pinakidion.*

Every Monday, my family has a devotional. Since we do not have children, we are currently focused on building our marriage. Someone recommended a great book to us, so our next ten devotionals are going to come from it.

I tend towards acronyms to structure things, so forgive me if that offends you.

Otherness
This devotional will allow us to explore our differences so that we may build up our marriage.

Homework:
This section provides a focus for the week leading up to the actual devotional time. You’d be surprised how giving homework allows for the topic to come up during the week. In some ways, my wife and I use this to ’season our speech with salt’.

1. Find one example of God using marriage as a metaphor to describe his relationship with his people.
2. Read Genesis 2
3. Read chapter 1 - Otherness in The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason.

Explore:
This is a great time to hear and learn how your spouse sees God. Remember that this is a time of exploration, not a time to arrive at the answer. It is also okay at this point to diverge away from the objective, if necessary. For my wife and I, she needs to explore ideas and work them out verbally. I, on the other hand, want to find the solution or the answer. This section is specifically for her while the final section is for me, though we both benefit from every section.

• Share the metaphor of marriage with each other from your homework.
• Read Proverbs 27:17 together.
• What does otherness mean to you? How does this relate to us?

Mason defines otherness as:

…that strange encounter of separate identities as one person rubs against another to produce an edge, to produce the flashing keeness of love.

Listen:
At this point, it’s good to read a passage of the Bible to give some grounding to our exploration.
1 Corinthians 3:1 - 17

• v. 1 - 4: Our differences can separate us.
• v. 5 - 9: Our differences can build something great.
• v. 10 - 17: Therefore, we should build carefully.

Practice:
This is the section to get down to the nitty-gritty. Be specific and be honest. This is the time to be really concrete, especially when you discuss what happened during the previous week and what can happen in the coming week.

• How have our differences torn each other down or somehow limited each of us this week? How can we avoid this in the future?
• Considering Proverbs 27:17, what is the biggest area of our marriage that needs sharpening?
• Where have are differences build each other up or somehow enabled each of us this week? How can we continue to build on this in the future?

Pray. Go have fun - too much thinking can be hard on the mind.

My wife and I have a ceremony we do every night. We celebrate the victories and celebrate the defeats of the day. Sometimes we do this in the form of a toast, sometimes with kisses. It makes it easier to discuss strengths and weaknesses, because both are celebrated.

I know some friends of mine check up on me every once in a while. Just to let you know, I am doing well - I’m still learning quite a bit about what it means to be married, but I am enjoying it quite a bit. Yesterday, we went out and started spending the money on the gift cards. It was a wonderful day that ending with a wonderful dinner and cranberry margaritas. Cranberry margaritas are a family tradition with Laryssa’s family and since we weren’t there, we decided to pay homage to the family in this way.

Other than that, I sit down every Saturday morning from 8 - 12 and work on teaching related things. For example, in my church there is a call for a study series and a bunch of other things. I also work on my family’s devotional. However, some days, like today, the well is a little dry. To that end, I ask you to submit questions to me. I don’t claim to know the answers or to be some wonderful spiritual guru, but maybe we can explore something together and talk about it. Some things won’t be answered after one Saturday, but who knows?

I look forward to what you come up with.

By the way, with the new schedule of working on teaching stuff and writing on Saturday monrings, that means the 1pm update on Saturday could be extensive.

A Mavinian deck of cards has five ranks and twelve files. A regular deck of cards has four ranks (or suits) and thirteen files. Whereas a regular deck has two colors, the Mavinian Deck has three; red, black and green. The ranks are as follows:

Rounders, or Naughts. This rank is green.
Crosses or Marks. This rank is red.
Trivens or Triangles. This rank is black.
Boxes or Squares. This rank is red.
Stars or Grams. This rank is black.

The files for all ranks go from Master to Slave with numbers in between ranging from one to ten. In typical order, the files range as follows: M,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,S. In games where cards can be wild, it is typical for ‘fives’ to be wild. The Master and Slave cards can sometimes contain pictures, but usually contain letters instead.

