I give some props

The esteemed Tyler Antkowiak has written a short story. There's two or three instances of mild  profanity, so if you feel up to it, read it here. 

Did I mention that it was incredible? Oh yeah . . . so, it's incredible. Wonderful storytelling, and an awesome idea for a story (props for that to Ty's little sister). The way he tells the story, especially at the beginning, makes you identify with the narrator and makes the story much more intense and effective. Enjoy. 

I say it's cold outside, so grab a raincoat

Woke up to this little doozie of a surprise. 

It's weird how you feel fine for a few minutes, just like it's 25 degrees or so, but after that it takes very little time for the cold to seep through and just cut to your bones. By the by, if you can catch the reference in the title, I will be quite impressed. 

Another hypothetical fattening prize

That's right, you could be the next recipient of a famous (though as yet, hypothetical) "flabbergasted" doughnut or cup of coffee. Just present incontrovertible proof that you were the 3,000 visitor (or the closest one to that beautiful number) to our blog.

President Obama's first executive order

I would like to begin with a caveat. I did not vote for Obama (I didn't vote at all, as you may remember). Nor do I wish I voted for Obama (or for McCain). I am deeply upset with our new President's Pro-death voting record in the Senate. In short, I wish we had a President who supported unborn human rights. However, I have great hopes for the other human rights during his administration:

-He promises more humanitarian aid to those suffering in Darfur, and his Senate voting record supports this.

-His first executive order was to shut down Gitmo within a year.

-He signed a bill today abolishing America's use of torture.

-Basically, he just eliminated all the problems I had with the Bush administration.

None of this changes the fact that Obama supports the murder of babies. We can't just look past this. But neither can we look at this alone, and look past the good that Obama is already doing. That would be ingratitude. God has a purpose for Obama, and I do not think it's just judgment.

We who are Christians should not be humanists (in the ideological sense). But that in no way means that we can't be humanitarians.

Peace

Get on your boots

Let me tell you what just made my day, if you haven't guessed already. U2 JUST DID!!! That is right. The first single released from U2's album No Line On the Horizon, "Get on Your Boots" is seriously blowing me away. I've already listened to it 3 times in a row. I'm going to write a full scale review once the album comes out. Right now, I just want to share my jubilation and maybe some of you shall share it with me.

Peace 

My very clear advice

This is a little something I picked up from Cicero and put into my own words:

"Always never fail to remember to not fail to not forget to do whatever is always not in your un-best interest."


I don't have anything else to say really. That about sums it up.

When exiting a restaurant

Let us suppose (for the sake of argument) that you have just had a nice supper at a sit-down restaurant. You are just leaving and one of their helpers holds the door open and says:
"Thank you for coming. Have a nice night."
The usual response is something like "Thanks, you too."
Oh, that's sweet. But it's really boring.

Here is just one way to spice it up- respond with "Thank you. Uh, Sorry about the mess." The poor man will be flabbergasted. When he asks, "what mess?" just answer "You'll see."

The trick is to be very vague. Don't give any details like in the bathroom, underneath my table, in my napkin, on the floor etc. Leave it completely open to his imagination. He may even abandon his post at the door and go looking for this elusive mess. It's pretty ironical, because he's the only mess you've left.

Try it. They love it.

I just don't think people understand

So here's the headline I saw a few days ago:
U.N. alarmed by Lebanon rocket attacks on Israel
I am intrigued by this. Because, you see, it's so ridiculously obvious. Are there rocket attacks that don't alarm people? I would hate to see them. I mean really, how boring would that attack be?

We continue reading, though

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

You've got to be kidding me. Just when Kofi Annan steps down, we get a man named
Ban Ki-moon? We serve a marvelously funny God, my friends

expressed alarm on Wednesday over reports of Lebanese rocket attacks against Israel and urged all parties in the region to avoid actions that could make a bad situation worse. "That is ... a very alarming, very disturbing and troubling situation," Ban told reporters

Again with the alarm. Apparently General Ban hasn't been told that this sort of thing has been happening since the Muslims invaded like 1,000 years ago. And now he's asking Israel not to retaliate. Someone needs to give the poor man a briefing. Retaliation is my Israeli neighbor's middle name. Not really, but you see my point. Revenge is something they are good at. Their ancestors avenged the rape of their sister by convincing an entire city of men to circumcise themselves, and then came in on the third day "when they were sore" and butchered the lot of them.

Ban said that U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, were investigating the rocket attacks launched from inside Lebanon. The incident took place on the 19th day of Israel's offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza strip.

Tough, that one. Israel fights Hamas militants. All of a sudden, rockets start
appearing out of Lebanon, a known supporter and harbor for Hamas militants.
Careful now, don't think about this too hard or you might get a headache.

Security sources in Lebanon said five rockets were fired, though two fell in Lebanon.

So these guys aren't just idiots because they're fighting against one of the most militant nations on the planet, they're also idiots in the traditional sense of the word. They can't even point and shoot.

"Hamas rocket attacks must stop and at the same time I have been condemning
the excessive military operation by the Israelis," he told an earlier news
conference in Cairo . . .

Apparently we're going to be forgetting that whole part where Hamas stole the land from Israel. Just like we forgot about Hitler annexing Austria. Because that worked so well.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said 1,010 Palestinians had been killed
and 4,700 wounded by Israel so far. The Israelis say on their side 10 soldiers,
and three civilians hit by cross-border Hamas rockets, have been killed.

The moral of this story, kids, is: don't mess with Israel. 13 deaths compared to 1,010?! That's absolutely incredible.

