Searching for a principle

It got crazy cold last night...something like -5 degrees Farenheit.  We received two inches of snow yesterday and so it seemed like nothing would melt today; even at church it was still only about 5 degrees Farenheit when I took this video.  Nothing should melt, right?

But watch this dull, dull video of some snow melting on the sign.  That's right, it's actually melting, though one might think that it's something like 25 degrees too cold to melt.  But the property of the metal, combined with the bright sunshine, and you can watch it melt in real time...this is not a time-elapsed video.  In the course of less than a minute it visibly melted.

So, there's gotta be a spiritual principle here, right?  It hit me as I was watching this that nothing is impossible for God, the very principle about which I preached from Luke 1:37, when Mary is told by the angel that yes, she can have a baby.  It's an expression that occurs a number of times in Scripture, reminding us that the things that seem impossible with us are nothing compared to the almighty God we serve. In the dark and bright moments, in the hot and cold times in which we live, God is still mighty to save.

Maybe it's not that big a deal, really...I've seen this many times before.  But when it comes to God and his work, do we stop long enough to be in awe of what he does?

Why 'issues' like abortion are not always so easy...

I have started a new part-time job as a bus driver.  Actually I'm more like a van driver; what I do each morning is drive a SWEET 2011 Dodge Caravan out to two houses and pick up three kids who aren't really able to ride a school bus successfully.  I then take them to school where they are all minded by paraprofessionals throughout the day in their various classrooms, and then I pick them up after school and return them back to their homes.  Basically, I (and a few other drivers and the students' paras) are something like personal nannies, and of course we get paid for our time.  Each day the district (or the programs that fund these kinds of programs) likely spends at least a hundred dollars per student for each of these hard-case kids.  Some of them come from difficult homes, some are in foster care having been rescued from difficult homes, and some are just plain difficult.  Rather than kick them out of school, lots of money is poured into trying to help these at-risk kids.  These are our tax dollars at work.

So I was having a conversation recently with somebody who out of the blue brought up the problem of abortion and who wanted to direct my attention to recent attempts in Ohio to curtail abortion.  Generally speaking, I am against abortion, though I think that abortion is just a larger symptom of a greater problem, in that people do not want to take responsibility for their lives and so offing a fetus seems like the easiest option.  I would wish that every child could be born and that they could be loved and be raised right.  Sadly, however, millions of children are aborted each year.

But let's say for a moment that abortion was made illegal in this country.  There would be many illegal abortions, of course, and the danger to women's health would probably be a big issue.  But more likely ending abortion as we know it would also strongly increase the birth rate in our country.  Millions of children who at one time were unwanted (or perhaps had birth defects in the womb that led to the abortion) would now be born to parents who do not want them. What effect would that have?

Opponents of abortion would say that many of these children would live normal and healthy lives, given the opportunity.  Perhaps they are right...but I wonder how many of them would be unwanted, unhealthy, and now dumped onto a social infrastructure that is already over-taxed?  For instance, what would this do to pediatricians, who now have far too many patients to see already?  What would it do to our tax system, that already encourages people to make babies by all the tax credits and benefits one can get?  Would our deficit and debt balloon even more?  Would our schools have enough room?

And on a personal level, how many more special vans would we have to run out from our school district to transport all these difficult children who are now alive rather than aborted?  Are we ready for the population explosion that many good conservatives already resent by their refusal to vote for school bonds and other child-friendly structures?  Even now I hear people who grumble that the state and the schools do far too much to raise children...what do you think is going to happen when a million plus new unwanted children are tossed upon the social infrastructure each year?  Are they going to be at all happy about that?

As for me, I'm happy to be able to be a blessing for these children.  And I am thankful for the families that produce them, even if sometimes I wonder whether some people need to see that having more kids ain't a good thing.  But for those who want to end abortion, I wonder if they really see the ramifications of their hopes.  Because since many of them are financial as well as social conservatives, I wonder whether or not they are willing to pay for the needs of these children with as much vigor as they fought to keep them from being aborted?

Last Christmas

I love this time of year for so many reasons, but one of my favorite ones may be hundreds of versions of 'Last Christmas' that I can find on YouTube.  Last year I did something like '34 days of Last Christmas' on Facebook with a new video each day, and looking around I find that I could do the same thing with an entirely new playlist or by limiting my selections to Asian versions or any other way of doing this.

But there still may be no better version than the original Wham! version with George Michael and Andrew Ridgely.  It's not just a great song, but also high comedy in watching the video.  Here are my second-by-second highlights.
0:06 ooooohhhh  aaaaahhhhh ooooohhhheeeeeaaaa, with a beautiful mountain background.
0:22 big wave!  big wave!
0:35 'wait, I could have been with George Michael and I got stuck with this guy?'
0:41 George hugs.  Girlfriend coldly shakes hands.
1:07 So, there are houses with no roads, and you have to walk there?  Geez.
1:12 Twirly guy decorating tree!
1:18 So happy to be putting out plates!
1:28 Dorky guy with dorky smile bringing in firewood tracks in snow.  Thanks, Bill.
1:40 STOP DUMPING SNOW ON THE FLOOR, BILL!
1:52 Whee!  We get to go outside and play!
1:54 Blue steel pose alert!
2:06 Cake on fire!
2:32 Oh, that was cold.  She knows what she's doing looking at him that way.  Which leads to...
2:36 Pouty eyes!
2:43 'Crap, I didn't know shooting this video was going to be an all-day thing.  I am sooooo bored.'
2:58 FLASHBACK alert!  Is she trying to escape from him?  Play hard to get?  Do we need an intervention?  What's going on here?
3:15 She is SO COLD.  Se gave Andrew the cheap knock-off jewelry George had got for her last year when he was a nobody, but now Andrew wears it upside down.  Forget it George, she's done.
3:24 'We have to walk back to that stupid gondola?  Good thing we're all dressed so brightly that nobody will shoot us!'
3:37 FLASHBACK?  Are they back together?  ???  Last year?  This year?   So confused...
4:07 Incoming gondola alert!  Move out of the way!
4:22 Well, I'm glad they could end up as friends.  Glad they are all happy.

A Prayer for President-Elect Trump

We are called to pray for kings and those in high positions in 1 Timothy 2:1-2 and Ezra 6:10 and to recognize that governing authorities have been instituted by God in Romans 13:1+.  If we do this for those leaders we like, we are especially called to do this for those we do not like.

So now we have President-Elect Trump.  I earnestly hope and pray that Mr. Trump will be a great president, that he will lead us right, that I (and many others) have been very, very wrong about him.  But I fear that the next few months and years will be a disaster.  Mr. Trump has no experience in political matters, has shown no moral character throughout much of his life, and does not appear to have any kind of disposition that you would want in a leader of such a large nation that contains so many different types of people.  I especially fear his lack of humility and his sense of self-promotion will be a huge problem.  Again...maybe (hopefully) I am wrong, that this (as some of my conservative friends have suggested) that this has all been a grand conspiracy of the media to deny a great man his place in history.

But I do not think so, and since of course I have no power to influence him, I had certainly better pray for him.  Yet how do you pray for somebody you dislike and respect so much?  And so here is a prayer I will try to pray daily on his behalf.  God can do greater things than we ever imagine; he certainly must be here if we have any hope.

Dear Lord of all the heavens and earth, whose name is high and great,
-I earnestly come before you on behalf of our new leader, Donald Trump.  I have a great fear that he is not up to the job he has been given.  But I know that you can change hearts and minds and make each of us more than we are by your good gifts, and so I pray for him today.
-I pray that you will bless his family, that they will not be hurt by the endless attacks that will take place on their family simply because they are associated with him.  Help them to draw nearer to one another and to you in this time of testing.  
-I pray that you will give him humility, so that he will know that he does not know everything and that he will desire to learn and grow in this job.  Help him learn from the mistakes he will inevitably make and make those lessons be something that will helpful and not hurtful.  
-I pray that he will not make rash decisions, but prayerfully and with good counsel take time to consider what is right.  
-I pray that the temptations of worldly power will not swallow him up into lusts, greed, avarice, or any of the other dangers that come with worldly power.  Help him to see his position as one of servant leadership, rather than domineering control.  
-I pray that you will give him good advisers, who will not give advice based on what he wants to hear, but what he needs to hear.  May it not be only liberal or conservative or moderate advice, but truly Godly and wise counsel that will help him understand what needs to be done.  
-I pray that you will give him a sense of your Godly joy, that he will enjoy this job and not let it become a burden.  I know that there will be many times that he will have to make difficult and impossible decisions, and so I pray that he will do so with a sense of sober responsibility but not dread.
-I pray that you will help him to make the right kind of appointments in coming weeks, that he will choose men and women who will truly strive to serve the nation instead of their own interests.  Give each of them wisdom and character so they can do what is right.
-I pray that you will bless our country with him as our leader, that we will not fear one another even if we do not agree.  Help us to see that we gain nothing by attacking one another, but are stronger when we stand together.  Help us to realize that we all have planks in our own eyes, before we point fingers at those who have specks in theirs.  Help those who stand in opposition to do it out of good character and a genuine desire to help our nation, rather than simply to be obstinate.  
-O Lord, we are a people in need of your guidance in your life, but we have often rejected it.  Forgive us for our sin and self-righteousness.  Help us strive to follow you each day.  Help us to live to your glory rather than the glory of any person or idea.  
-In the name of Jesus, our only Lord and Savior, we pray, Amen.  

