My Fragile Hope...

So, I woke yesterday morning after the election with a hope in my heart that I was wrong about Obama. "Maybe he really will govern from the center, maybe, just maybe he can bring some healing he's been preaching...no, I don't agree with his policies but what leader do you agree with all the time? Lord knows I've disagreed with Bush on a number of issues and I voted for him, so maybe President Obama will be different than I anticipated during the race, or reasearched on my own..."

Well, less than 24 hours later the Obama camp began to leak certain cabinet choices and my heart sank...:(

Chief of Staff: Rham Emanuel
Famous for such professional quips as: "Republicans can go f*** themselves."

Having the incredible tact to tell the Prime Minister of England, Tony Blair, regarding the Lewinsky affair, "This is important. Don't f*** it up!".

Also known for sending a rotten fish in the mail to a former co-worker he didn't exactly agree with.

After the 1996 campaign which Clinton won he stood up at a dinner and angrily called out the names of Clinton detractors and after each name he exclaimed "dead...dead!" and stabbed the table with his steak knife for, i guess, extra emphasis.

Real moderate this guy....

Then there's who he's considering heading the EPA, the one and only Robert Kennedy, Jr.
To say that Bobby Jr. is a radical is like calling Wiley Coyote mildly interested in the Road Runner. Other than being arrested in '83 for trying to bring HEROIN on board a plane he also served 30 days for trespassing on government property in 2001...that's right, only 7 years ago. He considers ANYONE who questions man made global warming a "flat-earther" and should be "silenced". Hmmm...ever heard of free speach? Along with Obama's stated wish to bankrupt the coal industry in a January interview (which wasn't released until last week conveniently) Mr. Kennedy has stated it as a purpose to go green at break neck speed and without consequence to the people or their jobs. President-Elect Obama has stated that bankrupting the coal industry would "of course" make electricity bills "skyrocket" for the everyday person. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdi4onAQBWQ) But, the messiah of hope sees this as collateral damage for his and Mr. Kennedy's ideology.

I'm more comfortable with Emanuel than this hypocrite who preaches to us about carbon footprints but maintains family mansions and flies everywhere in a fuel guzzling private jet. Oh, not to mention is a heavy advocate of wind (as am I) but his family refuses to allow the permit process to proceed to build a wind farm within eyesite of their compound (http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/liberal-hypocrites/)...wake up people!

Did I mention that Obama blurbed a book for a guy who dedicated another one of his books to Sirhan Sirhan...the guy who shot Robert Kennedy...Robert Jr's dad.

Then there is the person vying for Secretary of State...none other than John Kerry
Let's see...he's honored with a photo as a hero in a communist museum in Vietnam (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38738)...FOR THE OTHER SIDE! Do we really need to go over 2004 again...and before you start defending him, facts are facts are facts are facts...they're "stubbern things" - John Adams

And so the "new hope for America" includes these steps:
1.) Harry Reid wanting to censure Joe Lieberman for supporting John McCain, so this is the party of free speech? Sounds like China "meeting" with detractors on a beginner scale...stick with the "party" or be punished. Even though Joe, up to this point, caucused with the Dems and voted with them more than 60% of the time...but he voiced his conscience and is now going to be chastised and silenced because of it....hmmm, remind you of another form of government?
2.) Sen. Schumer has compared talk radio to pornography and is wanting to revive the "Fairness Doctrine" into legislation while the Dems hold power and push it through. Whatever your feeling is on talk radio, this is an outright attack on free speech in the market place, and I fear it's only the beginning...after all, it's only been 48 hours.
3.) Rep. Pelosi is going to push for the introduction of the "Employers free choice act" which is exactly NOT that. It CLEARLY states that union members may ENTER your home and view and record how you and your family votes concerning issues that concern them, it eradicates the ability to cast a secret ballot on the whim of a union...and get this...you don't even have to be a member of the union....now, listen to that...they may ENTER YOUR HOME! The Constitution states that the army can't even quarter soldiers in your home without your permission, but a union official can do it. Think about it people...where is this leading?

