The young news reporter that suffers a comical string of providential events that prevent her from leaving the small town and pursuing her politically correct ambitions and goals. Accepting of these events and starting over after coming home, Claire finds that she is not as reluctant to stay as she once was. Her faith develops in this story as she begins again at home, finding a reunited family, a genuine friend and a love interest through it all. Claire is defined in this novel with the comment “I didn’t want to be here”.

I truly enjoyed Cindy Martinusen’s writing style. Beautiful landscape descriptions, authentic dialogue, and true struggles make this a novel well worth the time spent.

The first wholly new interpretation for 2000 years of the moral teachings of Christ is on the web. Redefining all primary elements including Faith, the Word, Baptism, the Trinity and the Resurrection, this new interpretation questions the validity and origins of all Christian tradition; focusing specifically on marriage, love and human sexuality, it overturns all natural law ethics and theory. At stake is the credibility of several thousand years of religious history and moral teaching, and will certainly impact other fields of intellectual inquiry.

What first appears a counter intuitive challenge to the religious status quo is worth closer examination; it carries within its pages ideas both subtle and sublime, what the theological history of religion either ignored, were unable to imagine or dismissed as impossible. An error of presumption which could now leave ‘tradition’ staring into the abyss and humble all secular, atheist speculation. This new teaching has nothing whatsoever to do with any existing religious conception known to history. It is unique in every respect. What science and religion have agreed was not possible, has now become all too inevitable.

Using a synthesis of scriptural material from the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha, The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Nag Hammadi Library, and some of the world’s great poetry, it describes and teaches a single moral LAW, a single moral principle, and offers the promise of its own proof; one in which the reality of God responds directly to an act of perfect faith with a individual intervention into the natural world; correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries. Intended to be understood metaphorically, where ‘death’ is ignorance and ‘Life’ is knowledge, this personal experience of transcendent power and moral purpose is the ‘Resurrection’, and justification for faith. Here is where true morality, called righteousness begins.

Here then is the first ever viable religious conception capable of leading reason, by faith, to observable consequences which can be tested and judged. This new teaching delivers the first ever religious claim of insight into the human condition, that meets the Enlightenment criteria of verifiable and ‘extraordinary’ evidence based truth embodied in action. For the first time in history, however unexpected, the world must now measure for itself, the reality of a new claim to revealed truth, a moral tenet not of human intellectual origin, offering access by faith, to absolute proof in a fully rationally justifiable belief!

This is ‘religion’ without any of the conventional trappings of tradition. An individual, spiritual, virtue-ethical conception, independent of all cultural perception, contained within a single moral command and single Law that finds it’s expression of obedience within a new covenant of marriage. It requires no institutional framework or hierarchy, no churches or priest craft, no scholastic theological rational, dogma or doctrine and ‘worship’ requires only conviction, faith and the necessary measure of self discipline to accomplish a new, single, moral imperative and the integrity and fidelity to the newly created reality.

If confirmed and there appears both the means and a growing, concerted effort to test and authenticate this material, this will represent a paradigm change and advance in the moral and intellectual potential of human nature itself; untangling and resolving the greatest questions of human existence: consciousness, meaning, suffering, free will and evil. And at the same time addressing the most profound problems of our age.

While every day, from every television screen, newspaper, radio and web, the limitations of mankind are becoming both obvious and ominous by the failure to successfully address and resolve the most pressing problems facing the modern world, threatening humanity and the earth itself, with this revelation, we are offered a way out.

Providing the ‘means to ends’ this new teaching is asking humanity, choose the future you prefer? The status quo, where existing religious traditions, mired in their own contradictions, corruption, hypocrisy and hocus-pocus, offer little but pretensions and divisiveness, and where existing political process can only feebly respond to the growing chaos of more war, terrorism, economic turmoil, environmental degradation, injustice, spin and whitewash, natural disaster, plague and pandemic; or learn to comprehend that human nature, prisoner to its evolutionary root, exists within fixed limits of understanding, and by taking new personal and moral responsibility, in a single change of mind, heart and conduct, by faith, transcend those limits and blow the status quo strait to oblivion.

