Totally foolish

I know that this might seem a little off the wall for what else I have written about in this Blog, but here it goes.

I cry for things like weddings, TV commercials, movies, songs. Just today Butterfly kisses was playing on the radio and what was I doing? Crying. Or the fact that I can't look through a American Girl catalog with out feeling a little choked up. So what makes me so tearful? Sometimes I just blame it on being a sensitive person. But I'm wondering if there is something else.

When there is something that gets to me, some great at of love or perhaps a song like Butterfly kisses. I just get to rapped up in the story. Do we do that any more? Get rapped up in the story? Do we really let our selves feel things? Or have to many of use become robots with informational input, output and no real ability to understand what we are hearing, saying? I guess I'm glad I can still cry, even if it is totally foolish.

Drawing the Line?

I was reminded this morning of the horrors of War. A solder hit in the stomach with shrapnel. Now what does that make you feel? Anger at the person who set the bomb that did it? Anger at the government that put that soldier in the war in the first place? Anger that we all can live in peace? Do you feel pity for the person who set it or the person who might die because of it?

Whether or not you believe we should be at war or not. We still need to care for those who have been in that war because they care enough to put their lives in danger for all of us. If you live in the USA pray or do something nice today for someone in the arm services, without them we would not have the freedom to disagree or agree with any war. And for all you who are in the armed services thank you.

Moving out, moving on

So it looks as though I might finally be moving on to better things. Since my graduation from College, I have been living at home (hey free rent). My parents have been great. I don't need a car, I have a full time job, and I have been paying of my student loans (there are a lot of them). But it looks like finally I might just start doing what I actually went to school for, Theatre.

I know big surprise. Here I am a conservative, a christian, and I want to do professional theatre. I might be just a little off the wall. Maybe. But hey its what I have always wanted to do. So for all you well wishers and prayers, please wish/pray for my wish to be a starving artist some where in some city trying to do what I love.

Defacing, Destroying, Disrespecting

The Supreme Court is deciding right now whether a cross, which stands on State land, is against the idea of Separation of Church and State. But that is not really the issue here. The real issue is that this cross is a War Memorial for the Soldiers who died in WWI.

Is there a difference you ask between a Cross just hanging out on state land and one that was set up as a memorial? Yes. Do we really want every bit of history, every memorial, every grave that resides on State or Federal land to be defaced or Destroyed because it is against the idea of Church and State? What about all the Stars of David in the Holocaust National Museum? Or all the crosses that mark the graves of the hundreds of men and women laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery? Will we destroy this history? Will we disrespect the dead?

I'm sure that there are thousands of different sites that have some kind of monument which has some religious symbol on them. Most of these monuments are owned by villages, towns, cities, States and the federal government. How far will we let this go?

And were in the world does it say anything about separation of church and state in the constitution?

From the BBC...

I know that this might come as a little bit of a surprise but I love reading the BBC. Maybe because it has such an interesting outsiders outlook on America, maybe because I love Brits, who knows. The following is from Mark Mardell's America: Something that I enjoy reading, even if I don't agree with everything Mark Says. (from http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2009/09/obamadilemma_over_carts_and_ho.html)

If the president is turning his mind with relief from the torrid debate about healthcare to loftier discussions of foreign policy, he may not stay relieved for long.

He has to look a horse in the mouth, and one thing is for certain: this beast is not a gift.

In a deliberately stark contrast to his predecessor's disdain, he is taking a full part, a leading part, in the United Nations deliberations in New York this week.

Iran, climate change, the Middle East peace process, none of these are easy, and all present Mr Obama with domestic problems as well as international opportunities.

But Afghanistan is the most immediate and perhaps the trickiest. The BBC broke the story of the McChrystal report a few weeks ago, but now the Washington Post has apparently seen the full document.

It presents the president with a difficult choice. On yesterday's round of TV interviews, Mr Obama made it clear that the reason for being in Afghanistan was to deny potential terrorists a base to carry out another terrible attack like that on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

It was about protecting America, and - by implication - not about building a democratic, functioning nation, and even less about managing an open-ended occupation.

But here is the president's dilemma. The McChrystal report, boiled down, says that the US can only achieve its aims by building up the Afghan people's trust in a functioning government, with a police and military that can do the job.

Until that is done, there have to be more allied forces in more areas of the country visibly protecting the people from a Taliban that is growing in authority, and runs a shadow administration. It is not simply about killing the enemy.

Now that sounds a lot like nation-building. The president has talked about not putting the cart before the horse, by which he means not talking about more troops or other resources before the strategy is in place.

He may have decided he admires Gen McChrystal's thoroughbred and that it is worth hitching a buggy on the back.

If so, he will find it tough to sell the general's policy to a party and public reluctant to see more men and women sent to bolster an Afghan government accused of election fraud.

It is my hunch that he has strategically adopted his current cautious, sceptical tone in order to better sell the policy further down the road.

