Much has been written in Cyberland about how the Powers That Be look down upon those who would pull our troops out of Iraq. We must stay the course, They say. We cannot cut and run. That's what they call leaving the place in chaos. Cut and Run. Of course, the funny thing is, none of the people I personally know saying this have children over there saving the Middle East from Chaos.
They do however, have children. Children that they are removing from Public Schools, because of the chaos. They will not sacrifice the futures of their children to help save the public schools. (Those other children there? Let there own parents worry about them. Pass me a voucer request form.)
So to make sure I understand. Pulling troops out of harms way in another country's civil war, Cut and Run. Pulling children out of public schools until all the people who actually care and have the means and motivation to be useful are gone with them, NOT cutting and running? What's the difference?
Put another way, the purpose of education, to some, is not to better oneself in the world, but to keep a nice sized gap between the Them and Us. Education is about keeping people in their places and able to read well enough to follow orders when we send them to fight our oil corporation's, uh, I mean, country's wars.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Or would you rather be a mule...
Or would you like to swing on a star, carry moon beams home in a jar, be a lot better off than you are....or would you rather be
An airport.
That's the latest analogy for a local congregation. Big glossy photo enhanced runways adorn the lobby and the handouts. Runways. Because you're not welcome to stay very long.
From Wiki:
An airport is a facility where aircraft can take off and land. At the very minimum, an airport consists of one runway (or helipad), but other common components are hangars and terminal buildings. Apart from these, an airport may have a variety of facilities and infrastructure, including fixed base operator services, air traffic control, passenger facilities such as restaurants and lounges, and emergency services. A military airport is known as an airbase in North American terminology
Not someplace you want to hang around very much. In fact, today's airports are ground zero in the war against terror, so for sure, the little church is more an air base for war than a place to wait for your transportation to a lovely south seas vacation. You don't meet people at air ports, the ones who are there are there to serve you or search you. Someone may come in from the outside to meet you, but please call ahead, because no one wants to hang around there.
Again from Wiki :Airports have a captive audience, and consequently the prices charged for food is generally higher than are available elsewhere in the region.
I always thought a church was an embassy. Or even a consulate.
Wiki again: A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organization (such as the United Nations) present in another state to represent the sending state/organization in the receiving state. In practice, a diplomatic mission usually denotes the permanent mission, namely the office of a country's diplomatic representatives in the capital city of another country...A Consulate is similar to (but not the same as) a diplomatic office, but with focus on dealing with individual persons and businesses, as defined by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. A Consulate is generally a representative of the Embassy in locales outside of the capital city. For instance, The British Embassy to the United States is in Washington, D.C., and there are British Consulates in Los Angeles, New York City, Houston, and so on....The role of such a mission is to protect in the receiving State the interests of the sending State and of its nationals, within the limits permitted by international law; negotiating with the Government of the receiving State as directed by the sending State; ascertaining by lawful means conditions and developments in the receiving State, and reporting thereon to the Government of the sending State; promoting friendly relations between the sending State and the receiving State, and developing their economic, cultural and scientific relations.
Yep. A place to go when you're in trouble in a foreign land. A place where people are waiting to help you.
18Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,
19namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
20Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.(NASV)
Not pilots, not air traffic controllers, not air marshalls, not flight attendents and not ticket agents. Ambassadors.
So not an airport or an air base, but an embassy.
An airport.
That's the latest analogy for a local congregation. Big glossy photo enhanced runways adorn the lobby and the handouts. Runways. Because you're not welcome to stay very long.
From Wiki:
An airport is a facility where aircraft can take off and land. At the very minimum, an airport consists of one runway (or helipad), but other common components are hangars and terminal buildings. Apart from these, an airport may have a variety of facilities and infrastructure, including fixed base operator services, air traffic control, passenger facilities such as restaurants and lounges, and emergency services. A military airport is known as an airbase in North American terminology
Not someplace you want to hang around very much. In fact, today's airports are ground zero in the war against terror, so for sure, the little church is more an air base for war than a place to wait for your transportation to a lovely south seas vacation. You don't meet people at air ports, the ones who are there are there to serve you or search you. Someone may come in from the outside to meet you, but please call ahead, because no one wants to hang around there.
Again from Wiki :Airports have a captive audience, and consequently the prices charged for food is generally higher than are available elsewhere in the region.
