twilk68

3%

This morning I read a summary of remarks made by Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards at the DNC, and the gist of them was that Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and others want to make it difficult for women to obtain healthcare and other services, which are often obtained through Planned Parenthood.

I wanted to know more about what she said exactly, so I found a transcript of her speech here .

The summary seemed fairly accurate, but it did make me want to know a little more about Planned Parenthood.

They are:

the largest U.S. provider of reproductive health services, including cancer screening, HIV screening and counseling, contraception and abortion. Contraception accounts for 35% of PP’s total services and abortions account for 3%. PP conducts roughly 300,000 abortions each year, among 3 million people served.

In a fact sheet published in March of 2011, Planned Parenthood stated in 2009, they performed 332,278 abortions, out of 11,383,900 “services” performed, which would come close to confirming their stated 3% figure (more statistics available here).

Let’s just look at 332,278, the number of abortions performed in 2009. That’s a lot, even if it is a small percentage.

I think the problem Planned Parenthood is having is that they don’t want to separate themselves from that number. I believe if they did, they wouldn’t have as much trouble obtaining funding for their other “services,” which are absolutely worthwhile.

So in my opinion, Mitt Romney and others in the GOP are not necessarily wanting to deny funding to PP as simply a corporate entity, rather as a provider of abortions, small as the percentage performed actually is.

I can’t support any number, and consequently am unable to vote for anyone that does, directly or indirectly. Allow me to express my personal reasons:

Unpopular

It’s interesting how scripture can and will lead you on a journey, if you let it. This morning, for example. I sat down at the kitchen table to read, and my bible was still bookmarked in Acts from church this weekend. A reference to Deuteronomy 30:14 caught my eye:

No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

The word is in my heart.

I struggle to find time for it sometimes. There are so many more important things. Things like breakfast, and Facebook, and fooling around on the computer.

The word is in my heart so I may obey it.

This led me to Deuteronomy 30, so I could get the context of verse 14.

15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I look at verse 17 and 18 and it makes me so aware this is where so many are headed in today’s culture of self-absorption, self-gratification, and moral relativism.

We’ve become “tolerant” of so much as a people–as a country–that things have become permissible and even encouraged that would have landed people in chains not long ago.

It really gives me this sinking feeling when I think about it. Knowing what the world was made to be and could have been and then juxtaposing that with what it’s become is heartbreaking.

So many “religions” are coming to prominence these days that are turning heads and hearts from the only real deliverer.

The names and small g gods don’t really even matter because they are all the same, and lead to the same place.

Which isn’t heaven.

Heaven isn’t simply a state of mind, or a cornfield in Iowa. Nor is Hell.

These places are real, and the truth does not lie in Universalism, or Mormonism, or Hinduism, or any other ism. It’s great to make people feel better about themselves, but they also need to know the truth.

Wide is the path that leads to destruction, and lots of people walk it. More every day.

If you want to know the truth, and you want to avoid the destruction promised in Deuteronomy 30, you need only look to the red letters of John 14:6 (they’re red in my Life Application Study Bible, anyway):

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

It’s pretty simple, really. It might not be a popular view. It may not be thought of as “tolerant” of other religions. Some people might think it arrogant of Christians to think it, much less say it.

But it’s the truth.

Our job, believers, our only job, is to bring that truth to people and places that don’t know it. To government officials who don’t practice it, but pay lip service to curry favor and win elections, to people that hate us, and hate God.

We aren’t meant for destruction, and we need to put our petty denominational squabbles aside and do the work we were given.

I think of a song by the band Switchfoot;

we were meant to live for so much more, have we lost ourselves?

We need to stop trying to make the popular kids like us, and start telling them the truth.

We need to be unpopular. We need to diminish ourselves, that He may increase. So people that don’t know him will Choose life, and their families will live.

John vs The Spic N Span

I made breakfast this morning, and it was pretty good. I’d just finished cleaning up, and then Jen was going to go get her toes did. It was time for another dudes morning.

David watched an episode of Lego Ninjas on YouTube while John and I relaxed on the couch with some Barney on the big screen.

John got up and I saw him head toward the kitchen.

“Where are you going, John Ryan?” I asked.

“Dink.”

“Daddy will get you a drink.” I got up off the couch and headed to the kitchen while John disappeared around the corner.

I heard the refrigerator door open followed by a crash.

“uh oh.”

“Aw, crap.”

John had opened the door and grabbed onto one of the shelves, which came off the door, spilling the door contents onto the floor, including a glass jar of Alfredo sauce, which promptly exploded.

“Dink.”

“Crap.”

I got John his dink and planted him on the couch with a fresh episode of Barney, then headed to the kitchen for cleanup: The Sequel.

