I promise I will get to another missions post soon. In the meantime, enjoy this link:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/west/view/2008_11_21_Sarah_Palin_pardons_turkey_while_others_slaughtered_during_interview/
I love it. Palin pardons turkey. Palin turns around to give interview. Turkey farm continues to slaughter turkeys in the background. This is a great metaphor for...well, any number of things. Have fun!
Urbi et Orbi,
TBG
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Mind The Gap
It has now been a full 10 days since my last post. My most humble apologies! School has been absolutely crazy. I will have another post on missions tomorrow, Lord willing and the creek don't rise (as Dr. James Strange would say). In the meantime, I would encourage everyone to check out savedarfur.org and prayerfully consider what we as Christians can do about the crisis in Sudan. The human rights group on campus here recently showed a documentary about the genocide that has been taking place, and God's been putting it on my heart to take action, but I'm not sure what to do just yet. Suggestions?
Urbi et Orbi,
TBG
Urbi et Orbi,
TBG
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Yes, We Can
My ancestors came to this nation on a dirty, cramped boat. They came because the potato crop had failed, and they needed food. They needed life and liberty. They needed Hope.
When they came, they met poverty, hunger, and adversity. They met with employers who posted signs that read "No Irish Need Apply". But they kept on striving. They had Hope.
48 years ago, one of us was given the highest honor any mortal man can have: to lead the United States of America. An Irish Catholic kid from Brookline, Massachusetts was elected President of the United States. He had his failings, and his moral faults. But he stood for equality, justice, and freedom. Though he was struck down as a young man, his flame still burns in Arlington, and his Hope still lives.
Barack Obama's ancestors came from very different places. They came, from Africa and Europe, from Kansas and Kenya. They strove and persevered. They needed life and liberty. Above all, they Hoped.
What was the Hope of John F. Kennedy and Barck Obama? What gave them so much strength in the face of so much adversity, and kept them going when all seemed impossible? It was the promise that some truths are self-evident, that all men are created equal, that we really are endowed with certain unalienable Rights. It was the faith that this is a nation with a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and that this reality will not perish from this earth. It was the strength that comes from knowing that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. It was the Hope, that Yes, We Can.
How will history remember this night? How will we tell our grandchildren about how the Irish Catholics in Boston and the Blacks in Chicago, the Hispanics in Florida and the Asians on the West Coast, and even Anglo-Saxons in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, all stood up and said "Yes, We Can"? We will remember that Tonight, our nation accomplished something incredible. It's longer-lasting than the victory in World War 2. It's bigger than putting a man on the moon. The wall we tore down was stronger than the wall that Reagan defied. We looked at an entire race of people in the eye, we spoke to a continent we had wronged for so long, we conjured up the ghosts that have longed for freedom since 1619, and we said to them, "Yes! You Can! You can Hope too!"
I have never been more proud to be an American. May God continue to bless our great nation.
When they came, they met poverty, hunger, and adversity. They met with employers who posted signs that read "No Irish Need Apply". But they kept on striving. They had Hope.
48 years ago, one of us was given the highest honor any mortal man can have: to lead the United States of America. An Irish Catholic kid from Brookline, Massachusetts was elected President of the United States. He had his failings, and his moral faults. But he stood for equality, justice, and freedom. Though he was struck down as a young man, his flame still burns in Arlington, and his Hope still lives.
Barack Obama's ancestors came from very different places. They came, from Africa and Europe, from Kansas and Kenya. They strove and persevered. They needed life and liberty. Above all, they Hoped.
What was the Hope of John F. Kennedy and Barck Obama? What gave them so much strength in the face of so much adversity, and kept them going when all seemed impossible? It was the promise that some truths are self-evident, that all men are created equal, that we really are endowed with certain unalienable Rights. It was the faith that this is a nation with a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and that this reality will not perish from this earth. It was the strength that comes from knowing that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. It was the Hope, that Yes, We Can.
How will history remember this night? How will we tell our grandchildren about how the Irish Catholics in Boston and the Blacks in Chicago, the Hispanics in Florida and the Asians on the West Coast, and even Anglo-Saxons in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, all stood up and said "Yes, We Can"? We will remember that Tonight, our nation accomplished something incredible. It's longer-lasting than the victory in World War 2. It's bigger than putting a man on the moon. The wall we tore down was stronger than the wall that Reagan defied. We looked at an entire race of people in the eye, we spoke to a continent we had wronged for so long, we conjured up the ghosts that have longed for freedom since 1619, and we said to them, "Yes! You Can! You can Hope too!"
I have never been more proud to be an American. May God continue to bless our great nation.
Monday, November 3, 2008
"Of The Day" Double Whammy
This past weekend I went with Mrs. Gadfly to New York City to cheer on her step-mom in the NYC Marathon. We had a fun weekend, and we're so proud of her step-mom, who finished the race strong. Go Kellie!
Since I haven't been on the blog in 3 days, I thought I would make it up to you with a double-post of a Don West poem and a Reinhold Niebuhr quote. After the election is over tonight (assuming legal challenges don't prolong this business), I'll have some final words on the topic of politics, and then I'll move on to another topic: Missions. It's an extremely important topic for every Christian, but is sadly one of the most neglected and misunderstood aspects of our faith.
I pair the following quote and poem on purpose to say this: there is nothing new under the sun. The injustices that present themselves to us in our day are no different than the ones faced by Christians of every generation. The question God poses to each of us in every era is, "will you love your neighbor?"
"...a laissez faire economic theory is maintained in an industrial era through the ignorant belief that the general welfare is best served by placing the least possible political restraints upon economic activity. The history of the past 100 years is a refutation of the theory; but it is still maintained, or is dying a too lingering death, particularly in nations as politically incompetent as our own. Its survival is due to the ignorance of those who suffer injustice from the application of this theory to modern industrial life but fail to attribute their difficulties to the social anarchy and political irresponsibility which the theory sanctions."
(Niebuhr, "Moral Man and Immoral Society", 1935)
Factory Child
What chance now for Margaret Biggs
To grow in stature, heart and head?
She breathes foul dust and rotted lint
Among the wheels to earn her bread.
And while her lungs are eaten out,
Her eyes stare hungrily through space,
Eyes that sink at eventide
Within a sallow, longful face...
Better for her if she had gone,
From womb of flesh into the earth,
Or if she had not come at all
To cause some woman pangs of birth.
Soon she will have a pauper's grave,
Pitted deep in nameless sod...
Another child for Potter's Field
While churchmen sing and praise their God.
(West, date unknown)
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