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A while back I said I was done talking politics on this blog until after the election. It’s over, so I’ll say this and move on: Barack intrigued me in the primaries, but the more I read/followed the less I liked about either of our available candidates. I still leaned towards Democrat (regardless of leader), but it was ever so slightly and not enough for me to feel a strong conviction for the party. Thus, I DID NOT VOTE.

Thank goodness I base very little of my existence on who is leading this country. Barack, Biden, McCain, Palin, and the Balance of Power (which if you didn’t notice is now completely Democrat, which I’m not sure that’s a good thing either) does not affect the outpouring of who I am and what I do with what I’ve been given.

I strongly believe, as some of you can attest, man does not grant authority nor determine who is a leader. God grants us our leadership and qualifies us for His work regardless of our social status, economic standing, education level, degrees obtained, or your “I Voted” sticker. Usually I spout this off when church “leaders” try to exert misplaced power over people in ministry, but it applies to country as well.

A few weeks ago, Margaret Feinberg asked “Are you a November 4th or November 5th Christian?”

Are you more concerned with who wins on November 4 or how you can be a part of rebuilding and healing our nation on November 5 and the years to come? I’m all for voting, please don’t get me wrong, but it’s going to take all of us–together–to turn our nation around.

It’s simple to say, important to hold to, and difficult to live out. Don’t get me wrong, I think we should be responsible with our freedoms, including the freedom to (not) vote, but after months of one of the nastiest political scenes I can remember (I don’t remember too many of them (’88-present), i’m young okay), here we are… whichever side of the fence we land on, we must move forward and live our lives to the fullest of our ability for Christ.

If we as the Church become the hands and feet we are called to be, we wouldn’t have to concern ourselves so much with programs, “socialism,” and big governments. I’m the guiltiest of them all; I see things that I am moved to take action for and yet the action follows slowly or not at all. It’s time for me to stop talking and blogging about submitting to His service and actually doing so - beyond serving in church on the worship team (where everyone gets to see me), beyond dropping the check in the offering bucket, and beyond the encouraging words that I try to offer to friends and coworkers. Not in place of these things, they have merit and should by no means be abolished, but certainly in addition to.

So, lets move on together; become men, women, and children of action, not out of obligation, but from the outpouring of the Love that has been gifted to us.

Don’t let me make excuses.

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Category : Culture, Current Events, Empyreal, Enabling, Family, Politics, Quotable

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Just walked in, watching part of the debate…

Did Obama have a blue pen bust in his mouth or something?

That’s all

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Category : Politics

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There’s no doubt Bush misspoke more than a national leader should. They were funny but sometimes blown out of proportion… For the most part, it was simply that… misspeaks. He knew what he meant to say, and we knew what he meant to say. With Biden, maybe he’s just… um… not quite in touch? … I’d link you to these, but we can’t get to YouTube-esq sites at work anymore…

A few weeks ago he tells Senator Chuck Graham to stand up; unfortunately Chuck’s in a wheelchair. After he issues an “oh man, God bless ya,” he adds to the insult by telling everyone else to do what Chuck can’t “Stand up and cheer for Chuck everybody!… you know, since your legs work and his doesn’t! WOO HOO!” (okay, all that was paraphrased, but thats how it comes off). Sad, but funny to watch Biden squirm…

And now he tells us that in 1929, when the stock market crashed Franklin Roosevelt was president and he addressed the nation on the television. Too bad Franklin wasn’t in office until 1933 and TV wasn’t really around until the mid-late 30s (other than some very rudimentary prototypes). That’s just bad history. Really bad.

In other political news, I went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch yesterday. I’m all about wings, man. Parmesan Garlic is my fav, but i’ll throw down any number of flavors. Unfortunately there is one small problem; I refuse to fight with my food. If it takes more effort for me to get the good stuff than to enjoy the good stuff, it’s not worth it. Thus, I’m not a rib fan and prefer popcorn chicken over the legs or wings at KFC. Yeah, it all taste great, but it’s not worth the extra effort. Thankfully, wing places offer boneless. That’s what I’m talking about…

So, I’m done for now. I attempted to get involved and take a hard look, but the more I look the more I’m reminded as to why I usually stay out of this mess. It’s ugly, annoying, draining, degrading, and a constant fight… the basic antithesis of Philippians 4:8. I know it’s not going to happen, but I want my politics like I want my wings… don’t make me fight through your political bull or tear away and sweep aside the insults you lash out at your opponent… tell me what I need to hear, not what your fandom wants to hear. I’m not talking about “us” (bloggers, coworkers, friends, etc), although it happens in this realm too. But I am talking about the media, the candidates, political pundits, and anyone who is trying to influence us.

