our nation’s greatness?

our nation’s greatness?

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From an article by R. Jeffrey Smith in the Washington Post, August 9, 2006: The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments …

“People have gotten worried, thinking that it’s quite likely they might be under a microscope,” said a U.S. official. Foreigners are using accusations of unlawful U.S. behavior as a way to rein in American power, the official said, and the amendments are partly meant to fend this off.

They should be under a microscope! Power secured at the expense of human dignity is a corrupting, degrading power. Our nation’s greatness (what greatness there is) is its legacy of putting right before might, of showing the world another way, a way of respect for the rule of law and of respect for human rights, for the rights of all human beings.

When self-preservation and self-aggrandizement and consolidation of power become our top priorities, we are not great at all, but a poor and miserable nation, with nothing of value to offer the rest of the world. The welfare of humanity as a whole demands that we be scrutinized and that our power be reined in.

It is our duty as citizens of this nation to take the lead, to be aware of what our government is doing, and to let our leaders know in no uncertain terms what sort of greatness we want!

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a shameful co-incidence

a shameful co-incidence

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… the Senate defeated a motion to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour (though it voted for a pay increase for senators.) (From the August 8, 2006 edition of The Christian Century. Read the rest of the editorial …)

Put what spin on this you may, offer whatever reasoned argument you may, and this still stinks! There is no justification for allowing the working poor to get poorer, when there is something that can be done, something that is simple to do and effective in addressing the need.

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hiking buddies

hiking buddies

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Stony enjoying the view from the top of Penobscot Mountain in Acadia National Park …

dog on mountain summit

Stony and his hiking companion after returning to the Jordan Pond House …

man and dog with backpack

I was hopeful that Stony would prove to be a good hiking companion … and he more than exceeded my expectations! We hiked Blue Hill, Burnt Head and White Head on Monhegan Island, and Penobscot Mountain in Acadia overlooking Jordan Pond. The latter involved some rather steep climbing. I carried Stony’s backpack for him on the way up, but he carried it back down and led the way down at a brisk pace. Not bad for a six-month-old!

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be patient

be patient

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Be patient …

Do not let the burden of the enormous task ahead of you overwhelm you and debilitate you. Yours is not the responsibility of the end result, but only of the next step. Do what you can, what God has equipped you to do. Do that faithfully, one step, one piece, at a time, and God will make of it something good.

Do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. And the God who walks with you today will be there to walk with you tomorrow, whatever tomorrow brings …

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an inconvenient truth

an inconvenient truth

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movie posterWe saw Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth tonight. It is a clear and thorough, sobering and hopeful, account of the looming crisis of global warming and our capacity as a human race to address its dangers.

It should be seen, because the problem of global warming needs to be understood and faced. As one of my college classmates has stated, global warming is no more or less a theory than gravity is a theory! The scientific community is in agreement: the planet is warming at an unprecedented rate and the cause is the increased level of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. And the consequences of uncurbed warming at the current levels would be disastrous, globally disastrous.

The facts are there to be seen, but we are often good at ignoring the facts when such ignorance lets us avoid a change in personal behavior. Gore is right: global warming is not a political issue; it is a moral issue. Ignorance is not an option. Hopelessness is not an option. Apathy is not an option … unless we wish to bring the guilt of causing the suffering of future generations down on our heads.

See the movie. And check out the website: http://www.climatecrisis.net/. I wish the film had been less politically self-serving — Gore very much promotes himself throughout the film — but this distraction takes nothing away from the power and timeliness and persuasiveness and may I say, the righteousness, of his message.

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no excuses

no excuses

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There are no excuses, only choices.

I shared that observation with our church family this last Sunday as part of the report given by our mission trip team. We had just returned from eleven days in West Virginia — we, being four adults and six high school students. That observation was underlined once more for me by what I saw and by what we did. We spent five days painting and repairing a home in a town in southwest West Virginia and spent several more days enjoying the West Virginia mountains and the challenge of play in the mountains.

One of our students, limited from birth by cerebral palsy, joined several of us in leaping ten feet from the top of a rock into the waters of the New River. He did not let his physical limitatations provide him an excuse, but did what he very much wanted to do!

Another student, skeptical of camping and her ability to “survive” the rigors of rafting and rock climbing and hard work, did just fine. She did not stay home; she did not hang back; she did not excuse herself from engaging these new experiences, but chose to go over the edge into the unknown … quite literally!

I have said many times to my own children that family history or genetic history may provide a reason or an explanation for certain behaviors, but not an excuse. We make choices. We do not choose what we are or what befalls us, but we do choose what we will do with what we have and how we will respond to what befalls us.

Too many of us are limited by our own lack of vision, our own lack of courage … our own lack of faith. Don’t give up! Don’t beat yourself! Embrace life and all its possibilities! Embrace God and all God is ready to do for you and with you!

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