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I got to thinking the other day: Which Apostle would you rather be- James, John, or Peter?
These were the three that had entry everywhere Jesus went. They were with Him at the Transfiguration, in the garden, where ever Jesus just needed the “two or three”. James, the first to die for the Gospel. Peter, the rock on which the Church was built. John, who passed the torch onto the next generation. Which one would you be?
Now, flip the question- which Apostle are you? Would you be James? James was not mentioned after the arrest; he was one of those who fled when Jesus surrendered. When the heat came down, he disappeared.
Would you be John? Remember, John had an in with the High Priest (John 18:15) and thus was right there when the trial of Jesus took place. And though he was right there, he said not a word. After it was almost all over, he came back to help pick up the pieces (john 19:26-27), but he spoke not a word when it might have altered the course of events. (Note that while God might not have wanted him to alter the events, he in his mortal, pre-Pentecost mind couldn’t have known that.) When the heat came down, he stood by, silent.
Would you be Peter? Peter stood a ways off, concealing his Identity; even lying about it, saying he wasn’t involved, when confronted. When the heat came down, he denied being involved.
Now, I’m not saying that what they did after that dark night wasn’t important. But without Christ’s victory over sin and death, they had not the faith and courage to stand up and be counted. And why not? Go back to the last time Jesus took the trio with Him; into the garden Gethsemane to pray. Three times He asked them to pray, “Lest they fall into temptation”. Three times He found the pillars of His Church asleep. And sure enough, they fell into the temptation of fear; One ran off, one stood by silent, and one denied involvement.
And this is what that lesson tells me. The disciple Jesus wants, the one I need to be, isn’t any of these three. When Jesus needs me to pray- for my kids, my friends, anyone- I need to put the knees into it and actually pray. Not just, “…and God bless Aunt Martha, and Joe at the factory.. and… ZZZZZZ…” Focus on the prayer, pray for God’s will, pray that I can withstand it when the heat comes down. The kind of Disciple I need to be is the one who stays awake and prays at Gethsemane.
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Rikuzen Takata
Rikuzen Takata was sleepy little port city of 23,000 people. It nestled in the area of the south end of the Rikuchu Kaigan National Park, where the soaring 200-meter precipices of the coastline began to soften into sandy dunes. Upstream of the waterways of the park, in the nineteen-nineties they invited in a new type of purification plant to end the problem of their waste degrading the natural beauty of the park.
An area surrounded by quiet rice patties, one of its few tourist attractions was the Museum of Sea and Shell, dedicated to mollusks and their evolution from Cambrian times to now. Not exactly Disney World, but not everything has to be.
According to the April 1976 issue of the Rotarian magazine, there is a high hill overlooking the town upon which a now-vanished castle was built 800 years ago. The plateau at the top was known as Hommaru (the inner citadel); and in the early 1900's the citizenry took it upon themselves to plant a park of cherry trees. It was the most popular place in the town, until the neccessities of WWII forced them to cut down the trees and turn it into desperately needed farmland.
In 1972, the Rotary celebrated their tenth year there by re-creating a park. Naming it Midori-no-Oka (Green Hill), they raised half a million Yen and every member spent 2 hours a day clearing, bulldozing, landscaping, and planting. Their example drew the rest of the town to the project, and in the end over 3,000 townspeople worked to make Green Hill once again the favorite recreational spot in the city.
An area surrounded by quiet rice patties, one of its few tourist attractions was the Museum of Sea and Shell, dedicated to mollusks and their evolution from Cambrian times to now. Not exactly Disney World, but not everything has to be.
According to the April 1976 issue of the Rotarian magazine, there is a high hill overlooking the town upon which a now-vanished castle was built 800 years ago. The plateau at the top was known as Hommaru (the inner citadel); and in the early 1900's the citizenry took it upon themselves to plant a park of cherry trees. It was the most popular place in the town, until the neccessities of WWII forced them to cut down the trees and turn it into desperately needed farmland.
In 1972, the Rotary celebrated their tenth year there by re-creating a park. Naming it Midori-no-Oka (Green Hill), they raised half a million Yen and every member spent 2 hours a day clearing, bulldozing, landscaping, and planting. Their example drew the rest of the town to the project, and in the end over 3,000 townspeople worked to make Green Hill once again the favorite recreational spot in the city.
