Journal of the Wills

Obama-Dobson discussion disturbing

2008-06-25T13:53:00.002-07:00

After reading the news coverage, comments and blogs this morning, I find it disturbing the discussion is whether Obama’s views of religion and government are correct rather than Dobson’s egregious misrepresentation that Obama “criticized Dr. Dobson and biblical teaching” and “went so far as to equate Dr. Dobson with the far-Left Rev. Al Sharpton” in his keynote address to the 2006 Call to Renewal Conference.

Dr. Dobson’s name is mentioned only once in the speech. “And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s?” Clearly, Obama is using Dr. Dobson and Al Sharpton to represent POLAR OPPOSITE views, rather than equating them.

I would like to give Dr. Dobson the benefit of the doubt that perhaps he misunderstood Obama’s intention. However that would be unreasonable. Dr. Dobson is an intelligent, educated man who has worked in the political arena for years. It is perfectly valid for Dr. Dobson (or anyone else) to rip apart Obama’s views of the role of religion in politics. Examine his profession of Christian faith and stance on abortion, gay rights, school prayer, welfare, race, etc. It is irresponsible, negligent, and perhaps villainous to suggest that the speech in question had anything to do with Dr. Dobson let alone to state that it criticized him. It is deceptive to say that the speech equates Dobson and Sharpton when it actually uses them to represent polar opposite views.

But no one is talking about it. We accept it as par for the course in political rhetoric. It is perfectly acceptable to ‘bear false witness’ and that is disturbing.

Moron of the Week

2008-06-24T17:03:00.007-07:00

James Dobson

The news sites have various headlines about James Dobson accusing Barak Obama of “distorting” the Bible. A cursory reading of the stories shows Dobby (apologies to the house elf) to be the one distorting things. The objections highlighted on Dobson’s Citizenlink website are that Obama “went so far as to equate Dr. James Dobson with the far-Left Rev. Al Sharpton" and is “deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible”

If you take the time to find 2006 speech that Dobby is referring to, you will find his name mentioned in only the following statement.

“And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every
non-Christian from the

United States of America

, whose Christianity would
we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's?”

It is obvious that Obama is using James Dobson and Al Sharpton to represent polar opposites, rather than equating them.

Obama’s supposed distortion of the Bible comes immediately afterward.

“Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go
with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is
abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child
if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the
Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense
Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away,
let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.”

I’m not sure what the distortion is here. Perhaps that Leviticus and Deuteronomy do not ‘suggest’ but rather dictate that eating shellfish is an abomination and children should be stoned? There is ample scripture in both the Old and New Testaments that describe the proper treatment of slaves, so it is hardly a distortion to suggest that the Bible can be seen as saying slavery is ok. It has been a while since I’ve read the Sermon on the Mount; maybe Obama has missed something there. I guess I should follow his advice and read my Bible.

There is nothing surprising in Dobson’s statements or political tactics. It is just absurd to think that it will do anything other than make him look like an idiot. That wins him the moron of the week award. I would like to call it moron of the month or year, but there is a lot of time between now and November for others to top Dobby.

Games with words

2008-06-24T17:03:00.005-07:00

The vegetables have been planted and the smell of cupcakes cooling hangs in the air with Johnny Cash. She lies in the hammock reading Sanskrit stories of sex and the city in Canada where poppies are worn to remember war.

Politics are looking up.

2008-06-19T18:24:00.001-07:00

I have voted in five presidential elections. In each case, my vote was not cast for a candidate, but against his opponent. At this point, the upcoming election holds the potential to be different.

Both John McCain and Barak Obama are circumspect thinkers. Admittedly you have to wade through a lot of political BS to see it, but it is there. Both men have known privilege and oppression. Which I believe produces a more balanced approach to things. It is encouraging to me that McCain’s most famous work in congress (POWs and campaign finance) is bipartisan legislation. His criticism of the attacks on John Kerry’s war record in the 2004 election showed character willing to step on the party line. Everyone likes Obama’s optimism and campaign of hope. What really stands out to me is that he has energized the younger generation of voters. In previous elections only the ‘political geeks’ under 35 were enthusiastic enough about a candidate that it translated into action. There are a lot of people who are actively working to get Obama elected.

