Novel November -False Start-

So, I started with that other prologue and then I had a fun idea and the story veered in an incredibly different direction, so I had to start it over. But I'm in love with this idea, so things ought to be a little smoother from here on out :p Now that, you know, we're mostly through the month.

Prologue

A red-giant sun burned in the vast empty blackness of space. Designated “Tyl” by the astromancers of old, it now served as a regional capital for one of the best-developed sectors in Kalean Space. It represented one of the first multi-planetary joint ventures in colonization, and the uniqueness of the project had lent gravitas to the expedition. The colonists had worked harder, faster, and more unified than any others before them, and as a result had set a new paradigm for future colonial efforts.

It was a rich system, although to someone observing from the outside it might not look it. The system had only 4 planets, and only one of them was terrestrial, the rest being gas giants of various compositions. But the rich gasses accounted for nearly 40% of the fuel consumed in the sector as a whole, and the export numbers were so massive as to be nearly unbelievable. Fortunes were made in Tyl.

The terrestrial planet was Volammir, and it was a hive of activity; home to nearly 40 billion souls, seat of the System and Sector governments, and the main hub of military activity in the sector. Above the opalescent greens, blues, and golds of the planet itself hung Naval Station Kharak. It was a sprawling mass of structures, housing the Command Hub, the barracks, the Naval Academy, a fleet hospital, and a massive dockyard. Some traditions died harder than others, and the entire exterior was a wash of battle-gray paint picked out with white designations and trim.

Aedra Morian stalked up one of the narrow hallways in the command wing. Her face was a mask of seething anger, and the handful of aides and technicians idling about scattered as they saw her approaching. The command deck was all but deserted this far up, which kept the scrabbling from being too obvious and obtrusive, but the staccato 'clank-clank-clank' of her boots on the steel gangway was more than enough to warn of her presence. And a formidable figure she cut, indeed. Her marine uniform was black as the void, and trimmed in silver, and marine's were intimidating enough, even without the silver command pauldron on her shoulder and the fact that she was head and shoulders taller than everyone she stormed past.

Abruptly, she spun through a heavy bulkhead and into a small antechamber where a small man sat behind a small desk, typing into a computer furtively from a stack of papers arranged in front of him. looking blandly over his glasses, his hands continuing to fly across the keys like they had minds of their own. “Ma'am,...” was all he managed before Aedra's piercing tenor voice overwhelmed him.

“I'm here for Admiral Gorsch, and you're going to let me in there, or you're going to tell me where he is, or so help me, I will take these files...” and she slammed a stack of files onto the desk with enough force to reverberate into the floor, “... and shove them so far up your...”

“Commander Morian! I thought I might be hearing from you today. Come in please.” The portly yet genteel Admiral Zandar Gorsch stood in the doorway across from the desk, smiling disarmingly as Aedra rounded on him and stalked into his office. He grimaced to his aide-de-camp before gently swinging the bulkhead closed and returning to his own desk, pointedly ignoring the silently seething giantess of a marine sulking at attention in the center of the room. He sat in his chair, leaned back, steepled his fingers on his chest, and smiled.

“Now, Lance Commander Morian, what seems to be the trouble?”

With a bang, she flung the stack of files down onto his desk and erupted.

“This is absolutely, unutterably, and fantastically demeaning, sir. I know I'm universally mocked and ignored by the brass, but I was told I would have say in my team composition. I know It's not a popular idea, but as a Lance Commander, that's MY decision to make. I am the team commander, and if I want a mixed bag, then by the 5 gods I ought to be able to have one.... sir.”

She straightened up and took a deep breath as the weight of her situation began to resurface over the bubbling mire of anger. She was in the Fleet Admiral's office. Yelling at him. Loudly. For his part, the Admiral weathered the storm well. Only the smallest signs of exasperation crept into his face, and those quickly slipped back into his inscrutably polite smile. With a sigh, he leaned forward over the desk and examined the folders one at a time. He nodded and hummed for several minutes before sitting back and raising his palms.