Mavinian Poker
Similar to Draw Poker, each player puts an ante into the pot before being dealt five cards. After receiving the inital five cards, each person again bets, this time using raises and calls per regular poker. Being asking for a draw, each player must pass a card to a player next to them. On the first hand, you must pass a card to the right. One the second, to the left. Every third hand is a ‘keeper’ and no cards are passed. Before asking for draw cards, any person may fold.
Once the cards are passed, each person, starting from the left of the dealer and going clockwise may ask for 0,1, or 2 draw cards. After each player takes their turn, another round of betting begins.

Scoring is slightly different, only because Rounders are considered the highest suit. More on that later.

I know, a lot of posts about the fantasy world, lately. Sometimes it works like that - I have a bunch of ideas all at once. The rough drafts are here, but I’ll update the fantasy site with the final cut.

All around the Eastern Continent and especially in the islands where the Middle Continent and the Eastern Continent meet, a loose affiliation of seafaring souls appear to have their home base. Some regard them as pirates, other consider them types of Robin Hood. The most neutral term used to refer to them is “Mavinian Traders”. The name comes from the peculiar deck of cards that all traders carry with them.

The traders are all seafaring folk, but not neccesarily of the same species, race, or ethnic descent. However, what ties this brotherhood together are a common love of the sea, a pledge to do no harm to each other, and a collective need to protect the trading routes. No one is quite sure who began the group: they have existed ever since the Eastern Continent was explored by the Hesberians. Their legend continues to grow, especially with each retelling of tales my wandering bards.

Being from different lands and species, the traders have developed a sophisticated form of communication with a deck of cards. Each card represents a fundamental idea allowing quick communication, and several cards together allow for more complex ideas to be expressed. Mavinian traders are quite adept with their hands often performing simple feats of presdigitation to amuse each other (or to escape a delicate situation). Most traders live by their wits and sleight of hand, though would-be conquerors have discovered that they can quickly muster quite a naval force when necessary.

Although different, they share many traits in common. Most traders are quite successful, cunning, intelligent, and quick witted. Almost any member of a Mavinian ship’s crew can navigate a ship alone and take over if needed. The captain of one ship may serve on another, especially if the adventure is grand, the profit is high, or both. All traders can perform sleight of hand tricks and use them to their advantage whenever they can. All traders also carry at least one pack of a Mavinian Deck, most created one card at a time.

There have been accounts of traders using their cards in magic lands: given their manual dexterity and intelligence, it is likely to be true though evidence is scant.

THIS IS IN REGARDS TO THE WORLD of DIRA

From the book The Human Way written by Bermal (also called Semzenos)

Various human tribes have their own creation myths. This one seems to be the most popular among the humans living in midcontinent, even in areas where there are no magics. When nonhuman species study humans in an academic approach, this is the story considered to be foundational in understanding the human way of thinking. This is likely because of the great Hesberian Empire that controlled most of the known continents before the discovery of the first magic. Traces of the Hesberian Empire are seen in most human lands through the existence of ancient temples dedicated to Luma, though few of these are in use. Read more…

Hello Kitty!

I’ve been meaning to do more writing in regards to my fantasy world. Now that the apartment is in order and I have a dedicated writing time on Saturday mornings, I look forward to writing more thoughtful articles (for one) and developing my own fiction writing.

The first thing I want to do is put all my poetry and short stories on the site. It won’t take long thanks to a little utility I found that changes rtf and doc files to html. They’ll be in a separate sub-domain of pinakidion.org.

In the meantime, there’s the fantasy world. The way I think, especially in regards to this world, is to build the world’s own fundamental mechanic and then work up from there. Up to this point, the rules behind the D20 open gaming content have been pretty helpful to fleshing out some things. Having played D&D(r) in one form or another since I was 10, I understand the D20 rules and it helps me to guage things like relative size, strength, impact of magic, etc. I think secretly, I hoped to make a game out of my fantasy world. However, there are enough things different in my world that I felt like I’d have to rewrite some of the basic rules in order to continue using them. Rewriting seemed to be easy, but I felt like I was in an endless loop.