What I think will happen.

So after all the pinching we have done, we are still waking up to a Trumpian presidency to come.  It sounds trite, but I am thankful that Jesus is my true Lord and that I am of a kingdom beyond this world.  Because the one coming into these United States may not be eternal but it will certainly suck.

There's so much to say and worry about, but I have resigned myself to the fact that he will be my president, like it or not.  Am I willing to give him a chance; after all, what choice do I have?  I think the protests taking place against him in many cities is unwarranted at this point; the man is not president yet, and he did win fair and square.  He may turn out to be a great president.  I hope that I, and many others, are wrong. 

But how bad do I THINK it's going to be?  Bad.  Consider what is to come.
-First time there is a big foreign policy crisis, how bad will he screw it up?  How bad will he mess up our relationships with our allies?  How many people will suffer because he is undisciplined and impatient?
-What if he actually is able to enact his protectionist trade policies?  What if the economy goes in the tank, like many predict?  Will he have any political capital to do what he wants?  Just going to a depressed part of the country and promising jobs (hey, that sounds like a Democrat!) won't get the job done.
-What happens if he and Congress gut Obamacare?  Millions will now be without health coverage, or, for people like me who believe it is essential, what will happen when the premium rates turn to a level higher than my mortgage and car payments combined? 
-In the days before the election we are told that his staff took away his phone so he could not post on Twitter.  Will this return?  Will he be posting about how much he hates people at 3am?  Will he have any self-control?   Will he spend his time getting caught up in petty feuds in which he now has executive power to do what he wants?  What happens when newspapers start exposing him as he is?  Will he send the FBI onto them? 
-How long until we hear the story that he has cheated on his wife with some groupie staffer or intern?  Can he maintain faithfulness when he is now the most powerful man in the world with all the aphrodesiac powers that this may have?  Lock up your daughters, Washington GOP!
-What happens when his Trumpian politics run afoul of GOP orthodoxy?  Is he going to completely re-create what the Republicans are, or will he simply become just another politician? 

There's so many bad things that could happen.  Maybe he will handle them like a pro, but I suspect not. 

God help us.

The election apocalypse has arrived

We wake up this morning to the idea of President-Elect Donald Trump.  Ugh.  I had no affinity for Hillary Clinton, but this was an outcome far worse than I could have imagined.  The polls got it all wrong, though Clinton will still win the popular vote count.  Yep, once again the person getting the most votes loses because of an 18th century system of electing by state senate and representative counts.  Good job democracy!

Of course, there have to be some upsides to this.  Many of us will be praying much, much more because we know that only God stands between us and the downfall of civilization at this point.  The Clintons and their endless scandals will leave the national stage.  The election was not a landslide by any means; there is no mandate for Trump in this election, though I wish the Democrats would have at least won the Senate so as to block his worst excesses.

But perhaps the biggest upside over the next four years (assuming Trump is not impeached/does not die/does not resign before his term is up) is that the angry white rage that has built over the past 25 years will finally be shown for what it is.  Trump's lack of experience combined with the reality that whatever ideas he has are either undoable (the wall) or just bad (huge tariffs) will make the executive function of his presidency laughable.  Quite simply, he's going to be a terrible president, and the Democrats (and hopefully others) will be able to spend the next four years pointing out how terrible they are.  Though many Americans may seem so far gone into an alternate reality that nothing he do will turn them away, now this is put-up or shut-up time for these people.  So, you're going to make America great?  Do it!  I'm guessing that these ideas will now mostly die a stillborn death; I fear what might have happened had they been in the hands of somebody more competent or smart.

But this morning over breakfast I apologized to my just-turned-11-year-old daughter about this.  We are leaving her and her brother with a mess.  Those plans we had awhile back to visit somewhere in central America?  They are now not just plans to visit, but perhaps stay.

Halloween

Halloween is the first of the great American candy holidays.  My kids have been excited about it for weeks, and they came home tonight with two buttloads of candy...seriously, the biggest bowl we had only held half of it.  Our three biggest bowls are now filled to the brim.  I have no idea how we will eat this much...I think I got about a tenth of this much candy when I was a kid and it made me fat.  Good thing we parcel it out a bit more than was the case when I was a kid.  If we can keep them (and me) from sneaking it, this candy might last us six months.

As for me, though...I'm done with Halloween.  The cheap superhero costumes, the diabetic-inducing excess, the endless parties that waste yet another day of the kids' schoolyear (and then destroy any sense of discipline for a few weeks as the kids come down from a sugar high)...I really don't want to do this anymore.  What on earth turned a day in honor of the dead into raving children banging on doors demanding candy?  It's not cute, it's Trumpian in its deplorability.  I'm ready for it to go away completely.  It won't, of course.  Nor will the pounds that are put on again from all the high fructose corn syrup.

Forget taxing cigarettes or banning drugs...why aren't we doing more about this health nightmare?  I really would love to hear Michelle Obama talking about the virtues of giving out celery sticks and apples, but then I would also have to sit through endless fat pasty white Republicans talking about how unAmerican she is, even as they moan and gripe about how terrible our country has become.  And then I'd want to go and drive my car into a tree.

Now excuse me as I grumpily go and swipe a Kit Kat.

Ferris Bueller, revisited...

Today the kids were out of school so I pulled up on Netflix the great movie from my teenage years, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  It was one of the most important movies of my younger days, and even today it still holds up, though it wouldn't be nearly as hard to get Sloan out of school and Principal Rooney would simply GPS track Ferris' cell phone.  Technology ruins movies!

But today I recruited my son, who will turn nine next month, to watch this movie with me.  It's the first time I had seen this movie in awhile, and while I still enjoyed it (and he enjoyed it, too), I think I now see it more through the eyes of a parent.  Not only was I thinking throughout the movie that I'm likely giving my son some bad ideas that will germinate when he gets into high school (or even junior high), but I also started realizing that the heroes were likely people who had been traumatized to a dangerous level (Cameron, who not only hated his father for his abusive upbringing but also had found somebody in Ferris who was just as bad and just as controlling as his father) or who were really just kinda jerky.

I mean, Sloan is great, and remains the pure center of the movie.  Sloan may be the reason most guys loved this movie.  She's hot, she's up for anything, and she even likes his nerdy friend. 

But Ferris?  Here's a kid who has been pegged correctly by both Cameron and his sister...he always wins, he always gets what he wants, he always flies through life on his charm.  Most of us knew somebody like Ferris, and he might have been well-known by every social clique at the school, but likely he wasn't well-liked in reality.  Here's a guy who lets people raise money for his imaginary kidney condition, who skips school Nine Times a semester just because he doesn't like to go, and who twists his parents around his finger through his lies and deceptions.  When finally stood up to by the heroic principal, he destroys that man's life.  I mean, the question we ought to ask should be, is Ferris really just a jerk? 

Yep, we all know guys like Ferris Bueller.  They skate through life and treat people as disposable objects even as most people try to play fair.  Maybe we shouldn't celebrate people like him, but turn him into a cautionary tale of what a wasted life really looks like. 

OK, this was mostly sarcasm.  But not all of it...

The Three Unforgivable Curses

I have been reading again the Harry Potter series, which I am increasingly convinced may be the best series of books written since the Bible.  In the wizarding world there are three unforgivable curses, for which a wizard will go to Azkaban: the Imperius curse, in which one controls another person; the Cruciatus curse, in which one causes another person unspeakable pain; and finally the Killing curse (Avada Kedavra), in which one kills another.

I am starting to wonder whether our country is living within this wizarding world and whether or not Voldemort has taken over.  Consider: the people who are excited about either candidate, Trump especially, must be under the Imperius curse...is there any other explanation for the behavior that people have in supporting these candidates?  Their actions and the actions of the candidates is casting upon the rest of us the Cruciatus curse...it's really painful to watch; we are all scarred by what is happening.  And if Trump should happen to win, dare we say that we will all be under the Killing curse?  I really fear that if Trump wins this country will be irrevocably broken, and if he loses his supporters will soon break it.  Death to America seems to no longer be the chant of Muslim extremists.

Fortunately those books and those curses are not real, are they?  Yet right now they certainly feel real.

Baskets upon baskets of deplorables

It's a pretty safe bet at this point to say that Donald Trump will NOT be our next president.  Despite Hilary Clinton being the second-most hated person in America, despite the cowardice of the American population to not even consider looking at third party candidates...he's simply not going to win.  He's shot himself in the foot so many times that his unfavorable ratings are 63%; the sense is that he has a ceiling of about 38-40%, and no more.  He can't win. 

