While Sick Observing Craziness

Well everyone I've been quite under the weather the last few weeks, and that has given me some time to realize I can't do everything I want to do and forced me to relax, gets lots of sleep, get some good work done, but also look at current events and news. The latter has been the most interesting part, however it has brought me to a point where I can no longer listen to the national news at any depth any more. I've heard the story from Pres. Bush defending the auto-bailout: "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system" (?!?) and the LA Times front-page headline "Obama clears himself and staff in Blagojevich case" (?!?) and with an incoming President unwilling to present his credentials for office and no judge or secretary of state willing to ask for it so far I've realized the following: there no sense in being angry that our political,judicial,media,congressional,etc systems are broken and off-kilter from where the constitution demands or where they should fairly be. Instead I shall take from the wisdom of Dave Thomas (no, not eat a triple-cheeseburger or a Cube-of-power), who founded my current employer. In response to those who wanted to sell off his company a few years ago he told me that the battles aren't going to take place over the company-wide emails, instead they need to be fought on an one-on-one basis within offices - essentially taking the time to change decisions one at a time. Well we did fight off the sale then, and I don't know how many were affected by the email that I did send out, but I do know that one person in particular was affected in part by a personal conversation that we had.

And this is exactly how Jesus wants us to bring people to Him - His example of being with the people at their houses, meeting the people where they were and challenging them - this is how we are to spread His message. It only makes sense then that the best way to change anything about the collective thought of a nation is to do it one person at a time. Being angry about the way people think and act just like being angry that so many don't believe in God does nothing - more importantly it is compassionless unless there is action to correct the problem.

So that's where I'm heading - I've seen enough problems. Now what?

We are thankful for....

What a week! Despite getting off to a slow start on Tuesday (I drove David's car that day and it broke down on me on the way home on "triple six", as David calls interstate 66), we left at 4 pm and we made it to SC in 9 hours, which was nearly a record for us. We enjoyed having David's cousin Rebecca with us on our trip. She flew into D.C. Monday night from Minnesota where she goes to college and she'll fly on Wednesday to be with her family in Oregon until she returns to school.

As per usual we were getting closer to our destination (near Clemson in SC) and we both looked at each other and commented how amazing it is that our parents live so close together! God was certainly showing off when they all moved about the same time to 20 minutes apart in the middle of nowhere! We have been back and forth from the Scott's house to David's Mom's house and we have really enjoyed some quality family time. It is a blessing to have all of our family here. This is the first time all of my family members are down at my parent's house in SC at the same time, which is a real cause for Thanksgiving! Our nieces and nephews are growing so fast and we love all the time we have with them. We are realizing what it might mean for future holidays as we ate 2 Thanksgiving meals 3 hours apart.....learn self-control or lots of running in the subsequent weeks. Looks like this year is running for me...David did pretty well!

We were blessed to be down here to celebrate yet another exciting event this year....David's Mom's wedding! Momma moved from Naples, FL (where she lived for over 30 years) to SC in July 2007, not knowing all of the life changes she would experience...new home, new teaching job, new granddaughter, new church, new daughter-in-law, new husband. We never expected that David and his Mom would get married the same year! What a great testimony of God's provision.....she married the pastor of her church, and she and Richard are so great together! You can tell how much they love and care for each other and we are so excited for them! The wedding was in a small country church where they first sat together, during holy week this year. It was a beautiful ceremony and great weather that made it perfect. David played piano for the prelude/postlude and for several hymns and also busted out his cello for another song, and I played a little guitar during one of the hymns with him. It was great to meet some of Richard's family and a few of their friends.

We praise God for our wonderful family at this time of Thanksgiving! It was fun to spend it with everyone!

Love

I love (in order) -
    God
    My wife
    My family
    My friends
    Z's
    My Work

But in what order do I spend the most time with?
    My Work
    My Wife
    Z's
    God
    My friends
    My family

The biggest gap from the 2 lists are my family and God. I am blessed with an enormous family. But I don't get a chance to spend enough time with them - most of them are far away and I only get to see them every few months. I am so happy many of them are close to each other, and I cannot wait to see ALL of them in a few days!!!
    I don't give God the time I should either. Without Him, I would not be here. Period. Without His Son, I would never get to know Him. Period. And the interesting thing to think about is that He would create this universe, the billions of years before I was born (for all you old earth theory folks out there :), and the expanse of uninhabitable space out there, just for me! As well, just for you! We are spinning around the polar axis of a planet so big we have no idea it's round from our vantage point, yet is like a speck in the cosmic scale, all because of God's design - yet though we are so small He sent His son to die for us - a sacrifice so big!
    Today I was having a hard time at work. But by the end of the day God answered my prayer and, again for the uncountable-th time, showed me just how precious I am to Him!

