VP Joe Biden’s Daughter – What Ought We to Focus On?

Radar Online has a report out about a guy shopping a secretly taped video of Joe Biden’s daughter , Ashley, reportedly snorting cocaine.  I don’t know if the video is real or not.  Either way, I find it just as wrong to make that an issue as making Sarah Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy.

First, we all debase ourselves or, even worse, reveal our own warped souls when we revel in this stuff.  If we find some sort of glee in the downfall of another person, and find some sense of satisfaction in how another persons sins advance our political positions we are the losers.

Second, have some sympathy with a parent whose child is heading down a path of destruction.  I doubt if Joe Biden and I agree on much of anything.  But that doesn’t mean I ought to feel good about his daughter’s drug issues if they are true.  Instead, as a father, I sympathize with what Joe and his wife must be feeling and thinking.

Third, there are plenty of real issues to be concerned about.  Let’s debate those and stop using the tactics of personal destruction.  Let’s talk about principles of freedom and liberty.  Let’s talk about and debate what will advance the cause of justice and righteousness in this country.

Maybe we just want to win.  Maybe we have become a nation of voyeurs.  Maybe our politics have degenerated into nothing more than another form of Entertainment tonight.

I hope not.

So Joe, if what is being written about your daughter is true, then you have my heartfelt sympathy and prayers.  My hope is that she will be free from this and you and your family will be stronger together on the other side of this problem.

Dangerous People?

I’ve been overly busy and haven’t had time to really post anything in a while.  I have a whole list of things I’m wanting to write about – soon I hope.  In the mean time here is a video for your thoughts.

On Love

This week I have been meditating on the Scripture “God is love.”  That statement is found twice in 1st John chapter four.  That is not a taut-ism.  One can’t turn it around and say “love is God,” although that is what some try to do with it.  Nor is that a complete statement about God’s nature.  The same writer tells us that “God is light” and “God is spirit.”

But the statement is not only a statement about the nature of God.  It is a statement about the nature of God with ethical implications.  Intertwined and sandwiched between his “God is love” statements is a lot of talk about how that necessarily means that followers of Christ are to love each other.

After asking myself and asking God in prayer some questions about that I had an interesting but not uncommon experience late in the day.  I received a call on my cell phone as I was leaving Sam’s Club.  It was an acquaintance.  I can’t call him a friend.  Not because he doesn’t seem to be a nice person, but because I only know him on a professional basis.  I’ve known this man for about seven years and we have had three or four brief phone conversations, one face to face meeting, and a few Christmas cards.

We have never talked at any length about our likes and dislikes.  He couldn’t tell you anything about my story nor I his.  We live hundreds of miles apart.  Even if we lived next door to each other, I wonder if we would hang out much.  Not because he is a bad guy, but our personalities are so different I just couldn’t envision him being my bff (do you hate that acronym as much as I do?).

He called me for professional/business reasons.  He made a couple of jokes.  I laughed.  I was loading stuff in a truck.  I promised to call him back next week.  He signed off with the words “I love you.”  I thought “you don’t even know me.”

Is he sincere – without question.  To a degree it is probably true.  I think he does love me in some way.  But his words didn’t move me or have any real impact  because I know how easy it is to love people we don’t really know.  Love is easy from a distance.

That is why I appreciate it so much when Monica, my wife, says “I love you.”  She knows me.  She knows my weaknesses, my flaws, my failures.  She has to daily tolerate my idiosyncrasies and annoying habits.  She has watched me grow over the past 30 years – and I mean grow from 145 lbs to 190 lbs.  She knows that I’m not all that.  So when she says “I love you” it really means something to me.

When my brothers in sisters in Christ I have worshipped with the past 7 1/2 years say, “I love you” it means something.  Like my wife, though not to the same degree, they have come to know what is wrong with me as well as what is right with me.  When one of them hugs me, smiles and says “I love you” (the guys usually have to say “love ya man” with a couple of closed fisted pounds to the back and a non-lingering hug) it matters to me.

It is easy to love the homeless a thousand miles away who only come as close as a glossy magazine photo.  It is much harder to love the man who stands in my path reeking of alcohol and demanding I hand over some of my hard-earned money which I know he will undoubtedly use for more drink.

It is easy to love the African orphans on late night TV.  It is much more difficult to love the kid dressed in black, with metal studs poking out of every body part staring at me with the look that says “I dare you to say something.”