Yet this number that he has a 63% disapproval rating tells us something else: there are still 37% of Americans who either have their heads in the grounds or have decided that yeah, they still really like Donald Trump.  After all the allegations of shady business dealings (Trump University, condo deals gone bad, unpaid creditors), all the racist and hateful things he has said to offend anybody who is not an older white male, and now after the recordings of him laughing about groping and even assaulting women, they still look at him and think that everything bad about him is a mainstream media/Clinton Foundation/globalistic plot to keep the true Friend of the Working Man from becoming president. 

How do people become so deluded?  I get it...there are at least a few of his voters who will vote for him because they think that any Clinton is worse.  I can relate to that, as I've considered it myself a few times.  And sure, he is unlike any politician on this stage that we have seen since probably Henry Wallace.  In a way it's kind of refreshing to have somebody who is not so guarded and measured in their words. 

But c'mon.  It's still Trump.  How can anybody with any kind of conscience, any kind of Christian value system, look at him and still approve at this point?  What does that say about a small and loud minority of Americans that somebody will  still think that he is our last best hope?  Have we really sunk that low?

Yes, yes we have. 

Unavoidable

Four weeks ago I was sick of the election, not just the candidates but the social media crapfest in which we heard nothing but the very worst about two of the worst candidates of all time.  And so I decided to jump off Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to take an eight week 'fast'.  Perhaps it was also a recognition that I was looking at these things too much.  I had thought it would be a total social media fast, but of course I am still blogging and checking email and reading the news.  A mini-fast, I suppose.

Of course, I have found out that my plans were naive.  Nowhere can I get away from this election...waiting around hospital surgical waiting room C-Span feeds from political rallies were on the TV.  Every news story is about the most recent abomination that Trump has spouted, or about some new potential scandal of the Clintons.  A friend of mine was telling me about therir vacation cabin having new TV and I was at first envious, before I recognized that I get most of my news from elsewhere. 

I used to have this dream back in my single days ending up in some unelectrified cabin and living out my days as a hermit...maybe that still should still be a future bucket list goal.  As it is now, I'm just as annoyed as I was a month ago.  Let it be over.

The Four Great Candy Holidays

We are entering into the first of the four great candy holiday seasons in our country: Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter.  We wonder why we have an issue with obesity in this country, and we might look no further than these cold weather holidays in which candy is a great part of them all.  Halloween, of course, is the easiest one, but Christmas is gaining speed, Valentine's day is the crappiest of all the candy holidays (those little chalk hearts combined with the worst of the boxed candies), and finally one last blast of chocolate eggs that is supposed to last us through the summer. 

Made up holidays are nothing new...Valentine's Day really is nothing more than a ploy begun by giftmakers to a)make men feel bad for not doing enough and b)make women feel bad if they aren't loved enough.  I'm convinced that many of our national holidays (including tomorrow's Columbus Day) are meaningless, though of course Christmas and Easter have some real meanings. 

And it's not a bad thing to think about candy for four days if it was limited to those days; total abstinence from such things for us non-diabetics is perhaps too much to ask.  But it's the long season that really gets me.  It used to be that only Christmas decorations took over for weeks and months at a time, but now it seems that Halloween candy displays appear the first week of September...and who is really buying candy on Labor Day to hold up in their cupboard for eight weeks, thinking that there won't be any left by the middle of October?  Don't they remember that this is America, the land of the free and good and plenty (thankfully a fading brand of candy)?

Self-righteousness and me

In my daily reading today I read this: "Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you.  Your heart knows that many times you have yourself cursed others."  (Ecclesiastes 7:21-22 ESV)

I know I have read this many times, and even have taught it a few times over the year, but wow...this really hit me hard.  Just as Jesus told his followers in the golden rule to treat others as they would want to be treated (Matthew 7:12), so here we are reminded about the power of cutting others some slack.  Do people treat us and say bad things once in a while?  Sure...but don't take it to heart.  You yourself say terrible things and treat others bad also!

There are so many applications here:
-When I am driving and somebody cuts me off, I want to flip them the bird and pound on the steering wheel.  But when I (mistakenly) do this, do I expect them to give me the benefit of the doubt?
-When I hear a bad sermon that seems to play fast and loose with God's word, I may condemn and hate the preacher.  But when I (mistakenly) do this, do I say that people shouldn't judge me too harshly?
-When after a long day my wife is not in a good mood I get frustrated that she is so cranky.  But when I (not-so-mistakenly) do this, am I hoping that others will cut me some slack?

So often these days I hear somebody talking about how badly they have been treated by others...but then they think nothing about treating others badly.  Why are we so hypocritical?  Why do we think we are exempt from the rules of social behavior?

The Teacher knew about this many years ago.  May I finally learn it from him.

Fall Gospel Meeting!

Another trip to the mailbox and I come up with a flyer for a local gospel meeting (the church of Christ term for 'revival') at a church three towns over.  I usually put these up, though I don't expect anybody to go.  This one, though, I decided not to put up.

I was baptized at a fall gospel meeting 35 years ago.  I don't remember the details of the sermon, but I knew after hearing it that I needed to be baptized, that I needed to be saved or I was going to hell.  While the gospel, I have thankfully learned over the years, is much more than hellfire and brimstone, it's important to hold out the truth that we preach Christ and him crucified and how he is the only way to salvation.  To preach the gospel should impact the church now, but also expand the gospel to those who do not know it.

And so I got this flyer about a gospel meeting, and the theme, in large ALL CAPS, was 'The God of Order'.  Go down to see what is being preached each service: 'The Origin of Civil Government'; 'The Christian and Civil Government'; 'Is God Blessing America'; 'The Christian and the World'; and finally 'Freedom is a Privilege, Not a Right'.

I looked this flyer for a stated gospel meeting and I asked, 'where is the gospel in this'?  Now, I did not go and hear these sermons, but I am guessing (based on who is speaking and the church holding the meeting) that it is heavily tied to a politically right wing message of law and order.  In these days of Black Lives Matter vs. Blue Lives Matter, this message stands only with the latter, not the former.  America, in this viewpoint, is the great savior...one could even say that the United States of people's imagination is the One True Hope in this world.  Our job is to submit to the Order of this world, salute the flag, put our time in at the nebulous civil religion of American Christianity, and  be thankful that we are blessed even as we curse those who point out the unChristian things that even good Christian folk are guilty of.

This is not the gospel.  Call it a seminar on Christianity, but don't call it a 'Gospel meeting.'  If Jesus is not front and center of all things, don't go and calling something else who has taken his rightful place the gospel.  Blasphemy is just around the corner when we do this.

I earnestly hope that I am wrong, and that somebody will come to Jesus through this meeting.  But I am afraid that they are drifting further and further away from the gospel and embracing the ideology of America First.  The flag is once again trumping the cross...and we are all lesser for it.

A Poor Pool of Potential Presidents

Do you feel qualified to be President?  Sure...you may be over 35 and born a citizen.  Constitutionally, you are qualified.

But going by more than just a legal definition, I am becoming increasingly convinced that there are not a lot of human beings that are capable of handling this job.  How many?  In a nation of 300 million, maybe 300.

Think about what it means to be President...you have to have an intimate knowledge of all workings of government, not just the stuff that ends up on the news every night.  You have to have a temperament that allows you to multi-task, work hard, not get frustrated, not quit, and again multi-task to the point that you can juggle a hundred balls in the air at once, because, you are the Decider.  You have to be relatively free of scandal, both real and perceived.  And you have to have the intelligence that only a few people have, tempered by the wisdom of age and experience.

For all the cries that people have that 'I don't want a politician!' to be president, don't we want somebody who knows what is going on?  Somebody who has paid their dues?  Somebody whose life has not been a celebration of self-interest but public service?  I know...it's easy to say we don't want somebody who knows what the job will really involve.  But would you want a CEO who has no knowledge of their industry and thus only sees the bottom line, not customers or products or employees?  Would you want a major league baseball manager who doesn't know the techniques of bat control or the ins and outs of handling a multi-national clubhouse?  Would you want a preacher who just recently started to study Scripture?

Being qualified matters...and likely there are very few who are truly qualified.  The biggest mark against Obama was his lack of experience, and while he has done well given his inexperience (remember, he had been a state senator less than 10 seasons before becoming president!), one wonders whether or not he might have been a great president with a little more seasoning.  I am thinking that being a Governor, Senator, or Cabinet secretary should be the minimum requirement; more than one of those is likely needed to get both the executive experience and the overall knowledge needed.  So how many are left who have done this...300?  This doesn't even begin to phase out those who were dunderheads or bad at their job; these usually get sorted out quick enough in the primaries.