But it is only a hunch and it could be wrong.

The president could decide that Gen McChrystal's nag does not deserve a cart and put it out to pasture.

But then he would be faced with accusations of cutting and running and undermining the very man he appointed to come up with a fresh perspective.

Perhaps presidents should be extra cautious about generals with Mc in their name, and a public spat with such a respected figure would be immensely harmful.

Maybe healthcare is easier after all.

Worldview?

What in the world is a worldview? Supposedly Christians are suppose have ideals different from everyone. 'In the world, but not of the world'. So what does that really mean? How do we separate ourselves from the rest of the world? We are bombarded with visional information which may or may not be good for us. Take all the sex that happens in movies now a days. Or all the swearing. Or even all of the anti-Christian media.

What is anti-Christian media you might ask? Well this is something that is really obvious to me as a Christian but might be really hard for a Non-Christian to realize it is going on. History has made 'Christian' nations Historically bad. Christians are anti everything. Theatre, art, music, science, and politics. What so many do realize is that Christians have, Historical, been the center of Theatre, art, music, science and politics.

In the middle ages most of the theatre was done by churches or for church events. Some of the greatest minds in science were christians and had a Christian 'World view.' Some of the greatest art is in Churches, just look at all the different scenes from the bible that we consider great pieces. Or the music that the church paid for or was created for the church. And politics. Well do you really have to look past Wilberforce or any of the Founding Fathers of the USA?

(And all of the Founding Fathers grew up going to Church, it was a law. So you can say that they were not Christians. Many, like Adams and Washington had very strong faith. They simply had the foresight to want religion to be a freedom, a choice. There were already a mix of Catholic, Jews, and Protests. Those that did not go to the 'state' Church had to pay a tax. Can you imagine that continuing today? I think we are all thankful that we can choose our own faith to follow.)

So what is a Christian world view? It is a mixture of love for our neighbors and enemies, wisdom, and pure goodness. Not that any of us are perfect. But we need to love people enough to do for them as we would ourselves. We need to have wisdom enough to be up to date with the times, yet good enough to not get caught up in that which is bad.

I pray that at some point I can get it right.

Civility

The Following is from http://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/12589-restoring-civility. I really enjoyed this when I heard today on the radio. Funny how we can lose track of things in this modern age. Again a reminder that Old fashion ideas can be good thinking.

"Civility is necessary for democratic discourse. But it’s also sadly lacking in our country today. It will probably go down in history as the first presidential speech remembered not for what the President said, but for how a member of his audience responded. Even if you didn’t watch Barack Obama’s health care address last week, I’m sure you’ve heard what happened. Obama had just finished saying that his health care plan would not cover illegal aliens. In response, Rep. Joe Wilson shouted out, “You lie!” shocking television audiences from coast to coast, not to mention the President.

Talking heads have spent the rest of the week talking about the need for civility in public discourse—and that’s a good thing. Two people who are likely paying close attention to this debate are men who are about as far apart politically as it’s possible to get. Mark DeMoss is the conservative president of the DeMoss Group. Lanny Davis is a former advisor to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

DeMoss and Davis—both concerned about the sharp decline in civility—have created an online forum called The Civility Project. Its goal: getting Americans to re-learn how to disagree without being so nasty to one another. They are inviting Americans of every political stripe to take a civility pledge, in which they commit to three things: “I will be civil in my public discourse and behavior. I will be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them. I will stand against incivility when I see it.”

Three cheers for them! Too many Americans think that it’s OK to simply shout down their opponents, malign their motives, or, when all else fails, make vicious personal attacks. I lived through this in Watergate, being spit upon by angry mobs.

And take the case of same-sex “marriage” in California last year. We saw the losing side engage in vandalism and threats against their opponents.

Columnist Pat Buchanan recently observed that “we seem not only to disagree with each other more than ever, but to have come almost to detest one another. Politically, culturally, racially, we seem ever ready to go for each others’ throats.”

But civility is a precondition for democratic dialogue. And civility is mandatory for Christians; Jesus told us to love our enemies, which would exclude us from making vicious verbal attacks against them.

I can’t excuse Rep. Wilson’s outburst. But I do understand his frustration. For months, President Obama himself has been repeatedly accusing his opponents of lying about his health care plan—just as he did in his speech before Congress. Even liberal CNN says Obama’s regular use of the word “lie” is “unstatesmanlike.”

I agree. And I think it’s appropriate to note—as I have on a previous BreakPoint broadcast—that there is considerable evidence Obama himself is distorting the facts about his health care plan in relation to abortion, for instance. This kind of behavior—no matter which side of the political divide it comes from—helps to bring about the kind of incivility I’m talking about.

I am sure that Rep. Wilson, if he could re-live that moment, would not shout out at the President again. And, in a show of real civility, Wilson apologized to Obama, and the President accepted his apology. I commend them both.

It’s a positive step—albeit a small one—to restore civility to our national discourse."