Oh, and on the international front...upon hearing of Obama's win the Russians threw a party by notifying the world that it intends to deploy missiles toward Poland which can, and should be, seen as an act of international aggression toward us through an ally. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081105/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_medvedev) and did i mention he blamed us? It's alright though because the "Messiah is speaking" - Louis Farrakhan (concerning obama) and the world will soon join hands and sing lullibies while cavorting in flower laden glens under 72.5 degree weather...forever...or at least the next four years at minimum.

President-elect Obama, I'm begging you to remember your own words and to listen to the 58 million dissenting voices out here as well...we want you to be a good President...and I want to support you since you won...but I will not sacrifice my principles for that. I don't expect to agree with you on a lot of stuff, but please make an effort to include 48%+ of the U.S. in the conversation. I will never demonize you as the bitter people on the left did to Bush...but I will not stand silently by, I CAN'T stand by when in less than 48 hours I see you building a bulwark against not just the right...but the center as well.

In the words of Reagan,
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

New Orleanians are NOT representative of Louisiana...WE Cajuns are Louisiana!

This article was in the Lafourche (pronounced lafoosh) Gazette by a lady named Laurie Laine Guidry after returning from evacuating from Gustav. It shows you the difference between the people in New Orleans after Katrina and true Cajuns. Enjoy.

The Exposure of Cajun Looters
Laurie Laine Guidry


Maybe the reason nationally-broadcasted news stations don't flock to catch a glimpse of Cajun looters is out of fear of being bitten by pet alligators that run rampant through our backyards.

Maybe the reason Anderson Cooper and his broadcast buddies didn't stake out southern Lafourche to catch a glimpse of firsthand Cajun looting is because we back-wood folks, starting at the age of four, can recite "the right to bear arms" ammendment and no trespassing by-laws in our sleep, in French.

Perhaps the most logical reason that Cajuns looters aren't exposed worldwide is because, well, we just aren't as glamorous as those Reebok stealin' city slickers.

"A lootin' Cajun? There's no such thing", you might be thinking. Well folks, there are plenty of them. You probably know a few and may even be one of them yourself.

Did you return home from the storm and notice that things were missing from your yard? Did you notice that your gas tanks had a little less gas in them from the time you waited three hours in line to fill up prior to evacuating? Did you gasp at the sight of you door slightly nudged open? Did you have to argue with people who were taking boxes of your belongings out of your inlaw's houses?

I did, most my friends did and I'd venture to say half of the bayou experienced similar acts of Cajun connivery.
Upon returning home from evacuation, my family found our door wedged open by none other than an alleged bandit. Somehow a Cajun looter in my neighborhood got into my house, drug extension chords throughout our home, moved refrigerators and freezers from their designated spots and plugged them into his own generator so our precious seafood wouldn't defrost and leave our home smelling worse than a shrimp shed in the middle of August. The nerve! He did all that and didn't even grab a cold beer.

A friend of mine who had moved into her mother's house to indulge in some much needed, generator-powered air conditioning, was finally rewarded when Alabama turned on the electricity to her own home. What she wasn't expecting for was a Cajun looter to drop by, grab her family's goods from her mom's house and take them...all the way back to her house to help lighten her load.

Another Cajun, apparently up to no good, stayed home to weather the storm and entered not only one, but three evacuated homes...when he realized their automatic generators hadn't kicked on. This sneaky, sneaky looter drove around hours prior to the storm "casing" his friends' joints and went in without their knowledge. Once inside the abandoned homes, he replaced a run down battery on one generator, opened the gasline on another and switched some wires around on the third so all three of the homeowners were able to return home to a cool, smell-free home.

All along the bayou, Cajun looters were seen days after the storm, trepassing into neighbors' yards to steal broken branches and storm-worn shingles that not-so-elegantly decorated our yards. Some of these Cajun looters even wielded weapons such as chain saws and axes as the wreaked havoc on their friends' and neighbors' trees.

Arguments broke out over who would be responsible for cooking, each of the looters insisting on supplying supper and cold refreshments for those who helped in the scandalous deeds.

So you're probably thinking back now to all the looting you saw happening before your very own eyes. You may even be realizing that you too, are a Cajun looter. Well, if you are, pat yourself on the back.

