Stopping to Think

Black Elk Speaks by Black Elk My rating: 4 of 5 stars I started this book a long time ago. I slowly poked my way through, and thoroughly benefitted from evey step of my pokey way. The extensive footnotes and endnotes, as well as the 10 appendecies, are helpful in pulling apart Neihardt's poetry from Black Elk's actual narrative. As a Christian, I have a lot of questions about the origin of Black Elk's visions. And how reliable one man's memory of events occuring some thirty to sixty years earlier can be thought to be is, well, questionable. That said, this is a book worth reading. The penetrating criticism of modern life (circa 1930) provided in places by Neihardt and in oter by Black Elk himself, is worthy of pondering. The poetry of what Neihardt writes is simply haunting in places. And one does become more familiar with the story of the Lakota and their dealings with the U.S. Government. I plan to revisit this book in the future. View all my reviews

Preface: I am writing in a state of mind that Martin Luther would call beneficial: seething anger. Seething. By the time you read this, the story of Cliven Bundy’s cattle being released will be old news, but as I type it is hot off the presses (proverbial as those presses are nowadays).  What has me in this state of seething rage is the fact that many militia groups and some on the political right are hailing this as a victory for freedom. It is quite the opposite. To be fair, the entirety of the issue is not one-sided. But this much is clear: Cliven Bundy ceased paying the necessary permit fees to graze his cattle on BLM land over 20 years ago, and he now owes the government (read: taxpayers, i.e., you and me) in excess of 1 million dollars. When he refused to comply with orders to remove his cattle from the land they were illegally grazing on, BLM went to the courts, where Bundy lost (twice). BLM was authorized to remove the cattle, which were illegally on federal property, an...

"You will be delivered from petty worries if you are concerned about the souls of men." Charles Haddon Spurgeon I approach this topic with some measure of fear and trembling. Not because I fear controversy or want everyone to like me. Far from it. But rather, because issues of politics often seem so trivial, and quite often become trivial because of the way in which they are handled. I am far more concerned about the souls of men than I am systems and forms of government. That being said, government in its various forms has a very real impact on the life of the people who live under governments. This means therefore, that government matters. And in a democratic republic like the US of A, that means that politics matter, because the political system of parties and campaigns and elections is how we determine who holds office and the proverbial reigns of the government. However, many Christians come to this point and begin to feel disillusioned by the process. ...

First things first. Before I make any remotely political statements I want to first say that my heart breaks for those families in Connecticut. As should that of anyone with a pulse. The fact that people on both sides of the isle started screaming about gun control before the day was out on Friday is profoundly disturbing to me. You don't blame murders on tools. You also don't question the sincerity of a father (who happens to hold our highest elected office) who is moved to tears by such a tragedy. This is part of why I hate the 24 hour news cycle. This is, first and foremost, a tragedy. It is not a news story. And yet all day Friday all we heard were reports (often conflicting) of this "breaking news." The only thing that ought to have broken that day was our hearts. I digress. The issue at hand is that of gun control. I intend to be rather brief. Many are calling for a reinstatement of the so called "assault weapons ban" of 1994-2004. While I am all for...

A poem dedicated to our dear government and our foolish spending habits. Little man up on the moon We shall all meet you soon Yes we will see your face As we invade your happy place Cause NASA'a flying everywhere Using our funds to get up there Our governement finds it wise Fiscal discretion to despise So we shall soar on up to you With wallets feeling rather blue Our debts shall climb up ever on And soon our money will be gone Note: I love the idea of exploring space. I don't believe anyone lives on the moon. Or anywhere else in space. I realize we've already been to the moon. My point is this-our government is spending money on a lot of things that, while good, are not the proper function of government. And it will be the end of our nation, perhaps sooner rather than later. So is space exploration good? Sure. Is feeding the poor and needy good, nay, vital? Absolutely. Do we want the economy to do well and businesses to succeed? Of course. However, is it ...

I feel like the last few posts I've been ragging on traditional values. Allow me to make a clarifying statement. I am all for both traditions, and values. They are not, in and of themselves, bad things, and can be quite good. But when we take an issue of massive import, and lower it to the importance level of tradition, we do our culture, our country, and our fellow man a great disservice. That is my point. And so I want to take some of that logic and apply it to the abortion topic. The prevailing stance on abortion on the "right hand" side of the isle seems to be that abortion is bad, unless the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, or if the mother's life is at stake.  I want to explain why this position is completely illogical and indefensible. What is the basis for opposing abortion at all?  Opposition to abortion rests on two premises 1)that an unborn fetus is a person 2)that the unprovoked killing of any person, something commonly known as murder, is wr...

I want to use this post to address three points, all brought up in comments to the last one. First, I want to address the comment made by an Anonymous individual whose main thrust in argument was that prohibiting homosexual marriage a)prevents no one from sinning, and b)is a violation of religious freedom. On point "a", of course I agree with that. I can never do anything to stop another person from rebelling against God, because ultimately that is a heart issue, and I cannot see their heart, let alone change it. That being said, laws exist not because their existence precludes the possibility of evil, but because sinful human beings need both encouragement towards right behavior, and punishment for wrong behavior. Simply put, laws exist for the good of society (see Romans 13-or the entire Pentateuch). If a person believes, as I do, that the basic human relationship that society is built upon is the relationship of husband and wife in marriage, then encouraging and fig...

I want to make a few brief comments on marriage, and the debate over whether or not homosexual marriage should be created by our government. I use the word "created" very intentionally. Note: none of my thoughts or ideas here are original, and most are being expressed by some in this ongoing national debate. However, they are certainly the minority, and so I have decided to add my small voice to the choir. It seems to me that, while not universally, the general slogan of those opposed to same-sex marriage (from here on "SSM") is that they "support traditional marriage and traditional values." Less frequently I hear of a support for "Judeo-Christian" values. Here is my rub with both of these terms, especially the former-they utterly miss the root of this entire issue. The question is not whether marriage should conform to what is traditional. If it were, of course marriage could change into whatever we would like it to. This is because traditi...