I got the broom, the mop, and a large bottle of Spic n Span cleaner from the closet. I leaned the mop and broom against the bar and set the Spic n Span on the kitchen table.

I knelt down and began picking up chunks of broken glass, dropping them into the trash one by one and cursing softly under my breath.

I finished picking up the broken glass and wiping up the Alfredo sauce and stood up to get the broom.

No broom, and no mop. I realized Barney had been turned off.

“John, where are you?” I called.

“Dayee. Shire, bat (Daddy. Shower, bath).” from the hallway.

What now? I wondered. I saw this sitting on the table and knew no good could come of it.

I came around the corner and John was standing in the hallway with the broom and the mop at his feet. There was a strong smell of Spic n Span in the air.

In his zeal to clean, he’d sprayed enough cleaner on his chest and arms to completely soak himself, then dragged the mop and broom into the hall to start cleaning.

“Dayee. Shire, bat.”

“Aw, crap.”

We headed off for a shire and a bat and had a grand time. It took me another 5 minutes to clean the bathroom.

I got him dressed, and we headed back to the scene of the crime. John wanted to help clean up, while finishing his dink.

All of that between 10 and 11. We’re sitting on the couch now and hanging out with Elmo. John is grounded from the kitchen.

Tough Questions, Tough Decisions

We talked about Mormonism vs Christianity last night for the High School/College Sunday school class, and it was a really interesting discussion. Zeb showed part of a documentary that was more of a compare and contrast between the two.

It was doubly interesting because you hear so much about the similarities between the two religions, to the extent it makes them sound like pretty much just different sides of the same coin.

No. Different coins, man. Different currency.

Mormonism does not align with Christian scripture, does not align with the bible. I am not here to debunk all the many points of Mormonism vs Christianity, though I encourage you to look into the differences yourself.

There are many of them, and though Mormons do a lot of good and are without question some of the nicest people you will ever meet, there is something missing in their theology.

Zeb offered a simple question in the way of testing whether or not Mormonism or any religion is “Christianity.”

What does it say about Jesus?

After viewing the documentary footage last night and asking myself the above question I can say that Mormons can call themselves whatever they want–they do not follow the Jesus of the bible. And the Book of Mormon is not “another gospel of Jesus Christ,” but more akin to “Religious fiction.”

That being said, it obviously led me to thinking about the current presidential election.

Is it possible to separate my beliefs about politics and what goes on in the country and the world?

What do the candidates say about Jesus?

I’ve heard President Obama profess a belief in Jesus on many occasions, and claim Christianity, even in the face of stubborn and often stupid accusations. For my part, if he says he believes, I’ll take him at his word.

Governor Romney claims to believe in Jesus as well, but also professes a strong Mormon faith. I do not question his character, and agree with more of his potential policies than disagree.

The only thing is, I’ve also heard him say words to the effect that Mormonism is Christianity and Mormons proclaim the same Jesus as Christians.

That isn’t true.

If Gov Romney doesn’t believe the things he says and says them anyway, he’s covering up some glaring flaws in a religion he pays lip service to because he wants to be president. President Obama could be guilty of the same thing.

If Gov Romney does believe the things he says about Mormonism and Christianity he’s a fool and an apostate, and will one day face judgment for those things.

Based in what those two men say about Jesus and what I believe in my heart about Him, I’m going to have some hard decisions to make in the time before the election, and some hard questions to ask myself.

Can I really separate what I believe about politics from my faith?

Should I?

How about the candidates? Can they do the same?

So many questions…

My Miracle

I believe because of my mother.

Well, not just because of her. It isn’t because of something she said, and she never really shared anything with me that I can remember. What I do remember is standing outside her hospital room not long before she died and hearing her pray with an old pastor from the Bahamas, the father of a family friend.

I knew she’d read the bible occasionally prior to that day, but she hadn’t talked about it. At least not to me. What I heard from outside that room was the old man’s voice becoming stronger as he prayed–his accent less pronounced. Then I heard my mom’s faint voice going through a prayer of repentance.

I remember sitting with her a while after that, after they’d induced her final coma. I was alone in the room and I remember holding a newspaper and not being able to read it. I remember looking at her, and she was so skinny. Her cheeks were sunken in and her mouth slightly open, rasping breath in and out. Her eyes were cracked open a little, too, but she wasn’t really there anymore. Morphine is a great and terrible thing.

I remember telling her that my sisters and I loved her, and that it was OK for her to go.

It was a few days after that she actually did. My sister Valorie was with her. I remember the call coming in the small hours of the morning.