“You wanted a mixed bag, and you got one, Lance Commander. I fail to see the problem.”

Aedra stepped forward and pointed at the offending stack of folders. “Five humans, dammit! I've got five humans, two elves, two dwarves, and a single Ork. One! They couldn't even get a little closer to balance?! All of us Fae together pull even with those humans! It's ridiculous! It's less diverse than a board of trustees! I thought you of all people would understand what I'm trying to do!”

Without warning the Admiral stood, smashed his fist into the desk and bellowed, his voice like a thunderclap.

“By Kaz' beard, Aedra! You're lucky you only have five! I fought the council for days on this! You have every right to be angry about this, but don't you DARE put this on me. I've got a whole fleet waiting for 'the little admiral' to slip up.”

He straightened the items on his desk and composed himself.

“I'm the first Dwarfish admiral in the Navy. You elves have three, and the Orks will be lucky to get a captaincy in the next hundred years. The distrust and misgivings of the old ways are as strong as ever, and we Fae have to work together, not squabble.”

Aedra stared pointedly at the floor.

“Dismissed.”

She spun on her heel and headed for the door.

“Lance Commander...”

She froze halfway through the bulkhead and turned.

“If you want them to reconsider in the future, then you better make them the best damn marines in the fleet.”

Aedra smiled and saluted. “Aye aye, sir.”

Novel November -Introduction-

“In ages past, mariners had to overcome immense difficulties and hardships to maintain their livelihoods.”

The instructor leaned on her desk, addressing the room full of first year cadets. Her blue uniform was dotted with a handful of medallions and ribbons, and though she had a relaxed and conversational demeanor, it was obvious it was earned by a lifetime of service. Her students, in their simple green cadet uniforms, sat attentively, keen to absorb every word of their first lesson. Time and stress would dull their senses, but for now, they were a rapt audience.

“Their ships were powered by the wind, that most fickle and fleeting of mistresses. They could spend weeks running before the wind, every inch of their great sails straining with effort, only to sit becalmed, baking in the still and heavy air, for days. The wind would shift direction with no warning, forcing them to change course on a moment's notice. And with nothing but mathematics and the stars to guide them, crossing the vast distances of the oceans with anything approaching accuracy was a feat of immense skill.”

The instructor stood and took a sip from a water bottle that sat next to her on the desk. Her bright eyes contrasted the dark uniform below and the dark hair above, which framed her face in a way that seemed to make it easy to pay attention. Most of the cadets were taking notes, while a few sat with recorders and fewer still just listened attentively. The instructor carried the water bottle to the wooden lectern that stood front and center of the room, sipping again before thrusting a hand into a pocket and continuing.

“These days, with little more than a week's preparation, a cadet can key a few numbers into a console, execute a program. Press a little blue button, and sling anything from a 230-ton patrol boat to a 73-kiloton frigate to Proxima Centauri. Give it another week and they will have the requisite knowledge to sling a 4.6-megaton battleship or even one of the dreadnoughts. It beggars belief, honestly, but that is the reality in which we find ourselves, cadets.”

As she addressed the room, everyone sat a little straighter. Save for a few of the more bookish among them, most of them were unaware of the sheer size of the warships. They were big, sure, but the scale of ships that weighed hundreds of millions of pounds was truly unfathomable. It was one thing to see a picture of the fleet, ships ranged in close order, and know that they were big. But big just didn't cut it at this scale. The instructor stepped in front of the lectern, hands still in her pockets, and continued.

“In just three millennia, we've gone from mariners spending a decade or more learning to maneuver a wooden ship a thousand miles to you lot being able to fly a ship the size of an asteroid to a star 4 light-years away based on nothing but a week's worth of textbook review.” The weight of this context had noticeable effect on the cadets, who sat completely still and silent.

