Thursday, February 01, 2007

Valentine's, Osama, Race, and Elections

Tomorrow my wife and daughter host their 2nd Annual Mother/Daughter Valentine's Brunch. This year Rochelle will be in the hospital recuperating from giving birth on Valentine's Day, so the brunch is happening a little early. Each year the girls eat brunch, tell and read stories, and work on crafts. This time the girls will be working on their craft in our daughter's new pink and purple room -- which is pretty cute if I say so myself.

I'm so blessed to have a wife that not only takes such good care of our daughter, but goes to great lengths to make her life fun by planning special times for her and her friends. Hopefully, when our little Malia grows up, she will look back on her time in our home as a time of great love, wonder and fun.

As a benefit, Rochelle's mom will drop in for the brunch before it's over. She's coming to town to help us put together some odds and ends before the baby gets here. So, in fact, it will be a mother-daughter/mother-daughter brunch.
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Did you hear about the Australian church that has taken heat -- even from the Australian Prime Minister -- about a sign on their property proclaiming, "Jesus Loves Osama"? Read about it here. I understand what all sides are saying. I just hope that unconditional love isn't going out-of-style.
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I'm currently kicking around the idea of writing a book about race and the church -- a expansion and development from thoughts I presented last year at the Pepperdine University Bible Lectures. It's been a good journey thus far. I've learned a great deal talking with my parents about their history and race relations in Mississippi in the 50's and 60's when they were growing up and the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing. The outline for the book is done, but I keep wondering if the topic is worth writing about. Or if I'm the one to write it. I've not even been able to get my assistant (read: Rochelle) to read the one chapter that 75% written so I have little faith that others will be interested. What do you all think? E-mail me or leave a comment.
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I'm already interested in the 2008 Presidential election. Have you all been following the news about Hilary's open mic singing of the National Anthem, her joke about dealing with "evil men", Rudy Guiliani's leaked strategy papers, the false report about where Barack Obama went to school as a child, and Joe Biden's "articulate" and "clean" comment about Obama? Can I ask a question: Does any of this have anything to do with whether or not someone would be a good president? Who cares if you can sing? I'm not backing a candidate yet -- and rarely really "back" anyone -- but shouldn't our consideration of whether or not someone is fit to serve in such an important role, at such a crucial time in history be based on something more significant?

Monday, January 29, 2007

A Lesson Learned - Out of the Mouths of Babes

Here's another video for you all. Sorry the audio doesn't match the video. The Japanese to English dubbing was hard to do.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Church Shopping - King of the Hill

You owe it to yourself to watch this video. There is so much that can be said about this, but I will refrain. Your own reflections will be commentary enough.

20 Questions

Every now and then I'm struck by the fact that so many questions that rattle around in my head never get answered. They just remain questions. And at the same time I realize that more and more questions there are the less and less real answers seem to come. So today I thought I would just share some general questions that have been on my mind.

Ready? Here we go, in no particular order.


1. How come I've never heard of most of the movies nominated for Academy Awards?

2. How come newscasters think they must spend 4 hours re-telling us what the President just told us?

3. How come Nancy Grace is still on TV?

4. Why does the weatherman start the "forecast" by telling us what already happened that day?

5. Why does my mother-in-law do her crossword puzzles in pen?

6. Why do both me and my mother-in-law do crossword puzzles?

7. Why doesn't Starbuck's have free WI-FI like everybody else?

8. Who are the people who haven't learned to not use permanent marker on a whiteboard?

9. Why do people care about Brad and Angelina or Tom and Katie?

10. Why can you negotiate the cost of a house or car but not a computer or a sandwich at Subway?

11. Why was I such a jerk to so many people in high school and college?

12. Why was Shepherd Smith (of Fox News) wearing a Parka last night to cover the State of the Union? Was he covering it from Alaska?

13. Why didn't the Texans draft Reggie Bush or Vince Young?

14. Why does Arizona not observe Daylight Savings Time?

15. Why do people like cats?

16. Why do ultra-fundamentalist Mormons think polygamy is a good idea? Isn't one family difficult enough? (I mean, well worth it, but how many college tuitions and weddings do you want to pay for?)

17.Why are there ethnicities and races in the first place? Wouldn't there be much more peace if we were all, say, black?

18. Why do people enjoying belittling each other so much?

19. Why do people of character and conviction so rarely rise to power?

20. How come so many of us Christians praise Martin Luther King, and Mother Theresa, but so seldom want to do the kinds of things they did?