Trials of this new teaching are open to all and under way in many countries, colloquial evidence already suggest confirmations are taking place. For those individuals who can imagine outside the cultural box of history, who have the moral courage to learn something new, to stand against the stream of fashionable thought and spin and will TEST this revelation for themselves, an intellectual and moral revolution is already under way, where hope meets reality and the ‘impossible’ becomes inevitable, with the most potent Non Violent Direct Action any human being can take to advance peace, justice, change and progress.

So I just got done reading Joel Osteen’s book “Become a Better You”. It is a 320+ page book filled with information on, well, as the title suggests becoming a better you. I must say before I write my review here that I am Joel fan. I think he is easy to listen to and has a great message week in and week out.

Now I know many devout Christians do not like Joel for the reason that it is a non-denominational service that implements the works of the bible and Jesus Christ with everyday life such as goal setting, achieving success and so on.

To me I think what Joel is trying to do is absolutely what a lot of people need in this world. I think gone are the days of the teachings of Jesus Christ through brimstone and fire.

I was born to a Catholic family, attended Catholic school from kindergarten to senior year in high school and through those thirteen years, when I say brimstone and fire, they would teach you the works of Jesus Christ through saying that if you don’t believe you go to hell, things like that. We can save that conversation for another time though.

For now I want to tell you about what I thought of Joel’s new best selling book. It was definitely an easy read. I finished the book in less than two weeks, which for me is quite an accomplishment because for whatever reason I have never been a fast reader. In any event the book is an easy read and well written.

Each chapter clearly outlines a path on how to become better at relationships, life, and work, family you name it. At the end of each section, which is comprised of many chapters each, Joel gives you an outline on what to do to improve your life in those areas he just wrote about. You are given a series of steps to take, and questions to ask others and yourself. It is a nice outline to follow.

The book is filled with a lot of real life examples, not only in Joel’s own life but from others that attend his church in Texas and watch his TV program. My thought is using examples to get your point across about anything is always a good way to get your reader’s attention.

All in all I would give this book an “A”. It was what I expected it to be, had a clear and defined outline on how to get where you want to go, and most importantly it related everything in the book with the teachings of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Man must seek the truth from within himself. Seek and you shall find. Do not go to your church, or to the bible to find answers on true faith. The Most advanced minds of today study the universe for answers. They look all over the world and outer space to find answers. They study things like “Is there anything in black holes?’ Do other life forms exist? Are there other universes out there? This seems unimportant to me. Man is the greatest creature in the universe. We should study the great powers inside of of a man. If there are other creatures out there,and other universes God is above it all. God is that which no greater can exist. We have a connection with God. After all, man was created in the image and likeness of God. He breathed his life into us. With the power of God all is possible.

Christians must start practicing brotherly love among themselves, and other religions. I remember when I was in high school. I was a fan of sports and other activities of my school. It was my town and it was my school. We talked bad of other schools and other towns, they were our competitors. If I was born in a different town and attended a different school would I be a fan of that schools events,and feel a sense of belonging to that town. Maybe I would be talking down on the same school I was presently in. It is because it is human nature to be a fan of your own group, city, state, country, or religion. We Must remember that we are all children of God. No man is greater than another, and there is no chosen religion or group of people any less or any greater than the other. Christians disagree, among themselves, and other different Christian religions, on what is exactly correct. What about the rest of the world, non Christians, who don’t know of Jesus or the bible? Can they find God? Know this the ten commandments can be summed up in just two commandments: One: Love God with your whole heart., and Two: Love your neighbor as you would love yourself. Any man,or woman who obeys these two commandments, shall find God.

Man communicates with with God through his sub conscious mind. “Rich people focus on what they want. Poor people focus on what they don’t want.” “What you visualize will appear.” What father would deny his son that which he can provide. God provides us what we ask of him. Do not ask for material things of the world. You are not calling upon a servant to bring you food. You are not ordering an innkeeper to provide you with a room. Never ask for gold, love, good health, petty victories, fame, success, or happiness. You must ask only for guidance that you may be shown the way to acquire these things. God will show you the path, but you must act and take the first step.

“God shine your light upon me. God grant me the strength to remain in your light.”