“The point I mean to make is this: it is easy to think, with our superior technology and engineering, that we've nothing to learn from these mariners of old. To sit in our command chairs and scoff at their laborious trials. But the time is coming when you will long for the trivialities of wind and weather. The hard vacuum of space is infinitely less forgiving than even the most treacherous sea. The behavior of our oceans has been a known quantity for some time. Even the primitive sailors who crossed oceans in log rafts knew about currents and wind patterns. They knew what seasons were safe to make crossings and which weren't. They knew which tiny speck in the vast sky to follow. But we discover new and terrifying things about space on a monthly basis.”

There was a nervous shuffling among the cadets as the instructor walked among them, punctuating her words by abruptly spearing passing tables with a finger. The ventilation started up, and the soft humming of fans and the gentle hiss of moving air washed over the room, drowning out the vague buzzing of the light fixtures. From the back of the room, the instructor continued, leaning comfortable against the wall.

“The Great Peace has lasted over a hundred years now, but make no mistake, you will be fighting war every day. We are specks of dust, floating in the vast and interminable nothingness of the universe. We're barely noticeable, and as far as we can tell, alone. But there will be days, even weeks, perhaps months, where you will be sure that some cosmic force desires your annihilation. At every turn, space will try to kill you. The colonies may have come to heel, and with our great accomplishments it is easy to think that the universe is coming to heel. But that is the absolute epitome of hubris.”

She had made her way back to the front briskly. The clock on the wall ticked down the remaining moments of their inaugural class, and a few brave souls began to surreptitiously gather their things. The instructor glared them into stillness, dark brows furrowed deeply, and once the room was again attentive to his every word, she concluded.

“Space wants to kill you, be absolutely sure of that. It doesn't care if you're a fighter pilot, a reactor engineer, a weapons officer, or the commander of the entire vessel. It will strive to obliterate you at every turn, and the sooner you can come to terms with that, the sooner you can fight back effectively. I cannot promise you this class will be fun, but I can tell you that it gets better. I am Rear-Admiral Lowell, and this is Void Philosophy.”

A gentle but insistent electronic tone sounded, the doors opened, and the cadets filed out in absolute silence.

Have mercy on me, Oh Lord, a sinner...

Okay, so this is going to be a long one (probably VERY long), but I think if we as a culture are going to get through these discussions, we need to stop relying on pre-cut snippets and sound-bytes and start really digging into the nuts and bolts of not just the what, but the how and the why of what we profess to believe.

In a discussion about how unloving Christians seem to be, someone used 1 John 4:8 as a general indictment of unloving behavior. Which developed into the following word-wall. This whole issue is one that I've been seeking God's guidance on for the better part of 4 years now. What exactly is our job, as Christians? And after reading through the Gospels looking for guidance, I've been horribly convicted about it. So I guess, I'm just gonna share my thoughts, but it starts in 1 John because of that specific discussion.

So, 1 John 4:8 is situated in a really interesting context. John is writing to drive home a point: fractious and un-loving behavior is ungodly. Full stop. Even in the early church, disunity and arguing were rampant, especially between the traditionalist Jewish-Christians and more progressive Gentile-Christians. The Jews tended to see Christianity as a fulfillment and perfecting of the Old Law, whereas the Gentiles mostly saw it as this miraculous new thing that existed all by itself.

So into this situation, you had all of these professing Christians running around yelling at each other and causing strife among the collective church. And John is crying out against this with everything he's got, because all of this bickering is absolutely destroying the efficacy and ministry of the church.

So, 1 John 4 begins with a section about testing spirits, specifically if someone claims to be speaking authoritatively about the Gospel, then their message should depend ENTIRELY upon the redemptive work of Christ. If they refuse to testify to the salvatory work of Christ, then the spirit with which they preach isn't from God, but is actively working against Him.