I don’t know how deeply Jesus sank into her heart in the time she knew him, but I like to think he spoke to her as the lover from Song of Songs:

“Come now, my love.

My lovely one, come.

For you, the winter has passed,

The snows are over and gone,

The flowers appear in the land,

The season of joyful songs has come.

The cooing of the Turtledove is heard in our land.

Come now, my love.

My lovely one, come.

Let me see your face. And Let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is beautiful.

Come now, my love,

My lovely one, come.

Song of Songs 2:10 – 14

I became a believer in Jesus in March of 2000, but I don’t think I really experienced the fullness of the healing he can bring until 2007. I heard author Brennan Manning preach from the above scripture and it resonated in my heart.

I think Jesus calls out to all of us in that voice one day. Henri Nouwen speculates the Abba of Jesus called those words to him while he hung on the cross:

Come now my love, my lovely one come.

So that Brennan Manning conference was in my mind when my pastor gave a sermon not long after. He was relating the story of his mother’s passing, and how he led her to Christ. A radio softly played old music in her hospital room and at the moment of her death, the song “Heaven, I’m in Heaven” came on the radio.

That absolutely wrecked me.

I remember asking a friend from Healing Prayer to pray with me after the service and just coming unglued, totally falling apart in the third row of the sanctuary. I don’t remember what my friend prayed that morning, but I realized that was the first time I’d ever really grieved my mother’s loss.

I remember peace coming over me that morning, and it while the arms around me were my friend Ron’s, they were really the arms of the Christ, and his comfort was whispered into my ear through the earnest intercession of a good friend.

I think that morning prepared my heart for my wife more than anything else. I know I would have been useless to her had it not happened.

I’m feeling that comfort anew this morning. I’m sitting here on the couch holding my sleeping son and typing on my phone with my right thumb. I feel the love of my savior through my little man who loves me so much and sleeps so comfortably on his daddy’s lap.

It wasn’t my mom who led me to Christ–it was many things and many people all working together that did it. Many prayers rose to heaven on my behalf.

It was my mom who eventually led me to healing, whether she meant to or not.

So until God calls to me from Song of Songs, I will serve him to the best of my ability, and I will try and show my kids through my life what he’s done for me.

0727, 2 September 2012

Hypocrisy, the RNC, and the Empty Chair

I think it’s interesting how political satire–political mockery–is taken, depending on the target of the mockery, and the deliverer of the material.

In my opinion, one of the great things about this country is we’re free to question, criticize, and even make a considerable amount of sport of whomever we’d like, especially during election season.

Except we are only allowed by the extremely biased media the freedom to do those things if the object of the satire or mockery goes against the far left status quo.

Nothing quite so worthy of mockery, mean-spirited “satire” or even outright name calling as a conservative, Christian, or Republican.

God help anyone who criticizes or mocks President Obama. Apparently, the only president in history whose policies, ideals, and person are beyond reproach or question.

If one is unfortunate enough to make fun of or disagree with any of this president’s policies, or perhaps point out a bit of tarnish on his halo, they will soon find out just how deep the tolerance of the liberal side of the coin actual runs.

They’ll have their intellect questioned. No one with any kind of intelligence can have conservative values.

They’ll have their patriotism and even their faith questioned. Check that last part. If you believe in anything other than a liberal agenda there goes your intellect again.

So far as satire goes, the most vocal and pointed satirists in the entertainment industry (people like Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, for instance) have remained nearly silent regarding President Obama.

This is not because he hasn’t said anything worthy of mockery–“you didn’t build that” comes to mind–but likely because to question the President or liberal policies is to be branded intolerant, to be filled with hate, or even be racist.

Last night’s Republican National Convention comes to mind. Clint Eastwood delivered a “speech” that was really more of a pointed commentary at President Obama and his last 4 years of mediocrity, mostly in the form of a one-sided conversation with the President Himself, “seated” in an empty chair next to the podium.

Eastwood’s speech was supposedly completely ad-libbed, which would explain some of the stiltedness and occasional moments of silence. He did have probably the best “line” of the evening, something to the effect of:

We own this country. The government is in our employ. If the President is not doing his job, we’ve got to let him go.

No hidden meaning there.

So today, I’ve seen a lot of stuff in social media that was outright insulting to both Governor Romney, his wife, and Mr Eastwood, who is now apparently suffering from dementia.

This is the same man whose commercial during the Superbowl was widely viewed as being supportive of the Obama administration, which made him more of a media darling than the goat he is today.

Funny how that works.

Plenty more ugly to come in the days, weeks, and months ahead as we progress toward election day.

I can accept that. It’s just becoming increasingly clear that tolerance has become clearly little more than a buzzword without meaning, and free speech clearly is not that free.

