1987 & 1991

What do those years have in common? Certainly sons #1 & #3 were born in those years, but WHAT ELSE? Anyone?

The Minnesota Twins won the world series in those years! Both series (Cardinals, Braves) went seven phenomenal games (biased).

As I sit here tonight watching ESPN2 cover opening day in the Metrodome (Homerdome, Snowdome, Heftybag, etc.), I wax nostalgic remembering my boys spitting up all over me, waving my Homer Hanky and actually sweeping my bride into the insanity.

They currently have the upper hand 3-2 against Anaheim (or LA or Calif.). I don't know if the lead will hold, but that's okay if it doesn't. It's opening day with 161 more to play!

Perhaps 2008...

Apologies

Comments will heretofore be monitored by me before publication. For those of you I know, this will not be a problem, and your comments will be soon posted.

The cast of "Hair"

Big Sissy

Little Sissy

Social Security

Even the name of the program is a bit haunting.

Does the government need to take money out of my check every week because I don't have the internal discipline to prepare for my own future? That is the program that is Social Security. What has it birthed? Dependence on government. Sloth. And an economic catastrophe.

Today on CNN's web-site, Glen Beck wrote a column ("The $53 trillion asteroid") about the monster that has grown from the seemingly good idea FDR unearthed in the 1930's. Two dizzying statistics:

• He states that the entire US economy rings in at $14.1 trillion. That's a big number. To put that in perspective, if you started counting one number per second, it would take you a bit over 440,000 years to count that high.
• The promise that the US government has made regarding funding social security for the future: $53 trillion.

I'm not a math major, but if we cut off the trillion part of the equation, even I can see that $14.10 won't cover a $53.00 purchase. Something's gotta give.

For those of you who are currently drawing Social Security, congratulations! You're likely among the last generation to recoup what you've put in. For those of you who are a ways off, don't count on it.

For government to continue to keep the monster satisfied, it will require more and more of our income. Either we slay the beast ourself or it will rip itself apart. My intent is not to be alarmest. This is merely a classic example of our government getting into things for which it was NOT designed (i.e. not abiding within that "troublesome Constitution").

Bottom line: Just like the Bible says, you'd best be preparing for the years of thinness because they are certain to come.

What's "wrong" with this picture?

A better question would be "what's right with this picture?" (Note: the British flag can't figure out which way to fly).

Do we really want to be more like Europe? Statistics just released indicate that fewer than 20 in a 1000 Britons of marrying age are in fact married! Marriage in Europe is going the way of the dinosaur. Euthanasia. Socialist programs. And God thrust from the public square.

May our nation continue to fight against the winds of culture, the winds of decay, to stand for righteousness and truth.

He is risen!!

Were there any questions about who He was?

Were there any questions about what He said?

Were there any questions about what He did?

In an instant, they were answered. He is risen!

And now, are there any questions about who you are?

Are there any questions about what you are doing?

Are there any questions about where you are going?

Before the cross of Christ, you shall have your answer because He was executed for our sin, and now He lives again, assuring the destiny of those who trust His sacrifice for the payment for their sin.

He is risen!

Hospice-tality

As my bus crossed the interestate and entered the Madison city limits, I called my mom to let her know I'd soon be arriving at the station. She told me that my grandmother had, just moments prior to my call, breathed her last.

When I arrived at hospice, they had prepared my grandmother's body for the journey to the funeral home. They had cleaned her up, tucked a teddy bear under her arm and rested a bouquet of flowers in her hands upon her breast.

When the funeral director arrived, the family followed him out as he wheeled my grandmother's home for 96 years to the awaiting car. A hospice volunteer led the procession down the long hallway leading us also in "Amazing Grace." Upon passing each workstation, all of the hospice workers rose to pay silent respect to the deceased and to the family. It nearly buckled my knees.

I praise God for how He has instilled such love and ministry to those who work in hospice and funeral ministries. They are a rare breed.

"Pastors" revisited: The crazy uncle

I've heard the Senator avoid his ties with his "former" pastor by trying to compare their relationship like that of an old uncle in the family that is a bit of an embarassment to everybody. While I agree that Jeremiah Wright's convictions ought to be an embarassment to anyone with ties to him, the comparison with the goofy uncle is a false comparison.