However, I then discovered the Action! System (r) core rules. They are pretty straightforward and they detail only the core mechanic of actions, combat, etc. This freed me up to write in my material instead. It may seem odd, but the Action! System(r) doesn’t have a magic system. That’s good because magic on my world is wonky anyway. I feel like I can contribute to a good system and have my own way.

So, I wanted to give back to them in some small way. If you go to fantasy.pinakidion.org, you’ll find where I have begun creating a hypertext version of the rules. The idea is similar to the Hypertext D20(tm). The main difference on my end is that I have to provide the rtf files to download as part of the Action! System(r) license. Other than that, I won’t have a monster or spell filter. If I get that far, I’ll have done something.

This may seem like too much trouble, but I want the laws of my fantasy universe to be internally consistent. They can be strange and bizarre, but they do have to be coherent. Using a gaming engine to work through it forces me to do my job as a writer/creator. Who wants to read about a world where things are so random, no one can make order or sense out of it?

Besides all of that, it gives me an appreciation of the work God did at creation. I’m obviously going to cheat at some point and I’m definitely going to avoid a lot of the math and chemistry involved in His work. However, it does allow me a chance to see that God chose order. He isn’t bound by it, of course, but He chose to create a world that makes sense - it isn’t beyond humans to understand the order he created. For example, Newton’s laws. The fascinating thing, though, is that despite the order He created, there is a lot to explore. Not only that, there are also things in the universe that are bizarre and complex. The same God that provided the orderly rotation of planets and universal effects of gravity also created the world of quantum physics. The rules are completely different in the sub-atomic realm.

Anywho, gotta run. Just wanted to let you know.

I pick on the women that run the communal coffee station near my office area. It seems that before my time, folks took advantage of the one or two people that actually paid for coffee and creamer, so a new system was instituted that works really well, even if the system feels like a protection racket.

As an outsider, I definitely felt the pressure. Read more…

Like most sports fans, I root for a person or team plus the opponent of a detested rival. For future reference these are:

I definitely will not be rooting for the Detroit Pistons anytime soon.

One of the things that I enjoy about living here is the great people. A couple housed my then girlfriend from April until October. They were in our wedding (the wife was the matron of honor). They took our stuff and drove it from Minneapolis to Omaha and loaded it into our apartment on the top floor of a complex. This weekend, they also hosted a reception for us.

We had about 30 - 40 people attend, including folks from my office. It was a lot of fun to wear the shirt again, to see Laryssa in the wedding dress again, and to watch football with my friends. I feel truly blessed to be surrounded and honored by so many.

My thanks to everyone.

Last night, we decided to join some folks at a friend’s house for a game of nerts. I had never played, but I think I did okay. It’s the kind of game that you have to process a lot of things at once, so it provides a wonderful distraction.

Last week, there were a lot of things rattling around in my mind. Having a chance to have some fun felt great. It was also fun to see Kurt Busch win the the Nextel(r) Cup. Say what you will about the chase, but the last race of the season mattered, down to the last green-white checkered finish. It is also of great comfort to me that under the old point system Jeff Gordon would have won the Nextel(r) Cup quite handily. Why? Because I don’t root for Jeff Gordon. I root for ‘Little E’ and for whomever can put Gordon into the wall.

Anywho, back to work for the short work week.

Three years ago there was a Unity meeting in Los Angelos to discuss the future of “our churches”. It’s hard to believe that it was three years ago - it seems like an eternity of time and space from that day to this.

Recently, I reread Henry’s letter and thought about our Post-HKL-Renaissance(tm). Have we really come so far? Have we changed at all? Henry himself is no longer part of the ICC (if my information is correct), but still visits them from time to time. He even has speaking engagements in various places. The question I have is have we missed our best chance to change?

