Liberty

"Liberty and it's full expression is never an issue until someone tries to take it away. Given the nature of man and specifically the governments of men, this means that liberty is always an issue."
Don't know who said that but I like it.

Frodo lives. (in the Supreme Court)

This assessment of Justice Clarence Thomas at first sounds like more of the cartooning of the conservative justice that has gone on since he was confirmed some twenty years ago. But further reading reveals the caricature to be pretty accurate.

Sustaining marriage

Wanna stay married? May sound like a dumb question when everything is going well, but when it's not what do you hang onto?
How about listening to people who have done it successfully for three or four decades?

Piper, Carson, and Keller on Sustaining the Covenant of Marital Love from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Some thoughts on the Constitution.

This is not meant to be a scholarly piece. I am no scholar. They are just my reflections as I sit here drinking my coffee this morning.

Our Constitution has been called a blueprint for revolution. Indeed most emerging nations in the past two hundred years have given at least some measure of respect to the U.S. Constitution. It is perhaps the most plagiarized national document in history.

It could also be referred to as a codified vision of liberty. Having just won independence from Britain and realizing the Articles of Confederation had become unsuitable, the framers were given a unique opportunity to construct a nation that would understand that power was indeed vested in it's citizens. Not in the ruling class where the transfer of power was through bloodlines or coup's. Or both. They wanted to demonstrate that a nations people could govern themselves and given a good economic model could prosper without the help of a dictator or monarch.

I think though that it is also something else. It is a portal into the hearts and minds of the men who set their imprimatur on it. Who fought, debated, reasoned and compromised to bring forth a document that would endure. It has indeed endured. Our nation has survived numerous wars. Some necessary some ill conceived. We've survived more than one great depression. We've even survived more than our share of bad presidents and and legislators although we still bear the scars. I hesitate to call the Constitution a "living" document because that which is living can be killed. But there is something vital about it. It is one of the few documents in human history that can boast having a continous daily effect on the lives of people it serves. I would venture to say that is because that we Americans as a people do not have the bloodline of a monarchy to ensure continuity in statehood. What we do have is a piece of paper. A paper that entrusts us with our own sovereignty and the responsibility to make sure it endures. As such we do share a national DNA with those who wrote:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Just some thoughts, while sipping coffee on a Saturday morning.

~John

Sideliners

Sideliners

"We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with. But we are "harmless," and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brass, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the Cross. We are "sideliners" -- coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous!"
- Jim Elliot

The importance of bubbles

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
Acts 17:26-29

Anyone who has ever been involved with children from parenting to any professional capacity knows that there are those times when your younguns' for various reasons just lose their focus and well you've lost them. No matter how good the subject is, no matter how entertaining you are, they are off in la la land and you need to do something to recapture their attention.

Time to bring out the bubbles.
Seriously, who can resist them? Have you ever seen a child with a bottle of bubbles? They can have had bubbles 100 days in a row and yet when you open up that bottle and blow through that wand it's as fascinating as the first time. Forgetting all else around them. Tripping over toys. Running into walls. Just to get to that soapy sphere before it breaks.

Would we chase after God with the same wondrous intensity? We all lose our focus sometimes. Take our eye off the ball and as a result need an intervention from God to reset us. Worse yet are the times we think we are ok because we come to Him with our sophistication and acquired wisdom and so called maturity and we think we're impressing God, when in truth He is more pleased with the ones who chase after Him with no pretense and simple abandon. You know...tripping over things, running into walls etc. because of our attraction to Him.

Not perfect. But perfectly passionate.

The difference is that God is a lot more rewarding than a bubble. (Lol.)

And a lot easier to catch.