Archive for April 2009

Celebrate Your Marriage

Every year, Rachel and I make the commitment to each other and our marriage to spend a couple days at the Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island, Michigan.

Learn more here.

Is this what’s coming?

Stumbled on this on hulu.com.  I never watch Saturday Night Live because I just don’t watch that much network TV anymore but by the wonder of the internet I saw it.


Living in an area that is very much affected by the drop in manufacturing in the US, I wonder if complaints about the unfair treatment of the domestic automakers during the bailout phase will lead to something like this. I mean, this video is a joke, right?I’m reminded of this poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemoller:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.

I’m sure somebody is going to accuse me of calling President Obama a Nazi, but I’m not.  I’m concerned because we are allowing our government to take over privately owned companies because we’re mad about losing money in the stock market and we’ve bought into the class warfare that has been simmering over the last several years.  Rich people (whatever that means) have become the enemy.  Since most people don’t see themselves as rich they feel comfortable making those “other” people into the demon.  I get that.  It’s human nature.

The problem, as I see it, is that by doing things like bailing out failing companies we are doing that which we say we don’t like–namely, enriching the few at the expense of the many.   Look, if these companies took foolish risks they should pay for that risk when it fails.  Let these failing companies fail.  It’ll hurt for a little while but the free market system won’t allow a vacuum for long.  Someone will step in at some level if there is money to be made.  It happens everyday.  Does no one else get the foolishness of propping up a failing business model  in the name of “rebuilding the economy?”  If the government props up these failing businesses for political reasons, how can we trust it to make the right choices with other sectors of the economy?

It seems that our culture of get it now without pain or work has caught up to us.  We can no longer, as a society, tolerate pain or failure.  We need everything to be comfortable.  We have become soft.  We blame others for where we are in life.  If we continue down this road we will eventually be left on our own to face our own demise.  Eventually, we will not have any choices left  because someone else will have decided for us what is “good for us.”  We the people are the boss of the politicians; they are not our boss.  It is time that we the people retook our rightful place in our country.

It isn’t about me!

A member of Grace Lutheran Church was there this evening getting ready for worship tomorrow and took this pic with her cell phone.

lenten-cross-at-grace-lutheran-luckey-4-4-09.jpg

I thought it was pretty cool to see as I have been anxious about Holy Week preparations.  Makes me realize it isn’t about me and my stuff it’s about Jesus and His stuff.  I couldn’t plan this picture and I can’t save the world; only Jesus Christ can.

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