Clearest of all to me lately, is that the liberal left (especially the entertainment “lobby”), as my mom would have said, “Can dish it out, but they can’t take it.”

Perspective

From this point of view, that can looks about a mile high. I’m sure your problem does, too. Maybe it even is.

But look what happens when you step back a little and get a different perspective.

A little bit of distance is sometimes what you need to see things as they actually are. It gives you the ability to see there is an end to whatever giant thing is in your path.

You’ll get through it.

Of Conviction, Inspiration, and Change

There’s this scene in the movie Sling Blade where the camera moves through the day room in a mental hospital, passing by various patients on its way to Karl, played by Billy Bob Thornton, who is quietly sitting in a chair looking out a window.

The audience is offered brief glimpses of many of the patients, and their common features all seem to be lots of slack jaws and staring eyes.

I was thinking about my high school Sunday school class the other day and that image occurred to me.

It has been no walk in the park to try and get those kids interested and participating. I’ve been observing the other teachers and taking lots of notes, and hopefully my next lesson will go a little better.

Certainly, part of the problem must lay with the students having difficulty relating to someone so much older than they are. Also that it’s likely they are not in class by choice, but because their parents make them go.

But I think the problem is larger than that. It’s more than my teaching style and that the students may be tired from a long evening of playing Call of Duty or instant messaging their “bestie” on their smart phones.

I think we’ve raised a generation of kids that has forgotten about the passion of Jesus. By that I do not mean his long walk down the Via Dolorosa, but his zeal for his father, and his Father’s house.

It’s my job to find a way to reawaken that in them. It’s not just about Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, though he does.

It’s about reminding these kids that Jesus is relevant to them, and is not simply a set of ideals passed down from their parents like a set of holiday china. This is the same Jesus that wept over a city. The same Jesus that calmly made a whip from leather cords and then cleared the temple.

But how do you instill passion and zeal in a generation that seems to care for very little other than what’s before them at that moment?

That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I feel a sense of urgency about it because now is when these kids are going to learn the things that will stay with them. The urgency comes from the knowledge that if things about the world that so desperately need changing are ever going to be changed, it will be these kids that do it.

I think of movements like Jesus Culture, who get so much right. I think it will take some kind of revival to wake this kids up, and that it starts with us. It starts with parents, teachers, and pastors.

We need to find a way to not only make Jesus relevant and real to them, but also to help them realize that while Jesus is the hope of nations, they are, too.

Until (and unless) Jesus returns, they have the unique opportunity to shape their own futures.

How do we do this?

I believe there are several things we need to do.

1. Awaken in them a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. There seems to be an almost choking apathy amongst young people today–the “whatever” generation.

2. Inspire them to act for the kingdom. Retreats and conference highs are great, but we need to be there when they come off it and the real work begins. Inspiration is not a one time thing. We lead from the front and we kick them in the pants when they need it. We need to do this for them:

3. Pray for them. Lift them up. Let them know they can do anything, with effort, with God, and with accountability.

4. Teach them it will not be easy to change the world. It will be tough. Teach them that changing the world starts with their own world. Search their lives and their hearts and identify the areas lacking and bring God to those places. Invite healing.

5. Walk with them. Let them know they aren’t alone and never were. We might be out of touch with their reality in respect to our own, but if we show them consistency and back our pledges to be there for them and pray for them with the actuality of doing those things, then we can change that part, too.

I am not writing this because I think I have all the answers. Certainly the opposite is true. The conviction I’ve been feeling lately is my own, based on my own experiences and my own prayers. It could even be that the huge pile of words I’ve just expelled is solely for my own edification. But on the off chance there’s even 1 other person out there who shares my struggles and convictions, I’m going to put both this and myself out there.

And I’m going to pray.

Abandon

I’ve always had these sort of…hang ups about the worship portion of a church service. I would occasionally feel moved to worship in a certain manner–sometimes lift my hands, or kneel, or even sing out loud.

I never did it, though. Not even when I felt like I was supposed to. I didn’t want people to think I was weird, or fake, or had a bad voice.

Tonight during the youth worship I had this moment of clarity where I realized it didn’t matter what anyone thought but Jesus. It never had mattered.

And then I obeyed.

It may be that my inhibitions don’t trouble me anymore. I don’t know at this point. It could also be the dimness of the room and the fact I was in the back row.

Whatever tonight was about, I’ll take it for what it was: God speaking truth.

Beware!

I noticed something the other day, and while I don’t have any real proof, I thought I’d pass it along as a warning. Aren’t these things supposed to be masters of disguise and concealment?

Predator:

Condaleeza Rice:

You just have to be wary of an alien warrior race during an election year.