I’ve noticed that people tend to speak with more admiration and respect for people they know from a distance and have a much more difficult time doing the same for those they rub elbows with every day.  I guess this also explains why people only achieve “saint status” after they are dead.

It is only by the grace of God and the working of His Spirit that we can really learn to love as we ought to love.

God has no such trouble.  God is love.  Everything He does flows from His nature and His nature is love.  So God’s justice is loving justice.  God’s grace is loving grace.   God’s providence is loving providence.

The most amazing thing of all is that God loves me.  God knows me better than anyone.  He sees not just what I do, but he sees the twisted an skewed motives that often drive me.  He hears what I say, not just with my lips, but with my heart – and often it isn’t good, kind, or right.  The attitudes, thoughts, lusts, fears and hang-ups that would drive almost anyone away, God knows – and still God loves.

I don’t doubt God’s love.  Not because I am all that lovable, but because he has demonstrated his love for me.  He made a way of redemption.  He gave.  He gave His very best.  Even when my face was turned away from Him.  Even when I denied Him.  Even when I cursed His name.  He loved.  He came in Jesus Christ.  He turned me back.  He is carrying me home.

He knows me.  And yet he says “I love you.”

Now that means something.

He says the same to you as well.

The Coming Obama Tax on the Poor and Middle Class

President Obama has made much of his oft-repeated statment that he is only going to raise taxes on the rich (the definition of rich seems to be quite fluid).  What is being missed is the fact that if some of his policies are enacted it is going to have a draconian effect on the poor and middle class.  How so?

Congress is rushing to pass bills dealing with CO2 controls.  Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman have committed to a floor vote to establish a price on carbon based fuels before the Memorial Day recess.  Depending on what is passed the outcome will be that electric bills will double, triple or quadruple over the never several years.  There is no more regressive tax than that.

Then, there is the fact that the new Interior Secretary is taking more land away from being available for oil production.  Off shore drilling is being limited.  Anwar is still off limits.  The result is going to be increased dependence on foreign oil and long-term decrease in our ability to become engery independent.  Mark it down – gas prices are going to go through the roof again.  Rich, middle class or poor – it amounts to government policy that is going to tax everyone.  It’s sad because the lower fuel costs have been the one saving grace for families during this economic downturn.

I’m all for alternative and cleaner ways of producing energy.  I live in Oklahoma and wind power is becoming a big thing  here.  I’m 100% behind it.  The science behind solar power continues to improve.  The costs will eventually come down.  Like all new technology the front-end is more costly than it will be when it can be mass produced and marketed.  But those energy sources can’t meet the demands of the market.  Like it or not, we need coal, natural gas and nuclear energy for the economy of America to work.

But ideology is driving this administration to add to the burden of families already struggling financially.  Energy costs are going to have a crippling effect.

Let me make a prediction.  When it happens those in power will pull the wool over they eyes of the American people and use the result of their own disasterous policies to further empower themselves.

Here is how it will go down: There will be a tipping point where the outcry about energy costs will become so loud that the politicians will have to respond.  Their predictable response will be to blame the energy producers.  They will cite CEO salaries, profit numbers, and wage all out class warfare.  They will ignore completely the fact that the policies they imposed on these industries is what drove the prices up.  They won’t mention the enormous taxes these industries are forced to pay to the fed.  It will be all about blaming the big business.

If this administration is still around, at that point there will be a move to nationalize the energy industry.  It will be another huge power grab by government.

If that sounds far fetched just look at past history.  They have demonized the medical and drug companies and now they are working to nationalize health care.  They demonized the banking and finance industry and they are working towards nationalizing the banking industry.  Last year when gas prices were around $4.00 a gallon they were demonizing the oil industry and there was talk of nationalizing that industry.  That talk will return.

The demonized the banking industry for making loans to people who couldn’t pay them back and yet they (the govt. policymakers) were the ones who forced the banks to make those loans.  They demonize the medical industry for the cost of health care, but they never mention that one of the largest factors in health care costs is malpractice insurance.  Malpractice insurance is so high because it is so easy for lawyers to make a living suing doctors and hospitals.  Yet the politicans won’t do anything about tort reform.  Why?  The vast majority of them are lawyers and they get huge piles of cash from lawyers.

So when, President Obama starts trying to sell you on this idea that he is only soaking the rich get ready because you are fixin to get all wet yourself.

Stupid Christian Tricks

I thought for sure I must have been on the Lark News web site when I started reading this, but alas it is USA today.  I don’t know – weep or laugh?

Inspiration

Here is a really fine inspirational video off of you tube: