A Savior on Capitol Hill

...there's never going to be one.

I usually refrain from voicing what I think in politics but with so much going on with this presidential election is hard to not voice a little of what I think. (this in no way states who I am for or against...but simply thoughts)

First off, putting political parties aside, I think it is great to see the change that America has come to that there is a man of African-American decent who has a presidential nomination. It was great to hear of the older African-American people's emotions as Barak accepted the official nomination. I love that America has so much history and to be able to see how it is always changing. When you think about it, it is something older generations never thought they would see...and look...it's happened. We are experiencing history people!
And now (adding hours after first post) there is a female in the election as a vise president nominee! Truly a historical election year.

Now of course I am more conservative in my beliefs than not...but geez was I ashamed when I heard of and then saw a video of a major "Christian" organization asking for rain on the nights of the DNC. (some of these thoughts come from my friend Greg as we talked about this) And we ranted that if certain people believe that our God is so powerful to make it rain on those nights, is He not so powerful as to change people's hearts? Point being...why pray for rain when they could pray for the people...whether it be the entire democratic party or just Barak himself. Not stating that they or he need prayer but wouldn't it be more beneficial to pray for them than rain?

We also need to ask ourselves why we put such faith in politicians. We need to focus on our lives and the lives we all directly affect. We can't expect any politician to do God's work...we should expect ourselves to do God's work. I am not saying don't vote or don't get involved but we need to be involved in a way they we can directly contribute to our own beliefs and not let a presidiential candidiate respresent what you believe.

Here is a link from fellow blogger's post about what John Piper had to share about one issue voting. I know for a lot of people their vote with go the way of the abortion issue...which is a single issue vote. I like how this fellow blogger Bryan stated this:

Personally, I hate abortion. The thought of it makes me angry, and I’m not
embellishing. But I also realize that only a few decisions of the thousands a
president makes in his term have any direct or indirect impact on abortion.
Additionally, the chances of Roe V Wade being repealed are very slim. So based
on that, here’s my question(s) to you, choose any to answer that apply:

1. Regardless of your personal stance on abortion, what role does the
issue play in determining your vote? Is it a very small factor, one of a few big
issues you consider, your biggest factor, the Only factor you consider?

2. If you vote Republican based primarily on the abortion issue, how do
you justify electing someone to do a job based on one issue that represents less
than 1% of what that job entails?

3. If you knew for an absolute fact
that the president we were going to elect would make NO decisions in the next 4
years that affected abortion at all, would his/her stance on abortion still
factor in to your decision on who to vote for?

I know it's a tough issue and I am probably way over my head in this...but I hope everyone just takes it as something else to think about.

(again these are just thoughts and rehashes of convos and readings of mine...)

The Contenders

So this weekend Wendy came back into town to attend a wedding of some of her friends from her old church and so we got to see her. We went to Utopia Coffee this morning for brunch and we had a little picture taking time and this one was my favorite.
(thanks Mandy for the awesome photo, you're a natural)

Amy workin' that popped collar.

Burrito

If any of you took notice of my twitter, myspace, or facebook updates yesterday you might be curious as to what went down. And...if you have read quite a few of these blog posts by us you might have picked up on the clues that we eat at Moe's Southwest Grill pretty darn often. (If you dont know this...Moe's is one of our favorite places to eat and we practically go there probably once a week. But we for sure do not miss more that 2 weeks without eating there...it's just really good.)

Well here is what happened...

Our little suburb is kind of exploding with retailers and restuarants and Moe's was one of the places annouced to open up in Spring Hill by this summer. That day was yesterday.
I had also learned that when Moe's opened it would give out a free burrito per week for a year to the first 100 customers on the opening day.

So my buddy Kevin (find out who Kevin is here and here) and I planned on camping out if we needed to for this extravaganza and took a day of vacation for Thursday. We were ready to camp out all night if we had to for 12 hours or more. But we planned on scoping the site out for numbers first before camping out all night. Well Kevin took the first shift of driving by to see how the line was progressing and there were about 20 people by 10pm on Wednesday night. I got up around 1am to go scope it out and there were the same 20 (give or take) people there from Kevin's last drive-by. So we planned on getting there by 4am...just to play it safe. And we were numbers 28 and 29 in line for our free burritos!