The campaign with test both men and their agendas, but I am hopeful that we are starting out with 2 candidates who appear to genuinely care about righting the course of our country.

would you like prayer with that?

2007-01-17T15:29:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago, possibly the last time I was at church, I was at church in a shitty mood. It had been a progressively worsening day and it felt like everywhere I turned someone why trying to make me feel isolated and alienated. I didn’t really feel like going to church, but it appeared to be the last opportunity for me to go to church for a while, I needed to put my last donation check in the offering for the year and my girlfriend was running power point. It was the second Sunday of Advent and we were lighting the candle of peace. I had come expecting a service that focused on peace. Unfortunately, the church is having some financial difficulty, so the focus was M-O-N-E-Y. Sitting through a service focused on giving and service to the body of Christ is not really beneficial when you’re spent and have nothing to give – except for the aforementioned check that was written out before the service. I sat in the A/V booth through the service, feeling more and more isolated and separate from ‘the community’ as the night went on.

At the end of the service there was the typical announcement that the prayer room would be open and staffed if anyone needed prayer. Honestly, I needed prayer. I knew I needed prayer, but the last thing I could do at that point was step into a room full of people – most younger than me, at best acquaintances – and open up the cares and worries that were weighing me down. What I wanted, what I needed, was support from people that were familiar with me and my life. I’m talking about the difference between going to McDonald’s and ordering a ‘meal’ and going over to your little sister’s and making dinner. One is a relationship build from shared history; the other is a service.

So at the end of a very depressing day, to my jaded ears, the announcement that the prayer room was open and available for those who needed it sounded like “would you like prayer’s with your happy meal?”

insight and error

2006-10-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Nabakov wrote “The difference between dreaming of a reordered world and dreaming of reordering it oneself as one sees fit is a profound and fatal one.” He is writing about Stalin as one of a group of young men who could not “make any distinction between their abstract rebellion and his lust for power.” This idea could provoke an interesting discussion about the difference between wanting to make a better world for all and wanting to make a better world for oneself. Unfortunately, I’m not really thinking about that because I read something slightly different than what Nabakov wrote.

What I read was “The difference between dreaming of a reordered world and dreaming of reordering oneself is a profound and fatal one.” We usually look to change others, our circumstances or the things that constrain us. We rarely look to change ourselves. For the most part we are powerless to change anything but ourselves; yet we continually look for any solution that doesn’t involve changing ourselves. Worse we decry others for failing to make the changes that we do not make (but need to) ourselves.

During my last visit to my mother’s I was frustrated with her for not getting rid of all the junk that is cluttering up her house. It would be so much better if she would get rid of the stuff she doesn’t need and organize the storage of the rest. I looked for ways to help (force) her to be more organized and wondered if she would even notice if I simply got rid of certain things. This line of thinking helped to distract me from thinking about all of the junk that I haven’t had time to sort through or organize since I moved. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of realizing that the reason I was so frustrated with my mother’s disorganization was that it reminded me so vividly of my own.

Shampoo?

2006-09-21T14:37:00.000-07:00

Definitions of sham on the Web:

n. fake: something that is a counterfeit; not what it seems to be

v. simulate: make a pretence of;

Definitions of poo on the Web:

n. Excrement.

v. An act of defecating.

Therefore the definition of Shampoo should be…

n. not the excrement it seems to be

v. make a pretense of defecating

Thoughts on Love

2005-12-23T13:25:00.000-08:00

Love is a noun --

Person : God

Place : you want to be, sucks to be out of

Thing : that binds us, that sets us free

Love is a verb --

Will you love me?

Do I love you?

Confession

2005-11-21T09:34:00.000-08:00

On Friday evening my girlfriend and I attended a lecture by Dr. Loren Wilkinson as part of a "Creation Care" conference. Dr. Wilkinson is a proffessor at Regent College and was one of my girlfriend's favorite prof's when she attended Regent. The conference was being put on by A Rocha (a Christian conservation group) and held at Elk Lake Baptist church.