Here's the rub: We choose our pastors. We ought to carefully scrutinize who we select to sit in submission to as they handle the word of God. Nothing we choose should have greater import (doctors, mechanics...okay...the selection of your spouse might be a bit more important) than selecting a pastor. We do NOT choose our uncles and that is why it is an embarassment.

Cal Thomas nails it in his column "Barak and the Bigot." He says, "I have attended enough churches over the years that if I missed a Sunday service at which the pastor had said something as incendiary as Rev. Wright, I would have heard about it and done more than denounce it. I would have left that church." The other stuff is more than worth the read.

From one of the most cogent authors I know (who happens to be a black American), Thomas Sowell hammers the spin and hypocrisy of Obama's election committee and the press in "Race and Politics." Also well worth the read. "We don't need a President of the United States who got to the White House by talking one way, voting a very different way in the Senate, and who for 20 years followed a man whose words and deeds contradict Obama's carefully crafted election year image."

Boys to Men

They are no longer the little boys I could pin en masse during living room wrestling matches. If I tried now, I fear irreparable injury would await. This photo, taken before a friend's wedding, to the untrained eye shows the skin of three handsome gentlemen. (Compare with the photo in "Heritage" below).

The father sees that, and as he notes the glint in each of the eyes, he warms to the passion for Christ that the Lord Himself has kindled in the soul of each one of them.

And the father praises God.

Pastors

Lukus has been my pastor now for over three and a half years. His preaching and teaching come unashamedly from God's word. If you have a beef, it's not with Lukus; your beef would be with the word of God.

On the few occasions (less than the digits on one hand) we have disagreed, we have sought finality based upon the unchanging, unalterable truth of the Bible.

Before him, it was Allen and before him it was Ross. Had any of them started preaching something that biblically was "inflammatory" or "appalling" or "contemptible," then I would have sought a church with a pastor who handled God's word truly. I would certainly not have sat in submission to him for 20 years! Nor would I have made the man an integral part of my run for the Presidency of the United States.

While Senator Obama and much of the media would like to dismiss the association between the candidate and his pastor, Senator Obama's intimate relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright speaks volumes about what the candidate believes more than any of his campaign speeches.

I'll not provide a link to the man's sermons. If you're savvy enough to find this blog, you can hunt down his anti-American, racially-poisoned sermons through any number of means on the web. Frankly, they are creepy.

Yes, Mary Jane, racism is alive and well in America.

Heritage

As I type, my grandmother spends her final hours this side of paradise not knowing what is happening around her. Pneumonia at age 95 moved her into hospice where she has slipped into a coma.

I thank my God and Savior Jesus Christ for what He has done in her life. It is because of that work, His not hers, that ensures her final destination. I have no doubt that her trust in God during very difficult times she endured served as an example to my father who, when he faced the storms of life, was driven to the Cross of Jesus.

Because of their trust, I, too, now know Christ as my Savior and appreciate so much my relationship with Him. "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed to Him against that day."

Soon I will travel to Wisconsin to be with my family as we remember the rich life of my grandmother. As I travel, I no doubt will wonder who it was in my grandmother's life that served as her example. To God, I thank you for them, too.

The Contenders

Could somebody explain to me the political or ideological difference between Obama and Clinton? From where I stand, they appear interchangeable.

(ABC News file photo)

E'08: Social Programs

On the surface, helping those who cannot help themselves sounds like a good idea and something in which government should be involved, but like an idea in the head of most teenagers, this one is seldom thought through.

In his recent column "Liberty Versus Socialism," economist Walter Williams* exposes what's wrong with government handling social programs and not individuals (be that individual people, individual corporations, individual churches, etc) dealing with our societies ills.

The problem, in a nutshell, is coercive force versus personal responsibility (flip-flopped from the article title). Please take a read..."Liberty Versus Socialism"

*Dr. Walter Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University

Homeschooling Illegal? Part 2

You won't find it on CNN's site. Fox's either. Here's a link to a San Francisco site (of all places) I found on Drudge's web that reports on the academic typhoon ginning up in California. Here are a couple of quotes from the article. The first is from the ruling judge:

"A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare."