But, since they won’t stop… I will. It’s not worth it. I’ve got other things that are far more important than this election. Maybe that makes me unpatriotic? I’ll continue to listen casually and I’ll probably watch a portion of the debates, but I’m not extending extra effort for this crap; effort that is more productive when used to enhance and enable the life of my wife, daughters, family, friends, and neighbors.

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Category : Culture, Current Events, Enabling, Family, Politics

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Not that I owe it to any of you but because I want you to know… I’m still “undecided” and plan on watching the convention speeches along with a few other vids over the next several weeks. Of course, then we’ll have the debates and all that jazz and I’ll have ample opportunity to make my decision. Yes, I lean twoards Obama, but there’s no finality to it.

During the primaries i took a quiz at govote.com, but I don’t recall the outcome. Last thursday I did the same and the results were surprising… It said I matched up 43% with Obama and 43% with McCain… that doesn’t really help much. I played with some of the questions where I was wish-washy (only about 5) and neither candidate got above 48%. The largest gap was 43% Obama, 33% McCain…I don’t know how much stock I can put into this site, but it was an interesting 45 minutes of my life (that also caused a couple of small civil arguments with Blake).

In anycase, I guess it comes down to what I think is most important based on where I am in my faith and in my life. I wonder, though, if fellow Christ followers are willing to let me decide what those issues are and respect the decisions… hmm… not so sure on that yet. I’ve been vocally called a “gay lover” (it was sarcastic, but still applies) and “unbiblical” and can guess some of the other terms thrown around, perhaps not about me specifically but about Christians who tend to lean towards Obama… Murderer, naive, uneducated, sheep, and *gasp* Socialist! …

I’ve got a draft working called “beyond the status quo” which is a list of things thing I generally tend to feel somewhat differently about than most Christ followers. I don’t know if I’ll post it or not… I’m not ashamed of it (and talk openly about them when the issues come up in person), but I don’t know if it benefits any thing to put it out here. But let me end my clarification by echoing the first line of the draft:

Can we not just put the flame throwers down and work together for the common good of God’s kingdom?

Thanks

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Category : Church, Culture, Current Events, Politics

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I don’t educate myself enough on politics and have never voted in any election for a reason… God’s sovereignty. I know that is a bad excuse and we should be responsible with our vote and our privilege that so many people around the world don’t have… yada yada yada. But this year has been different in a weird way … I’ve still not educated myself to the degree I need to in order to make a responsible vote, but I somehow get sucked in to the political vacuum whenever the subject arises. And boy do I get riled up…

Two things are helping my sanity:

1) Rick summarizes the most level headed thing I’ve read about politics in a while:

Two groups of intelligent people watching the same coverage and hearing the same speeches, but hearing vastly different things, I think, based mostly on your own opposing perspectives.

The first thing that jumps out at me is that everyone else must be idiots for disagreeing with me. I’m fairly intelligent, I heard this or saw that and of course made the correct assumptions and analyses, right? You do it, too, wondering how anyone else missed what was so blatantly true in your mind. Two same intelligent people see the same thing, hear the same thing, and somehow come to opposing “truths”. How does this happen?

As much as we all hate to admit it, there is intelligence on both sides of this political argument. I know not everyone who disagrees with me is an idiot… i know there are glaring issues with Obama the guy I support, just as there are glaring issues on the other side. Yet, we all get all loud and demonstrative when someone sees things from a different angle… even if none of us are educated… we make claims that we supposedly “know without a doubt” but we’re usually just regurgitating it second hand from Ron Suskin or Glenn Beck (not that there is anything wrong with regurgitation, birds and pregnant women do it all the time)… At the end of the day, though, it’s just perspective and I can live with whatever yours is…

2) When all else fails, i throw the headphones on and head over to Pandora.com for a bit of the “mellow mix” if i need to calm my nerves, or the “alt rock” if i want to feed the fire.

Anything else i should be doing?

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Category : Culture, Current Events, Politics, Quotable

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The Olympics have always been a big deal in our family. It was the only time during the school year I was allowed to stay up late, summer or winter, and we spent hours watching and chatting about the ongoings in every event, large or small. I’ve struggled with sleeping problems for as long as I could remember, so it was common to find me up at two or three in the AM watching things unfold live even as recently as Athens. Over the past couple of years my old age caught up with me and I’m barely able to make it through the prime time showings this year, but this weekend it was still NBC/MSNBC/CNBC/USA from wake-up through lights-out.

Only four days in and there is so much to talk about: the opening ceremonies; the tragic murder of the volleyball coach’s family; last night’s amazing Men’s 4×100 relay; Russia and Georgia escalating to a war; Chinese humanitarian issues; George Bush’s presence…. I could go on and on.

