Thursday Ramblings

Last week my friend (and our pastor) Eric talked about going to The Festival of Homiletics (a conference on preaching) and talked about how much he enjoyed it. I, understandably, gave him a hard time about that. Yesterday and today I’ve listened to no less than 5 sermons and/or lectures from the 2007 Festival of Homiletics. Apparently I am as big a church geek as he is.

One day soon I will run out of stories to tell. I guess, at that point, I’ll have to start making stuff up. For now, I still have stories. They may or may not be entertaining, but I have stories.

Well, I have to say; I’m not feeling it today. Nothing is jumping out at me screaming to be written.

Actually I do have a few sort of random thoughts. Most of them skew into the realm of politics. Nice, Religion earlier this week. Politics today. Fun.

I’ve become really disenchanted with our political system lately. Last week I watched parts of the Healthcare Summit. It became evident pretty early on that that particular Merry-Go-Round would be nothing but a chance for candidates to make campaign speeches. The most important thing in the minds of most everyone in that room was November. How can we keep power? How can we regain power? How can I discredit the other side?

I know it’s nothing new, but the situation seems even more profound than in the past. Somehow over the last year and a half the political divide in our great nation has only widened. Fear. Misinformation. Conspiracy theories. Anger.

I hear the anger at work weekly, if not daily. Most of it is directed at our president.

“He’s a socialist!” “He’s a Muslim!” “He hates America!”

Do you really believe that our president hates America? Do you really believe that Democrats are trying to “ruin” our country? Or Republicans for that matter?

I’ve just stopped paying attention. At this point it doesn’t matter what one side says, the other side will call it lies.

I never thought I would say (or type) these words. I miss Ted Kennedy. I didn’t like Ted. I disagreed with him for most of my life. But Ted knew how to get things done. He knew how to reach across the aisle. He knew how to compromise. He realized that both parties have the same goal – to make America as great a nation as possible.

Maybe the problem is the definition of a “great” nation. Maybe that’s the first thing we need to figure out.

OK, one last thing. I heard a hilarious quote the other day. Most of you who read this know that my political leanings are pretty moderate and may lean (at least in the last 3-4 years) a little to the left. I heard someone I know well speak these words last week. I just had to shake my head and sigh.

“If global warming exists it’s probably a good thing. Just think about all of that land in Canada that’s frozen right now. That’s probably some great soil.”

I’ll sum up with this: What really bothers me is the anger. A lot of Americans are angry. Scary angry. The Southern Poverty Law Center released a study last week that shows that participation in militias and other extremist groups is booming. That is scary.

I hope Americans can remain rational. I hope politicians will scale back the fear mongering. If not, another Oklahoma City type bombing is not only possible, it’s likely.