And so this leads us to our election...we have two people who have a chance to win.  I am voting for neither, instead deciding to vote for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, who was once a governor.  I wish he could win, but he can't get above about 12% so he has little or no shot.  The other two candidates are Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  One has vast experience, as a first lady (don't tell me that doesn't help somebody know what to expect), Senator, and Cabinet secretary.  Is she scandal-prone?  Absolutely.  Do I like her?  No.  But compared to the alternative, who has no experience, no willingness to learn, and nothing to indicate anything beyond a concern with himself, and I'll take Hillary any day of the week, even when I don't always agree with her policies.

A Hillary presidency will be...not fun.  But a Trump presidency?  Get the fire extinguishers ready, because the mother of all dumpster fires is coming.

The Anthem

I will always stand for the national anthem.  It's one way I feel I can honor my nation and be thankful for where I live.  For me, it's just something that I do.

Yet others may feel differently.  Currently we are in a season in which certain athletes are sitting, kneeling, or raising a fist during the playing of the national anthem before their game.  Some do it for reasons we may not know about, while others may be explicit in their reasoning. Most who have spoken up have mentioned the 'there is a lot of injustice in America' argument.  In doing so they have been applauded by some, but simply been told to shut up and stand by most.

While some of the backing seems trite and simply designed to placate liberal feelings, it's this second attitude that bothers me the most.  In telling Colin Kaepernick or Megan Rapinoe that they should not speak, they are committing one of the most unAmerican of sins...telling somebody that they should have no voice.  While I and others might wonder whether their action really would make a difference, those who have acted believe that this is the right place to do it, and to simply shout them down or ignore their complaints only adds fuel to their complaints.  What are we as a people if we assume that the status quo is the only thing worth standing for?

America is built upon the freedom to protest, even protest against the flag or the national anthem.  We are a nation built upon change, upon looking at ourselves honestly and recognizing where we have failed and working towards making it better.  In protesting some feel that America is not living up to what it ought to be.  And in shouting them down, protesters are being proven correct in their frustrations.

It is ironic that a nation that seems to going down the road towards voting for a presidential candidate that 'says what needs to be said' (gag) at the same time won't allow other forms of uncomfortable truths to be spoken.  You can say that they may not be saying it at the right time or in the right way, but we have no right to say that such things cannot or should not be said.

Why I Am Tempted To Vote For Trump

I think Donald Trump may be the worst main party presidential candidate in American history.  He would make Silvio Berlusconi (former Italian PM) look like a genius by comparison.  He's a crude, uneducated, unprepared man who shouldn't be anywhere near political power.

Yet in the back of my mind I am tempted to vote for him.  Why?  It would be easy to say that Gary Johnson can't win and that Hillary Clinton is not a better option (she is, but not by much).  I'm not sure that Donald Trump has the ability to destroy the freight train that is 'Merica, and part of me wonders how long he would stay in the job, that he might do it for a year, get bored or tired of the hatred he has to deal with, and just quit and leave us with Magical Mike Pence.

But let's say Hillary Clinton wins the election.  The scandals (real or imagined) keep simmering, but more important is what actually happens in a Clinton administration.  Let's say there's another big terrorist attack, or the economy bubble inevitably pops, or some other event that happens that crushes whatever approval rating she has.  Trumpites come out and proclaim, 'This wouldn't happen on Trump's watch!  We should have let him make America great again!'  We draw closer to an election and Trumpism, in the form of Donald Trump or Sarah Palin or some other numbskull, rises above and claims, 'see, I told you so!  Vote for us this time to get it right!'  And Trumpism is legitimized, claims real power not just in the presidency but in the legislatures and governors and Congress.  It's at this point that we'd be really screwed.

Because right now let's say Trump wins.  He's already unpopular with a sizable majority of the electorate, and it's unlikely that he's going to bring a lot of Congress along with him, even if they are Republicans.  Because, I believe, there are still principled real conservatives who, even though Trump is a Republican, won't support him with legislation.  If he wins Trumpism and its emperor with no clothes (I would hope) will be seen for the fraud that it is, even if it really never really takes hold with actual governmental legislation.  Giving it a little bit of power now might be enough to show America how worthless and empty is and drive a stake through it before it gets started.

But give it the opportunity to stay outside of power, to let it grow in a land of increasingly entitled idiots who are fueled by hate and rage and evil, and then it might really cause problems down the road.  For the long-term health of America, shouldn't we let the cancer take over now for a short time so that we can become immune to it, rather let it simmer and build and come back as a bigger monster later?

I really, really hate these options.

Manufactured Outrage

Working alone in a one-man office, I sometimes whether or not the world is imploding outside, and I'm just watching it through my pane-glad windows.  Yes, usually I meet and visit with people several times a day, but there are whole blocks of two or three hours in which I am alone with my thoughts, with prayer, with Scripture.  I surf around the internet when I take breaks or listen to some music, but I will go hours at a time having no contact with any other humans.

Recently Colin Kapernick, a not-very-good quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, decided to stage a protest, refusing to stand during the national anthem.  Why he did so may or may not be irrelevant...something about the injustice of our world, which seems ironic in that his protest comes from a man in the top .00001% of wage earners in our country for playing a game.

Naturally, of course, the internet has blown up.  Most of the people I have seen commenting on this are outraged...how can you not stand?  How unpatriotic!  How unAmerican!  Of course, I have wondered why we are so intent on playing this song before sporting events even as we do not do so before movies or other forms of live entertainment.  In truth I feel that playing it as often as we do cheapens its meaning...indeed, I often have been at games in which people stand up reluctantly, hardly paying attention to it, wondering how to hold their drink in one hand and put their hand over their heart with their other for a minute and fifteen seconds even as they keep an eye on four restless kids.  We do our patriotic salute and we move on.  We hear it so often that it loses its meaning.

Yet I never cease to be amazed at how easy it is to manufacture outrage over something like this.  The same people who get so worked up over how this world is becoming so politically correct ("Why are people so mad that I said ______?  They [usually a minority or liberal group] need to get over it!") are now acting as if Kapernick has spit on the flag and set it ablaze as he screams Muslim praises.

I could spout the usual liberal response, that freedom means that we listen to what somebody is saying even as we don't like it...but in the end I'm just so tired of it all.  Maybe I need to close my blinds a little bit more, stop surfing the internet on my breaks, and just shut out the world.  I can't handle any more outrage today, thank you.

Naked self-interest

I'm glad I have this quiet little spot to post things that will never get read by anybody.  In truth, I don't want people reading most of what I have to say, though as I say in the heading there are certain things I have to get of my head.  Preaching the gospel is far more important than anything I will say here, and I don't want to distract from the gospel, ever.  My ideas may be OK or not, but Jesus can save people.  Big difference.

But I still cannot fathom how people can vote for Donald Trump.  Christian people, people who have been going on and on the last eight years, "We need a Godly man in the White House!"  And now they are firmly behind Trump, who might be the most immoral man ever to have a shot at it (sorry, Thomas Jefferson).

But then I realize what modern conservatism has become: a naked appeal to absolute self-interest (be it about guns, taxation, 'state's rights', etc.), even as it is cloaked in the form of godliness.  That, my friends, borders on blasphemy.  And what makes it even more sad is that many church-going people are completely and totally blind to this fact.

I suppose both major ideologies these days are about self-interest...liberalism champions abortion and gay rights and welfare, which are all about the individual wants...but at least liberalism has the decency these days to do these and rarely call it 'Christian'.  Conservatism has so distorted the gospel message in recent years though that many Christians no longer really know what they are supposed to believe or how they are to live.  Or, what may be more true but more scary, they know and they just don't care.

It's been a long time since I thought this was a Christian nation, and we drift further from this ideal every day.  May God have mercy on us.

A non-systematic, hopefully non-ideological meditation on economic principles of Scripture. #4: Exodus 20:8-11

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
(Exodus 20:8-11 ESV)

I used to think, in my more individualistic/conservative days, that this Scripture was about the need to take a rest because, well, we all need it. Don't overwork, take time to worship, don't pursue the last dollar because God knows what is best for us as persons.  The Sabbath is an important to a happy and balanced life in which we take care of ourselves in important ways.  Spend time with God, with your family, with yourself.

Now, I still think that this is part of the Sabbath, but the more I have looked at Scripture I get the sense that this is not just a guideline for 'your best life now'.  No, the Sabbath is also about how we look at the Other (as, indeed, are so many other issues).  Consider these words not just to the head of the house (who likely would have read or heard it in the assembly)...it's also about a word for his family, his servants, his guests, and even his animals.  The one who is the CEO of the extended family of 3500 years ago is told not just to rest for himself, but specifically that others who might work on his behalf are to rest as well.

This dramatically changes how we look at the concept of the Sabbath.  While perhaps today we are not called to literally keep the Sabbath to the extreme that some Jews thought they should (cf. Matthew 12:1-14; Colossians 2:16-18), it's still a good thing to rest not just for ourselves but to give others as a break.  What if we took this seriously?  Would it change our shopping patterns?  Change how we go and eat out for Sunday dinner?  Would it change how we come home and turn on the TV for the Chiefs kickoff?

