Pray for Sylmar, CA fires

Yikes! How bad is it? Are the Townends in trouble? Is LHS in trouble? All we hear on the national news is about the Montecito fired. Jenn Perlich's post on Facebook is the first I'd heard that Sylmar was dealing with this.

What do you guys know? Do they have it contained? Have many homes been lost? Has the school been closed this week?

Friends and former students- please check in and let us know you're okay

LHS Alumni, and EVERYONE, please pray for the thousands of people who've been evacuated and those losing their homes. And please pray for the safety of LA Lutheran MS/HS!!

Fast-moving Sayre fire forces Sylmar residents from homes
- Los Angeles Times 8:54am

Source: www.latimes.com

An explosive brush fire driven by 60-mile-per-hour gusts ripped through the northern San Fernando Valley today, burning homes before leaping both the 210 and 5 Freeways...

More than 2,500 acres had burned by 5 a.m. Saturday morning, with more than 1,000 structures threatened by uncontrolled flames and more than 10,000 residents were under mandatory evacuation.

Forest for the trees

Love or hate? Hope or fear? Acceptance or rejection? Forgiveness or judgment? Grace or Religiosity? Gospel or Law? Spirit or Letter?

Here's an idea:
It’s not our job to change people so that God will accept them,
It is our job to accept people so that God can change them!

Weren't you listening?

Free Jesus!

Neal Obermeyer, editorial cartoonist for the Lincoln Journal-Star drew this after reading Cal Thomas' column on the religious-right last Sunday. I thought it was awesome.

"Too many conservative Evangelicals have put too much faith in the power of government to transform culture. The futility inherent in such misplaced faith can be demonstrated by asking these activists a simple question: Does the secular left, when it holds power, persuade conservatives to live by their standards? Of course they do not. Why, then, would conservative Evangelicals expect people who do not share their worldview and view of God to accept their beliefs when they control government?"

Read the rest at CalThomas.com.

Remember

"...all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things." ~Kurt Vonnegut

Today, pray for our service men and women and all veterans. And, even if you disagree with an administration's policies or misuse of our military strength, please thank a vet for their service. I know it doesn't always make sense to say that someone fighting in Iraq these days is "fighting for our freedom" but they are- no matter how wrong the politicians get it, our soldiers never risk or sacrifice in vain.

Pray for peace, but most urgently, pray for the peace, strength and comfort of our Vets, current soldiers, and their families.

Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord

I have been trying to say this to my fellow Christians for the last 25 years, but they wouldn't hear me because I'm a lefty. Cal Thomas is notorious arch-conservative columnist. Surely they might just listen to him-

RELIGIOUS RIGHT R.I.P.

By Cal Thomas

Thirty years of trying to use government to stop abortion, preserve opposite-sex marriage, improve television and movie content and transform culture into the conservative Evangelical image has failed. The question now becomes: should conservative Christians redouble their efforts, contributing more millions to radio and TV preachers and activists, or would they be wise to try something else?

...Scripture teaches that God’s power (if that is what conservative Evangelicals want and not their puny attempts at grabbing earthly power) is made perfect in weakness. He speaks of the tiny mustard seed, the seemingly worthless widow’s mite, of taking the last place at the table and the humbling of one’s self, the washing of feet and similar acts and attitudes; the still, small voice. How did conservative Evangelicals miss this and instead settle for a lesser power, which in reality is no power at all? When did they settle for an inferior “kingdom”?

Evangelicals are at a junction. They can take the path that will lead them to more futility and ineffective attempts to reform culture through government, or they can embrace the far more powerful methods outlined by the One they claim to follow. By following His example, they will decrease, but He will increase. They will get no credit, but they will see results. If conservative Evangelicals choose obscurity and seek to glorify God, they will get much of what they hope for, but can never achieve, in and through politics.

Read the entire article on Thomas's official website

Reflections on Grace and the culture wars

Grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, kindness. gentleness...

These come from a place of understanding, of not mere compassion but from empathy.

