Morning Einstein

"Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot. "

Links

I need to clear my blog roll.
I'm reluctant to do so. The thought of it makes me a little sad. some of the links no longer exist, and some of them just haven't posted anything new in years. But nevertheless, the thoughts and reflections of these various blog authors meant something to me at some point in time - that's why they were added to the roll.
I guess the reason I'm so reluctant to remove them is that I'm kind of bothered by the ease and willingness with which we disconnect with people and move on in our lives. I see it all around me in our society - as if people are commodities to be traded away when they no longer have a perceived relevance to our current life, or their presence is no longer seen as needful or convenient. I see it in churches too. I'll have been a member of my church for ten years in April. I can't begin to even calculate the people I've seen come and go in that length of time. To be sure there were times when I thought it might behoove me to look elsewhere for a house of worship - but I just kept thinking about what it means to be the manifest reality of family within the body of Christ. Can we really walk away from each other at the point of conflict and say we take that call seriously? Just as love, companionship, sharing and empathy are a part of family, isn't pain, misunderstanding, and disappointment as well? Can we really expect to have one without the other?
I've stuck it out so far, because I've embraced a willingness to take the good with the bad and to pursue the call to be true family within the body of Christ. The lessons I have learned in reconcilliation, and waiting to allow God time to bring His resolution to circumstances has proven invaluable. If I had run or backed away from the situation - I never would have had those experiences or the lessons that go with them.

Connection

"You can walk where things are predictable - or you can enter the wilderness. Without the wilderness, there can be neither reverence nor revelation."

Lawrence Kushner

[God] is not proud...He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.

C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Transition

I struggle right now to put how I feel about this election into words. I have supported Obama from the start, prayed for him and contributed to his campaign. But it never entered into my imagination the impact that this victory has had on us collectively and for me individually. There is certainly a danger in over emphasizing the impact, but I think it is just as dangerous to under-estimate it as well. It feels to me as if we were a nation slowly and painfully suffocating in a darkened room, and at the last moment when our lungs were nearly ready to burst the door slammed open and the sunlight and air poured in.

At the same time, while I have been deeply disappointed by George Bush over the past eight years, I'm not taking any pleasure in the way he is being disparaged at present. He is still the president, and we elected him - if not by our vote, then by our indifference. ( Okay - so the 2000 election results are debatable. But that is another argument.) I can't imagine what he must feel like right now. And turning on him now is kind of like a man who marries a woman who doesn't cook and then spends the rest of his life complaining that she doesn't know how.

We elected him.

Awww Shucks

Have you heard about Sarah Palin's involvement with the secessionist movement in Alaska? Yes, that's right, the woman who is the Republican nominee for VP, and could be a heartbeat away from the presidency has been involved in a group which wants to secede from the U.S. Her husband was a party member for 7 years. I won't belabor the issue as the article I've linked tells it better than I can. If I'm ever required to get a background check, I'm hiring the folks who did hers. ;) I feel safer already.

Todd Palin can guffaw about the PTA all he wants, but their organizational ties to the AIP (Alaskan Independence Party) are the real story of who these "down home" people really are.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/353575/palin_s_secessionist_friends

I invite and encourage you to pass this info on.