Henry mentioned four fundamental issues in the ICC and then enumerated 40 specific areas of concern. Read more…

This story appeared on MSNBC.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6501943/

I am not a big fan of the International Churches of Christ. I don’t think that’s a disputable fact. However, while in Rome, I became aware of a tiny church of seventeen ‘disciples’ in Iraq. My understanding is that these are not American servicemen, but Iraqi citizens.

I can only imagine the upheaveal in their lives since the war began, so I am asking for prayers for those 17. My understanding is that the Christians from Jordan and other countries returned home, but that the 17 left stayed at home. It just so happens their home is in Baghdad.

I was given a contact name to send encouragement to them and I am waiting to hear back. It is my hope that there is a way to send them encouragement to have faith in God and trust in Him during their ordeal.

It has also occurrred to me that there are American soldiers that are ICC members (82nd Airborne, 101st Airborne, National Guard). I prayed since the war began that somehow two brothers did not shoot each other.

I am not anti-military and I pray for our troops. In the current politcal culture of the US where patriotism is increasingly becoming synonmous with religion, all I ask is What Would Jesus Do? I believe that he would pray for our enemies, the insurgents in Fallujah and Mosul, as well as Usama Bin Laden, himself. I believe he would pray for the Christians in Baghdad. I believe he would pray for the American and coalition servicemen as well.

Like I said, I am not a fan of the ICC. However, I am certain that these 17 souls do not have the luxury to discuss issues of polity and discipling - they are more busy staying alive in a war zone. I do pray that there is a way to stregthen these suffering Christians.

Here’s how you can participate:

• Write a post explaining the gospel as you would or could to a person in your context.
• Briefly describe your context and the audience to which you believe this explaination or description of the gospel would make sense and be meaningful.
• Use [Grid::Blog::Gospel] as the title of your post (everything from [ to ], exactly as you see it).
• Check out what other people are saying by googling it.

This looks interesting, so here’s my two cents. Keep in mind that I tend to prefer dialogue to monologue, but I digress.

A person in my context - a rugged individualist that believes that anything that is not concrete is completely relative. In other words, do not tie me to a group of people, do not micromanage my life, do not meddle in my business unless I invite you in, and most importantly, do not question my honesty in asking questions.

That is my context where I encountered Jesus for the first time on a personal level. In a sense, I hope that this would help people like myself. The great thing about the gospel is that it transcends context. The gospel meets a person where they are emotionally, culturally, spiritually, and mentally. It is good news for all time and space.

Why do you ask about God? Don’t you believe that God is a relative thing? I see, it bothers you that I can refer to God in concrete terms. Does it bother you that I believe it is possible to know God and not just know of God?

Maybe the real question is “How can I know for sure?”. That’s a fair question. The reason I can know for certain is that Jesus made a promise. He said, “try me.” Seriously, if you want to know whether or not Jesus is for real, put his teachings into practice. That way, you’ll know for yourself and it has nothing to do with me, or my friends, or my church or whatever. I did and that is what has made it real for me.

Hmm? No, I don’t think it is true for all religions. I have tried several and found that the same promise doesn’t hold true. I studied to be a Latter-Day Saint, I studied to be a Jehovah’s Witness, I studied Buddhism briefly and I’ve read the Koran. You know, you should read the Koran some time - it makes some interesting claims about the Bible and Christianity as a whole. I agree with Islam that Christians are “people of the book”. Again, though, if you need to explore it, then explore it - don’t just take my word for it. I believe that God can speak to you if you are really trying to find him. He will guide you in the way to go.

Yes, it is important that you are trying to find Him. But if you’re at a point where God is still a concept, that’s okay, too. We all have to start somewhere, just be honest about where you are now. Otherwise, you are putting yourself at the mercy of a smooth speaker. The very first thing to do when asking about God is ask yourself, “what do I think about God?”. Do you believe there is an unknown force that mankind calls God? Do you believe that there is no God? Is God a He, She, It, or Concept? Start with really basic statements and work your way up. I know you have some thoughts on God, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me mine. However, in fairness, I’ll tell you mine, first.