Cajun looters don't need CNN, NBC or any of those other fancy-pants networks to broadcast these events. Cajun looters do what they've got to do no matter who's watching and who's not.

So keep your eyes peeled for those trespassing Cajun looters and if you catch one in the act, say thanks and offer him or her a cold beverage because all that hard work is in definite need of a reward.

Slopes of Sentiment...

It's never as simple as it seems,
So easy to get lost in a dream

Forgiven but not forgotten
-Cast forever in the sea of rememberance
The tighter my grip the further i slipped
Sliding down the slopes of sentiment,
And I try not to care

Yes, resentment is the filament of hate
Sibling to apathy - mother absent to jaded
With smile lines faded

...and still i try not to care...and yet I do.

Thoughts and ramblings...

Why does it seam at times that our weaknesses are so strong that our strengths pale in comparison? Is it that the enemy is so strong, or is it that we are so weak?

Questions roll through my head attempting to dissuade me into their confusion, blindly beckoning me to join them in their realm of disarray...ugh...I've been there so many times they have a seat for me...
But I find myself, once filled with unsatisfied curiosity of the misery they so eagerly offer me, now in disgust of their offer. For I know they are not my questions to answer, and so I stand aside and find myself in His shadow...healed and focused...as He whispers the answer to me gently in my ear, as I repeat it...all falls silent.

Reverent...my lips move slowly, forming the sound that forces a tear in respect and sliding off a tongue bloodied with my brother's blood, and I am humbled to hear my voice carry this treasure, empowered by the very sound of its precious cargo..."Jesus"...and I wonder how could I have ever been so enthralled with my little confused world called, "me"?

So I weep...as my heart sings of its gratefulness, and I see you smile. As your eyes dance to the rhythm of your laugh, and my soul dances with them...I see my name form on your lips, I take it in slow-motion and for an eternal moment I explode from within, and I'm satisfied with nothing less...

But the moment passes and it seems I must begin again, though my love for you remains so do the questions. But I know you hold the answer, so I wait and wait...patiently, I wait...quiet and still, prostrate and humbled I wait...and here I will stay, at your feet, for eternity and this moment...

-This is where we must stay. We are bombarded with uncertainties of life, questions and situations but the solution remains at His feet, hidden in His eyes and revealed in His voice. So often we get caught up in trying to force God's hand, or trying to face everything ourselves that we get drawn into the all-so-well known confusion that ensues. Whatever the questions are that face you right now, or situation that seems to tower over you and mock you...stop!!!

Wait...patiently, wait...He knows...He may be waiting for you to simply wait for Him...

Rediscovery is both refreshing...and frustrating.

Do you ever just stop and reread journal entry's? I'm assuming those of us who keep journals, even if chaotically sporadic like me, do go back and read them, I mean what's the point if you don't, right? Well, lately I've been feeling a bit off-kilter in my walk and some of my problem is the typical "I'm too busy" crap...which really is crap if you think about it, I mean why is it that our devotional time is often the first thing we cut when we get "busy"? Really, Jonathan, is there not one other thing in your "busy" day that can be cut for 15 minutes at least so that you can maintain at least a small amount of face time with your father? And I get mental images of SNL news anchors Amy Pohler and whats his name going, "Really? Really?.....Really?!"

Sooo, I was reading today in an online version of "My Utmost for His Highest" devotional (www.myutmost.org) and was in a round-a-bout way brought back to what I claim is my favorite scripture, Jeremiah 12:5,

"If you have raced with men on foot
And they have worn you out,
How can you compete with horses?
And if you stumble in a safe land,
how can you manage the thickets by the Jordan?"

And the weight of why this is my favorite scripture started to convict and challenge me again...and the refreshment of God's filled my chest, it truly is alive and is life to us who believe, isn't it? Wow. But still, in reference to the title of this entry, it frustrated me in that here I was having to go back and relearn, rediscover something that God had already taught me...I thank God for his patience with me, but sometimes I feel bad for His having to put up with me:) It's like, "Alright, son, let's go back and look at this again...there, now do you remember?"

"If you have raced with men on foot and the have worn you out, how can you compete with horses?"

