This is how we must Love one Another

This is how we must love one another. With a vowed love that is not dependent on happiness or any other external hallmarks of success. Where does such love begin if it does not begin with the one closest to us? The life's partner whom we ourselves have chosen out of all the other people of the world as the apple of our eye. If we cannot love our own favorite person through all of their ups and downs and trials and changes then how will we ever love the poor and the unlovely and the forgotten of the world? God has a way of giving us one love, that is greater than all the others you know or have ever known, one love that is entirely easy - at least in the beginning - to fulfill. A natural and spontaneous love such as the one that Jesus himself had. If we stop to think about it, it is a far stranger thing for people to love, than not to. And a stronger thing still for one person to be faithful in love to one other for a lifetime. It is plain proof that love can actually exist in this loveless world, and not only exist but persist and grow through all the vicissitudes of life.

Recitation from a November 16, 1991 Wedding.
authored by Mike Mason, Mystery of Marriage

The Mystery of Marriage 20th Anniversary Edition: Meditations on the Miracle

Obama's Reproductive Healthcare Hype

I must say that I am a bit concerned about the huge negotiations that appear to be taking place around keeping federally funded abortion out of the health care bill.  I am concerned that the democratic administration is hyping the inclusion of this as a leveraging ploy to get a government run program that will take over our health care economy.  I am not sure of the politics preventing them from dropping the abortion clauses in reconciliation simply to get the government in place.  I have largely been opposing this for social justice reasons, but do we really want governement health care?   Won't this fly through congress if abortion is gone?  Think of it:  we all breath a sigh of relief, no federal funding of abortion...whew.  But that begs the question: once abortion is gone - do we really want government health care of any kind?  By doing this the government will beome both a player and the referee in the medical community.  In so doing it will be able to regulate all other options out of business.  If the government could actually run a transparent, efficient and effective system that wouldn't be so bad.  But what is the history  of our government running things?

1. The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775. 234 years to get it right and it is becoming more unsustainable by the day.

2. Social Security was established in 1935. 74 years to get it right and it is bankrupt.

3. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. 71 years to get it right. It is bankrupt and now has an unlimited line of credit from the Fed (printing fiat).

4. The War on Poverty started in 1964. 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor".  We are still around.

5. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. 44 years to get it right.  They are bankrupt.

6. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. 39 years to get it right. It is bankrupt and now has an unlimited credit line from the Fed.

7. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

FAILED in every "government service" attempted while overspending massive tax dollars that could be saved, invested or spent by the American people. Can we NOW trust a government Health Care system to work...a system bigger than all of these programs?  And aside from that once they put private insurers out of business, what's to stop them from reinstating the funding? 

The Obama Prayer Team: blessing and balderdash

Some time ago I joined the "Obama Prayer Team" (OPT) group on Barack Obama's website. I would encourage you to do the same. I"ve posted a prayer or two I've submitted. Being a part of the OPT is an exercise in both occasional blessing and frequent balderdash. Sometimes you get the same kind of political clap trap that you hear every day on the cable opinion networks and sometimes you get honest, heartfelt petitions to our God. Sometimes you get heartfelt petitions to God - that are political clap trap. I sense Obama Prayer Team doesn't enjoy me so much, because I have a tendency to push back a bit when they start what I call partisan praying. I am told by the leaders of the group that "we are simply a group praying for the best interests of the country" and sometimes that comes across in very specific prayers. (You know like "...this economy that Bush left us..." and "...the evil congressmen that are stalling our health care...".) Usually these come from the stragglers, they join and then fall away fairly quickly. But there are a few (about 300 total members) that continually pray in the affirmative for our President and for the passage of health care and pretty much any initiative which he undertakes. (Which, in case you haven't noticed, is quite a lot.) I try to point out to them that just because we disagree, doesn't mean that we lack concern for social justice - whether it be in the form of health care, poverty or human rights. Of course when there is prayer that errs on the side of, say, slowing down health care in the face of government funded abortion or halting a nominee that is ungodly we get the following admonition..."This is a forum for PRAYERS not editorials. Please save those for other forums. We work hard to maintain our focus of prayer by lifting up our nation and leaders. Thanks for understanding. Blessing upon all this day!"I"ve started sending this note right back at them and they seem to be coming around. Here is a prayer from the other Day:

Lord we are all cracked pots in need of Your molding and shaping into useful vessels of service!
Lord we present all of our elected leaders to you for repairs. Seal every crack and clean out all of the corruption and debris from years of service . Conform the leaders and our nation into usable vessels according to your purpose. Lord replace the broken pots with ones formed by Your hand and selected by You. Work into each pot your integrity , purpose and plan. Take each pot through the fire so that we can withstand the heat of the battle and be strong enough to serve well. When we have been through the fire let all see Your craftsmanship and Your signature upon us."

Notice how the prayer doesn't claim which of our elected leaders are corrupt? How it petitions the Lord to replace "them" without presuming to know exactly which are needing replacement? Notice how it asks for God's integrity, purpose and plan without assuming to know God's judgement upon what form that will take? I like these prayers because intended or not, they allow God to be God and ask for our best as seen through His knowledge. They acknowledge that all men, democrats, republican or independent are in need of Knowing the God who Cares.

I'll keep praying for our President. Sometimes I may even engage in what could very well be my own prayerful balderdash. God only knows. My hope is that we (the OPT) can mitigate that by underlying every prayer with this caveat: "They kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Our flawed Constitution

So what about our fundamentally flawed Constitution?




I agree with President Obama. Our constitution is fundamentally flawed. It was created by man and reflects the specific bias of the time and the overall bias of human history. Self Interest. But, to re-apply a Winston Churchill truism, The American constitution is the worst of it's kind - except for all the others. The beauty of our constitution is how it uses self-interest against itself in order to come to the closest approximation to social justice in the history of the world. And offers a mechinism to (so long as we don't truncate it) get increasingly closer and closer to complete social justice-as close as we'll get this side of heaven.

Hear the entire audio here.