I believe that God created the universe and everything in it. I believe that God is knowable, but being infinite, He is not subject to anyone’s mental framework or worldview. I believe that God wants to be known by men and women everywhere and that he communicated to mankind in the best way we could understand. I believe that God is the definition of love and as such, has our best interests at heart and is not trying to play a big trick on all of mankind. I believe that he demonstrated that love through the sacrifice of his son, a man named Jesus. I believe that in God brought Jesus back to life so that all mankind could know God personally and intimately…

Why is there evil in the world if God is a loving God? Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter. I’ll give you a short answer later, but it’s really something that you need to come to grips with yourself. When it comes to knowing who God is or what God is, we need to determine if how I defined God is true or not. How can I know if it’s true or not? Again, like I said earlier, Jesus said to put his words to practice to see if they are true. Like any other relationship, knowing God is a risk: it is not an intellectual exercise. If you want that, I’d suggest the Buddha or Zoroaster.

Why am I confident? I believe that God wants to be known by men and women everywhere and that he communicated to mankind in the best way we could understand. I believe that the best way we could understand is through a book. If He spoke to someone directly, we can dismiss them as crazy. If He speaks to you, how will you convince someone that He did? They’ll think you’re crazy, too. I think He showed up in person and left a record. Would it have been easier if He showed up today? Maybe, but then we’d hear about him through the networks, BBC, Al-Jazeera, and all other sources. What’s the difference between getting a news report about someone today that preaches a bunch of things and reading about them in a book? Nothing but video images, really. Would seeing a picture of Jesus really make that much difference to you?

So how do I know that this book is true? Again, I tried it. It’s true that it claims to be a written testament of God, but that can be dismissed as promotional hype without some first-hand experience, right? For me, I found Jesus’ words to be true and then worked backward to taking the entire Bible to be true, but stopped short of taking any other books as testimonies of God.

Why do I keep changing the subject to the Bible when you asked about God? It’s simple, really. I believe that I know God through the Bible. I also believe that because God makes himself known through the Bible, that you can embark on your own exploration of Him. I’m really trying to remove myself and my opinions from your exploration of God. I’d love to help because I’ve been through some things and I think I’ve learned a few things, but it’s important to me that you find God and not my religion. Again, God is larger than my mental framework and personal world view.

Give me the benefit of the doubt for now and go explore on your own. If you read John 1, it’s basically an expanded version of what I said that I believed. John was written by a man that claimed to be an eyewitness to Jesus. He also said that he wrote this book so that others could know who Jesus is.

Where does Jesus say “try me”? It’s in John 7:16-17.

Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.

You’re welcome. I hope it helps. It’s where I started and it helped me. Seriously, though, I think that if you are looking for Him (meaning God), you’ll find Him in whatever path you choose. Call me if you need anything.

Although Clinton had to replace 7 of 15 cabinet members during his second term, it strikes me as interesting those among the Bush administration that are leaving.

Cabinet
Secretary of State Colin Powell
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman
Education Secretary Rod Paige
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham
Attorney General John Ashcroft
Secretary of Commerce Don Evans

CIA
Director, George Tenet
Deputy director of Operations, Stephen R. Kappes
Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin
CIA officer Mike Scheuer (of Imperial Hubris fame)

More senior CIA agents are bound to leave as Gross has rejected the advice of four former directors.

All of this leads me to wonder why so many are leaving. I realize the CIA is a separate issue in some ways. I believe they are related because the management style is similar.

Anywho, just my random thought of the day.

While coming in to work this morning, I heard the story of the Kabul Golf Club. My first impressions were related to the wasted money Americans are spending to revitalize Afghanistan. However, as I listened on, I discovered the story of one man’s dream.

