and apparently the iconic “Love Boat” of TV fame is being sold for scrap. Alas, no facelift, botox, or a new agent to resurrect the career of this old star.
What Your Kids…
might be listening to today. One woman’s experience with listening to her 14 year old family member’s IPod. Warning- offensive and vulgar language presented only because its part of what you need to understand.
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Truth…
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I Want to Be in This Band…
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Worth Reading…
God does not matter practically—in the practices of everyday life—because the chief end of man in modernity is the maintenance of control over reality, and we can adequately achieve such dominance through science and technology (and through social and cultural institutions that are scientific and technically ordered). As Gay puts it, “a modern society is one in which the prevailing conception of the human task in the world is that of mastery by way of systematic manipulation.”
Read more here.
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On Affirmation…
Christianity affirms you but not in the way affirmation is generally presented in this culture. In fact Christianity may not affirm your present emotions, state of being, practices, or relationships. It’s very possible that Christianity will say to you, to me, to us all “No, that’s not acceptable.” So if you’re looking for a religion to simply embrace you wherever you are at any given moment Christianity is not for you. Christianity does, however, affirm the person you can become in God and it understands that it is this person, and not the person dancing with thoughts, feelings, and ever-changing desires in any given moment that is actually the “real” you. The path that Christ lays out is not about simply baptizing whatever it is you desire to be but rather to make you what you were designed to be, a human in communion with God. It would be easier, of course, especially in the short run for Christianity to just baptize anything we want, but that would be settling for less, and always having to settle for less is a kind of hell in the midst of life.
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Memorial Day…
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
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Apparently, the Government…
is scouring the web looking for certain words that might indicate possible terrorist intent. In fact the word “terrorist” is one of them and so is “pork” and many others. You can read all about it here.
The first thing that strikes me is what appears to be a total lack of US media, at least of the mainstream variety, reporting this. Some of the best coverage of the US government, sadly. comes from British journalists and the linked story is one of hundreds of examples. The increasing invasion of privacy in the name of protecting us from terrorists is something Americans as a whole should discuss. The complicity of both political parties in this is something worth investigating. Yet US media seems strangely silent.
The second thing is about simple reality. There is a risk in being a free society. We risk hearing opinions we don’t share or like. We risk the possibility that others may use freedom for illegal or dangerous ends. We risk the possibility that not all of our life will be safe, simple, or without challenge. There is danger in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, and freedom of ideas.
Yet the danger is not so great as the danger of an all-encompassing state promising us security in trade for our liberties. There is risk in liberty but it’s the risk of being free, of sharing our lives with free people, and finding a path for our lives on terms of our choosing. The net designed to snare one kind of fish also ensnares anything in its way and the state that declares it must spread its net wide and far to “protect” us can and will ensnare everything in its path and if not now, will set the stage for some later use not simply for the suspected but for everyone.
What we need now is not more of the state but more personal responsibility, personal morality, and personal commitment to the greater good. People themselves need to take the initiative required of members of a free society. If we cede our freedom, our individuality, our destiny to the state we get what we deserve. If we recover our dignity, our freedom, and our willingness to see beyond our narrow personal interests we can recover what has made this country great.
Choose. Soon.
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It's as Gray a Day…
as I can remember. The rain has been falling for hours while the cats sleep it all away on the living room floor. A ceiling fan quietly twists and hums through its duties and the irregular drops of water tap on the windows like lost children.
There are things to do today. In fact there’s a lot to do. Why people want to be in such a hurry to get out in the “real” world puzzles me. The chores, the things you do because you have to and the people you have to deal with are hardly any fair payment in return for being able to vote and walk into a liquor store. Work, at least work as it has become, is what happened when the world fell from its former grace. Its part of what some folks call the “curse” of the days beyond Eden and it has meaning only because the goodness of those days still somehow finds a way to shine through the cracks in the wall around the garden.
We were designed to be Farmers and Priests, caretakers of the good world given to us and singers of praise to its Maker. Now we live in cubicles, try to make our way through the gibberish, and if not by the sweat of our brow we make our way through the years by the sweat of our soul. Adam had no axe, there was no disfigurement to prune away, no death to remove from its place, no need even for a fire in the warmth of God’s life. Yet all that is past now. The tree could not be removed and we face the morning with a sigh.
It’s time to go now. Time to shower. Time to shave. Time to put on the best face for the day. In the car we go with the rest of the herd, crawling like ants in hope of sugar. It’s why people waste their money on the lottery and push their kids to be rock stars, the hope to be free of it all.
It’s a sign, too, that we were designed for something better and there is a place for us yet to go. The traces of Eden and the hope of heaven have not left us. They are instinctual, primal, and basic. They are why we sigh in the morning, fall into restless sleep at night, and think about what could have been on gray rainy mornings.
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For These Times…