To put this in context for all you hermeneuticly correct theologians, the chapter before Jeremiah was whining about all the bad stuff that he was going through to God, and this was Gods response to him.
This statement seems so, ummm, crazy? The idea that men racing with men on foot and being tired is not an odd thing, however how can a man ever compete with a horse? See, sometimes we get so caught up in what WE can do in our own strength that we forget the power of our God. It's like we start running and "doing", always doing, doing. Doing stuff that we think we can do when Daddy God has called us to do more, and then we get weary, or "burned out" because we're trying to do all this stuff with our own strength and all the while we are still just competing with men.
In this statement there seems to be an understood emphasis on the competing with horses, as if God was saying to Jeremiah, "I EXPECT you to compete with horses, and you're not." Say wha?! A man competing with horses on foot...talk about crazy...in OUR own strength. See, that is where the challenge comes in, how much do we trust God to complete what He has called us to do? To bring forth the visions HE placed in us? Do we really think that WE could possibly fulfill HIS vision? Really? We act like it, don't we?

"...how can you compete with horses?"

There's the challenge, because we can't and God knows we can't...in our own strength. Here's a secret, anything we do in our own natural strength will fade away in the natural...eventually. Anything we do in God supersedes the natural and lasts forever, and God has a long-term vision...the longest term, as in forever. So if you feel something in your core that seems absolutely impossible to accomplish without God, don't be discouraged...compete with the horses...

"If you stumble in a safe land, how can you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?"

Another way of looking at this is the flooding of the Jordan. If we stumble and can't walk straight spiritually when everything is rosy and we're surrounded by support groups and going to a great church, how the heck are we gonna manage the floods of life, and when the "thickets" grow up around us so thick that you can't maneuver through them? This is just an extension of the previous challenge that God put to Jeremiah while he was whining.

God's will does not always come with greased tracks and no resistance, often it's exactly opposite of that, we don't just see that in our lives but we can read it in the Word...great achievement always came with great sacrifice.

I was working out the other day and was thinking about how annoying it is that I have to constantly be in the gym to not only grow in strength but also to just maintain what strength I had gained, I cannot achieve a level physically and then just stop excercising and working out, if I did I'd lose all my gains! Which led me to realize that the cessation of resistance leads to the cessation of strength. This is sooo true of our spiritual walk as well, we cannot just get to a place where we feel comfortable and then stop striving for more and expect to just stay there, no, we will begin regressing if we did that.

So, this is the challenge, compete with horses. Lately this has been my refrain in my head when feeling weary, "compete with the horses, Jon." Because I know that I cannot do that on my own, and therefore when I do I get no glory, but God gets all of it. If we achieve things in our own strength we can claim the glory for it, but when we strive through God and achieve things that we could not have in and of ourselves then there is no glory for us but only for Him.

So I extend this challenge to you, compete with the horses. Don't be afraid of them, don't be intimidated by them, and most of all remember your God who strengthens you.

His,

jon.g.

A new tune for my soul to hum...

Sitting in the bed with Shadow at my feet and listening to Death Cab for Cutie and found my self humming along, and I started thinking...what a great song, I mean it IS DCC, right?
But it made me start longing to write a song and I was thinking about lyrics in my head and how some of them were cool and others sucked...and all the while wondering what someone else would think about them? Hmmm, what would someone else think of my song? Would they like the tune and want to sing along with me if it was ever birthed for an audience? Then it dawned on me how erroneous that was, it was/is after all MY song. It's my tune and here I was judging its quality by what others may or may not think about it rather than closing my eyes and allowing my heart and soul create a new melody...and it made me start to think about this symphony of life, and yes I think that is very proper description and not just a pretty analogy, the music we create in our conduct with the relationships around us. How much do we try to temper our tempo to match someone we may want to be seen similar to, or at least not stand out and maybe be looked on as an inadequate melody, lacking in our lyric and structure, and I wonder how much beauty is aborted out of insecurity.

While there is nothing wrong with humming along to the melody of another for a while, there comes times when my innermost being wants sing its own song, whether you enjoy the cacauphony or not:) So sing...so hummmmm...this is my concerto...