Let me say this as directly as I can: do we allow the way we consider our Sundays make it where others have to work?  Sure, the Chiefs players are making huge money to play for our entertainment.  But most of the service workers working to feed us or check us out at Wal-Mart on Sunday are some of the most economically fragile in our economy.  They often considered the poorest, working the worst kind of shifts that likely few people want to really work.  They are away from their families on days in which the rest of the family may be going to worship or are at play.  But they work in order to provide for our 'day of rest'.

Doesn't this form of economic behavior go against the very spirit of the Sabbath?  Might we even call it unChristian?  While I don't want Blue Laws to return so that all shops and stores are closed on Sunday (as sometimes I still go out and eat or shop, or I might need to travel), Christians ought to be cognizant of their economic patterns on this day.  By doing what is best for us, are we doing that which causes some form of harm (in relative terms) to our neighbor by making them work?

Sometimes we are oblivious to the needs of others.  A number of years ago a church member was complaining to me about how she had invited a friend of hers to church but she could never come because she had to work on Sundays.  She thought it was wrong that this woman had to work...but then she would spend her Sunday afternoons going to lunch, shopping, and even going to a movie.  In other words, the things she was doing were directly leading to the conditions that made her friend have to work on a Sunday, yet she could not see this correlation.

Questions like this make us dig deep and see if we are part of the problem.  It's not easy, of course...some workers like working on Sundays as they get paid more (which, again, is important for lower-wage workers), and many today think no differently about a Sunday than any other day.  But for Christians who think Kingdom of God first, again the Sabbath should make us think about how we live on behalf of the Other, rather than ourselves alone.

As for me a number of years ago I stopped buying on the Sabbath as much as I could.  Occasionally I will still eat out or shop or travel...but generally I try to avoid it as much as I can.  I am a hypocrite in that I am not consistent in this, and I need to get better, but it's something where we can all make a difference.

After finishing this, I realized I wrote something about this three years ago.  You can decide whether I wrote it better now or then.  

Friday Trump rant

Ugh.  New studies are showing that somewhere around 80% of white evangelical voters are backing Donald Trump.  Yep, the same people who have for years talked about how we need a Godly, Christian man in the White House are now saying that they want to vote for Trump.

Look, I'm not expecting anybody to vote for Hillary in protest to this man who, for all we can see in him, has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God.  And I'm sure that some of these people are more afraid of Hillary and Bill Clinton and liberalism than anything else and so are more anti-Hillary than they are pro-Trump.

But...how can you vote for somebody like this?  I mean, it's not that there are not other choices out there.  There are dozens of other candidates who have declared, even some who are going to be on our ballots in the fall.  But no, we vote for Trump.  The Republicans have used white evangelicals as a steady base for years even while never actually doing anything for them...what are they really expecting Trump to be able to do for them that others (who had genuine, if sometimes misguided beliefs) have not?

Let me take a break and go scream.

I've repeated endlessly my statement that the Kingdom of God stands above and sometimes against the Kingdom of the United States.  They are not equal nor similar...one relies on Godly power and righteousness, the other on military might and material wealth.  And Christians are mistaken if they are expecting their primary support for one to lead to the prosperity of the other.

And haven't Christians learned everything by the last 20-30 years of the de-Christianizing of America?  That the youth in our country are staying away or leaving the churches in droves should have warned us that the current politicalization of Christianity is not working.  But we keep doing it, even to the point that we throw our support behind Trump.

Of all the things Christendom in America has to be ashamed of, the support of Trump has to rank near the top.  Why don't we just go and admit it...we were never concerned about somebody with real values, about somebody wanting to make this a Christian country again.  We just wanted power.  That's it.  Power.  And in doing so we drag the glory of Christ through the depths of hell.

This is getting embarrassing.  May God save us from ourselves.

Red State, Blue State

One thing I see from my conservative friends on a regular basis is a map of America's presidential vote.  The point they want us all to see is "Hey, this is really a conservative country with just a few outliers of crazy liberals out there!"  The actual electoral and popular count drives them crazy..."How do we lose?  The system must be rigged!"

Yet looking at a map like this I've always seen it a bit differently.  Yes, in most wide-open spaces, people tend to vote more conservative, more 'Republican'.  But in places where lots of people live, they tend to vote more liberal, more 'Democrat'.  Why is this?

So we just got home from a family vacation to Chicago, a far different place than my small town in Kansas.  I really enjoyed it, as it was such a very different place, even if I personally would not want to live there.  Small town living is probably more my speed.  Others decide differently, though, and that's OK...and in living in a large city, people tend to vote differently and see the world differently.  And usually they vote more blue, more democrat.

Two things really stuck out to me while I was there that are illustrative of why one would vote in a more 'liberal' (i.e., more state control) fashion, making the facts plain that if you are on top of people all the time in large numbers, then you probably want a lot more control.  First, when it comes to travel infrastructure, you need much more central control.  We drove a little bit in Chicago...bad idea.  It's not that the roads are terrible in Chicago, it's just that there are far too many cars.  One time we drove late at night after a game and the roads were fine, but during the day when people travel, there are too many people trying to claim far too spots.  Thus, there is a greater need for more centralized, government-led initiatives like subways and buses.  While the wealthiest may be able to drive downtown and pay $35 a day for parking (as the free market allows), most people cannot afford to do that.  They need to take public transport to get to work.  While government trains and buses may not always be the most efficient means of getting this done, they generally work well when they are funded and run in appropriate ways.  Those who live in large cities can see this, while those of us in small towns (where driving is much easier) have a lot harder time understanding why there is such a need.  Just go to a large city, though, and one sees its need.

A second way to see this difference is in how we view guns.  Most of my family and friends in small towns see guns not as only a right, but perhaps as necessary.  Live in the country and you need them to shoot at wild animals, and one might need them for self-defense as law enforcement may be quite a ways away.  But live in a city, in which there thousands or even tens of thousands all concentrated in a tiny area, and loose gun laws simply don't work.  Actually, let me put it differently...lots of guns in a small region with lots of people do not work, just like having too many cars on too few roads.  Gun laws have tried eliminating guns, to little effect, and this is why there are still so many shootings in large cities even though there are laws.  Even against the law, guns still infiltrate these communities, lead to shootings, and make it seem like cities are dangerous places.  Removing all guns still will not eliminate murders...Cain killed Abel with a rock, after all.  But removing the worst of them, or at least making sure they are locked away or giving strong penalties or insurance rates to those who hold onto them will eliminate some, if not many of the problems that are associated with mass proliferation of weaponry.  

Maybe the differences in our country is a reason why limited federal control is actually a good thing...having a 'one size fits all' policy on guns or infrastructure or many other elements may not be helpful.  Let states and counties decide what fits best for their place.  This is not absolute, of course...some of the worst excesses of both sides (institutional racism on the right, extra tight economic or social controls on the left) cannot be allowed to stand.  But in a nation of 300 million people, it's hard to figure out the right balance of these things unless you are on the ground and experiencing them for yourself.

Hillary, her haters, and my vote

So this week Hillary Clinton was declined to be prosecuted for not getting her email server security up to snuff.  Her haters have been having a field day with this...'If she were anybody else she'd be in jail right now!', even though the FBI director is a Republican appointment and has nothing to lose by going after her.   I get the hatred, though...25 years of the Clintons, and it seems like they keep getting away with stuff.   Whitewater, Monica, Vince Foster, the Clinton Foundation, Benghazi...forget Reagan, these are truly the teflon presidents!  Clinton fatigue has already set in, and she's not even president yet.

Of course, once again we have a situation in which people are outraged because they things they have been told on Breitbart or Fox News or Rush Limbaugh have once again been false.  They have a sense of reality that is not really real, and so they believe that the system is rigged.  But just as you may have a right to your own opinion but not your own facts, so also you do not get to believe absolutely that your view of the world must be so.

What's funny about this is that different polls have been done asking essentially, "Do you believe that a leader sometimes needs to break the rules to get things done?"  And almost universally Trump supporters say yes, even as they are screaming for Hillary to go to jail.  Hillary broke rules about the proper protocols for her email servers...shouldn't conservatives be praising her for going outside Big Government rules?  In the end, this is a about 2 (1-10 scale) in the world of real scandals.  The Donald smashes that number each week.

Yet this week has also made me realize something...as much as I despise Donald Trump, and think that Hillary Clinton in a vacuum would be a decent president (though I think she's too much of a hawk and is too close to big business), I just can't support her.  This week was a preview of what the next four years is going to look like with a Hillary presidency...scandal after perceived scandal after near scandal.  If this presidency is a rerun of Bill Clinton's presidency, it's a wonder that anything can get done between all the damage control.  2020 would likely be set up to be a Republican landslide.

