Saturday, 07/19/08

Welcome to the tropical paradise of Iowa.

Iowa has the weather of a tropical island. I am expecting toucans to show up and start nesting in our trees. I am considering planting some bananas. Yes, I know we are land locked. Apparently you do not need to be surrounded by a warm water ocean to have a south pacific island climate. Our friends Todd and Sarah from Fresno were here for a couple of days. They asked me one morning what the weather would be like. Tropical, I said, hot, humid and raining. Apparently the corn likes the humidity.

We went to see ostrich races with them at a local casino/race track. They are much faster than you might imagine. Local jockeys rode the beasts who come to Iowa once a year. They are a fast and fierce mount. Only two of the five riders were in the saddle come the finish line. They ran much faster than I would have imagined. I would not like to have one chasing me.

Thankfully we built the new floor and sealed it before the 10 days of projected rain hit. As to the final project, I am formulating the beginnings of my next chapter in my head.

Sunday, 07/13/08

writing, destroying, building.

I am struggling through a chapter on Jesus' gospel of the kingdom of God in my DMin project. I am hanging out with my sister and brother-in-law Bret and Priscilla who are here visiting from Australia. We are ripping the floor of our deck out and building a new one. We think we have finally found the bottom of the water damage so we can start rebuilding again.

The deck process has some interesting similarities to the writing process.

Friday, 07/04/08

Obama: Mental distress can't justify late abortion

Now that the general election is rolling, Obama is addressing a number of issues he did not before. Yesterday he addressed Abortion. Timbo had some very strong words for Obama's position many months ago. I told him that I would be very interested to hear Obama's response to his concerns. Yesterday he began to address them.
"There was a bill that came up in Illinois that was called the 'Born Alive' bill that purported to require life-saving treatment to such infants. And I did vote against that bill," Obama said Tuesday. "The reason was that there was already a law in place in Illinois that said that you always have to supply life-saving treatment to any infant under any circumstances, and this bill actually was designed to overturn Roe v. Wade, so I didn't think it was going to pass constitutional muster."


From a whole article on his abortion stance, Obama: Mental distress can't justify late abortion.

Thursday, 07/03/08

Gospel and the kingdom

"Beware then of limiting this word 'gospel' to what we call Christ's 'atoning sacrifice.' The truth is, the reenthronement of God in man is in the deepest sense the evangel, the good news of the gospel" - George Dana Boardman, 1899, The Kingdom (Basileia): An Exegetical Study

Wednesday, 07/02/08

Calling us to service

From Obama's Speech in Colorado Springs, home of Focus on the Family and a swath of other Conservative Christian organizations.
"And that's how it should be. That's the bet our Founding Fathers were making all of those years ago - that our individual destinies could be tied together in the common destiny of democracy; that government depends not just on the consent of the governed, but on the service of citizens. That's what history calls us to do. Because loving your country shouldn't just mean watching fireworks on the 4th of July. Loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change it. If you do, your life will be richer, and our country will be stronger.

We need your service, right now, at this moment - our moment - in history. I'm not going to tell you what your role should be; that's for you to discover. But I am going to ask you to play your part; ask you to stand up; ask you to put your foot firmly into the current of history. I am asking you to change history's course. And if I have the fortune to be your President, decades from now - when the memory of this or that policy has faded, and when the words that we will speak in the next few years are long forgotten - I hope you remember this as a moment when your own story and the American story came together, and - in the words of Dr. King - the arch of history bent once more towards justice."

Wednesday, 07/02/08

Rush signs for $400 million

What does it say about our culture that Rush Limbaugh is worth $400 million to us? LIMBAUGH SIGNS THROUGH 2016; $400 MILLION DEAL SHATTERS BROADCAST RECORDS

Tuesday, 07/01/08

Mosquitoes killed the summer BBQ

I grilled out on our deck all through the winter. Ten degrees, not a problem. Just put on a jacket. The fire is warm. Since the floods, the mosquitoes have been about 100 per cubic yard in our neighborhood. The city's mosquito spraying killed all in our immediate vicinity only to be replaced the next evening by the swath waiting in the forest behind our house.

I grilled some hot dogs quickly for the kids tonight. I was out there about four minutes total and was bitten a dozen times. Thankfully, I have retained the immunity to their poison I gained working at camp for 10 years. Still, I don't want them biting me.

Tuesday, 07/01/08

Truncated gospel leads to truncated mission

When you have a truncated gospel, you have a truncated mission. When the gospel is all about the salvation of lost individuals, then the mission of the gospel is all about reaching out to those lost individuals. We do our best to reach out to people, one by one by one. Yet when the gospel is about the kingdom of God, the mission of the gospel starts to take on all sorts of new dimensions. No longer is it just about helping individuals find salvation in Jesus. It is also about bringing the loving reign of God wherever there is the darkness of sin and death. -Allen Wakabayashi, Kingdom Come, Inter Varsity Press, p 107.

Tuesday, 07/01/08

Obama FINALLY moves to the center

I have been waiting for this for months now. Obama has slowly been drifting away from me toward the left as he fought with Hillary Clinton for the democratic votes. Now finally, he is drifting back to the center. Ariana Huffington is angry. "Memo to Obama: Moving to the Middle is for Losers" is the title of her article today. It is not for losers if that is where your heart really is. The Netroots have been frustrated with Obama at times. They are going to be more so.

Today, Obama is putting out word that he is going "Expand Bush's faith based programs", and apparently remove restrictions for hiring and firing based on faith for programs that use these funds. That brings a smile to my face, and it is going to stun the netroots.

His last two commercials have appealed to me as well. They emphasize solid his solidly American values. The netroots have not been very happy with that either.

Dignity


For some reason I can't find the other commercial. This will have to suffice.

[update 3:20pm] There seems to be a discrepancy between the speech Obama gave today and the reports about his prepared text in the media who repeatedly asserted that Obama's program would allow for hiring and firing based on religion. Obama's remarks seemed to explicitly exclude that. Perhaps there is something murky in that area of this proposal. I have yet to see any more language.

Wednesday, 06/25/08

Dog ran away

We came back from a meeting with the new residents at Tracy's hospital and found that our dog Kailua had escaped from our back yard because she was afraid of the thunder. I went driving around a couple mile radius from our house, but I am guessing she glommed onto a family and they have her for the night.

Her litter-mate cassie is sad. Hopefully Kailua will turn up soon. She is "chipped" so if anyone takes her to animal control they will be able to find us. We hope she is safe.

[update 7am] Our neighbor found us and let us know that Kailua had been sleeping on his front porch when he went out this morning. At least she tried to come home. So, all is well and Kailua is back.