I write this so that when you say your prayers or send your money to help Japan and towns like Rikuzen Takata, you'll remember that it was a living, breathing town of people who worked, lived, and loved together...
Before it became this...
It is being described as "totally obliterated" by the Japanese media. Rikuzen Takada has come off the mat before, and restored beauty to ruin. The question is, are there Takadans left to rebuild. As I write this, the official death toll is in the six hundreds, with many more missing. And if a city of 23,000 can just vanish, you know this is a lowball estimate.
I hope, somehow, there were 23,000 people watching this from Midori-no-Oka. What I know is, I thank God he has preserved me thus far. Preserved my family. Put me in Indiana, where I avoid earthquakes, Tsunamis, hurricanes, and alligators and sharks. Left me only to dodge the occasional lazy-ass armed robbed and the odd tornado. And where I can pray.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
February Flotsam on Sunday
Okay, among the things on my widely-scattered mind today:
1. In researching other things today, I was looking into a set of stats put forth by David Barton about some of the negative trends in society since the 1962 decision to ban school prayer. You can look at them for yourselves if you like; I was drawn to the rebuttal by a chap going by the name of Abemore who accused Barton of "spreading twisted lies" by selectively presenting his charts. Of course, in the typical vein of evangelical atheists, he starts it out with the pronunciation that Barton "is an idiot" (that bastion of credibility of the liberal fringe- insult, insult, insult); then he goes on to select the one chart he CAN try to overthrow statistically- the spike in venereal disease since the decision. While he does make two valid points- first, that the spikes are closely tied to occurrence of major wars; second, that Barton did not show how those rates have since dropped off- he fails to note two other things that puncture his bubble. One, he does not note that the spike Barton referred to started after major involvement in Vietnam and second, that its peak came 3 years after we were OUT of Vietnam. Not to mention the fact that this peak ran MUCH higher and was already starting from a higher base.The fact that that indicator later ebbed does not invalidate Barton's hypotheses, it merely shows that the symptoms of societal debasement can be mitigated over time- if not the decay itself.
Abemore does not bother to contest anything other than the VD chart, stating that one chart overthrown is basically all charts overthrown- Apparently assuming that the "war" must also have been the cause of higher murder rates, higher teen pregnancy rates, and lower SAT scores. In a sidelight, he also references another of his statistical breakthroughs that claims a connection between being religious and higher rates of divorce. To manage this, he makes the assumption that because Christians have a special relationship with God, that if God exists they should have a supernatural protection from divorce. He sites stats that show that basically everyone has similar divorce rates, therefore Christianity is somehow invalidated. Not surprising since his assumptions about that special relationship between Christians and God are completely wrong; the nature of that relationship focuses on forgiveness and personal responsibility to avoid sin. Atheists refuse to grasp that the Nature of God is such that man's failure does NOT equal God's failure. Also, I find it curious that Abemore's VD chart only includes Gonorrhea and not AIDS, which would have eliminated the dip over the years involved. Mustn't slay our sacred cows, I suppose.
2. I also learned this morning that there is a strong statistical link between legal and Illegal immigration- they rise and fall together. The Center for Immigration Studies states that much of this is because increased legal immigration not only encourages others to try to enter, but the backlogs at INS because of this forced the impatient to cross the river without waiting. What started out this chain reaction? Well, you start with the Hart-Cellar act of 1965 which changed the requirements for immigration from being a person who can positively contribute to society (which, I might add, Mexican law still IS) to a basic quota system; since we were in the era of civil rights, let's give civil rights to everyone, whether they are citizens or not. And this abomination we can lay squarely at the feet of Ted Kennedy, whose first assignment as a Senator was to work this bill through. Being the prescient paragon of rightness that he was, Ted predicted,"First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset...Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.... It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."
This I find sadly amusing. Consider this from this very day's Journal Gazette article about the "diversity" in the McKinney-Hessen Cassel census tract in SE Ft. Wayne:
The official census tract breakdown is 653 whites, 726 blacks, 483 Asians, 183 Hispanics. While the tract's population increased 14 percent since 2000, it was mostly from Hispanics and Asians. Non-Hispanic whites in the area declined 28 percent, and blacks dropped to a lesser degree.
Again, not surprising from the man who wanted to put McDonald's out of business for making kids fat. What did you top out at before your illness, Ted?