It turns out that Mohammed Afzal remembers the days when diplomats and other dignitaries used to go to the club for social events and fun. Now, 25 years later, he moved back to Afghanistan from Pakistan where he gave up his job to rebuild the golf course. He dreams of Harmad Karzai and even Tiger Woods making a visit to the course.

To give you an idea of the magnitude of Afzal’s dream, the course currently has no grass. It was destroyed by the Soviets when they invaded in the seventies. When the Soviets retreated, the course was open depending on the local warlord in power, but the Taliban, once in control, saw no use for a golf course, so they left it abandoned.

For $50, you can play the course with the pro while he provides instruction. The old pro shop is a bombed out building, but he has a rusting locker that holds the rental equipment. First, he hopes to raise money for grass, then he may think about the buildings and such. In any case, I imagine that he is quite happy to live his dream after spending a quarter of a century waiting.

So, what exactly did the link mean when I posted this term earlier?

Open source programmers have a perchant to create a program that duplicates to work of a similar program that already exists. These programmers continue to work on their program despite the fact that they may be ‘reinventing the wheel’. A few of these programmers acknowledge this fact in their title by calling their program, Yet Another Program. For example, YAPIG stands for Yet Another Php Image Gallery. Many other folks use Coppermine or similar programs, but for whatever reason, the programmer of YAPIG wanted to create his own.

lxy (Hebrew reads from right to left) is a Hebrew word meaning to wait or to hope for. For example in Psalm 130:5,

I wait for the LORD , my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.

As such, when you put the two together, you have my intended meaning. Expressed plainly, YAChaL(tm) means to hope for something that has already happened before. Specifically in the sentence of the post this is refined to mean “to hope for a leader that is just like the charasmatic leaders of old.”

Yes, it’s a bit of a stretch, but I couldn’t resist it.

So, my friends want to know about the conference in Rome. I have to say that I enjoyed it. In large part I enjoyed it because my wife was with me. She and I were minor celebrities at the conference as the couple on their honeymoon. There’s a part of me that wants to be taken seriously for the teaching work I do in Omaha, but considering my lack of participation with other ‘teachers’ at the conference, it didn’t bother me too much.

Except for one message, the keynote sermons were quite good and thoughtful. Personally, I’ve hungered for a thoughtful sermon and had resorted to memories of past sermons as a young teenager. At that time, I knew a man from CBN UNiversity (now Regent University) was the professor of Bibilcal Exposition and Teaching there. I heard him do an exposition on the book of Ephesians and other New Testament books. I knew then that I wanted to speak like him, and in some ways, I do.

The one message I did not like talked about vision. He made a great point about complicating the gospel (good news + my awesome church) instead of presenting a simple gospel (Jesus and Him crucified), but then he digressed. He seemed to replace reaching the world in one generation with buidling teaching schools all over the world. I suppose when the next reformation of the ICC occurs, he will be calling for vision in regards to that as well. I don’t want to pick on the speaker, but a pep rally speech sandwiches between two scriptures doesn’t excite me. I decided to not be disruptive and simply stare at the ceiling until the next scripture emerged. In fairness to having vision, I do pray that members of the ICC will dream about what the new churches will be like. I truly believe that if individual members do not begin to dream of what their church can be, that they will allow yet another charismatic leader (YAChaL(tm)) to shape the church in their image. Unfortunately, I believe that many with vision, simply went to find it elsewhere because few would listen. I may end up searching for that vision elsewhere as well.

Otherwise, I enjoyed talking to folks from Europe. I made it a point to avoid Americans, and except one night at dinner, I did. I consider the couple leading the Zurich Church of Christ as friends and I enjoyed discussing the effects of George W. Bush with them. All four of us agree that re-electing Dubya was a bad thing - I joked that I would get a Canadian passport if I travelled to Europe again.