IMMEDIATELY following this is the passage about loving each other. And believe it or not, the first and second parts of the chapter are basically the same thought stream. John is proscribing a method for “testing the spirit” of people claiming to preach the Gospel. In verses 7-21, he's building a logical construct to illustrate his method. To paraphrase:

“We should love each other, because love comes from God, and everyone who loves each other loves God and has been loved by God. Anyone who doesn't love others doesn't love God, because God is love. This is how we know if someone loves God. And the fact that God sent His Son to die for us is how we know that He loves us. Not because we loved Him. So then, if God loved us, then we should love others. Because He has loved us, He sent His Spirit to us, which allows us to testify to the Gospel of Christ. And if anyone confesses Christ's work, then he has the Spirit of God, which means he should love others. And there is no fear in love, because love gets rid of fear. Fear comes from being afraid of punishment, but if we believe He loves us, we shouldn't be afraid of that anymore. Because we love Him, which means that He loved us first.”

It's almost comical. John is baby-stepping us to the idea that loving each other is important:

J: God loves us.

C: Yup.

J: God loves us, because He is love.

C: Uh-huh.

J: And because He loved us, we can also love.

C: I'm with you so far.

J: So if God loves us...

C: Yep

J: And we love others because He loved us...

C: Mmhmm

J: Than we should........

C: …...... PURGE THE CHURCH OF THOSE VILE PROGRESSIVIST-GENTILES -or- TRADITIONALIST-JEWS!!!!!!11!!!1!

You can almost feel the disappointment in John's writing, because the last section of the passage literally starts with “Anyone who says “I love God”, but hates other Christians actually doesn't even KNOW God. Which we know because Jesus literally COMMANDED that we be loving to each other.”

So there you go, the entirety of 1 John 4 is about Christian conduct to each other, not to unbelievers. But then, what are Christians guidelines for how we treat/behave towards non-Christians?

Well, let's look at a few different places, so that we can see that this theme is really woven throughout the New Testament.

Galatians 5:17 makes the point that the things our flesh wants are the opposite of what the Spirit of God wants. Chiefly, our flesh wants to take care of itself, and the Spirit of God wants us to take care of others, which we see directly from the mouth of Christ in John 13:34-35. Christians are supposed to be known by their love for others. This is because, like 2 Peter 1:3-11 points out, through the work of Christ, we are joined to God's Spirit, which frees us from the corruption of sin and allows us to culminate our faith in loving others (notice how in verse 7, godliness leads to affectionate behavior to other Christians, which leads to love for others in general). And Paul deals with this EXHAUSTIVELY in Romans. In chapters 7 and 8 especially he reiterates over and over again that mankind naturally is self serving, and the only reason that we're not is by the action of Christ in our lives.

So, what does that mean? Romans 2 makes it abundantly clear that non-believers have a law to themselves. Things like not killing and not stealing are pretty universally condemned. We instinctively, even without Christ in our hearts, know that killing others is a bad thing. Christ's work is to turn our vision from “how do I build a good life for myself” to “how do I build a good life for others?” Jesus Himself says this in Matthew 22:34-40: loving God is important, but loving others is JUST AS IMPORTANT. And Paul echoes this in 1 Corinthians 13. All of the religiosity and all of the holiness is USELESS if you don't behave lovingly to others.

The tone throughout all of this is that, of course the unsaved behave differently. They're following their nature. They're living in the way that makes sense to them, and no one should be surprised by this. Our instincts are not to always put others first. Sure, maybe sometimes we will (Romans 5:7), but not with any real frequency. The only reason Christians have a greater sense of their destructive nature is because of God's work in us. And make no mistake, we're still screwed up, we just have a better sense of HOW screwed up we really are.

But Christ's command is clear. Carry the Gospel, the hope that things won't be broken forever, into the world. And we are SUPPOSED to be doing this by demonstrating God's love for others. Jesus spent His efforts on the most broken parts of society. He ministered to the diseased, the poor, the thieves, and the whores. His premise is clear: God loves ALL of you, not just the people who are well-behaved. “Those who are healthy don't need a doctor, but those who are sick” Mark 2:17. And to come back to 1 John, in chapter 2, verses 3-6 we see it all spelled out even more clearly: anyone who claims to know/follow God, but doesn't keep His commandments is a liar. 1 John 2:6 specifically states that “the one who says he resides in God OUGHT TO WALK JUST AS JESUS WALKED.”