Oh, and BTW, Illegals in the USA were estimated at just over 500,000 in 1969, shortly after Hart-Cellar passed. That amount had doubled by 5 years later; that number in turn tripled by 1980, and even that number more than doubled by 2000. But our "ethnic mix" is still the same as it was in 1965. That's what Ted said, and I believe him. ;<)
3. My ESPN baseball team got autodrafted this morning. Being a Reds fan (my second team behind Oakland), I was less than thrilled to see I got Adam Wainwright (who is not only a Cardinal but just got scheduled for Tommy John surgery and will miss the whole year) but his teammate Colby Rasmus (which should make KC laugh since he knows I cannot stand Rasmus). Needless to say, I am ejecting both of them ASAP.
4. Robbie Gordon just wiped out on lap 34. Good. That man should have his car impounded and be issued a tricycle in the name of public safety. Now he's weeping about Marcus Ambrose bumped him. Karma from last week's a bummer, huh, Robbie?
5. I see Quaddafiduck's sons told the UN that all the stories of massacres in Libya are "overblown". I think they got ahold of some of those drugs al-Qaeida is passing out to the anti-Duck protesters.
1. In researching other things today, I was looking into a set of stats put forth by David Barton about some of the negative trends in society since the 1962 decision to ban school prayer. You can look at them for yourselves if you like; I was drawn to the rebuttal by a chap going by the name of Abemore who accused Barton of "spreading twisted lies" by selectively presenting his charts. Of course, in the typical vein of evangelical atheists, he starts it out with the pronunciation that Barton "is an idiot" (that bastion of credibility of the liberal fringe- insult, insult, insult); then he goes on to select the one chart he CAN try to overthrow statistically- the spike in venereal disease since the decision. While he does make two valid points- first, that the spikes are closely tied to occurrence of major wars; second, that Barton did not show how those rates have since dropped off- he fails to note two other things that puncture his bubble. One, he does not note that the spike Barton referred to started after major involvement in Vietnam and second, that its peak came 3 years after we were OUT of Vietnam. Not to mention the fact that this peak ran MUCH higher and was already starting from a higher base.The fact that that indicator later ebbed does not invalidate Barton's hypotheses, it merely shows that the symptoms of societal debasement can be mitigated over time- if not the decay itself.
Abemore does not bother to contest anything other than the VD chart, stating that one chart overthrown is basically all charts overthrown- Apparently assuming that the "war" must also have been the cause of higher murder rates, higher teen pregnancy rates, and lower SAT scores. In a sidelight, he also references another of his statistical breakthroughs that claims a connection between being religious and higher rates of divorce. To manage this, he makes the assumption that because Christians have a special relationship with God, that if God exists they should have a supernatural protection from divorce. He sites stats that show that basically everyone has similar divorce rates, therefore Christianity is somehow invalidated. Not surprising since his assumptions about that special relationship between Christians and God are completely wrong; the nature of that relationship focuses on forgiveness and personal responsibility to avoid sin. Atheists refuse to grasp that the Nature of God is such that man's failure does NOT equal God's failure. Also, I find it curious that Abemore's VD chart only includes Gonorrhea and not AIDS, which would have eliminated the dip over the years involved. Mustn't slay our sacred cows, I suppose.
2. I also learned this morning that there is a strong statistical link between legal and Illegal immigration- they rise and fall together. The Center for Immigration Studies states that much of this is because increased legal immigration not only encourages others to try to enter, but the backlogs at INS because of this forced the impatient to cross the river without waiting. What started out this chain reaction? Well, you start with the Hart-Cellar act of 1965 which changed the requirements for immigration from being a person who can positively contribute to society (which, I might add, Mexican law still IS) to a basic quota system; since we were in the era of civil rights, let's give civil rights to everyone, whether they are citizens or not. And this abomination we can lay squarely at the feet of Ted Kennedy, whose first assignment as a Senator was to work this bill through. Being the prescient paragon of rightness that he was, Ted predicted,"First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset...Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.... It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."
This I find sadly amusing. Consider this from this very day's Journal Gazette article about the "diversity" in the McKinney-Hessen Cassel census tract in SE Ft. Wayne:
The official census tract breakdown is 653 whites, 726 blacks, 483 Asians, 183 Hispanics. While the tract's population increased 14 percent since 2000, it was mostly from Hispanics and Asians. Non-Hispanic whites in the area declined 28 percent, and blacks dropped to a lesser degree.