I always thought a church was an embassy. Or even a consulate.
Wiki again: A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organization (such as the United Nations) present in another state to represent the sending state/organization in the receiving state. In practice, a diplomatic mission usually denotes the permanent mission, namely the office of a country's diplomatic representatives in the capital city of another country...A Consulate is similar to (but not the same as) a diplomatic office, but with focus on dealing with individual persons and businesses, as defined by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. A Consulate is generally a representative of the Embassy in locales outside of the capital city. For instance, The British Embassy to the United States is in Washington, D.C., and there are British Consulates in Los Angeles, New York City, Houston, and so on....The role of such a mission is to protect in the receiving State the interests of the sending State and of its nationals, within the limits permitted by international law; negotiating with the Government of the receiving State as directed by the sending State; ascertaining by lawful means conditions and developments in the receiving State, and reporting thereon to the Government of the sending State; promoting friendly relations between the sending State and the receiving State, and developing their economic, cultural and scientific relations.
Yep. A place to go when you're in trouble in a foreign land. A place where people are waiting to help you.
18Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,
19namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
20Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.(NASV)
Not pilots, not air traffic controllers, not air marshalls, not flight attendents and not ticket agents. Ambassadors.
So not an airport or an air base, but an embassy.
Monday, August 14, 2006
My name is Crafty Peaches and I am a Web Newsletter Junkie....
They say the first step is to admit you have a problem. Well, I probably get about twenty different webbased newsletters. A week. Sure, not too bad, but I get them from both sides of the political aisle as well as several from Australia and India. Must say, the one from India is most polite.
Today, I got the Townhall.com newsletter's take on the "foiled terroist attack." (I must apologize, I do not have the funds available to come up with a logo and themesong every time the country is "under attack." ) There was about a two hundred and fifty word commentary on the author's opinion that we are strengthening the terrorists and "we in this country will have learned nothing from this near-horrific episode if we fail to strengthen our resolve to win the war on terrorism." Yeah, whatever.
Here's what gets me, the fine print at the bottom:
"Townhall.com Commentaries go past today's headlines to give you concise and penetrating insight into the most pressing challenges facing our culture today. These commentaries cover everything from politics to popular culture, from faith to international relations and family values to the progress of the war on terrorism."
Will somebody please explain to me how you can give penetrating insight in less than five hundred words of something so complex as international relations and terrorism?? Concise, sure, but enough information to form personal opinions? This seems to be a case of not "here's what I think" , but rather, "Here is what you should think, today."
Today, I got the Townhall.com newsletter's take on the "foiled terroist attack." (I must apologize, I do not have the funds available to come up with a logo and themesong every time the country is "under attack." ) There was about a two hundred and fifty word commentary on the author's opinion that we are strengthening the terrorists and "we in this country will have learned nothing from this near-horrific episode if we fail to strengthen our resolve to win the war on terrorism." Yeah, whatever.
Here's what gets me, the fine print at the bottom:
"Townhall.com Commentaries go past today's headlines to give you concise and penetrating insight into the most pressing challenges facing our culture today. These commentaries cover everything from politics to popular culture, from faith to international relations and family values to the progress of the war on terrorism."
Will somebody please explain to me how you can give penetrating insight in less than five hundred words of something so complex as international relations and terrorism?? Concise, sure, but enough information to form personal opinions? This seems to be a case of not "here's what I think" , but rather, "Here is what you should think, today."
Saturday, August 12, 2006
He didn't need ink catridges, that's for sure.
When asked why he wrote "The Name of the Rose," Umberto Eco replied, "I felt like poisoning a monk." Seems as good reason as any to write a novel. And he didn't realize monks were such a good source of office supplies.
But that's not really what I want to rant about today. I was offered an opportunity to be a Bible Study leader in what appeared to be a low-effort Bible Study. You know, fill in the blanks on the basic essentials of the faith. Making sure we all have the doctrine thing down. Because that is exactly what is most important. And if I could think of a Christian, dead or alive, whom I admired soley for his or her immpeccable doctrine, I would let you all know.
But the offer bothered me. It was so minimal, like I am so shallow that asking me for the paltry two and half hours a week was such an extravagant request. I said no, not because they asked too much, but they asked too little. It wouldn't cost. I'm no David, but he wouldn't give a sacrifice that wouldn't cost and he was a man after God's own heart. Not sure about his doctrinal purity, but oh well.