Umm...isn't that anthem of most fascist nations? Do I want my child loyal to state and nation if they have become like Germany circa 1930-1945? Saudi Arabia today? Stalinist Russia? France (at any time)?

Here's another beauty. This'un comes not suprisingly from a spokesindividual for the California Teacher's Association (CTA):

"We're happy," said Lloyd Porter, who is on the CTA board of directors. "We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers, no matter what the setting."

Who determines the appropriate credentials? Oh, we're back to the state, again. Credentialing is not a bad thing. The problem with credentialing is that somebody has to determine what those credentials are, and when there are no checks and balances for the parents whose children are being taught against the credentialers, parents are at the mercy of a school system that is increasingly out of touch with the heartland.

The most abhorrent quote is saved for last from the lips of the executive director of the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles.

(Leslie) Heimov said her organization's chief concern was not the quality of the children's education, but their "being in a place daily where they would be observed by people who had a duty to ensure their ongoing safety."

That sounds like the definition of a home to me.

If home schooled children filled the prisons, outlaw the practice. When they continue to surpass the national averages in all academic disciplines and when the majority seem far more "adjusted" than the average sullen, baggy-trou'ed teenager, you might want to rethink outlawing something that seems to be benefitting society.

Mature argumentation

Daily Savings Time (which wreaks havoc upon us once again this weekend) is stupid!! There. I feel much better.

Homeschooling Illegal?

Recently, the California Supreme Court handed down a decision based upon two 1950 rulings that ultimately makes homeschooling illegal in California unless the parent is a certified teacher. We could get into the why's and wherefore's as to why that's a problem (please drop me a line if you'd like to chat about it), but I share that so we might be in prayer for home school families in California and that the decision be overturned.

If you'd like further information on the ruling, you can stay up to date at www.hslda.org.

Conviction

Last week I had the honor to join my pastor, Lukus Counterman, and to other men from my church, Mark Deboe and Josh Longoria, in attending a superb Christian leadership conference at Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. We heard some exceptional teaching from the Bible on the theme "Trusted with the Truth."

On Thursday night, Dr. Mark Minnick used a poem by Amy Carmichael to illustrate how easy life is for most Christians. The few words from the poem he shared pierced my soul. Here is the verse in its entirety from a woman who spent 55 years in India ministering the good news of Jesus Christ:

NO SCAR?

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land;
I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star.
Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.
Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And piercèd are the feet that follow Me.
But thine are whole; can he have followed far
Who hast no wound or scar?

A funny thing happened...

Yesterday was a particularly goofy Sunday.

I had returned from a week long trip this past Friday so by the time our worship service concluded, I was pretty well spent. My Sunday afternoon crossword had its usual hypnotic affect on me and soon I was chasing Morpheus around the block.

My boys had returned from a weekend Christian youth conference at a local church, and since they had been up to the wee hours, they were all dragging, too. One combated the fatigue by playing disc golf. Another decided to nap before work. He received that nasty adrenaline spike you get when you fade back into consciousness and realize it's later than it should be. He was ten minutes late for work. Austin, number three, busied himself with some computer stuff and then strolled back to his room.

My bride enjoyed an afternoon out shopping while the girls napped. When she returned from the mall, we began to roust the girls and get them ready for our evening worship service, and soon Drew returned from disc golf. We piled into the 'burb and headed off to church.

About half way there, I looked in the back seat and asked, "Where's Austin?"

You hear about it but you never think it could really happen. We had actually driven off without one of our kids. All heads swung around knowing full-well he wasn't present, but the dismay required confirmation. We burst into embarrassed laughter. Our thirteen-year old son was in a coma on his bed as we headed off to church.

The comedy continued when we returned home. When we drove up, the house was still dark. As we entered the house, Austin came bleary-eyed down the hall. He saw 7:30 and thought that his nap had lapped the clock! If I'd had my wits about me, I'd have had him get himself ready for school.

The moral to this story: Your kids are never too old to do a nose count!