Sad news was that we could have stayed in bed until 6am b/c the next person to show up after us to be last in line happened to get there around 6:30am. oh well.

So we waited for 7 hours. And now we will save $360 in burritos for a year. woohoo!
(I also got a t-shirt and a Hatch Print made custom for the opening of Moe's in the Hill)


Now that I am sure you all think I am off my head.
I sign off, looking forward to next weeks free meal.

Games (cont.)

As the Olympic games go on for a few more days it has been fun watching all of the events so far. I was talking with Josh about how the Olympics really brings out the patriotism in our country as a whole. As I chat here and there with friends, family, and co-workers...the one thing we can all talk about and enjoy is watching the Olympics. So we as a nation still have this one thing where we can all agree on...cheer on our American Athletes! In a time when we seem like such a divded nation...be it for political, environmental, or religious reasons...it is still reassuring that we can all come together to cheer for our athletes.

Who could not cheer for the American swimmer's 2 nights ago when they swam to a gold medal finish in a race where they came back from a body length behind to beat the heavily favored, trash-talked French...? If you did not watch it please to go nbcolympics.com to see it all go down. Not only that but the first 6 teams to finish all beat the previous world record! what!?!

crazy ridiculous.

So here's to America...unified completely for a few more days!
Then it's back to the politics again...sigh

Games

As I am sure most of you all know, the Olympic Games start today with the opening ceremonies. So I am excited to get to see all the competitions and people trying to break the records to be broken. As I was browsing through my Google Reader this morning I noticed that Google has a site dedicated strictly to the Olympics and it looks really cool. Check it out here at 2008 Summer Games on Google.

My favorite part of it is this tour they did with Google Earth 3D that shows all of the venues where the games will take place.



I have always been a big fan of sports b/c it can relate a lot to our spiritial being. Even Paul gave sports examples when he said things like running the race, staying focused, and not missing the mark. Another point of Paul referencing sports is that it also dates sports back, way back into history. So as the Olymipan athletes have trained their bodies to compete in these next few days we should train our minds and hearts to stay completely focused and compete against all earthly matters that try to weak our faith.

As you watch these athletes notice their determination to do it right and do it perfect and ask yourself if you are training yourself to always do it right and to do it perfect. Yes, it takes practice, so that we have enough practice for when we do hit a trial that is going to need our full attention, determination, and focus.

Let the games begin!

Life and Love and Why

Alas, another post...after a week long absence from the blogosphere a new posting arrives. A lot has happened this past week and it mainly revolves around Amy. But I will have to post in order to save her from some tears.

Tears? Yes, tears....this past week was her last week with Olivia and Annie. She tried not to talk about it all week. It was hard on her, I know, so I tried to keep her mind off of it. But it was hard for me to do that considering she has been spending each week with Olivia for over 3 years now. What's funny is that she started this nanny job as a temporary thing until something else came along...3 years later she has 2 little girls that she loves dearly.

Every Thursday for lunch since I started working in Franklin has been spent with Amy and Olivia and occasionally Annie came along too. But this past Thursday was the last lunch all together and even I tried not to think about it for too long. I will miss looking forward to lunch on Thursdays.

Friday as Amy's day was coming to an end she said goodbyes to the girls and cried most of the way home. I know it is tough to depart from them but at the same time I cannot emphasize with her since she spent so much more time with them, yet seeing Amy sad really made me sad. But Amy has handled it pretty well actually and I am proud of her in so many ways.

As she never planned on being a nanny long term she started a new job today for another family. So she works 2 days in Spring Hill and 3 days in Brentwood now. So it is still a full-time job and not looking so short-term yet!

I called Amy at 10am this morning and she had been showered in little David's spit up. She claimed she had a rude awakening back into baby life. We both agreed she needs to have an emergency change of clothes with her at all times. ha!

OK...just wanted to update you all on that for now...more to come as I have time...