The whole place has seen an incredible growth in the size of the paid staff, professional Christians who are there to do the hard stuff. The rest of us are there to follow the directions and do what we're told. Good sheep. I however, am a bad sheep. I'm the one who's bound to go wondering off in odd directions. Mostly because the ground isn't so trampled. Like the No Child Left Behind act in the school system dumbs down the entire learing process, the No Christian Left Behind attitude reduces service to a least common denominator. No one gets to aspire to know God better than the professional staff. There are few people that have a walk with God that I admire and would like to emulate. This saddens me. Church should be a place where you aspire to go and do great things, where the distant shores seem less misty. You should leave with the fragrance of life still clinging to your clothing. Instead, we leave with homework, "have a five minute quiet time every day." Some aspirations. But the attitude seems to be "How can you say no when so little is required?"
That's the problem. Too little is asked.
About the same time as the BS email, I received an email from the Voice of the Martyrs, a group that publicizes the persecution of Christians around the world. There are the people who when much was asked, more was given.
It hit me: American Christians aren't "persecuted" because of their spiritual beliefs. They are attacked for thier counter culture. Not for believing in Jesus, but for saything they do and living a life that says otherwise. A life that says Jesus's blood is good enough for me, but not for you, unless you... A life that says God doesn't really know what to do with people who go against His ways, but we do...
A life that proclaims a hope unfounded, yet has a stockpile in the grain silo, just in case.
It's the responses of the persecuted that give it away. The non-Americans in the email emit the spirit of "Father, forgive them, they're clueless." Versus, "Take back the country" approach favored here. That's what points me to Jesus, forgiveness and love, not a voter registration drive to get the latest Focus on the Family bigot elected to office.
But as Jane Wagner says, "The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool."
But that's not really what I want to rant about today. I was offered an opportunity to be a Bible Study leader in what appeared to be a low-effort Bible Study. You know, fill in the blanks on the basic essentials of the faith. Making sure we all have the doctrine thing down. Because that is exactly what is most important. And if I could think of a Christian, dead or alive, whom I admired soley for his or her immpeccable doctrine, I would let you all know.
But the offer bothered me. It was so minimal, like I am so shallow that asking me for the paltry two and half hours a week was such an extravagant request. I said no, not because they asked too much, but they asked too little. It wouldn't cost. I'm no David, but he wouldn't give a sacrifice that wouldn't cost and he was a man after God's own heart. Not sure about his doctrinal purity, but oh well.
The whole place has seen an incredible growth in the size of the paid staff, professional Christians who are there to do the hard stuff. The rest of us are there to follow the directions and do what we're told. Good sheep. I however, am a bad sheep. I'm the one who's bound to go wondering off in odd directions. Mostly because the ground isn't so trampled. Like the No Child Left Behind act in the school system dumbs down the entire learing process, the No Christian Left Behind attitude reduces service to a least common denominator. No one gets to aspire to know God better than the professional staff. There are few people that have a walk with God that I admire and would like to emulate. This saddens me. Church should be a place where you aspire to go and do great things, where the distant shores seem less misty. You should leave with the fragrance of life still clinging to your clothing. Instead, we leave with homework, "have a five minute quiet time every day." Some aspirations. But the attitude seems to be "How can you say no when so little is required?"
That's the problem. Too little is asked.
About the same time as the BS email, I received an email from the Voice of the Martyrs, a group that publicizes the persecution of Christians around the world. There are the people who when much was asked, more was given.
It hit me: American Christians aren't "persecuted" because of their spiritual beliefs. They are attacked for thier counter culture. Not for believing in Jesus, but for saything they do and living a life that says otherwise. A life that says Jesus's blood is good enough for me, but not for you, unless you... A life that says God doesn't really know what to do with people who go against His ways, but we do...
A life that proclaims a hope unfounded, yet has a stockpile in the grain silo, just in case.
It's the responses of the persecuted that give it away. The non-Americans in the email emit the spirit of "Father, forgive them, they're clueless." Versus, "Take back the country" approach favored here. That's what points me to Jesus, forgiveness and love, not a voter registration drive to get the latest Focus on the Family bigot elected to office.
But as Jane Wagner says, "The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool."
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