Constitutional Qualification

    Well some of you know about something I've been following for a few months, and that is our president-elect's constitutional qualifications. Since I started following it I've noticed an unusual shroud of secrecy around any records that indicate anything to do related to Obama's birth location. Never mind that it is fact he was a Kenyan citizen (Obama's own website at least admits that), and never mind that given the facts he should have been an Indonesian citizen from ages 6-10, never mind that he campaigned for Kenya's current prime minister, who lost election but was assigned the number 2 spot because of riots, so disregard the divided loyalties. Under the constitution there is nothing blaring wrong about that. The issue is that his grandmother says he was born in Kenya, the issue is that the other relative who spoke mentioned 2 different hospitals where he was born in Hawaii, the issue is that the only data Obama has produced is a "Certification of live birth" - a secondary document that shows nothing or proves nothing about birth location and has a ton of questions about authenticity, the issue is that the Kenyan government detained and deported a reporter trying to find out info on Obama's birth location, the issue is that there is a police presence at the 2 hospitals of question in Hawaii, the issue is that Obama refuses to produce something that we all have to produce when we get a drivers license,passports - Obama must have had to produce this when applying for the Illinois Bar, drivers license. Mccain produced his birth certificate and medical records immediately when questioned - and Obama has produced some secondary document that has little or no use for anything practical?
    As our future president he should be upfront about his requirements - the constitution demands it and this shroud of secrecy is intolerable. I bought a 2 page foldout laminated copy of the Constitution a few months ago, just before I started hearing this story, and now I'm glad I did. It's amazing to think that this document is responsible for the greatest nation on earth. Obama has claimed in the past that this document doesn't do enough for wealth redistribution ( 2001 YouTube Video ) - lets join together and make sure he doesn't want to ignore his requirements for presidency stated in there.

"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the US at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President"

Washington Times Ad
    or the top of
http://obamacrimes.com
    also for a summary of the issues.

There is currently a conference of the supreme court scheduled Dec. 5th (10 days before the electoral college meet) where the Supreme Court will determine whether they will hear a case questioning the elegibility of Obama, Mccain, and a third party candidate.
    I would be more than happy whatever outcome - if he is indeed a natural born citizen then great, if not then we have some serious problems. I just can't rationalize the extreme secrecy and mis-information by "unbiased" sources like factcheck (sponsored by the Annenburg foundation - sound familiar?) and snopes and need resolution. What a crazy day and age it is with the internet, isn't it? Information everywhere, but how do we sort truth from lies? It's hard! I've just signed an online petition ( Online Petition ) (note wnd.com website is a conservative site but for those non-conservatives it is a good place for updates to this issue including news related to the Supreme court hearing) - thanks for listening and helping me get this off my chest - have a great weekend!

Veteran's Day

     Today is a special day folks. No, it's not the 11/11 numerology (but that still gains points with me:), it's something more close to home. Today we honor our veterans who have served our country. These brave men and women, through their volunteering and sacrificing, allow the rest of us to live in a free country. Both of my fathers served with honor in the Navy spanning most of the wars dating back to WWII, and I'm proud to have siblings serving too. Many others have paid for that freedom with their life.
     Now this past Sunday, at The Church Upcounty (TCU) Pastor Dan went through the three types of Love. Now for the longest time I've been frustrated with the English language in that you could say "I love you" and it can have a whole range of meanings - you could say it to a good friend and no issues normally to be had a result. Say it to someone you're dating and you had better plan way ahead because that cannot be used so freely. Anyway - so Dan had the 3 greek names for love, Eros,Philia, and Agape. And he went through how the first was a selfish love, the second was more of a brotherly or sisterly love, and the third was a selfless love. Selfless in that there is sometimes no benefit to the self - like loving your enemy. This is the love that we as Christians are called to, because this is the love that Christ showed us - though that we were enemies of God, Jesus sacrificed His life as a payment for all of our sins so that we could claim His righteousness before the throne of God. This is the highest form of love and is a characteristic of God.
     So I want to thank our brave men and women, who have showed Americans the highest form of love to us - thank you for your sacrificing love for me and for an example of Christ's love to us all!