Again, not surprising from the man who wanted to put McDonald's out of business for making kids fat. What did you top out at before your illness, Ted?
Oh, and BTW, Illegals in the USA were estimated at just over 500,000 in 1969, shortly after Hart-Cellar passed. That amount had doubled by 5 years later; that number in turn tripled by 1980, and even that number more than doubled by 2000. But our "ethnic mix" is still the same as it was in 1965. That's what Ted said, and I believe him. ;<)
3. My ESPN baseball team got autodrafted this morning. Being a Reds fan (my second team behind Oakland), I was less than thrilled to see I got Adam Wainwright (who is not only a Cardinal but just got scheduled for Tommy John surgery and will miss the whole year) but his teammate Colby Rasmus (which should make KC laugh since he knows I cannot stand Rasmus). Needless to say, I am ejecting both of them ASAP.
4. Robbie Gordon just wiped out on lap 34. Good. That man should have his car impounded and be issued a tricycle in the name of public safety. Now he's weeping about Marcus Ambrose bumped him. Karma from last week's a bummer, huh, Robbie?
5. I see Quaddafiduck's sons told the UN that all the stories of massacres in Libya are "overblown". I think they got ahold of some of those drugs al-Qaeida is passing out to the anti-Duck protesters.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
February Flotsam
Just some odds and ends to put on the air.
First, for those who read the "In support... "blog a few days back, Average Girl decided that the support of her followers was greater than the disgust of the few, and resumed the contest. However, just minutes ago, she posted this:
My unbelievably beautiful, wonderful and incredibly kind sister-in-law had something horrific happen to her and she almost lost her life yesterday. She is currently in the intensive care unit, and as such, I will be delaying the Battle of the Blogs for a day or two or longer while our family deals with this.
I hope to join with all of you in praying for Tracy's SIL and their entire family. Some things really do take a back seat.
Two days ago, Scrappy and I bundled up, taking the mighty camera with us on a quest to see what the world under 16 inches of snow looked like. It quickly became more of a "if we get home alive" sorta ordeal whose exertion made several layers of bundling unnecessary.
As you can see, the aminals haven't kept up with local trail-shoveling laws.
They hardly touched what in warmer days was their main track into the woods, but did stamp down this one nearer the north entrance.
And this is where some unfortunate decided to wipe out across from our parking lot.
First, for those who read the "In support... "blog a few days back, Average Girl decided that the support of her followers was greater than the disgust of the few, and resumed the contest. However, just minutes ago, she posted this:
My unbelievably beautiful, wonderful and incredibly kind sister-in-law had something horrific happen to her and she almost lost her life yesterday. She is currently in the intensive care unit, and as such, I will be delaying the Battle of the Blogs for a day or two or longer while our family deals with this.
I hope to join with all of you in praying for Tracy's SIL and their entire family. Some things really do take a back seat.
Two days ago, Scrappy and I bundled up, taking the mighty camera with us on a quest to see what the world under 16 inches of snow looked like. It quickly became more of a "if we get home alive" sorta ordeal whose exertion made several layers of bundling unnecessary.
That is Stony Run Creek.
As you can see, the aminals haven't kept up with local trail-shoveling laws.
They hardly touched what in warmer days was their main track into the woods, but did stamp down this one nearer the north entrance.
And this is where some unfortunate decided to wipe out across from our parking lot.Once we hit California road, I said enough is enough and decided we'd follow the plex road back home. However, the Plex had only plowed from building to road, which meant half of our remaining journey would be just as bad as what had went before. When you go out in 20 degree weather and come home soaked in sweat, it's time to revise your hiking plan- which we did on Saturday and Sunday.
I wanted to touch on a couple of celebrity deaths. Chuck Tanner, manager of the mid 70s Pirate "fam-i-lee" died this week. Chuck also managed my A's in 1976,
and we TRADED him the next year for catcher Manny Sanguillen.
and we TRADED him the next year for catcher Manny Sanguillen.