Here's what I don't think people get. People don't understand that God's promises to Israel aren't finished. If God is going to redeem the nation of Israel as He has promised, He's got to have something to redeem.* In the Six Day War in 1967, Israel was attacked by Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt. They were outnumbered almost 2 to 1 in infantry, 3 to 1 in the air, and 3 to 1 in tanks. By the end of those six days, Israel had had 800 men killed, 2500 wounded, and 15 captured. The four Arabic nations had lost 13,000 men, 8,000 wounded, and 6,000 prisoners. Israel lost 46 aircraft as compared to more than 400 aircraft. Don't mess with the Lord's chosen. David didn't kill Saul even though he was unfaithful, because Saul was God's chosen one. I can think of no other nation on earth that is that small, surrounded by that many enemies, and that has lasted for that long. So, as the eloquent Pastor Hadding has said on many an occasion, I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'. 

*This does, in fact and in most every way, represent what I believe. It may or may not represent what Rob believes, we haven't discussed it yet. Something tells me we will shortly. 

Rides n' such

At NSA, there comes a time in the waiting period before the beginning of a break or the end of it, when everyone needs rides to and from Spokane. Some people just happen to live in that city, and some people (like me) go there because it is the home of the closest airport (if we don't count Pullman).

This is one of those times. Well, I'm getting a little tired of all the politeness. These people always say that they would be willing to pay for the gas. Which is, of course, very reasonable. But I'm holding out for somebody to break the mold. Go ahead, be completely unreasonable. It's fun. Here are some ways:

"Of course, I would not be willing to pay for gas."
"Don't even think about asking me for gas money."
"You're going there anyway, all I'm asking is that you take me with you. It's your gas. Sheesh"
"As we all know, I'm a jerk. As such, it goes against my principles to help pay for gas."
"I don't believe in gas. Therefore, I won't pay for you to keep ruining our environment. But, as long as you're ruining it you might as well take me with you."


Now that would be in true flabbergasted style. You see, everyone's got a little "jerk" written in the small-print of their hearts, you just have to look for it.

I want to write a book: "Rob's Unreasonably Priced Book on How to be Unreasonable." I think it would be a huge hit.


N.B.: This is me being facetious. As far as I know, most of the time I'm not a jerk.

I answer my own question

So here's my answer. Why are there poor? Well, it's my fault. And it's yours. I hope it's the fault of every single one of you. It's President Bush's fault, it seems to be Obama's fault, Clinton claims it's his fault, but I'm not so sure that we can blame it directly on bin Laden, Hussein, or even the serpent. 

The poor are the Church's fault. I come very close to believing that when I stand before the Judgment Seat, God will ask me "And how about that guy you saw under the bridge and didn't stop for on January 6, 2009? What did you do about that? Hmm. Well, what about . . . " 

Most of us have heard Mr. Doug Jones's take on the gravity of economic sins. I'd agree with that. Too many preachers use the divorce rating among Christians as a barometer for the Church (this is not at all to justify or reduce the importance of marriage as holy and sacred; divorce is horrible, but we fail to realize that poverty and hunger are equally horrible tragedies). What about the number of people below the poverty line? What about the number of deaths by starvation in the US? What about the number of thefts carried out by desperate parents?  I'm not even touching Africa yet. I'm just asking you to look at what is happening in our own backyard. 

Christ said that it wasn't the healthy but the sick who need the doctor. The gospel dies in upper middle class Suburbia. It explodes in the projects. While popular European Christianity (and, some argue, even American Christianity) begins to die, the faith is growing by leaps and bounds in China, Pakistan, India, Africa, and the Middle East. Could it be because the Catholic church did so little to relieve the abject poverty of the natives that South America has never been stable and prosperous? 

What I'm saying is this: the Church is to disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Trinity. We preach the Gospel and disciple the nations by living out the faith. We start living like Christians, and people will start noticing. Spurgeon once said, joy is our missionary. As Pastor Wilson said, you don't reach atheists by debating them; you get to them by having them over for dinner. Theology doesn't save people; the Gospel does. St. James applies this to giving when he says "If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?" Too often Christians talk about God's love to an atheist as if it's this ethereal emotional thing that couldn't help anyone even though, deep down, it really wanted to. God's love is not a pretty, teardrop-eyed, softly-glowing-in-the-snowy-moonlight sort of thing. It's visceral, physical, and sometimes it looks like a toothless, legless, drugged up old man in a wheelchair who hasn't had a bath in a month. If an atheist looks over and sees a Christian volunteering at a soup kitchen every Thursday, when you start picking up homeless guys and buying them dinner, when he sees you sacrifice for those less fortunate, he'll be ready to hear about that love. That Love that will turn the world upside down. 

Giving to the poor is the Church's responsibility, its duty. We can't expect the government or other agencies to do it, however willing President Obama may be to do so. The poor are out there because we Christians are letting them be out there. Every family that starves to death is an indictment on Christianity; every homeless drug addict is condemnation. And who knows, perhaps the day the Church ends poverty will be last day of all? 

I ask a very leading question

This has been on my mind recently. 

Why are there poor?

And answers like "sin" or "Adam in the Garden" are copouts. I mean, here and now, in 2009, why are there still people who cannot buy food? 

P.S. Sorry we've been so out of touch recently. Family has taken priority. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and that you all watched that guy Robbie Maddison almost kill himself in 14 different ways, and then drop the mighty-mighty-f-bomb on live ESPN TV. American entertainment at its best, folks.