I also enjoyed talking to a man that was a minister for 14 years on two continents. We had a great discussion about inbreeding and the need for outside help with the ICC. He serves on a leadership team in the UK, but is no longer a minister. Talking with him was encouraging in that it was good to talk with somehow that shared some of my viewpoint. I have his email address and I look forward to talking with him further. I also spoke with Malcom Cox, the only paid minister in London. We prayed together near the end of the conference. I encountered a man that was trying very hard to be a great husband, father, and minister. He shared some personal feelings and struggles about his life in the Post-HKL Renaissance(tm). I was glad to encourage him that he was not alone in his struggles - there’s a couple here that share some of his experiences.

I only made one verbal comment during the keynotes. The speaker was saying that God demolished the clergy-laity distinction with HKL and I responded, “But it’s coming back.” I believe it is, especially after reading the so-called discipling methods used in Orange County. I think there are quite a few people that think the Orange County method is a good solution because it is a compromise between “no discipling” and “one over another discipling”. Not to return to a familiar rant, but the fallacy of the Golden Mean is infuriating to see.

I enjoyed the visit to Pompeii as it is a city that is not too different from Corinth. I saw the market and a cloth merchant’s house. Someone in my group mentioned Lyddia and the connection fit quite well. A church met in Lyddia’s home for some time and using the home in Pompeii as a model, I can understand why they chose it as a meeting place. The home in Pompeii had 50 bedrooms, 2 courtyards, fountains, baths, and lots of open space. There was easily room for hundreds of people to meet, although I’m sure that many primitive churches never used all the space available to them at a rich merchant’s home. Outside of space, it also showed me that rich Christians in the early church were not ordered to impoverish themselves, but were expected to be generous with others.

Overall, though, the biggest thing I picked up from the conference was the danger in confusing religion for patriotism. It’s a trend that occurred in Rome and is currently happening in the US. I truly believe that some voted for Dubya because he was ‘more Christian’ than Kerry. I believe that the political debate has been used to discuss the Christian merits of a candidate instead of the issues. Anyone running for office seems to be a good strong Christian with a Christian family, and I resent that. I especially bristles during the third debate when it seemed that both of them were discussing their views on God instead of discussing something of importance. There’s more to this idea, but I’ll have to write it later.

I still believe that things will have to get worse before they get better. I still sense a big resistance to outside help and a trend to become a nicer version of what we once were. However, I did enjoy meeting folks for whom the dramas of polity are not really issues. What I mean are the 17 members of the ICC in Baghdad. I’m certain that the politcal reality before and after the war prevented some things from happening, but now, they are more concerned about staying alive than the proper mode of ‘discipling’. I pray for them to be safe and to survive the war.

While talking to some folks in Rome, a friend pointed out something about the United States worthy of mention. Keep in mind, that I believe my beloved country is trying to mix religion and patriotism: a recipe for destruction.

My friend said that while everyone is talking and preaching about praying for the troops, no one is teaching love your enemies.Luke 6: 27 - 36 talks about love for your enemies, certainly this would extend to possibly praying for them as well.

Think about it: this great so-called Christian nation of ours misses the message. Even Jesus said that it was easy to love those that love you back, but where are the preachers calling for loving our enemies? Instead there is a barrage of “Pray for the Troops”.

I had to think about this one, myself, and felt ashamed for not seeing this simple truth.

Greetings family and friends from Roma! John and I have had a fantastic time in this ancient and yet thriving city.

We have just finished early Christmas shopping, but our travels have included a great work out in the hike to Mt. Vesuvius, comparing ancient Pompeii with current Rome and even the US.

Talking and connecting not only to each other in a special way as we daily fall more in love but also with other workshop participants who were also here to learn more about Rome and the bible.

The food is incredible and to be sorely missed as we return . . .and Laryssa is excited though to start her life with her wonderful husband. She feels especially inspired by John and her time in Rome to be serious about her love of writing . . . be on the look out to be guinea pigs of her forthcoming adventures and scribbles . . .

love to you all and Thanks for making our Wedding Day and our relationship so wonderful . . .See you soon Omaha,

Love, Laryssa