As part of the worship service that preceded Dr Wilkinson's lecture (I'll save my rant about the necessity of a worship service before the lecture for a later date), there was the following "confession":

Leader: O God, your fertile earth is slowly being stripped of its riches.
All: Open our eyes to see.
Leader: O God, your living waters are slowly being choked with chemicals.
All: Open our eyes to see.
Leader: O God, your clear air is slowly being filled with pollutants.
All: Open our eyes to see.
Leader: O God, your creatures are slowly dying, and your people are suffering.
All: Open our eyes to see.

This is not a confession. It is an observation. A confession contains not only a recognition of wrong, but an acknowledgement of culpability. Whether talking about environmental destruction, sin or addiction, the fact remains that nothing will change until you recognize and acknowledge yourself as part of the problem. That it what confession is -- recognition of the wrong that you have done and acknowledging your responsibility for it.

A confession for Friday evening would be something like this:

Leader: O God, you put us in a delightful garden to tend and we have stripped your fertile earth of its riches.
All: Open our eyes to see.
Leader: O God, you gave us an ocean teeming with life and we have choked your living waters with chemicals.
All: Open our eyes to see.
Leader: O God, you gave us life with your very breath and we have filled your clear air with pollutants.
All: Open our eyes to see.
Leader: O God, we have stood idly by, consumed by our own comfort and luxury while your people suffer and your creatures die.
All: Open our eyes to see.

Why I hate Wall Mart

2005-11-17T10:45:00.000-08:00

It is unwise to pay too much.

But, it is worse to pay too little.

When you pay too much, you lose a little money that is all.

When you pay too little, you sometimes loose everything, because the thing you bought is not capable of doing the thing you bought it to do.

The common law of business prohibits paying a little and getting a lot -- it cannot be done.

If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run and, if you do that, you will probably have enough money to pay for something better.

(John Ruskin) 1819 - 1900.

Easter thoughts

2005-04-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

this is a couple of years old, but still worth thinking about
----------------------------------------------------------
Sins Forgiven

I am continually amazed at my ability to repeat the same mistakes.

About a year ago, I quite aptly demonstrated my self-centeredness by blowing off Mother's Day.
Fortunately, circumstances worked out that she was never aware of this. I was able to see my selfishness without my mother feeling the pain. Such an extreme moment of clarity -- one would think it hard to forget -- I won't blow off mom's birthday or mother's day again. But the issue was not my mother, it was about me valuing someone else's feelings over my own opinions.

So this weekend was Easter. One of the two days of the year that even the most nominal of "Christians" celebrate. My church had an expanded calendar this weekend -- a Good Friday service, a sunrise service on the beach at 6:00 am Sunday morning and our standard Sunday evening service to wrap it up. Initially, I was excited about these events -- especially the service on the beach (the sunrise part was painful, but Jesus died on a cross, right?). As the week progressed, I grew stressed because of work and this movie that I'm editing. The movie has to be done on Wednesday in order to make the Toronto film festival. I spent 24 hours editing this weekend. I decided to go see a late movie Saturday night, sleep in Sunday morning and miss the sunrise service on the beach, skip "the church of breakfast" at my friend Matthew's (which probably didn't happen because they all had breakfast together after the sunrise service). I spent 8 hours in the editing suite and went to the normal Sunday night service. It is tempting to blame this on editing -- I put work (though unpaid) over God. The truth is that I could have seen the movie, gone to the sunrise service, had breakfast with my friends and done all the editing, but I chose to sleep in. After all, it's just another church service, right?

I woke up this morning with the realization that I had treated God with the same lack of value/respect/honor that I did my mother a year ago. I find it difficult to ask God's grace to cover the fact that I didn't deem it important to celebrate Christ's death and resurrection. In light of all of the blessings that God has graced my life with, I couldn't show up at his beach party.

It's ok. God's not a person. You can't hurt his feelings. Right?

The promise of stem cell research

2005-03-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

With all the controversy surrounding stem cell research, it's good to know that the medical community is putting their knowledge to meaningful use.

http://www.patienthealthinternational.com/conditionnews/cond15_item5110.aspx

Amoral Dilemma

2005-02-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

The New Republic has an interesting discussion of the Democratic Party’s scrambling to embrace the ‘moral values’ message that everyone credits as the source of Bush’s victory in the last election. The closing line is a painful commentary on our society.