Church Upcounty -> Upmountain

    Well today we thought would be a fairly well-planned day - play at The Church Upcounty (TCU) in the morning (we do this once a month with my relative/friend Josh) and then later in the day head out to Jackson's for Wendy's birthday celeb. So after every time we play at TCU we end up going to Red Robin next door, so this was to be no different. By the time we got there it was already after 12 (the service this morning had communion with it so we got out a bit later) - 1st off I want to give a shout out to the band - love playing with you guys! - and then we waited about 15 minutes for a table (which is odd since we were waiting for a highchair for little D, and you'd think Red Robin would have a bazillion of them around - anyway :), so by the time we got out it was 1 pm. As we were heading back, I knew we had a 35 minute drive on the interstates to get back, so I wasn't looking forward to the city interstate drive. But as I just got onto the interstate I saw the fall leaves on the trees to the West, and it just seemed so appealing, so I was about to swerve back on the road so I could go the other way on the interstate. Well I didn't, but was wishing I did as we were headed back to the city. Amy was on the phone and I started to tell her I wanted to go the other way - she said it was okay but probably didn't fully understand my plan, which was really at the point just to take a drive in the country. The next exit was but 4 miles away (our friend Gamez's exit), so I had to drive a bit before turning around. By that time Amy was really wondering what was going on. So I was able to make the turn back, and then a few miles later Amy was off the phone and then really wondering what I was doing.
    So thus began our Sunday drive! It was really great once the interstate shrunk in lanes - what beautiful trees! If only we had our camera with us (hopefully we will just leave it in the car in the future). We drove a ways further, then we saw signs for Sugarloaf Mountain. Well here I thought that was interesting - because I didn't think there were any mountains close to the city. Neither of us had ever been to Sugarloaf, so we decided to check it out. Interestingly the only signs were for the winery, but Amy knew there was an actual mountain there, so we pressed on. It was a nice drive again, rolling hills for awhile, then we picked up a spaghetti squash and apple cider at a farm stand at a crossroads. There we asked if there were any hikes on the mountain (at that point the mountain was in clear sight - who knew!) - and they had mentioned a few hikes there.
    So we pressed on. Then we came to an entrance - it looked like there were a few, and we saw people handing things to people in cars. Well there were cars behind us, so we had to continue in this path even if we didn't want to! When we came to those people at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain, they handed me a map and another sheet and said "Have a nice day". Well, I was surprised, no park entrance fees, no nothing! (BTW, keep me honest in contributing to the folks who run Sugarloaf mountain, for providing a Mountain free for public use) We drove up a ways, found parking (we were a little leery when the sheet said that some of the parked cars had been vandalized during the day even on the weekends, but there were so many people there so we figured a car with all of the instruments I brought to play at church would be somewhat safe), and there was a great view out east toward the city (the sheet said you could see the Washington Monument, but we couldn't because it wasn't clear, but we could see at least 20 miles away). We then decided to go up the mountain. There was a 1/4 mile hike up - shouldn't be bad, you would think. But it was a steep uphill, and it seemed like a lot longer than 1/4 mile ( I should note we ran 4 miles the day before, for me a big deal (not as much so for Amy)) Again, at the top it was some great views, this time out west. The sun was shining so bright too. There were some people practicing rock climbing, a few deaf people I noticed, people of all ages, just a great little atmosphere there. We took another path down, it was stone steps most of the way down (those were built about 100 years ago, not sure if it still is exactly the same as then, but still impressive for a 200 foot descent). Again, wish we had pictures!
    So then we drove down the mountain, and I still wanted to go thru the country to get home (cross the bridge of the Potomac at US 15 near Leesburg) - so we took one of the roads there randomly, and then at a crossroads we stopped at a gas station to see which way to go, and then about 20 minutes later we were crossing the Potomac, on our way home.
    We decided just to be adventurous - no GPS, no phone to get directions, no maps. It just felt quite liberating, and what a great way to spend a Sunday!
    Well if you've read this far, thanks for listening to the first installment in our Blog! Hope you all have a great week!