QotD: America's spiritual temperature

Religion. To our Founders, religion meant what denomination means to us today. Religion was some form of orthodox Christianity. Today, when we hear the term religion, our minds race over every bizarre thought form used to explain the supernatural, biblical or not, deity or not.

USA Today has not ignored the spiritual aspect of man. In their News/Opinion section, they dip into the pool of religion twenty-first century style hitting the nail on the head from time to time but usually denting the wood or blistering their thumb.

I came across a letter to the editor from a gent in Venice, Florida asserting that "as people become less religious, they sow peace." Here's the letter. Here's the quote that spilled my coffee:

It won't be until the Vatican contacts the Shas Party in Israel as well as the Shiite and Sunni leadership, and they form a joint council for peace that we can claim that religion is now a progenitor of peace.

A joint council for peace? I have no doubt such a council will one day form. Who the players will be is unknown, but it will have nothing to do with peace. More and more folks have been duped into thinking all religions are reconcilable, that they are nothing more than an extension of the same religion.

God seems to think otherwise:

For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Acts 4:12b

Go figure.

A funny thing happened on the way to the airport

Do you remember when you first learned to drive a stick? For many, it was a planned, thought out, and trained for event. If you're like me, you borrowed a car only to later learn that it was a stick, and knowing the principles, you ground'em 'til you found'em.

My bride's off to Dallas with our girls. They left this morning. Son #2 caught a flight this afternoon to visit son #1 for a week. My plan was to drop son #2 at the airport and take son #4 shopping for some things. Son #3 hemmed a little and hawed a little and finally decided not to join us.

I am praising God even now for that little bit of providence.

En route the airport in my mighty, mighty Taurus station wagon, I happened to notice (about half-way to the airport) that the car was rapidly on its way to an overheat. I pulled into the nearest parking lot, all the while wondering about the interesting timing of this event, pulled out my cell phone, and dialed son #3 still at home. The only vehicle left at the house, other than my motorcycle, was son #2's manual transmission auto-mobile. Son #3 has never driven one of those.

"Tyler (son #3), get Drew's keys (son #2) off the counter top and come get us. You got any questions?"

No panic. No trepidation. The lad had never touched a stick in his life. He's seen it done. Never been the driver. Ten minutes later, like he'd been doing it for years, son #3 rounds the corner and saves the day. Had he come with us, we'd be stranded in the 100 degree heat having to start calling friends, none of which would have been a sure bet to be able to get us in time to get son #2 to the airport.

I have found that the oddest things strike pride in my heart regarding my sons' maturity. This moment, as I have told son #3, still has me smiling.

Braking the global warming bandwagon

You cannot obtain objective clarity about the outside world staring through a snow-frosted windshield. As much as the passenger next to you might think he can explain what's going on outside your Neon, he sees only as well as you do. Guessing helps not at all.

Two things might assist. You could get a call from someone outside who has a clear view of what's going on. Or you could turn on the defrost and melt the frost (I guess you could get out and scrape the windshield, too, but that would ruin my analogy).

With regard to global warming, the only one external to this big blue marble upon which we're riding is God Almighty. He has told us plainly to steward the earth. He destroyed it once before by flood but promised never to do that again (by flood, anyway). Nothing within prophecy seems to indicate the demise of the earth either by man's hand or God's. From my chair, it seems man's stewardship of the earth, for the most part, is pretty good.

For those of us within the car (living within the car), it's tough to say. Ice cores from the poles have so many presuppositions that if any one of them is not right, the resulting conclusions could be 180-out. What was the temperature in Minsk like from 2000 BC to 1500 BC? Ummm...

The consensus regarding global warming is that there is no consensus. Many would have us believe that no educated person could possibly deny that we are destroying the planet, but that is simply not the case. So what's a sane person to do? Turn on the defrost.

The best that we can do, since we're not likely to determine whether global warming or global cooling is in our future, is to ask smart questions about the premises, presuppositions and conclusions about those who are certain about what's happening outside the car.

Regis Nicoll analyzed the PP&C of those pushing us to adopt the Kyoto Accords, extreme environmental government impositions to somehow reduce the heating affect upon the planet. In his article (linked here), he asked six great questions that stewards like you and me can ask about the soothsayers who see environmental catastrophe over our horizon. Here they are:

1. Is the earth warming?
2. Is warming an overall bad thing?
3. Is human activity the primary cause?
4. Would forced standards sufficiently reduce global temperatures?
5. Would they be cost-effective?
6. Would forced standards not create more—or more severe—problems than they solve?

He handles his questions in greater depth in the article. What such questions expose is that the fellow sitting next to you can't see out the window any better than you can. Perhaps the questions might defrost the issue a bit and help us all see things a bit more clearly.

Photos:
Frost from www.wunderground.com
Sun from NASA.gov

The STATE of things

When you cross the border from Kansas into Oklahoma, do you notice anything? Other than a corny welcome sign, probably not. Because of what our nation has morphed into, State A is very little different than State B. Never was it intended to be so.

The beast that is the federal government has broken free of the chains with which our Founders bound it. Little by little, crisis by crisis, the Fed wriggled out of its bonds, taking responsibilities away from the states, never to return itself or the states to their previous status.

The federal government was to be small; the states, robust and varied.

You've not heard this before? Treat yourself to a little history and read through Walter Williams' column today (linked here). Notice his treatment of the "Civil War" (a perspective I'd not heard put quite that way before), and note James Madison's and Thomas Jefferson's quotes. You might find yourself writing your state's representative. Who knows, we might just start something.

Almost makes me sorry I've mocked the pan-handled state.

Josh Hamilton

Last night in baseball, something very special happened precisely because it was not about baseball. If you follow America's pastime at all, you know full well what happened during his superhuman first round of the All-Star Game Home Run Derby. Iron Man, Hulk and even Batman all take a back seat because this is a true story. It's a story of a man's demise, and God's overwhelming grace.

For those who do know it, for those who don't know it, I encourage you to visit this link here and read ESPN's Jayson Stark's first hand account of his astonishment and wonder. Josh Hamilton hit nearly three miles worth of baseballs!!

Though it might not make you a baseball fan, it will surely pique your interest in the Texas Rangers, and it will definitely make you a fan of Josh Hamilton, Texas Ranger, potential MLB MVP, Home Run Derby record exploder, and son of the King.

Photo from MLB.com

Just another day: The week that was

• The heavens: Seems a comet crossed the skies of Israel this past week tracking from east to west. Some reported that they heard "a shrieking sound."
• Earth fight's back? It's not a new concept. It was the plot of "The Day After Tomorrow." Now Russia's newswire, Pravda, takes a look at the recent rash of natural disasters that have hit our usually hospitable planet. Like most, they're quick to cruise on the global-warming-bandwagon and to ignore the Christ-is-coming prophecies of Scripture.

  Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
  
  And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
  
  “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come...

• News??? On Saturday, the front page of our local paper lauded an 80 year old stripper. On the front page!!! Yuk. Can a news-day be THAT slow?
  
• Bluster: Iran asserts that if anyone (i.e. Israel and the United States) attempts any military action, their name would be Mudd.

  "If Israel and the US fire a bullet or a missile at Iran, its forces will attack the heart of Israel and 32 American bases in the region before the dust from such an attack has settled," and ulimately "destroy" them, barked an Iranian spokesman for their Revolutionary Guards.

  They're cute when their playing with nukes, aren't they?
• The Islamic Republic of Australia: I came across an article at Pravda's web-site that spoke of a major demographic shift in the land down under. It seems that the fact that Australians have reduced their offspring to such levels that their numbers are dwindling while at the same time, the Muslims are ramping up their child production. One expert surmises that within fifty years there won't be any shrimp on the barbie because Australia will have become a Muslim nation. As I have noted often, Mark Steyn has made all of this quite plain in his book America Alone.
  

Cal and Brett

Iron Man. It was the first comic book hit of the summer but the name has become synonymous with those who endure. The triathlon which pushes man beyond what he can give demanding a 2.4 miles swim, an 100 mile bike ride, and the whipped cream to top it off --- a marathon --- that triathlon has earned the descriptor, Iron Man.

Two professional athletes earned the Iron Man nickname for their sturdiness in their respective sports, Cal Ripken in baseball and Brett Favre in football. Both of these men hold records unlikely to be beaten for consecutive games played, 2632 for the baseball's legend and 253 for quarterbacks for football's legend (275 if you include the playoff games).

Despite the commonality for consistency, these men achieved greatness with far different styles. Mr. Ripken went about his business with might be described as blandness, but his tenacious work ethic and focus on excellence garnered Gold Gloves, Rookie of the Year, All-Star MVP, League MVP, and Baseball All-Century Team, to name a few of the accolades.

Mr. Favre is the NFL's perennial child. From throwing snowballs to picking up teammates to the biggest dimpled smile behind a facemask, Favre's child-like joy could never be deemed child-ish or flippant. He loved the game and could not contain that joy. His passion and discipline earned the NFL MVP (three times), nine-time Pro-Bowl selection, seven time All-Pro, Super Bowl champ and just about every record for quarterback in the NFL.

And both men remained with the same team throughout their heroics (Favre began a Falcon, but did not earn a starting position until going to Green Bay)

Two men. Both Hall of Famers (Ripken is, Favre will be). Vastly different but effective styles.

Then came retirement...maybe. When Cal Ripken retired, he retired. Sure he kept his hand in baseball (front office, PR, etc.), but when he hung up his cleats, he hung them out of reach, never to be donned again as a player.

Brett Favre has begun to soil his pristine reputation with the recently in vogue game played by professional athletes called "I'm retired, I'm not retired." Favre has been toying with retirement for the past three or four years. His body has taken shots that would crumble my body like saltines. He has dealt with his wife's breast cancer battle. He's faced his skill's deterioration. And so after taking great pains to weigh all the factors, he announced his retirement last March.

By May and the start of the NFL mini-camps, Favre had begun expressing an interest in still playing but at the same time making plain to all that he was in fact retired. As the opening day of training camp grew closer and closer, Favre began to talk louder and louder about coming back to play another season.

And now the Packer's are faced with a dilemma: trade the greatest quarterback ever to some colors other than green and gold or let him comeback and serve as a $12 million backup QB.

Green Bay needs to begin a new era just as San Francisco did post-Joe Montana (rather than retire, Montana spent an inglorious year or two in Kansas City). To do so, the Pack drafted promising QB Aaron Rogers in 2005. He has sat under the tutelage of the finest mentor a man could ask for. Now it is his turn to carry the mantle, but the mentor keeps coming back and wanting to handle the project himself. To give Favre the ball for one more season, Rogers will surely bolt.

For a man who has earned a gigantic reputation for selflessness and being a team player, this epitomizes selfishness.

Despite the glory of the 2007 season, Favre's ability has plainly ebbed. Moments of brilliance were interspersed by more and more situations that left the fan scratching their head wondering, "What was that?!?"

Brett dishonors himself, his former team and the game of football by wanting to play another season. It's time to move on. It's time to enjoy his family and pursue the next phase of his life with the same zeal and giddiness with which he hit the gridiron every Sunday. It would be tragic to see him end like Montana (or Emmit Smith. Was anything more tragic than Emmit Smith in Arizona???).

Brett Favre should exit with the same dignity and poise with which Ripken departed. His already legendary stock will go through the roof.

Bigoted bakers?

An article on Fox News yesterday had me shaking my head in disbelief. Were there really such people on the earth?

During a meeting of the county commissioners in Dallas, Texas, one commissioner used the term "black hole." He said, "It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole," meaning that the county's collection office had become like that celestial object you can't see (hence the term "black"... because you can't see black against the inky blackness of the universe's backdrop) that sucks things in never to be seen again.

Another commissioner was offended by the term and demanded an apology (I'm not making this up).

You would expect the other commissioners present to stare in disbelief and politely suggest, "Get a grip!" Not so much. Another commissioner chimed in that such language was unacceptable. How you get from black holes to racism is beyond me. But it got even more bizarre.

"So if it's 'angel food cake,' it's white. If it's 'devil's food cake,' it's black. If you're the 'black sheep of the family,' then you gotta be bad, you know. 'White sheep,' you're okay. You know?"

Excuse me? Angel food, devil's food, white sheep and black sheep are racist? Is it racist that white has always been symbolic of purity and cleanliness? Do we gripe at God that the redeemed in heaven wear white robes? Do we gripe at God that the majority of sheep born are white and that the odd sheep is black? There are few better descriptors of the odd-man-out than the proverbial black sheep. None of these correlate to man's skin color. None of them.

Our hyper-sensitive political correctness has gotten WAY out of hand. Pretty soon America's vertically challenged red-heads will be griping about strawberry shortcake.

Lighten up, Francis!

Welcome home, Tony Snow

A good friend and I have been in discussion lately about how we conduct ourselves when in disagreement with other folks. Her point of emphasis has been that even in times of disagreement, no matter how wrong we perceive our opponent to be, we treat them with the dignity and respect due them as a person created in the image of God.

I have not seen anybody better exemplify such conduct in the political realm than Tony Snow, one time Fox Newsman, radio host and most recently White House press secretary. The thing that drove him to treat every person with such respect and honor was that he knew he was a sinner saved by grace. As God lavished His grace upon him, Tony could do no less toward others.

"God put us on earth to help each other," Snow told David Gregory in an interview. Speaking of his battle with cancer, he later said, " "When you die, you graduate." Read his testimony in Christianity Today here.

Today, Tony Snow graduated into the Lord's kingdom at age 53. Cancer consumed him in his last few years, but he never lost his poised and even demeanor.

Cancer is no longer an issue as he savors the face-to-face presence of his Savior and hears those longed-for words, well done!

QotD: A Man for All Seasons

I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.

Sir Thomas More
From the film A Man for All Seasons

Chew upon that one for a time.