Acts of God

2005-01-03T18:07:00.000-08:00

i've been considering my comments regarding the tsunami in southeast asia for several days. they are summed up by job: the lord gives and the lord takes away. blessed be the name of the lord.

we see the suffering thousands and ask how a loving God could allow this to happen. should we not rejoice at the millions who were spared? given the number of people who live in southeast asia, a death toll of 150,000 - 200,000 from a 9.0 magnitude earthquake is small. small in the way that 2,752 people dying in a terrorist attack on twin towers that typically hold more than 50,000 is small.

obviously we mourn with those who mourn; we grieve at the brutal end of life and we reach out to help those in need. these things are good and right. the tougher thing is to look at an almighty God and not ask why, why not, or what the fuck? it’s a natural human response in such a situation; however, scripture tells us that this is wrong -- where were you when the foundation of the earth was laid? the common response is to chalk this up to the mystery of God.

i think there is a better answer -- an answer that lies in recognizing God’s mercy in the millions who were spared; an answer that lies in recognizing all 6 billion of us draw the breath of life that God breathed into us. so i say, blessed be the name of the lord.

Prejudice

2005-01-02T21:29:00.001-08:00

My first encounter with racism came when I was 12 years old. I had a job taking tickets for kiddie rides in Idlewild Park in Reno. There was a tiny train that went around a pond, an airplane ride, a merry-go-round and some little cars that went around in a circle. An old (70 ish) guy named Joe drove the train and his brother John ran the airplanes. Joe's wife ran the ticket both. I ran the merry-go-round and cars for $1.50 an hour. Each day that I came to work John would give me 4-bits (aka $0.50) for snacks. This allowed me to get a can of pop and an ice cream out of the vending machines. In the heat of the summer days in Reno, I valued those quarters from John more than anything.

One day a school bus from San Jose unloaded a bunch of teenagers on the main street near the rides. Sometime during that afternoon, one of the girls from the bus came up to me and asked if she could borrow a quarter for the vending machines. I'd never met this girl before and I knew San Jose was near San Francisco, farther away even than my grandparents house in Davis, California, so I figured by borrow she meant have. All I had in my pocket at that point were those two prized quarters from John and it was early in the afternoon, so I said no. The girl called me a racist and walked away.

At the time was simply thought she was a stupid. The fact that I didn't give her the money had nothing to do with the color of her skin or mine, but with the fact that I saw no chance of the loan being repaid and wanted the quarters for my own use. It was only later in life that I realized she had pronounced judgment on me before she even asked for the money.

The meaning of life

2004-12-30T11:18:00.000-08:00

The sensualist will say it's all about the physical: look good, feel good. Eat all you want, fuck all you want, indulge every appetite. It's unhealthy to repress or deny your natural desires. The ultimate good in life is pleasure.

The intellectual will say it's all about the mental: understand, be rational. Sorrow, pain and conflict all arise from a lack of understanding. Explore, study and learn so that you can control your destiny. The ultimate good in life is knowledge.

The spiritualist will say it's not about this life at all. The pleasures of the flesh corrupt the spirit. Knowledge undermines faith. Avoid the pleasures and knowledge of this world. The ultimate good is in the life to come, rather than this one.

Personally, I think they're all wrong. There is no ultimate good in life. To pursue one aspect of a good life at the expense of the others is fundamentally unhealthy. Those neglected will decay and the one pursued to excess will be rotten. The key is in the tension and the balance.

Sometimes you gotta wonder

2004-12-20T21:51:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago I found out that Holly Cole was going to be doing a Christmas concert with the Victoria symphony. Since my girlfriend is a fan of both Holly Cole and the symphony, I figured this would be a great December date. When I told her about it she informed me that she was scheduled to run PowerPoint (insert rant about Microsoft branding church video projection) for church that night, but that she would try to get rescheduled. A few days later she informed me that the guy that handles the schedule couldn't cover for her because he was going to the same concert. There was a third guy, but he was out of town for the month of November. She emailed several times trying to find out if he could cover it, but never heard anything back.

