Sarah Palin

First I'll say this. It is an exciting time that we are in that no matter which party wins the presidency it will be historic. Either our first black man in the white house or our first women. Either way it's amazing and exhilarating.

I'll also say this, either way I think it's cool. I believe McCain is a decent guy. I don't agree with some of his policies but I don't agree with some of Obama's either.

I think it's interesting that the things that make Sarah Palin such a great candidate for the Vice Presidential candidacy for the Republican party are that she is a maverick, she stood up to the Republican party, she stood up to big oil. Usually when that happens you are called a Democrat. I love the praise for her for disagreeing with her own party. "Hey, Palin is great she doesn't agree with us!" But I hear she is a "real" conservative as well because she takes money away from programs like shelters for teen moms to have their babies in...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/02/palin_slashed_funding_to_help.html?hpid=artslot

I guess her daughter won't be needing that shelter because she will be well taken care of by her her.

I do respect her for having her baby. I just wish she was going to raise it. Ironically the complaint I hear every day as a teacher is that parents aren't raising their kids, the system is. Well I guess it's ok for a system to raise your kids when you can afford to pay for the system.

I Just Woke Up

I wish that were metaphorical for my spiritual awareness but it's not, it's literal. I just got out of bed. 2 more weeks of summer and then back to school. :(

Tidbits of what I'm learning this summer. I've been reading Shane Claiborne's Jesus for President book and he's such a wussy and I want to be like him and in turn more like Jesus.

Newest thoughts on prayer, sweating and crying

So a lot has happened since the last time I have really written in my blog.
I have been from Daytona Beach to Southern California. I've started my disc golf season and I'm in the middle of getting my masters degree. I've seen friends healed of paralysis, Sherry's shoulder healed, bought a new macbook and then told by my boss he was going to buy me a macbook pro. All random and unpredictable.

I've been thinking a lot about what we do as Christians and what we don't do. When life/God presents us with a challenge do we stand up and take it? Should we stand up and take it? When life/God presents us with opportunities that are risky, should we enter in even if we are going to look dumb or risk relationships or lose money?

There are things I would love to do if I could but I can't because [fill in your/my excuse here].

I am amazed that when the decisions I've made, that I've prayed over and sweat over and even cried over are in there worked out stage and all I need to do is settle in and do whatever it was I decided to do, a whole new set of decisions pop up and I need to start praying and sweating and crying all over again. I feel like I'm in a constant state of flux. Never really settled, never really stopping, never really in a place where I have finished the things I decided to do in the first place. Nothing has come to it's true completion and so it seems as if I am just piling. Piling up more stuff to worry about, more things to do "for God", more situations to handle, more relational fires to put out, more hard choices that take up my mental energy.

Sometimes I wish it were easier, sometimes I wish I was taller, sometimes I feel like I have my shit together, sometimes I really realize that God is in control and He's teaching me how to be a grown up.

Jamie Gillentine's Sermon

Winter Bites!

I'm so cold that the phrase burned out needs to be changed to iced out.

Ramblings and learnings

So I've been thinking a lot about faith and sin and service and leadership . I'm just not sure if we are all going to agree on everything, big or small. I do know this though, I will never break off fellowship or friendship with anyone for ideology or theology or a philosophical differences of opinion. I argue with my friends about life and love and politics and Jesus and [fill in the blank] and we have all got to this point in our road for specific reasons. I've been a Christian for over 20 years. I don't take any opinion or belief I have lightly. I also don't take any of my OPINIONS to seriously either. Not one belief is more important than a person. I disagree with everyone about something. Some big things and some small things. If I were to flush out EVERY issue we would disagree about fundamental values, how to raise kids, how to fight fair with our spouse, how to be a "good" Christian. We can find differences, but are those differences going to define me? Sometimes we take out our sword and we start chopping ears off. I don't know when it's time to chop ears off but it seems like Jesus was never about chopping ears off. bss [big sad sigh!]

The Caucus Is Over!

Interesting experience to say the least.

I feel bad for the underdog candidates on the Dem side because if we would have done a straw pole Biden and Richardson and maybe even Dodd would have had a bigger piece of the pie. The way it works for Dems is we litterally stand in the corner of our candidate and if we have 15% of the room our candidate is viable. Viable means we get a delegate. Our presinct got 5 Deligates to split bteweenthe whole room. We had 222 people total in the room and we needed 34 people to make Biden viable. We only had 27 and nobody was moving. There were like 5 undecided and the Hillary people were giving them the crazy eye and hitting them with signs so I wasn't going over there. Biden actually had an OK percentage of the room but because we had to stand were someone was viable we had to move. So, in the media it looked like the underdogs didn't have the support that they really did. Oh well, either way Hillary didn't win and I feel ok about that.

By the way my Republican bretheren, Pat Robertson won Iowa when he was runnnig for president. So don't get that Oval office chair form fitted to Huckabee's butt just yet. John McCain won New Hampshire in 2004 so maybe he will again. And could someone please tell Thompson to put his bags away.

Did I mention how crazy Hillary's people were? They scared me.

Obama/Biden
Obama/McCain
Obama/ ?????

Raucous Caucus Robots?

So tonight we Caucus! Never Caucused before. I wonder what it will be like?
I'm caucusing for Joe Biden. I've met him. I like him and I kinda trust him.
I don't really trust any of them, but Joe seems very real and down to earth. He's smart and has plenty of experience [which is a nice way to say he's been in politics for a long time.] I don't like his voting record on abortion but on mostly everything else I can't complain. I think he can get us out of Iraq with us looking OK and with Iraq in the best shape.
I'm really looking forward to this all being over just to see who running mates are and who both sides end up with as there candidates. I really wish there could be a bi-partisan ticket like Biden-McCain or Obama-Huckabee. I think that would really cause the nation to scratch their heads for a moment and not just be so quick to demonize the other guy.
If you take Hillary and Giuliani out of the mix there really isn't anyone else that is that offensive. They are all [except those two] palatable.
The iorony behind this blog is that Hillary-Giulliani is a very likely ticket and everything I just said goes right out the window.