At the very least, Bush was spot on last night when he told Bob Costas (paraphrasing) that it is important for us to remain engaged with China despite our differences and disagreements. We have a better chance at being a positive influence in reforming the authoritative nature of their government and their poor humanitarian track record if we build an amicable relationship between our governments. We’re dealing with a major powerhouse who is still “up-and-coming” in modern power / politics. I know we want to think we live in a world that is above expansion through force, but we’re not. WWII was about expansion of power. Even in our short history it was only 100 years ago we got into with Spain over Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the like and only 150 years ago that we wrestled away much of the south from Mexico. *sigh*….

I know i’m getting far too historical on your rears (perhaps even out of my league) and losing half my audience to boredom… but I can’t help but see a shift of world power taking place over the last several years; not necessarily a shift towards China, but certainly away from America. The view of America has quickly taken a turn for the worse world wide. If there is one thing I’ve learned in my World Civ classes these past two semesters, most “world powers” only remain the world power for about 300 years… lets see… 2008-1776= 232 years of dominance…. hmmmm…. I don’t think the decline is going to reach its peak (or… valley i guess) in my life time, but “soon;” I also think it will look more like Britain’s decline, where we are not destroyed by any means, just less of a force politically and influentially around the world but not so much that we can’t rebuild our influence, much like Britain has done. I hope I’m wrong on all accounts… I hope we can recognize our shortcomings and rebuild from this point rather than falling further into decay. There is still so much good in what we are and what American is supposed to stand for, but I fear we are blinded by green (i’m talking economic green, not environmental green) and perhaps by our own sometimes-hidden-sometimes-blatant elitist attitude.

blech… rambling too much as it is and about to get into other things that would just convolute this site… stuff about “illegal” immigrants, American pride, the war in Iraq and such… I guess seeing what China is doing and reading up a (very) little bit on the Russia/Georgia conflict got my mind to wandering again… struggling with the whole concept of American Identity vs Christian Identity vs American-Christian Identity.

So, anyways, I haven’t had any Dr. Pepper since Friday and I started the hundred push up challenge… Go me!

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Category : Culture, Current Events, Empyreal, Family, Politics

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Much like February 29, my political side only comes out once every four years. Yet, every election I exercise my right NOT to vote and get harassed by clergy, Christians, and commoners alike… as if I’m a bad American for not voting. I couple my right not to vote with an understanding that I will not complain too much about what goes on in spite of my non-vote.

Eight years ago we were promised a Presidential Office built on faith and forward movement. And people tend to forget that pre-9/11 Bush’s support sky high from Red and Blue alike… He was putting things into place that appeared to bring change in our country. He has faced a difficulty our country hasn’t seen the likes of since the Civil War… Somehow I think history will perceive Lincoln as a much grander leader than Bush…

I’ve realized somethings over the last several days and I’ll probably be crucified silently by some of my Christian readers:

Liberal is not a bad word:By definition, it simply means “favorable to progress or reform” … conservative is sticking to our roots and what is “tried and true,” liberal is an openness to seeing things differently. Perhaps, I am a liberal in many areas. “Tried and true” hasn’t gotten it done.

Christian should NOT be synonymous with Republican: One of many case in points: In general, the democratic party provides more opportunity for the poor to be assisted. It is a flawed system, yes, but the last time I checked, we are called to help the poor, not pay them lip-service.

Christian should NOT be synonymous with Democrat: One of many case in points: In general, Republicans hold more strongly to the sanctity of life (i.e.- abortion issues), which is in line with Christian values concerning life.

Christians should vote looking at the whole: I am sickened by abortion and believe homosexuality is wrong… but if we vote simply on these two issues, we are irresponsible with our vote. If I vote for a candidate simply because he promises to overturn or amend Roe v Wade, I have ignored the fact that his other policies and changes may lead this country down the drain economically… that the poor will become poorer … that teachers will teach to test and not to train and educate… that welfare will be ignored… that 3948 Americans and 100s of thousands of Iraqi’s have died through a war based on lies, half-truths, and politics.

Rather than working this morning, I spent alot of time reading speeches and quotes from the candidates and only one has inspired and moved me enough to actually maybe think about voting: Barack Obama

Yeah, the democratic “Muslim” (who is actually a devout Christian). Rick posted a pretty nice video that plays on the emotion of changing for the better. I like the video (watch it, it’s not too long and gives you a taste of Obama), but more importantly, I like how Obama inspires in his speeches. I don’t agree with every issue, and I don’t pretend to know his stance on every issue. I am not saying he is getting my presidential nod, but he has inspired me to stop and pay attention… to find out more about who he is, who McCain really is (since McCain seems to have a strong grasp of the Republican seat), and where our nation as a whole needs to go.

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Category : Culture, Current Events, Politics

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