So, now we get to the TL;DR version:

-1 John 4 is specifically about Christians loving other Christians.

-1 John 2:3-6 says that if you claim to follow God, but don't obey Jesus, you're lying about following God, which is terribly bad news for me, because:

Jesus in Mark 2:17- ministry to the unsaved is super important

Jesus in Matthew 7:12, Matthew 22:34-40, John 15:12, and John 15:17- loving God is important, but loving the people around you is just as important. I'm LITERALLY COMMANDING YOU TO ACT LOVINGLY TO OTHER PEOPLE.

Jesus in John 13: 34-35- The world should know that you're legit because you will act lovingly to others.

Jesus in Matthew 7: 1-5- The whole point of the law is to convict yourself. Stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and get yourself right!

Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17- Talk about people's sins in private, with just them, and even then, only if they already follow me.

Jesus in Matthew 20:26-28- love others by literally behaving like a servant to them.

Jesus in Luke 14:12-14- If you're gonna have a feast, it'd be best if you invite the poor and crippled, so that you won't expect to be paid.

Jesus in Matthew 25:31-46- If you're unkind to the poor, the homeless, the immigrant, the sick, the imprisoned, or any of the others at the bottom of society, you've literally been unkind to God.

Wait, so if I don't live with an open hand to the poor and needy, I don't really love God? Yep!

What if I make a big deal about everyone's sin? Yeah, that's literally the opposite of what you should do.

Somehow, somewhere, the LITERAL WORDS OF CHRIST have been flipped over. I was somehow convinced that Christ convict and highlight other people's sin, when he LITERALLY TOLD ME TO DO THE EXACT OPPOSITE! I grew up thinking that God wanted us to make the poor work harder, the sick fend for themselves, and the immigrants just go away, when IT'S LITERALLY IN THE BIBLE THAT DOING THOSE THINGS MAKES GOD VERY ANGRY. Like, send-people-to-eternal-punishment angry.

If you had to boil down the message of the gospel and true Christ-Command-Centered-Christianity, it might look something like:

God doesn't hate fags, He hates hypocrites.

God doesn't hate Trans people, He hates people who yell about everyone else's sins.

God doesn't hate abortionists, He hates people who are uncharitable to the poor, homeless, sick, felons, and immigrants.

God doesn't hate anyone. He hates sin, specifically because it hurts us.

GOD LOVES HUMANITY. All of it. That's why He died to save us. We're broken, and so of course we do what makes sense to us. No one should be surprised by that. But when we find Him, and are changed by Him, we become acutely aware of how screwed up WE are. Not everyone else. Us. And that revulsion at OUR OWN brokenness, revealed to us by God, shows us just how much He loves the rest of them. And moved to compassion, we ought to strive to relieve their suffering. Just like God is striving to remove ours. Because doing that, loving mankind and giving up everything for them IN SPITE of their brokenness, is the LITERAL gospel.

So yeah, I hope that clears up my position. I'm sure it'll be unpopular with many, but it's the conclusion I've some to after a lot of Bible searching. You can believe whatever you want, because it's not my job to judge who's right because it's God's job, and He's better at it than I could ever be. But Christ's commands are clear as day in the scripture.

I love all of you, and am just so angry at myself for taking so long to actually go read Jesus' own words. I'm so monumentally disappointed in my own blindness and how my own spirit has twisted God's commands into things that make me look better. I am a Pharisee, and it breaks my heart.

Grace, peace, mercy, and love to you all.

Coffee, and what it taught me about life this morning....

I'm going to surprise, nay, shock, most of you reading this...

I forgot I had a blog...

I can hear your astonished gasps. Yes, indeed, I forgot something.