It's tragic that some of the people who least practice the American ideals embodied in the Declaration and the Preamble are the most nationalistic and pumped full of what they imagine to be patriotism. Just as some of the most zealously claiming to be Christian are so often the least Christ-like. Ever since I attended a Lutheran College, I've seen that some of the least Lutheran people are Lutherans.

Maybe this is what Ghandi meant when he said that it is necessary to be a non-Christian to see the true beauty of Christ.

The problem with the chosen, is that like the good brother who stayed home in the story of the prodigal, we become resentful. Christians want (desire) to understand a simple, clean, black and white universe. And (like adolescents) insist on our understanding of justice. In short, we desire to be in control. In essence, Christians want to be God.

The Irony is that the very people who claim to have God on their side, are even MORE under the rule of sin than all the so-called "sinners," whom they wish to change, control, punish, or eliminate. Because the original sin is thinking that we know better than God, that we are His equal.

Isn't that sad? We judge the Pharisees in the Bible when we read stories about Jesus and think, at least I'm not like THEM- but we do the same thing that they did. So busy shouting God's message that we fail to hear Him speaking, so busy administering His justice for Him that we don't see Him applying mercy. So busy building walls and turrets to defend His kingdom that we miss His call to work in His kingdom.

So busy telling people that God hates homosexuality that we forget He hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors, lepers and the demon possessed, gays and illegal immigrants. So busy arguing that abortion is the commission murder that we allow murder by sins of omission to multiply exponentiation without a care.

Like Jonah, we're all incensed that God doesn't smite all these evil-doers.

The point of this blog is often to try to explain to Christians that hey, many so called liberal values are God's values too. And sometimes when we think our moral issues are ones that God want us to force on others, we might need to reconsider.

I don't think it's wrong to doubt or question. If anything, it makes our faith stronger. But obviously, not every Christian agrees and they like to tell me so.

The Bible says to let your light shine before all men, but Elaenor Roosevelt warns that "What is to give light must endure the burning."

Sometimes being salt and light, means rusting the fancy paint job that they were so proud of and then exposing that corrosion so they can see it better.

I have no doubt that God has definitive opinions, that there are absolutes in the universe- however, how dare I (or anyone) be so arrogant as to assume that I/we/they have the unarguable, inerrant, monopoly on knowing what His absolutes are 100% of the time on 100% of the issues! THAT is one of my problems with the religious right, we all have logs in our own eyes, so how dare we dig for the specks in the eyes of others. Is this relativism? Then I guess you'll have to excommunicate me and assume I'm damned. But God's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, mercy, and desire that people on the left not be alienated and chased away from His family by people on the right burns in my bones like fire. I want to keep silent, but I can not.

If you don't like it, then by all means, stop reading my blogs.

Prayer Request

Please pray for one of my former cheerleaders, Audrey (Lave) Meadows and her two little boys. Her husband was crossing the Little Sioux River outside Onawa Friday AM. It was icy and he slid off the road and rolled several times. Unfortunately, he did not survive. Audrey lost her sister to cancer this year. I can't tell you how awful I feel for her an her family. PLEASE lift them up in your prayers, grant them peace and strength and help them get through this. Ask God to remind her that they are in His hands and that He will never let them go.

James 5:13-16
Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Whoever says, "I am in the light," while hating a brother or sister,
is still in the darkness.
Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light.

- 1 John 2:9-10

The 800 pound Gorilla in the room

I posted 'Dear Republican friends, neighbors,' a paraphrase of Lincoln's inaugural address, which Barack Obama quoted last night in his speech, on Facebook. Now, honest to God, I meant it in a genuinely conciliatory spirit. I truly believe that to heal our nation, Republicans and Democrats need to work together and try to find common ground on whatever issues we can. Well, someone must have felt like I was being condescending or gloating or something because the next thing I know people are posting comments on my note back and forth getting in a big heated argument over abortion (which I never mentioned, I deliberately go out of my way never to mention it if I can ever help it). Holy guacamole!

