Interesting

Have you noticed that the political rhetoric coming from Washington these days has calmed down? In fact, it has calmed down a lot from the past months that saw so much mud being flung around it was hard to understand the issues.

I am glad that we have made it through this period because we are now entering a period of reflection on what has just passed while still looking at the issues that loom ahead of us, health care, the deficit, Afghanistan and so many more.

I am glad to see that the press is starting to open up a little on the foibles of President Obama and Saturday Night Live ever the beacon of satire has finally decided to take him on once in awhile. It does my heart good to see that he is not above the rest of us although the NEA (National Endowments of the Arts) just proclaimed him to be the greatest writer since Julius Caesar (I guess I would say the same thing if I was getting millions of dollars to promote my agenda too but better than Shakespeare, come on now).

The people of the world, save a few, have always looked for a Messiah and our times are no different. The Christians have theirs but the other groups are still looking and trying to find that one person that “fulfills” them and this man fills the bill right now. Can he sustain it, no for he is just a man. And as they look to him for the things they desire they will become frustrated and then the feeding frenzy will begin. It already has.

While this president has enjoyed the highest popularity of any modern president he is now in a free fall that was brought on by promises he cannot keep. I think he wants to but I don’t think he is going to be able to do it, for he is just a man, not a Messiah. His polling numbers continue to drop as he loses his credibility and fan base. Independents are abandoning him and the next political races in Virginia and New Jersey will be a litmus test for the 2010 mid term elections.

Thank you President Obama for single handedly resurrecting the Republican Party in less than one year. As you see Virginia and New Jersey governorships go to the Republicans know that November 2010 will be the day that you and the missus can start packing your bags and preparing to leave Washington D.C.

The American people can be fooled once but twice…not so much. Bye!

Time Heals?

A famous adage is that “time heals all wounds” and for the most part I did believe that until this past week. I now have a different take in that time does not heal wounds as much as it puts a scar over them and hides them deep beneath that protective barrier.

It would seem logical since a scar is a harder surface to pierce than just your skin. A scar has diminished nerve ending available to feel pain so if a memory is buried beneath a scar it is harder to get at and be affected by it than one that is nearer the skin.

I had the occasion this past week to revisit a painful time in my life; a time of great confusion and consternation. It was during this time that I began the process of understanding a little more what life was about and how cruel it and the people in it could be at times.

Over the years since that time I have had a great life and have been blessed in so many ways and I had ‘gunny sacked” those experiences as being a learning curve to my current life and I think to a certain extent that is true. Most of us take our past experiences and apply them to our daily lives when necessary to garner greater knowledge on how something should be handled. It is a good way to look at life, I think.

My conundrum came from the fact that I had thought that I was in a certain place with certain past issues and I guess I really had never concluded them but allowed them to just be gunny sacked. When I took them out and looked at them again with a rather dispassionate eye; I found that I was actually looking at them with greater emotion than I thought I would and that surprised me.

What I came away with was that I still cared very deeply about what happened then; much more deeply than I ever thought I would have at this period of time in my life and that surprised me. Actually, I was emotionally spent after writing about this period in my life and my mind was adrift in thought.

I have recovered, yet there is still a small part of me searching for information and answers to questions long since asked and still not answered after all these years. They never will be and that is the way life handles these issues. It is a good way because total accountability in all facets of our lives could be a painful process for all of us.

Will I go back there and revisit this time again, I think not unless there is a need. I owe it to myself and my family to be in the moment for them and not lost in the history of my life. It is a good plan, I think.

Pensive Moments

I know a family in my church that suffered the agony of losing a child a while back and although I knew of the people and this young man also; as a non family member there was no way to really feel the sense of impending loss that they were suffering.

I cried several times during the time that Brian fought so valiantly to live and I wept at his death but only for the earthly loss that I and others sustained. He was valiant in his fight and humble in his demeanor and it was known to all that saw him that his faith was a large part of who he was and it grounded him even in his darkest moments.

As a parent I have had pensive moments when I struggled with myself and my God in trying to grasp a certain situation especially the death of a baby, like my niece Jennifer. I saw all of the gifts that God has given to me and when I see others that should have the same gifts and life and do not; then my faith falters a bit if just for awhile.

Currently, I have been communicating with my daughter Carrie and I enjoy our night time chat sessions. She is a bright, intelligent person that has a lot of knowledge and has probably the best vocabulary of any person I know. Her writing is exceptional and she can keep a reader locked into the thoughts she is expressing. I write well; Carrie writes extremely well.

In our discussions we have talked about politics; I am a staunch Republican and she is a liberal Democrat, she loves the liberal bent and I do not, she is into Buddhism and I am a Lutheran so there are not a lot of contact points that we agree on at this time and probably never will. I am accepting of it as best I can be and I feel that communication is a key ingredient even if agreement is not.