So, who will I vote for?  Four years ago I declined to vote since this is the reddest of red states.  But this year I think there's a chance that many of the right-wing policies of Brownback and the Koch Brothers in Kansas may get beaten...mostly I will vote for non-incumbents, meaning Democrats since they are about the only options in most elections (though I'm not a big fan of the party).  Yet for Presidency, there are many options...and at this point I am leaning towards Gary Johnson & William Weld, the Libertarian ticket.  Generally I am sympathetic towards libertarianism (when it doesn't go crazy with free market economics and nakedly support the wealth class), and they have a chance to make a real difference this election.  They still won't win...but it would be nice to not have to support the lesser of two evils.

My Presidents

My father recently said that Obama was the worst president of his lifetime.  I wanted to answer back and say, no he's not.  But then again, now that he is retired, he has a lot of time to watch his Fox News and be told that everyday.  Combined with the common sense of historical lack of perspective we all have that leads us to hyperbole (e.g. "This is the BEST movie I've ever seen!"  "I've never had a worse experience in my life"), I can see how he thinks that.  But he's wrong.

And so, who are the best and worst presidents of my lifetime?  Let's see.
-Richard Nixon.  This is a tough one, because I was just a baby.  His Presidency was overshadowed by Watergate, but it's interesting that he was overwhelmingly elected both times, beating Humphrey big and then absolutely crushing McGovern in 1972.  So until Watergate, people liked him and must have thought he was doing a good job.  He was getting out of Vietnam, the economy wasn't in terrible shape yet (though the recessions that followed into the early 80s were probably his fault, at least somewhat), and we didn't get involved in more foreign excursions.  He's all over the place...had he not been so thin-skinned and paranoid, he might have been a great president.  Let's give him a C.
-Gerald Ford.  A good man who should have stayed in Congress.  Rightly pardoned Nixon, was never seen as legitimate since he only became VP when Agnew had to resign, and the economy started to tank during his Presidency.  Probably ought to give him an incomplete, but 2 1/2 years was long enough for America.  C-
-Jimmy Carter.  A great man who was in way over his head.  Recently in watching The Seventies miniseries I got the impression that he had high ideals that were incompatible with a man who must exercise that kind of power.  If I were president, I probably could do no better than him...you need to get along with Congress, and he was clueless about that.  He had problems to fix, and seemed incapable of doing anything.  The Iranian revolution is on his watch, and he was impotent to do anything about it.  The economy tanked, and Reagan became President and looked great by comparison.  A D+ is as high as I can go, and likely that includes points for the good things he has done after his presidency.
-Ronald Reagan.  Now we start coming to people I can remember well.  He was the president when I left elementary school and when I began college.  Most people would give him a solid A, but many of the things he did have started to look worse in hindsight and led to many problems we have today.  He lowered taxes, but the debt began to balloon.  He helped bring back American pride after the 60s and 70s, but it has led many to believe in American Exceptionalism.  He got us involved in many foreign policy adventures, all in the name of freedom (Panama, Grenada, Lebanon), and this has led to many intractable problems today.  He took on communism, leading to the fall of the USSR, but this change the geo-political landscape, in that instead of a few large problems, we have many more small problems today.  He began in earnest the drug war, imprisoning millions of Americans.  He was likely the most transformative president of my lifetime, for good and for bad.  I still feel fondly about him, even as I know his many failures.  I'll give him a B.
-George Bush.  We forget about him, but he was likely underrated.  He pulled back on some of the excesses of Reagan's conservative revolution, but in doing so he alienated conservatives ("Read my lips, no new taxes") and did not go far enough for liberals.  It's hard to really judge what he did, because Reagan's effects dominated his presidency.  B-.
-Bill Clinton.  Like Nixon, a scandal (Monica Lewinsky/Whitewater) overwhelmed good policy actions.  Clinton was the last president to lead us to a balanced government budget and he mastered the ideology of centrism.  But because he could not keep his pants up, and because enough of the scandals people accused him of had some basis in fact, he was not who he could have been.  B
-George W Bush.  Here was a man who was the conservative Jimmy Carter in his incompetency but allowed himself into so many disastrous policies by his advisers that America is still reeling.  After 9/11, he looked good standing on a pile of rubble, but it all went downhill from there.  The War on Terror went out of control on his watch, and we will be suffering its effects the rest of my lifetime.  One wonders about how his presidency would have gone had he not had people like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney by his side.  I can't give him any better than a D-.
-Barack Obama.  The black president with the Muslim-sounding name.  He is the coolest president of my lifetime, and he could have been transformative.  Remember those 'change' and 'hope' signs?  But a combination of a hostile Congress and screaming conservative element gave him little hope to really get a lot done.  He should have taken on the bankers and the huge corporations some more, but they had bought too many representatives and senators to make this possible.  I sometimes feel he should have been more ambitious, but perhaps he did the best he could with what he had.  The economy has stayed OK, we've not been involved in a lot more foreign wars (though we've been drone-striking terrorists), and social change has continued to progress.  He's not the best president, but he's not the worst, either.  B-.

We Are Screwed

So yesterday morning another lunatic went in and shot up another nightclub and another 50 people died.  Lots of questioning going on...was this guy (who had a semi-Muslim name) an ISIS terrorist?  Was this a hate crime, since it was a 'gay nightclub' (as most reports said)?  Were the guns he bought legally purchased?  Why was this guy, who had been questioned by the FBI several years ago, allowed to buy these guns earlier in the week?  And why, of course, do politicians of every stripe state their regular blather about 'thoughts and prayers' being with the victims when in fact nobody will do a  damned thing about preventing this from happening again next week or next month?

Not long after I arrived at the office this morning a man in the community called seeking advice.  Basically it came down to that he felt guilty that he wasn't sufficiently disturbed about what happened.  Yes, he would have been more upsetting to him if it happened in a school or somewhere else, but that it was a gay club made him feel bad that he didn't feel bad enough.  I honestly admire his concern; I don't know that I helped him, but I did tell him that likely a)we are all weary of these stories, so it is natural to shrug our shoulders...aren't we tired of the outrage?  b)The best thing he could do was to show sympathy and compassion and a tender heart to those around him.  I wish I would have said (I tried saying it but it didn't come out right) that if you let your heart be led to do compassionate things, then your feelings will follow.

Yet I failed in my advice, because I am so tired of these things and the inevitable gun control arguments, because nothing gets done.  The NRA has sufficiently poisoned the waters for so long that there is no hope.  If, as I have read in several places, there is a gun for everybody in America, this means there are 300 millions guns out there.  300,000,000, most of them not registered or trackable.  So, let's say that Obama puts in a gun control measure tomorrow to make it where there are no more gun purchases, that Wal-Mart really does stop selling AK-47s and pawn shops aren't stocked with walls of guns for whoever would want one...is that going to end the killings?

Let's say that he goes even further, and orders the ATF or FBI or some other agency to start rounding up guns.  This would play right into the hands of all the 2nd Amendment crazies, as they proclaim that the government is coming for their guns so that they can oppress the people.  How many shootouts would follow?  How many guns would be hidden?  How many more terrorist attacks would come not in the name of Allah but in the name of Freedom or the Flag or My Rights or whatever else the lingo is today?  Once again, the NRA has so allowed so many weapons to be bought over the years (300,000,000) that such a task of even the most draconian government would be impossible.

It's not a question of desire or even will, but simply reality.  Perhaps this is why 'thoughts and prayers' still get mentioned...but maybe what we need to pray for is that God will suddenly dissolve all these weapons, like he dissolved manna in the wilderness if it stayed over to the second day.  I'm sure that many of the crazies would think that Obama was still at fault for this, but then again I'm not so sure God is desiring to do this.  I'm becoming more sure that his judgment on us is that we are simply reaping the fruits of the stupidity we have allowed ourselves to be led into in recent years.

A Life Skills Quiz

As I am now in middle age, I know about life.  OK, maybe I don't know nearly as much as I think I do...but I do know enough to know stupid living when I see it.  And these days, sadly, I see it a lot.  I see people, usually younger, but some older people as well, doing things that just make me shake my head.  Hundreds of years ago the Darwin effect would have killed these people off rather early, but today our social safety net (a product of Christian charity) enables people to keep on living.  Still, just because they live does not mean they live well.  And so, as a service to you, I give you a simple life skills quiz.

-1)You are young, have a wife and small child.  You need to buy a new vehicle to get to work and take your family around.  You don't have much money...what should you do?
a. Buy a sensible used four-door sedan.
b. Buy a fifteen-year old convertible Camaro that sounds like a dying buffalo when running at 40 mph.
c. Buy a brand new Harley on a five-year payment plan, because it's badass.

-2)You and your baby mama are expecting your third child.  You recently received your tax refund back.  What should you do this weekend?
a. Put a portion of the refund away into savings.
b. The Fourth of July is coming, so load up on fireworks and with whatever's left swing by the liquor store for a few cases of Natty Light.
c. Take your other girlfriend to Vegas for the weekend, even as you tell your baby mama that you have to go see your grandparents.