Look, I'm not in favor or abortion on demand, but I'm also not prepared to deny abortions to victims rape or incest. Clinton and Obama have had the same position, "safe, legal, and RARE." To assume that Obama is going to force everyone to support abortion is just as irrational as to assume he's going to take away all our guns and raise all our taxes and make us all godless socialists or punish us all for segregation and slavery.

Please, if you're staunchly Pro-Life, don't let yourself be gripped by fear and hatred of everyone on the left. As a matter of fact, you may discover that we value life too. My personal problem is that it has sometimes seemed like, at least the Bush administration claimed to want to protect the rights of the unborn, but totally disregarded the rights of anyone who's already been born.

Some statistics have suggested that the number of abortions in the United States dropped during the Clinton administration. I know it's hard to accept, but what many Democrats and Christians on the left want to do is discover the conditions that lead women to consider abortion as an option and reduce the number of abortions by addressing those possible "causes."

I don't know how to be careful about this next thing I have to say, but I want you to know that I really mean it, I'm not trying to just be flippant or glib- Maybe abortion activists need to rethink their alliance with the Republican Party. There was a time when George W. Bush and the Neo-conservative movement controlled all three branches of government and yet they didn't overturn Roe v. Wade, pass sweeping legislation or executive orders prohibiting abortion or amend the constitution. Instead, the tapped phones, conducted torture, politicized the Justice Department, and unilaterally and preemptively started a war in a small country that had nothing to do with 9/11. Is it possible, perhaps, that the Republican Party, or at least the Bush Administration only used your passionate belief about abortion to take advantage of your political leverage?

I don't know a lot. I know my children are miracles and blessings from God that I would never trade. I believe that like a Grandpa, God loves babies. I know that using abortion callously as a convenient alternative to birth control is vile. But I don't know when life begins, is it before conception? At conception? When there are brain waves? When the baby is viable outside the womb? I'm not prepared to declare definitively for everyone because I am not God. I don't even know if Roe v. Wade should be overturned. It seems to me that Republicans used to be the party of States' Rights and the original argument against Roe was that whether abortion should be legal should be left up to the individual state. But I also know that far fewer women have died in back alleys from having wire coat hangers shoved up them since abortion has been a professionally supervised medical procedure nation wide and I know that I for one don't want to go back to those days.

Am I wrong? Plenty of you may think so.

Does that mean that we can't work together to dig our way out of the mess our country is in after the last eight years of mismanagement? Does it mean that you can't be friendly or neighborly to me? Does it mean that you can't bring yourself to pray for our new duly elected President because you can't see him as anything but some kind of vicious baby killer?

Wow, what a shame if it does.

I'm not trying to be pious or holier-than-though when I beg you to remember the words of our Lord: "Love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you."

If you think that I'm under the Devil's control, or you seriously fear for our nation because Obama just got elected. Please, lean on love not hate, on mercy not anger, on Gospel rather than Law- If you think I'm wrong, don't judge me, pray for me. Don't curse the new administration, pray for them. Leave it in God's hands.

"Love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you."

Dear Republican friends, neighbors, and loved ones,

To paraphrase Lincoln, "Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the a conservative bent that by the accession of a Democratic Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection."

I hope that ALL Christians will pray for our new President elect, no matter how vehemently you opposed him.

Lincoln said a great deal in his first inaugural address that is valuable for us today-

""Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty...

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of so called 'culture wars.' The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. (as Sen. Obama pointed out last night)We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Please ask God to help ALL of us seek what is best and how we can find common ground.

An edifying experience

I have no doubt that the Legion will never ask me to speak on Memorial Day or deliver the Gettysburg Address- if not because I've never served in the military then because of my decidedly left-leaning politics. Because I'm so outspoken and have written about my political opinions in a local newspaper, it may also be unlikely that I'll ever get to teach History again rather than just Art and Yearbook unless we move to some other state. But I recently had the honor of reading a very moving patriotic piece at our ms/hs band/choir concert. It was a lot of fun, and it should give us all something to think about this weekend.

Read about it here:
http://tedscolumn.blogspot.com/2008/10/edifying-experience.html