Last week when the weekly email came around telling us what was happening and who was scheduled to do what on Sunday night, she wasn't slated for PowerPoint, the other guy was, with question marks by his name? My girlfriend emailed the relevant parties asking for confirmation that she was indeed free that night. Once again, no response. She's getting quite frustrated by this, as am I. However my frustration is tempered by the thought that the concert is probably sold out by now and if it is not, only the crappy seats are left.

Sunday evening we get to church early so she can get setup. As we pull up the pastor and one of the guys from band are coming out on their way to grab donuts and coffee before the service begins. They invite us to join them and I say that I will join them, but she has to go setup for PowerPoint. The pastor then informs us that the other guy is already in the booth setting things up. At this point my girlfriend's frustration begins to bubble over. We spend a couple of minutes trying to decide whether we will go get donuts and coffee, go upstairs and chew the guy out for not telling us he had things covered or driving down to the theatre to see if there were any tickets left.

In the end, we decided on the latter choice and headed downtown. When we got to the box office and asked if there were any tickets left, the girl said, "Hang on one sec and let me finish clearing these and there will be two together. Everything else is singles."

My girlfriend replies, "We got the last two tickets together?"

The girl says, "The show has been sold out for weeks. The promoter just called and released these tickets, otherwise I wouldn't have anything."

We buy the tickets (much to the disappointment of the two women behind us) and she shows us where they are. Dead center, 10 rows back (i.e. some of the best seats in the house).

I'm walking away thinking, if it had happened ANY other way we either would not have gone or would have had worse seats. There was a 30 second window for us to walk in and get those tickets. Sooner and the promoter wouldn't have called to release the tickets; later and the ladies who walked in behind us would have already purchased them.

It's one of those things that make you wonder. Does God take the time to orchestrate such serendipity? What did I do to deserve this? Why me and my girlfriend and not the ladies behind us?

I'm left thinking that this is grace in its purest form. Exceeding abundant favor, more than I would ask or imagine that is completely unmerited. This is a demonstration that the almighty God knows us intimately, delights in bringing us joy and is able to work all things together for our benefit.

Either that or just a great coincidence.

Clearing up a bit of confusion

2004-12-15T07:42:00.000-08:00

I've updated the about me section with a brief synopsis of the places I've called home. While I did spend several years living in Texas and feel I have developed a sincere appreciation for what it means (both good and bad) to be a Texan, in all honest I cannot call myself a Texan. For that matter, I cannot call myself a Californian, a Nevadan, or a Tennessean. I'm currently living as an ex-patriot with a great view of my native country, but I can't call myself a Canadian, a British Columbian and certainly not a Victorian. I have spent much of my life living in places, yet being distinctly not of them. I consider myself blessed that in all of the places I have lived as a stranger and alien, there have been those that have welcomed me in.

Update

2004-12-14T18:58:00.000-08:00

I've changed the settings for comments so anyone can post.

Just Do It

2004-12-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

I've had this blog set up for over a month, but haven't posted anything. The main reason is that I'm busy with many other things and haven't had a lot of time for setting my thoughts down. The secondary reason is this feeling that I'm "publishing" my thoughts and therefore should have something to say. Not only should I have something to say, I should say it in a clear and eloquent manner. I realized yesterday that I just needed to start doing it.

Fortunately, I had several thoughts coalesce this morning while reading C.S. Lewis.

For the past month or so I've been reading about the current cultural war going on in our world. Benjamin Barber's "Jihad vs. McWorld" describes it as a conflict between factional individualism and global consumerism, with democracy the ravaged non-combatant in the middle.

The reading for December 8th in "The Business of Heaven" talks about Totalitarianism vs. Individualism. Lewis talks about the conflicting attitudes of "you have to be just like me" and "God's big enough to love different people". He says that it is the voice of Satan that tells us we need to choose one of these two. Scripture gives us a metaphor for compromise between the two: we are a body of different parts, fitly formed together. Lewis points out that each organ in a body is
different and performs different functions; however, if any organ is unhealthy, then the whole body suffers.

I found a bit of peace in these thoughts.