But oh well! What's done is done, and here I am now, so I guess let's move speedily along, shall we.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with coffee. Growing up, it was ubiquitous in our house. Both of my parents were cup-every-morning drinkers, and there was something almost magical about it all. The gentle burble of the percolator signalling the start of the new day. The welcoming aroma luring you from bed with the promise of something hot to drink. The steam lazily lifting from the mug to dance in the early morning sunlight. You lift the mug, take a deep breath, and sip...

AND SPIT IT OUT BECAUSE ITS SO BITTER AND ANGRY AT EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING!

At least that's how it seemed to me as a kid. And let's be honest, I can't really blame it. If I was plucked from my home, burnt to a crisp, pulverized, drowned, and boiled, I'd probably be a little bitter too. And so, despite loving the smell and sound of coffee, I hated the taste, and so stood wistfully aside, dreaming of being a grown up and actually liking the vile concoction, not understanding how either of my parents could stomach it.

Dad always took his coffee black as pitch. We used to joke that he'd probably be content to chew the burnt beans and rinse with hot water every so often. Mom, however, was one of those people who used coffee as an excuse to justify drinking a whole cup of french-vanilla creamer. For her, just enough coffee to turn the mixture a subtle beige was sufficient.

Finally, as an adult with two children, I bit the bullet and decided to overcome my historical distaste and "embrace the bitterness". I started on easy street. I'd brew a concoction that was 3 parts coffee, 1 part hot cocoa mix, and a single teaspoon of salt. This, with just a little milk and creamer, was enough different flavors that I could work out the coffee flavor and savor it. Now I have ditched the cocoa powder and salt, and find myself sitting at around 4 parts coffee to 1 part creamer, sometimes less if it's a rich creamer (looking at you, my delicious 'sweet Italian cream').

But we recently moved cross-country, and the abandonment of normalcy and routine have been... well, not good. I've been making poor food decisions, poor exercise decisions, sleeping late, staying up late, and generally having trouble staying motivated. Undoubtedly, the difficulty finding a job is part of it. The frustration of constantly applying but never being hired is soul-numbing. But I've decided that, though I cannot make people hire me, I can certainly make myself exercise, make myself eat better, and in general live my life more disciplined, so that's what I'm trying to do.

Cue this morning, typing everything I ate into a fitness/nutrition tracker:

"Ok, so for breakfast I had... 2... slices... white... toast.........1 ... egg........jumbo............. 2 slices.....deli ham.............1 slice... muenster... cheese........."

I stopped and had a sip of coffee, which reminded me:

"2 cups..... coffee....black..... Oh cool, only 10 calories, that's neat. And...... french vanilla creamer....... hmmm, what, about a quarter cup? I need to measure tomorrow, but that'll work for now. Ok, 1 quarter.... cup...... 160 CALORIES!!!!!!!"

I looked guiltily at the cup before I had another sip. That tall cup of coffee was almost half the calories of my breakfast sandwich!

And then it hit me, how much like life that is. Here I am, taking great pride in myself for this added discipline in my life, when I'm secretly adding hundreds of calories back into it! And how true that is of life in general, is it not? We take something that, alone, is not bad for us, and color it with comfort or ease to make it "just a little more palatable", simultaneously sabotaging the very 'goodness' of the thing.

And how like pride that is, as well. We take a merciful act and pollute it with pride, patting ourselves on the back and saying, "everyone surely saw how generous I was to that busker". Or we take something loving and twist it into self-gratification. "I've done all the dishes for three days now. I'm such a great husband." Or we take something that ought to be a given and make ourselves out to be some kind of demi-god. "Man, I've been so generous letting people merge in front of me today. I am so awesome!"

Or any one of a thousand other little trivialities that we flavor with enough pride to massage our egos, at the same time torpedoing the entire value of the exercise. It reminded me of one of the Pauline Epistles, where he points out that all of our righteousness is basically filthy rags. I heard somewhere once that the rags Paul was referencing were the rags ancient women wore during their menstrual cycle. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but the image is certainly striking. We're sitting there, so proud of our 'good deed', but in reality is actually terribly unpleasant.