-3)Your mother has passed away recently.  It's the day of the funeral...what do you do?
a. Show up early, greet her friends and family and be thankful for her life.
b. Sleep in, show up late for the funeral, and as you can see everybody waiting for the funeral to begin, stand by your car and smoke another cigarette.
c. Smoke your last stash of pot, show up to the funeral wasted, and get into a fistfight with a cousin who gets into your face about how you are being an embarrassment.

-4)The end of the month comes and you don't have enough money to pay all your bills.  What do you do?
a. Sort out what bills are priority and dated first, and pay those; those that you still can't pay, contact them and ask for an extension.
b. Spend your morning calling around to churches and charity agencies asking if they will pay your bill.
c. You still have money in your account, so go and get that new 50" flatscreen at Wal-Mart.  Bills will take care of themselves.

-5)Your boss schedules you for an extra shift on Saturday.  What do you do?
a. Go to work and be grateful that you have a job and now some extra money.
b. Show up half-drunk and half-interested.  They can schedule you, but they don't own you, bro.
c. Quit that stupid job.  Getting worked to death is for suckers.

-6)Your child is not doing well in school.  What do you do?
a. Work with them to try and help them understand what is going on so they can do better.
b. Blame their teacher for not understanding your little genius, and storm into the principal's office demanding that you get your way.
c. Nothing.  True playas don't need school.

-7)Your renewal for your lease is coming up.  What do you do?
a. Make sure you have taken care of the property, paid your rent, and talked to your landlord about renewing your lease.
b. Have your cousin show up with his pickup after dark, because you want to get away before your landlord finds out that you put multiple holes in the walls to hide your stash.
c. Start stripping the copper wiring wherever you can, because you gotta get out of there as fast as possible.

SCORES:
a = 10 points
b = 0 points
c = -50 points

Finish with 50 points or higher, and you have chance.
0-50 points: you are an idiot, but you might survive.
Negative figures: Good luck.  You'll need it.

United Passions

Tonight, being a lover of pain and soccer and having a free movie credit on Vudu, I decided to stream United Passions.  This is a movie about the history of FIFA, the soccer governing body.  In case you know nothing of FIFA, it has been shown in recent years to wholly corrupt, and many of its leaders have been indicted for taking bribes and kickbacks, even as soccer has continued to grow in popularity around the world.

This movie came out last year just as many of the scandals were getting full blown, and it was roundly mocked.  Every review has savaged it; IMDB gives it a critic metascore of 1 (out of 100), and its ability to not make money (it cost $32 million to make, FIFA putting up most of the money) has become legendary...supposedly a theater in Phoenix sold one ticket for an entire weekend.  You would think, from the reviews from critics, that it is the worst movie of all time.

Except that it's not.  I've seen some bad movies over the years, and this wasn't the worst. Yes, it was not good...I gave it a 5 out of 10, which on my scale means 'not very good', but that's better than bad.  It got the same rating as Aloha and a better rating that Cowboys & Aliens.  Some of the cinematography was pretty good, there were moments of actual tension on the story, and the acting could have been worse.  Again, it's not Schindler's List or anything and would make a nice selection for the upcoming MST3K reboot...but it wasn't as bad as it was made out to be.

Something like this is a reminder that it's easy to listen to what everybody else has to say and be swayed by it.  I was hoping to go onto Facebook and make jokes about it (example: 'if the makers of this movie had been in charge of Spotlight, the heroes would have been the pedophile priests!'), but to do so would have been dishonest.  How many of the haters (over 3000 ratings on IMDB that give it an average of 2.0) didn't actually watch the movie?  Have they heard so much about how bad FIFA is and just assumed that this is propaganda?  Is it just an easy target for people who are lazy in their criticism?

In a way, this could have actually been two very good movies.  It's a movie of three acts, lionizing the three non-English leaders of FIFA: Rimet, Havelange, and Blatter.  But the substance behind the stories was actually interesting; in competent film directors who were more interested in the organization than the men leading them this could have been well done.  The first movie could have been about the need for an organizing body for soccer and how difficult it was to pull things together pre-WWI.  The second movie could have been about how FIFA re-directed piles of cash to poor nations to boost their soccer programs.  Yes, of course, this has led to abject corruption, but good PR could have made this better.

Perhaps the biggest credit to this movie was that I watched the whole thing, and I don't always do that for movies I did not pay to see.  A few weeks ago I finally got around to watching Birdman, which won a best picture award a few years ago...it was pure excrement, and I turned it off 45 minutes into the movie.  It was just as self-glorifying as anything one could find in United Passions ("Oh, the beauty of live theater!"), but it was written to please the artistic crowd rather than the administrative professionals crowd.  And so Birdman is considered a masterpiece while United Passions is considered the worst movie of all time.  Doesn't seem quite right to me.

Lament with a 10-year old.

I had a few people to go visit in this hospital on this Mother's Day, and my 10-year old daughter wanted to come with me, so I let her come.  She has been interested in riding with me on some of my pastoral visits lately.  I'm not entirely sure why...maybe she wants to spend time with me, or get away from her brother, or get out of the house on a rainy Sunday afternoon.  But when she comes with me, she goes into the rooms with me for prayer and visitation.

Today I visited two friends who are not well at all.  One was a man in ICU hooked up to who knows how many tubes and his arms were more bruised than white; he's likely not going to leave the hospital alive.  While I visited with the man's wife she kept coming into and out of the room; it was not a sight that most 10-year olds would understand.  On the way from there to the other hospital I told her about her mom and my's wishes that we never get to that point.  Someday we might be that ill, and she and her brother will have to make some life-or-death decisions, and I told her about my feeling this this is no way to die, that as Christians we have a greater hope in God and so what seems like pointless suffering is not something I want.  She did not say much, but I hope that she understood at least something of what I was trying to say.  Who knows, maybe someday she will be doing work like this and be a greater comfort to the families than I was today.

It grieves me terribly to deal with people I know and love like today; as I have been teaching a class on Biblical lament, recently I wrote a short one of my own.

For My Friends, April 2016

O Lord, who is worthy of praise, who has created us and put within us the very breath of life…

O Lord, why do my friends die so badly?  Why do so many people I care about suffer so much at the end of their lives?  God, I don’t understand how there can be years and years of hurt and anguish in which somebody doesn’t get better.  How do those of us who sing songs about heaven on Sunday live the rest of our lives acting as if holding onto this life is the most important thing? 

O Lord, make dying easier for us because we have faith in you.  Lord, make life something that is truly fulfilling for those who are in their old age.  Lord, make it where my friends are not drugged up, just surviving for the sake of ‘life’.  Lord, make us who call on your name truly live.

O Lord, creator and sustainer of every one of us who call on your name, let the world see that you truly desire to give us life and life to the fullest and so turn to you.  Let doctors and nurses praise you because they can only see your miraculous hand working to give people life.  Let us all depend on you rather than medication or invasive surgery or the things we think are so important. 

O Lord, I know that you are God, even when I can’t always understand why things are the way they are.  May I continue to praise you in good times in bad, in times of happiness and frustration.  You are the giver of all that is good. 

Fear and hope

This morning my YouVersion devotional was about fear, and how we as Christians need to not be afraid.  "...for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control."  (2 Timothy 1:7)

Then, sadly, I had to go on Facebook and see the posts of a handful of friends, all of whom claim to be Christians, whining about whatever culture war battle seems to be terrifying them now.  All posts rang out with a message of fear: they invite us to be angry, afraid, and generally pissed off at everybody and everything...though they in the end do nothing to make things better and certainly show nothing of God's power or love.

And so here's my mini-rant for this Monday morning.  STOP BEING AFRAID OF EVERYTHING.  Especially if you are a Christian, stop it with the endless whining about the culture war and instead live as you ought to.  Stop being surprised that the world lives as it lives...I'm sorry you live with this myth that we live (or ever have lived!) in a Christian nation, because there really is no such thing.  And stop being afraid of the world around you...you have the light of Jesus Christ in you, a treasure in your jar of clay (cf. 2 Cor. 4:7, Matthew 5:16).

So stop being afraid of the theoretical transgender boogeyman who is coming into your public bathroom; if you have to, go in packs for self-protection or just do your business at home.  Stop listening to the loud shills who say that if we elect _______ America is dead (remember, Democrats survived eight years of Bush, and Republicans have survived eight years of Obama, no matter how much their voices may be gone from their screaming).  Stop acting as if this world is all there is, because it's not...the kingdom of God will never fail.

A non-systematic, hopefully non-ideological meditation on economic principles of Scripture. #3: Acts 4:32-37

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. (Acts 4:32-37 ESV)

Long before there was Muslim extremism, communism was the great worry of many Christians.  I suppose we always have to have something to be angry about, but communism (at least how it was practiced in the USSR, China, and other despotic countries) was always the Great Satan of our existence.  And yes, it was horrible in how it coerced people, it suppressed faith and innovation, and became a religion all its own.