The other is Betty Garrett, an actress known for many things; but for me she was Archie Bunker's nemesis Irene Lorenzo on All In The Family.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the hockey game that broke out in the midst of the brawls between my New York Islanders and my son's Pittsburgh Penguins Friday night. This nastiness, wrapped around a 9-3 Islander rout of the Pens, was brought on after the events of a few games past when their goaltender broke our goaltender's face with one punch. The Isles were bent on all sorts of revenge, and seem to have gotten it; 346 penalty minutes were mostly concentrated in 3 big brawls, and included 15 fighting majors, 10 10-minute misconducts, a 5 -minute elbowing with intent to injure, and 11 game misconducts, 2 of them on Eric Godard of the Pens. One guy for the Isles racked up 32 minutes worth in the one big fight, and a teammate got 29 in the same melee. One Islander found himself with a ten game suspension (Trevor Gilles) as did one Pen who came off the bench when his goalie and an Islander went at it. The Isles also got another suspension, and were fined $100,000, a big deal for the cash-poor wreck that the once proud 4-time cup champs have become. Not being afraid of violence for the greater principle in sports, I'm of mixed opinions on the incident; but, I will say, EVERYONE KNEW something like this would happen at this game. The fact that it happened to such a degree shows that nobody really cared until it got out of hand. If I were king of the NHL, and disposed to end such shenanigans, I would have also fined the refereeing crew- because this crap never, I repeat NEVER happens if the crew does a competent job of handling it. And I would have suspended BOTH coaches and fined BOTH teams. Although he can hardly be considered a neutral party, Pens owner Mario Lemieux seemed to agree:
"The NHL had a chance to send a clear and strong message that those kinds of actions are unacceptable and embarrassing to the sport. It failed," the Pittsburgh Penguins co-owner said in a statement released on Sunday. "We, as a league, must do a better job of protecting the integrity of the game and the safety of our players. We must make it clear that those kinds of actions will not be tolerated and will be met with meaningful disciplinary action."
The NHL announced just before midnight on Saturday suspensions for Islanders forwards Trevor Gillies (nine games) and Matt Martin (four games), and Pittsburgh's Eric Godard (automatic 10-game ban for leaving the bench).Lemieux, however, said Campbell didn't go nearly far enough and the Hall of Famer who won two Stanley Cup titles as a Pens player questioned whether he still wants to be involved with such an outfit.
"If the events relating to Friday night reflect the state of the league, I need to re-think whether I want to be a part of it," he said. These remarks will surely irk NHL's front office, and Lemieux could soon be the target of his own disciplinary action in the form of a fine.
(Courtesy Fanhouse Sports)
One thing the league should look at is the fact that Godard got 10 games off for going to the aid of his goalie while all on-ice personnel were busy waltzing at the other end, while 2 Islanders drew instigator penalties, which cost just 2 minutes in the penalty box. Once upon a time, the man off the bench penalty was hailed as the cure all for bench clearing brawls, and it by and large works. If the league really wants to eliminate these ballroom events, then those who get hit with instigator and third-man-in penalties need to be similarly disciplined. Though not impartial, Lemieux was right about the league not going far enough. If they would have suspended goalie Brent Johnson for injuring Rick DiPietro in the FIRST PLACE, none of this would have happened. Once again, the NHL has tripped over that fine line they try to walk between what "puts fans in seats" and what "is an embarrassment".
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Disasters
Tonight on the way home, I heard about the earthquake in Pakistan. Of course, Pat Miller made it out to be worse than it was (he accidentally called it a "9.4" quake.) But then, in true end of the work-day callousness, I thought, "Serves 'em right."
Now, it was just a brief knee-jerk reaction, and I immediately felt bad about it. Serves who right? Well, maybe if you concentrated all the corrupt government officials, all the civil servants in the Taliban's back pocket, the terrorists hiding under a rock, the al-Qaida radicals brainwashing a new generation of children who'll never get the chance to be children, and the various assorted misogynists and wife-beaters who apparently get a religious "out" in Muslim nations, then just maybe you might have a group who might possibly be "served right", though that is up to God, and I'm sure if He felt so, He'd see to it.
Not my place to judge.
Did it serve the 15,000 likely dirt poor residents of Dalbandin right? They probably would have been just as happy to never have heard of the Taliban, al-Qaida, assault weapons, roadside bombs, homicide bombers, 90% of the governments they've had since Victoria was crowned Empress of India, the USA, NATO, CENTO, the UN, the IRS, or the fatwah of the week. Were they "served right?" That kind of logic tells us that the USA is the great Satan, nutcases are inspired by Rush Limbaugh, and that the definition of persecution includes having to look at "In God We Trust" on coins and licence plates and at nativity scenes on courthouse lawns. Yeah, they really deserved it.