And I think that's Paul's point. Even when we are trying to do the right thing, we're catastrophically inept at doing it for the right reason. We're motivated by a desire to look good and be noticed. Or, barring that, we're doing it for the warm-fuzzy feelings we get for being a good person. Our intentions are thoroughly corrupted by pride, and the value of the good deed is entirely lost in a pride-powered, french-vanilla flavored, swirl of shameful self-aggrandizement.

This, then, is the mercy of Christ: that He looks at our weakness, covers it with his strength, and presents us to the Father. He takes our disgusting and polluted attempts at goodness and, washing them in His wholly-selfless and sacrificial goodness, presents them as fitting offerings to God. He stands beside us as the Accuser names failure after failure, sin after sin, and, as the prosecution rests, presents His own certificate of death, and proclaims to the Judge "See, the price of these sins is already paid."

I'm incapable of drinking my coffee without adding something to make it taste better to me, but Christ, in His mercy, forgives and covers my fault, be it even so pervasive as cream-laden coffee.

A Few Things...

Goodness, it's been a while. Life really gets out of hand, doesn't it? You get on top of things and think "this isn't so bad after all!" and then you fall off the wagon again. Oh well. I guess that just jives with all the sayings about life, doesn't it?

Anyways, in this time we live in here in the USofA, there's an awful lot going on. Some good, and some bad. I wanted to take a minute to discuss some of the things that ave been on my mind lately and get it written down. I don't always (*cough*hardly ever*cough*) get many comments back on these things, but those of you who know me know I love to talk about things, so feel free to comment and discuss any of these items!

1. SPACE EXPLORATION!!!! So much to talk about here! Juno made it safely to Jupiter, so it's only a matter of time before we start getting some CRAZY awesome information about the biggest non-solar body of our local space! SO COOL! Also, a private company has gotten permission to run some moon missions, so we're going back to the moon! Also, SpaceX has made some immense progress on their reusable rocket program, so the days of having to pay a small fortune to put satellites in space is almost gone!

2. The 2016 Presidential race... Oh boy, way to follow up on a cool thing, huh? *Sigh* As an American, I feel it's my civic duty to have reasons for any decision I make, be it voting or abstaining from voting. And honestly, as much as I hate to admit it, I might not vote this year. I don't want to vote for a candidate I don't believe in. I loathe having to be in this position, but there's seriously no other option I see. I will summarize my opinions on each option briefly:

-Trump: Oh boy, the elephant in the room (hyuck hyuck, Republican joke hyuck hyuck). I agree with him that something needs to be done about the trajectory our country is taking, and I think he has some interesting ideas on how to do it (they may not be feasible or even actionable, but they are interesting). I think his ideas about reducing our reliance on foreign labor by increasing job opportunities for inner-city people is interesting, and perhaps even warrants some consideration. I don't like his xenophobic tendencies, especially his divisive racism and hatefulness, but there are some things I agree with. For example, his insistence that the Russians and Chinese need to be treated with respect, not disdain, I wholeheartedly agree with. They didn't become super-powers for no reason, and treating them like children only alienates ourselves.

-Clinton: My feelings for Madam Clinton are pretty strongly in the negative. I think the results of the email scandal are preposterous. The fact that the FBI's statement is basically, "Well, if it was anyone else..." makes me really frustrated with our justice system. We cannot deny that it's biased in favor of rich white people. This case proves it in the most potent way. I'm not saying she needs to go to prison for life, but the idea that she gets off scott free for grossly negligent handling of sensitive information is, for me, the ONLY reason you need to not vote for her. If she did it once, she'll do it again. She's already learned that there are no consequences.