Going to a Christian university near the end of the Cold War, communism's evil was continually on display through the business program being the big dog on campus, espousing free-market economic policies.  National speakers that were brought in were almost always politically and economically conservative.  Not only communism in how it was practiced seen as bad, but its very nature was seen as evil; not only was it unAmerican, it was unChristian.  Didn't the Bible speak of self-reliance, not being a burden on others?

Over the years I have had to unlearn some of the things that I learned.  Yes, the Bible does speak about the necessity of work.  But it's increasingly hard to slander communism when increasingly I am finding that the Bible actually glorifies 'commonism'.  Consider the above passage: nobody thought of these things as their own, but had everything in common.  People didn't look around thinking, 'MINE', which we are indoctrinated to do from the time we first become social creatures.  Rather, having seen the grace of God they realized that grace could be shown by being generous, and it worked so well that we are told that (at this point at least) there were no needy people among them.  The church became a place in which their various spiritual gifts, be they gifts of teaching, administration, or whatever, were to be shared with others.  The gospel had so changed people that people would regularly sell things and, no strings attached, offer it up to those who were in the most need.

Yes, of course...there will always be problems with this system.  There will always be the Judas who is the thief of the common purse (John 12:6); there will be those who abuse the system and not work (cf. 2 Thess. 3:10).  But communism at its core is not the problem when done with God's grace at its core; as people who seek to live as simply Christians, commonism may well be the solution to be like the first century church again.

A non-systematic, hopefully non-ideological meditation on economic principles of Scripture. #2: Genesis 2:15

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it."  (Genesis 2:15, ESV)

Work.  Even from the beginning, before the fall, there was work.  Work is important.  As I hit my mid-life, I am far away from retirement and can't imagine not having something to do everyday, but at the same time I am reminded everytime I turn on the TV that I need to be saving for retirement.  Isn't the great goal of life, a sign of success and responsibility, to get to a place where no longer do we have to work?

It's only been within the last century or so that people looked forward to something called retirement.  People would work, then one day they would die when their bodies were used up.  There were no early bird specials, no senior cruises, no 30 years of decline and doctor visits and nursing homes and dementia.  Moses was being optimistic when he stated that 'the years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty' (Psalm 90:10).  Very few have been fortunate enough to live this long.  Work was all that was really known, and it was work that often led to an 'early' death.

Work is rightly praised as being something important.  Yet it can be idolatrous; I knew an older man one time who was physically and mentally incapable of doing much of anything, but he would continually speak about how God put Adam in the garden to work, and by God, he was going to work until he fell over.  I think that's how he died, in fact.  For him work meant more than God, more than family, more than happiness.  This is idolatry.

Work is vital in this life, and not to be considered an evil, though it does come with 'toil and trouble' (Psalm 90:10), and much of work because of sin is 'cursed' (Genesis 3:17).  Yet work is a good thing, even from the beginning.  And so it is frustrating to look out and see people who want the money and the benefits of work without having to actually do the work.  But isn't this the American way today?  How can I do as little as possible but still get paid?  It starts from the time kids are in school; kids hope to just get by and seem offended at times that they have homework or are expected to do their best.  Certainly this carries over into their worklife; sometimes employees barely show any effort and are offended if they are asked to do anything...this happens in service jobs, blue collar jobs, or even preaching jobs.  It is important to teach that having a strong work ethic is a good thing.

But if work is well done, shouldn't it also be well-compensated?  For those willing to work hard, shouldn't there be at least a realistic hope that there is security?  I have a friend who has a good blue-collar job and recently was told that he would be furloughed for a certain amount of time.  This man has a family, he works hard, and is always willing to do his best to the glory of God.  But now, because his company CAN, they basically cause him economic problems that it will take him years to get over.  They didn't have to do this...they are a multi-billion organization and easily could have figured out a more just way of taking care of him.

And shouldn't there also be a realistic hope that one will not be impoverished even as they work?  If you work a full week, you shouldn't have to worry about where your next meal or rent payment will come from if you are responsible with your money, should you?  (Of course, this assumes that people know how to manage money to, which should not be assumed; plus, many people today have far too many wants; but that's for another post).  I get frustrated when I hear people say that the poor only have themselves to blame, that they should just get better trained if they want a better job.  But of course, in this day and age, more schooling (which is a financial burden in itself) is not always a guarantee for better wages.  And indeed, we can't all be doctors or lawyers...somebody still has to pick up the garbage, empty the bad pans, and flip the burgers.  Don't these people deserve our respect?  In a nation of plenty, shouldn't those willing to work reap at least some of the rewards of that work?

Please hear me:  I have no sympathy for those unwilling to work...as Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, 'If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.'  There are plenty of lazy, feckless people out there.  They get what they deserve.  But the importance of work needs to be taught, yet also respected and compensated.  One without the other makes people either lazy or makes society unjust.  We need both a just world but also people who work.

A non-systematic, hopefully non-ideological meditation on economic principles of Scripture. #1: Genesis 1:26-31

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
(Genesis 1:26-31 ESV)

Creation is a gift from God.  It's not something we have earned, or are entitled to, but comes by the grace of God.  Even as we think about how we have 'dominion' over the earth, this is not about making us the absolute rulers of our world.  Far too many people have used the idea of dominion to exploit the planet and its resources and inhabitants.  Indeed, the granting of dominion in this passage is not only to humans, but also to animals as well (1:30).  

And so what does it mean to consider the gift of God to us?  Gifts are best accepted gratefully, but also with the mindset that the giver means this gift to be a blessing.  And creation is a blessing.  Because God made these things to be 'very good' (1:31), this means that it is functional.  If we live as good stewards of what God has blessed us with, it means that we will never fail to have what we need in order to live.  Is this an absolute?  Of course not...disaster, drought, and the like have a way of destroying life, even to those who have properly tried to live.  But in general, creation gives us what we need because it is a gift of God.  

This should be the fundamental basis for Christian economics.  All things are a gift of God...and so how do we use them to God's glory?  Do we look to what we have been blessed with (whether born into plenty or poverty) and see such things as blessings?  Satan seeks to make blessings into tools for sin, and in economics this is no different.  The rich use their leverage to gain even more at the expense of the poor.  The ambitious look to take more from creation than is acceptable and so cause generations of harm to the planet. 

To misuse a gift, though, seems to be something that is an abomination in the sight of God.  When we refuse to be content with the 'very good' of creation, and come at it with an economic mindset that we will take all we can get, is this not the same as a child who receives a toy and thinks he deserves the entire toy store?  Creation as a gift means that it is enough.  We don't need to keep grabbing and posturing to think that we need more.  Dominion should never be taken to be license to exploit.  

Post Super Tuesday

It finally hit me this morning as I was getting around.  I had been under the impression that Trump would win most of the primaries yesterday and that Cruz, Cruz Lite, and the other no-hopes would have their usual poor showings, and the GOP would finally wake up.  Finally, I thought, the adults in the GOP would get their act together and put everybody but Trump into a Royal Rumble and the winner of that would then get to face Trump one-on-one at Republicamania.  Finally, the Trump freight train would be overwhelmed as his 35% peak was finally overrun by a united party, Cruz or Cruz Lite would grab the belt, and the GOP would go on to face Hillary in November.

But I realized that I'm wrong.  It's not Trump that scares the crap out of most of the GOP establishment...it's Cruz.  Here's a guy from Texas (electoral votes!), a minority (broadening the base!), somebody with true conservative bonafides (really, really extreme bonafides, but whatever).  He's just mean enough to fight against Hillary, and maybe win back the Presidency and 'take back America from the libruls'.  On paper, this guy should have had the nomination wrapped up yesterday and be planning for November.

But here's the thing...everybody in the GOP establishment HATES Ted Cruz.  It did not hit me until Big Chris Christie threw his support behind Trump.  Until Lindsay Graham finally endorsed Cruz (after first supporting JEB), Cruz did not have a single endorsement from the US Senate.  Sure, he has a lot of people supporting him, but nobody who works with the guy likes him. On a personal level (where so much of politics really works) nobody can stand him.  By all accounts, he's just not a very nice person.  He's not charming by any standard, he has no charisma, and people who work with him simply don't like him.  How would somebody disliked by his own people make deals as a President needs to make?

But is there more?  Is his standard of extremist conservatism even too radical for even the GOP?  Surely not...the GOP has gone off a cliff in recent years (and I have not gone with them); but it makes one think: instead of being afraid of Donald Trump, is the GOP more afraid of Ted Cruz?

This election season continues to be fascinating, even if its outcome is potentially terrifying.  Maybe Rubio will finally win something and step up to lead as the mainstream GOP hopes that he will.  But until he does, this Trump/Cruz mess is something to behold.

PS: Here's an interesting link about who endorses who.  Fascinating.  Kurt Angle supports Marco Rubio, but Ted DiBiase, Jerry Lawler, and Hulk Hogan support Trump.