Sin and Consequences

I really hate the consequences of sin. In my life I have had to deal with the consequences of my own sin, poor choices that led to difficult outcomes. When someone sins that has a wide influence, it spills out in so many directions and affects so many lives. Our choir recently began working on a wonderful song titled Healer. It was written by a young Australian minister who wrote the song in one sitting after finding out that he had an aggressive, terminal cancer. At one of our choir rehearsals we showed a You Tube video from Hillsong Church telling the story of the song and its impact at Hillsong. It was very moving and impacted each person there. Hillsong recorded the song on their latest CD. Earlier this week the world began to discover that this story is a total fabrication. There was no cancer and associated health problems. It was with great sadness that I told our choir last night about this terrible turn of events. While we want to be forgiving and compassionate, a lot of lives have been affected, and it gives people another example to point to when they say things like, "Christians are all hypocrites" or "If you can't get your act together and you say you are a Christian, how do you expect me to believe that there is anything to being a Christian." I hate the black eyes that these kind of events give us. And yet, at the same time it reminds us that God doesn't expect people to look to us for righteousness, He wants us to turn to Him. Even David, a man after God's own heart, was guilty of a heinous crime as King of Israel. Not only did he receive forgiveness, today we draw great strength and truth from David's Psalms. When the disappointment from this situation begins to fade, perhaps we'll work on the song again. It really is a great song. In the meantime, we'll try to keep our eyes on Jesus, just Jesus.

Life Can Be So Frustrating

I have enjoyed watching portions of the televised Olympics this summer. There have been some great victories and triumphs. And then there's been some shocking losses, stumbles and pure "choking". One of the poignant pictures is of Lolo Jones agonizing over her loss in the 100M hurdles. She was ahead, and favored for the gold medal, until she hit the second to last hurdle. It threw her timing off so bad that she could not recover before the finish line and ended out of the medals. Gymnasts had their troubles, divers and swimmers did as well. Even our undefeated ladies softball team choked and missed a gold medal. Both of our 400M relay teams (men and women) dropped their batons and were disqualified. Both teams were highly favored for gold medals. I can't imagine the frustration and disappointment of training and working for 4 years, and then not accomplishing what you set out to do. Some of these athletes will not have another chance in 4 years, their bodies won't let them. For others, life will take twists and turns that will not take them to London in 2012. But I do know the frustration of planning, working and trying to get something off the ground only to end in failure or defeat. God didn't promise us that He would smooth out our way and keep us from frustration and failure. He simply promised to be with us, to walk with us, to impart His wisdom and to be true to His word. I wonder if the little Chinese gymnast has any hope after falling off the balance beam? As the rude and uncompassionate cameraman zoomed in on her face, she tried to be brave, but tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Let's hope a Christian gymnast was able to love her, and allow Christ to show Himself through her. There's no denying it, life can be tough, but it's not without hope.

Here Are Some Quotes

I enjoy reading quotes. Here are a few recent ones from on of the blogs that I read.

"I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars." Fred Allen

"Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen." Bob Edwards

"My theory is that if you look confident you can pull off anything - even if you have no clue what you're doing." Jessica Alba

"The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." Ronald Reagan

"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with." W.C. Fields

"Every man serves a useful purpose: A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor." Laurence J. Peter

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

"Just about the time that you think that there is nothing new in the world, someone comes along and stuns us with a new discovery or invention. The most interesting ones are the ones that provoke the thought, 'That is so simple, I should of thought of that'." Louie Salazar

The Highlight Of the Summer

Every year at this time (getting ready to go back to school) I have fond memories of my childhood. When I was in elementary school my mother did not drive. A couple of weeks before school started each year, my two sisters, my mother and I got on a city bus and traveled to downtown San Jose. The bus would let us off right in front of the large JC Penney store. We would shop all morning and get everything we needed for the next school year. To this day, I still buy a lot of clothes, particularly underwear (can you write that on a public blog?) at JC Penney because of those wonderful experiences. For the second part of this great experience we would lug all our bags down the street to the Woolworth store. We would plunk ourselves down at the lunch counter and have a feast for lunch. Eating out was a rarity when I was growing up, so this was a real treat. In fact, to this day I don't drink many soft drinks because we did not have soft drinks in our home. I never got used to having them in my diet.

When I look back on my childhood, I never felt like we were poor, or things were excessively tight. But I also know that my parents had the kind of jobs that didn't require a college education or specific skills, which meant they probably had to do a lot of "juggling" to make everything work out. Now that I am raising a family, I have a huge appreciation for what my parents had to do in order to raise us in a wonderful home environment. I know they made a lot of personal sacrifices to make sure we had everything we needed. One of the huge sacrifices they made was to pay for music lessons for my sisters and me. I am a church musician today because of the foundation of piano lessons that my parents provided. This was a wonderful gift to me.

After we finished our feast at the Woolworth lunch counter, we lugged our new clothes bags back to the front of the JC Penney store and caught our bus home. My sisters and I usually fell asleep after our big downtown adventure. The only hard part of the whole day was carrying our treasures several blocks from the bus stop to our home. Those were great days. The sad part about this is that I can't share the Woolworth lunch counter experience with my children. Woolworth went out of business several years ago. It just doesn't seem the same when you drive to the mall, shop from store to store, eat at the food court and drive home.

The last part of this great adventure was wearing the clothes for the first time. I can't even believe that some kids wanted their mothers to wash their clothes before they wore them for the first time. I loved the smell of new clothes and I would wear them over and over again before the first washing because I didn't want the new clothes smell to go away. I think it probably went away faster then I remember, especially on hot days in late August. Writing this has made me very nostalgic. I think I'd better go buy a new shirt and underwear at JC Penney next week, just in time for school to start.

20% Turnout

I had a brand new experience on Tuesday, Aug. 5th, I was a precinct judge for the Missouri election. I arrived at the polling location at 5AM and finished at 8PM when I helped deliver our ballots and official materials to a central location. Here are some of my observations of this new experience:

1. I was surprised how political the process is. There had to be an even number of Republican and Democrat workers at the polling location. Every person who voted had to fill out a voter ticket and a Republican and Democrat worker has to initial every voter ticket. Then the voter signed into a log, and again, a worker from both parties had to initial the signature. When we began the closing up process, all the logs and record keeping documents had to be signed off by workers from both parties. Then, to complete the process, a Republican and a Democrat had to go together in the same car to deliver the locked and sealed ballots to the central collection location. This bit of bureaucracy slowed the voting process down considerably, and we didn't have that many voters.

2. I was surprised that only 20% of the registered voters in this precinct actually voted. And, not everyone who is eligible to register and vote is even registered. It is disappointing that such a small group of people elect our leaders. I guess the moral of the story is, "if you don't vote, don't complain about the leaders performance". We had a supplemental list of registered voters. These are people that registered to vote at the last minute, and their names were not in the pre-printed logs. In our precinct, no one on that last minute list voted. Why bother to register?

3. This was really an enjoyable process. It was great to greet so many people I didn't know and assist them to participate in our democratic process. I think I want to work for the general election in November. It will probably be a "zoo" because the turnout rate will be very high. Even though this precinct only has approximately 1,000 registered voters, the results from this precinct really matter, and I had a small part in that.