-3d party: If the Libertarians ever had a year to shine, it was this one, and they tried. Gold star for them. Sadly, it looks like they've got absolutely zero traction. While, morally, I disagree with some of their attitudes about drugs and other issues, I personally think it's the church's job to attempt to alter our moral compass, not the government's job. I think an "all things allowed without injuring others" kind of government is fine, but requires the church to step up and be the moral voice (and all God's children said "but that's wooooork. I don't waaaant to. It's too haaaaard! Waaaaaaaaaah!")

3. The Rio Olympics: Oh Rio. You had such promise! Such colorful culture! Such beautiful geography! *Sigh* Such poverty. Such corruption! Such violence! Such poop-water! I read something the other day about how the Olympic Village is built on top of an old mass-grave for slaves. I think that encapsulates the Rio games well. A shiny and showy exterior built on the oppression and bloodletting of poor innocents.

I hate to end on a sad note, but those are the big talking points I've had bustling around my brain recently. So now they're bustling around yours too. Leave a comment about something you want to hear my opinion about. I have opinions about everything! :-)

Lesson from a baby

The other night, I had an experience taking care of the baby that stuck in my mind.

She had a long day, and it was time to get ready for bed. She started to get a bit fussy, which was just further proof. So I started to get her ready for bed: changed her diaper, put her in warm pajamas, made a bottle. All the usual things.

She got fussier and fussier through the whole process, and I knew why. She was hungry. But I knew that, if she ate a nice big bottle, she'd be ready to go to sleep, so I wanted to make sure she got a clean diaper and comfy pajamas so as soon as she fell asleep, I wouldn't have to wake her. But she just wanted her meal.

And it occurred to me, how much we, as Christians, behave the same way. We're so focused on our immediate desire that we can't recognize the long term benefit gained by patiently waiting on God.

We scream and cry and carry on, oblivious to the plan God is weaving for us. And it's not that what we've fixated on is bad. Shiloh wanted nourishment. She needed it. We also put our immediate needs above God's plan.

And perhaps there are more metaphors we can dig out here. Just like my daughter getting her diaper changed, we have to have our sins stripped away; wiped clean by the sacrifice of Christ. And as I am learning, this process has to be repeated a LOT. We must confess our sins continuously to keep our hearts clean.

Furthermore, just as warm pajamas prepare a baby for a long night sleep, we must try to to prepare for the long night ahead of us. By studying the scriptures and learning all we can from life (meditating on the underlying truths of our daily lives), we allow God to speak to us and prepare us for our journey through the dark.

Of course, it's just part of our limitations as mortal beings. But maybe, just maybe, an awareness of our condition can help us to be more patient in waiting for God to bring it all together for our good. Maybe if we try to remember that the bottle is coming, we'll be more content to get our diaper changed and our pajamas on :-)

((There you go, spiritual lessons from poopy diapers, fuzzy pajamas, and warm bottles))

"Go out into the world..."

"And legislate the gospel."

Something about that seems off...

hmmm....

Oh, right! Silly me!

"Go out into the world and enforce the gospel."

No, that still doesn't look quite right.

Oh right, it's:

"Go out into the world and PREACH the gospel."

It seems that a lot of Christians have forgotten what our job is. It's not to make Christianity the law. It's not even to make sure our laws are the same or nearly the same as the Ten Commandments. Our job is to share the Good News of Christ's death and resurrection.

Legal homosexuality does not change that!

Legal drug use does not change that!

The gender/race/religion/party of our elected officials does not change that!

Our job is the same no matter what, and our job is to preach the gospel.

When we get so spun up about the state of our legal system, or the policies our government supports, or the number of Muslim immigrants into our country, we lose sight of what our actual job is. We get so focused on the things that mean nothing to our mission, that we give up ground on our actual mission.

I am called by God to share the message of His death, burial, and resurrection with all sinners. We are to be a light in the darkness, not a light in the lightness! We cannot truly shine for God unless we find ourselves surrounded by darkness. The fallen nature of the world should make us rejoice, because the Light of Christ will shine all the more brightly through us.

Just some thoughts...