One area of disagreement is religion. Carrie was raised Catholic and has “fallen away” as they say in the religious vernacular; her prior religious upbringing is no longer a factor in her life.

We have discussed religion and I am sure that I have been on the pointed barb of many of her comments about the hard hearted Christians and how non Christians are more compassionate than we are and I accept her view even though I disagree.

But her hellish rants against religion give me pause. Many times she seems to be the poster child for all that is human and godless and that scares me. It is one thing to not believe in God, if that is what you choose to believe but a non believer should be aware of their words.

I am reminded of Pascal’s Wager “An argument according to which belief in God is rational whether or not God exists, since falsely believing that God exists leads to no harm whereas falsely believing that God does not exist may lead to eternal damnation.”

There is a lot of bravery in non-believers today because society has emboldened them but let it be known that if believers are right then Pascal’s Wager will be a harbinger of eternal pain and remorse.

Since we are judged by every word uttered from our mouths (and yes, I believe the written word also falls under this context) we should all, including me, be more aware of what we say. Our words need to be sweet because we might just be chewing on them for eternity.

A Divergence of Views

I saw a post the other day on my Face Book that made me pause for a second as I read it to try and understand it and as I did; one thought came into my mind, non believers have no frame of reference with the future they only live in the here and now.

Now, I can hear the Hindus and reincarnationist saying, “Hey we believe that you go on as something we just aren’t sure what it is yet.” And they haven’t been able to tell us for thousands of years.

The gist of the article had to do with cycles and how history is nothing more than a series of cycles and we are in a constant changing from liberal to conservative to whatever but that it will continue forever, I guess. Here again there is no finality to their though process but rather we are here living now, doing the best we can for our kids and grandkids and wait until the next cycle and shouldn’t that be good enough.

I say, “No” and I say it emphatically.

Christians have a different view in that we know and believe that Christ will come again, all of the earth will be made new again under Christ’s reign and we have an eternity to live in it. Sounds to simple for the complicated mind and I think that God did in fact, make it simple just to confuse those that rely on their mind instead of their hearts.

Now some of the brightest minds we know and read about can’t balance their checkbook, can’t pay their taxes, can’t drive a car across a bridge without killing someone, yeah he probably shouldn’t be lumped into this group; but they all have problems, we all have problems and we can’t solve what the earth is throwing at us right now.

Look, we have over 6 billion people on the earth right now and we have diminishing resources many that are non-regenerating so the earth is getting smaller both in living space and resources. We have the most populated country on earth spewing carcinogens into the atmosphere and waterways on a daily basis; home of the swine flu also. This is not a cycle this is living fact and this cycle, if that is what you want to call it will possibly have devastating consequences on all of us or on our children.

While the unbeliever will see that the Christian has a defeatist attitude towards now and our future; I plead otherwise. The believer’s future is bright, shekinah (the light that illuminated the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle in the Holy of Holies in Old Testament times) glory bright and we look forward to Christ’s return because, to put it in the earthly vernacular, “we will be able to sleep with our doors unlocked once again.” All of the filth of this earth will be gone and the evilness of the people will cease.

The sadness is that many know of the path that I speak but many will go down the wide path to destruction. It is a shame but it will happen and there will be “wailing and gnashing of teeth” when this happens.

So non believer live for today because your own beliefs tell you that this is all that there is unless you believe that you might come back as a cockroach and that is a depressing thought, even for a non believer, I think.

I'm Baaaack!

I have been away fulfilling a personal dream of writing a book. It has been on my mind for years and I just never had the time to sit down and write anything so involved. I kicked it to the back of my proverbial list of things to do.

What I really found out in the process was that I cheated myself by not doing it sooner. I may have forgotten things that could have been added to the story line because I waited too long but I am accepting of that fact and will try to do better in the future.

So the status of the book is this…it is with an editor that is reading every line, every jot and tittle (I never really knew what that meant until I got 19 pages of edits the other night) and she is reading for content and believability. So far, she likes the book very much and most of her editing is punctuation (I thought I was in school for those days that we studied that but obviously not). After edits are done and any additional corrections and rewrites are completed then she will submit to publishers, hopefully, for acceptance and publication.

I hope that will eventually culminate in a book that can be purchased but I will have to wait on that at this time.

I also wrote about my Marine Corps experiences and I will be self publishing this book through Lulu.com. It is a novella and is more of a personal memoir of that time then a dynamic war story, which it wasn’t. I am in the process of getting a proof book for final review and then I will get it published and ready for sale. I will let you know when that happens.

So it has been an interesting few weeks and I look forward to the next few weeks and seeing more of my book edited and closer to submission to publishers.