Sorry to interrupt the whole Palin discussion, but this is just sick. (Old people translation “sick”=”really really cool”).
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Archive for September, 2008
Kathleen Parker over at the National Review Online wrote an article on Friday calling for Sarah Palin to resign as the VP candidate. Just so you know, I think that I would really like Mrs. Palin as a person. She seems very sharp, intelligent, witty, & confident. These are all things that I really like in other people. I think she has a very bright political career in her future. The key word being “future.” But, I think that she is a poor VP choice right now. I’ve thought so since the beginning. The McCain camp is building their entire mudslinging campaign around the cornerstone of Obama’s inexperience. With McCain being so very, very old, the last thing he needs is a young, controversial, inexperienced candidate ready to step up in his place should something happen. It makes their attacks on Obama look hypocritical. That made it an iffy choice in the first place, but now, what with the financial situation and all, I think it has turned into a downright bad choice. I don’t know whether it is enough to withhold a vote from McCain, but it certainly doesn’t make me want to run to the polls. This is a shame for McCain because I think that there are a good number of voters who feel the same. This financial stuff has really caused a lot of people to rethink things. Personally, I think that a conservative economic policy is our best bet at getting through the woods here, which makes me favor McCain, but the Palin thing is making it hard. What do you think?
I have, at long last, found full-time employment. I am officially a long-term substitute at a middle school in inner city Boston. After my first day, I wasn’t sure if I was really, actually employed or if I had died in my sleep & been sent to Hell. They threw me into a classroom with no plans & no information about what they had been covering. I was given no information about the school’s discipline policies, so I had almost no power. The students came into the room talking a blue streak & I, literally, never had a single moment of silence or full attention the entire day. Today was my second day & it was much better. I guess I just had to lay down a bit of the old “Peters Law” & straighten these little punks out. I assigned 7 detentions today & threatened several more, but when it was all said & done they realized that I meant business & maybe learned a thing or two in the process. I feel like I’m in the movie “Dangerous Minds.” But all-in-all I am so thankful to finally have a job & I’m a stubborn son of a gun. I will be a good teacher for these kids, unless of course they kill me first… which might be a real possibility.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”
-Jesus-
I think that this may be the most difficult command that Jesus ever gave. I have never been a worrier. I’ve always stayed on a remarkably stress free path, but I am finding lately that I am stressed more often than not & I don’t like it. I’ve always felt that I was in control of what happened to me, & that I was running a pretty good show. But take me away from my comfortable job, my family, my church, my friends & I find, as C.S. Lewis so eloquently puts it, that “my sturdy home was nothing more than a house of cards all along.”
The positive in all of this is that God is showing me more than ever that He is the one who gives & He is the one who takes away. I must learn to take comfort in the knowledge that the Lord is good, His plans for creation are good, & that He loves me enough to allow me to be a part of those plans. Does that mean things will come up roses for me? Is God going to now bless me with wealth & success beyond measure if I will just have faith? As if God had nothing better to do than to grant my wishes. Is He some sort of genie in a bottle? Absolutely not, & to believe so would be a very self-centered & empty faith indeed. To be able to take part in God’s kingdom & His redemptive work on Earth ought to be enough. I want to be able to stand & say, as Paul did, that “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”
I think that the Lord is trying desperately to whisper that secret to me. I only pray that I have the ears to hear.
New Kids on the Block has a song in the top ten for the first time in 20 years. I’m pretty sure this is one of the signs of the end times. Here’s the outrageous music video for NKOTB’s new single “Summertime.” As you are watching, take time to reminisce about the last time the New Kids had a hit. You remember, your sister was sitting there with her huge bangs that flowed back into a very stylish she-mullet decorating her jeans with magic markers & random tears here & there. She was in looooove with Joey from NKOTB ever since he somehow “looked & pointed at her” during the concert with 40,000 other screaming girls all around who also thought that he was actually pointing at them. Ahhh, those were the days, or maybe that was just my sister. Whaddaya think, Katie? Do they still do it for you? Anyway, enjoy the video!