Y'know, back about a year ago when I started this blog, I regularly featured disasters like the ones in Haiti and Chile. And not long ago, a friend asked me if I was following the great flood in Australia. Yes, I had; and I had thought about doing a post on it, but 2 thoughts stopped me. One of them involved being able to do the story justice, or cynically, fitting entertainment value. The other was, if I do one about that, what about the flood in Brazil? The volcanoes in Indonesia? The Mudslides in Guatemala? The human tragedy of Mexico's unwillingness to fight a war on drugs? The scorching heat in central and eastern Europe? When I started, I was hoping to drum up at least prayer support for those who were suffering. But then it became, is it big enough? Was it newsworthy enough? Should I just pray about this one on my own, rather than bring out the broken record again? And now, we've come to, "serves 'em right". And whether this is face, heart, or soul, it becomes #1 of the seventeen things I am currently ashamed of myself on. (And no, I haven't counted them.)
So tonight, I'll pray for the corrupt officials and dishonest civil servants, the terrorists and the children they are turning into killers, the wife-beaters, the nutcases, and especially the dirt poor residents of Dalbandin. I invite you to do the same- not because you have a list of things to be ashamed of, but because it "serves them right."
God blesses a confessor. As I got to the most intense part of this post, the guy on TV said (paraphrasing): Looking for the perfect gift for your wife/girlfriend on Valentine's day? Have yourself examined for testicular cancer." Truly broke the mood, particularly when I added, "or have her do it!" I suppose I should mark that as #18, but I'm gonna go easy on myself.
Now, it was just a brief knee-jerk reaction, and I immediately felt bad about it. Serves who right? Well, maybe if you concentrated all the corrupt government officials, all the civil servants in the Taliban's back pocket, the terrorists hiding under a rock, the al-Qaida radicals brainwashing a new generation of children who'll never get the chance to be children, and the various assorted misogynists and wife-beaters who apparently get a religious "out" in Muslim nations, then just maybe you might have a group who might possibly be "served right", though that is up to God, and I'm sure if He felt so, He'd see to it.
Not my place to judge.
Did it serve the 15,000 likely dirt poor residents of Dalbandin right? They probably would have been just as happy to never have heard of the Taliban, al-Qaida, assault weapons, roadside bombs, homicide bombers, 90% of the governments they've had since Victoria was crowned Empress of India, the USA, NATO, CENTO, the UN, the IRS, or the fatwah of the week. Were they "served right?" That kind of logic tells us that the USA is the great Satan, nutcases are inspired by Rush Limbaugh, and that the definition of persecution includes having to look at "In God We Trust" on coins and licence plates and at nativity scenes on courthouse lawns. Yeah, they really deserved it.
Y'know, back about a year ago when I started this blog, I regularly featured disasters like the ones in Haiti and Chile. And not long ago, a friend asked me if I was following the great flood in Australia. Yes, I had; and I had thought about doing a post on it, but 2 thoughts stopped me. One of them involved being able to do the story justice, or cynically, fitting entertainment value. The other was, if I do one about that, what about the flood in Brazil? The volcanoes in Indonesia? The Mudslides in Guatemala? The human tragedy of Mexico's unwillingness to fight a war on drugs? The scorching heat in central and eastern Europe? When I started, I was hoping to drum up at least prayer support for those who were suffering. But then it became, is it big enough? Was it newsworthy enough? Should I just pray about this one on my own, rather than bring out the broken record again? And now, we've come to, "serves 'em right". And whether this is face, heart, or soul, it becomes #1 of the seventeen things I am currently ashamed of myself on. (And no, I haven't counted them.)
So tonight, I'll pray for the corrupt officials and dishonest civil servants, the terrorists and the children they are turning into killers, the wife-beaters, the nutcases, and especially the dirt poor residents of Dalbandin. I invite you to do the same- not because you have a list of things to be ashamed of, but because it "serves them right."
God blesses a confessor. As I got to the most intense part of this post, the guy on TV said (paraphrasing): Looking for the perfect gift for your wife/girlfriend on Valentine's day? Have yourself examined for testicular cancer." Truly broke the mood, particularly when I added, "or have her do it!" I suppose I should mark that as #18, but I'm gonna go easy on myself.
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