Here's your sign.

Well. here we go. Seems like there are rocks being thrown back and forth about the "Pledge of Allegiance" again.

Apparently, someone decided that the "Billy Graham Parkway" in Charlotte was a good place to put up a billboard. I'm unfamiliar with that particular road but I am assuming that it is a major thoroughfare with heavy traffic. Sounds like a good place for an advertising billboard.

And so a private organization practiced one of the grand acts of capitalism and entered into an advertising campaign agreement with the owner of the sign. Money was paid for the right to post the sign and up it went.

Now, before you get upset that the atheist group that sponsored the sign was trying to take a swipe a t minister Graham, these signs went up in several locations in North Carolina. It isn't just this road.

The Pledge has become a major battleground in this culture war that, to quote Marco Ramius, has "no battles, no monuments... only casualties". But the war continues just the same. Now, I have my own take on "Pledge controversy" and the sign shows the problem I have with the Pledge. This is country is neither "One Nation" nor "indivisible". It is 50 nations that have the right, even the responsibility to dissolve their union if it becomes detrimental to the well-being of their people. But no one ever seems to complain about that. They are too busy trying to either drag God into it or extricate Him from it. And it is a sad state on both fronts.

However, in this particular instance, the atheists have done nothing wrong. They broke no laws, trespassed on no other person's property and damaged nothing. But some vandals trespassed on private property and spray painted the name of their deity on a legally placed message that had been properly secured and paid for. The vandals have interfered with capitalist enterprise - they have in effect, broken a few of the 10 Commandments in an attempt to defend the honor of the all-seeing, all-powerful, all knowing God. Covetousness, thievery, and maybe even idolatry.

Idolatry? Yes. You see, in the book of Colossians, Paul tells us that Jesus is the "image of the invisible God". He is the God we see. By stepping in and trying to put a substitute for God on the atheists' sign, they may have placed a god (one of their own creation) above the very Christ they claim to worship and who should be evident through the way they live their lives - like love before vandalism. This is a terrible crime that all Christians should look upon as a moment of shame.

We took our sons to see the new "Karate Kid" movie this week and I heard something in it that I think speaks volumes to this crime. Mr Han is explaining to Dre why the lessons he has been learning are important to Kung Fu. He tells him "Kung Fu lives in everything we do. It lives in how we put on a jacket. It lives in how we treat people. Everything is Kung Fu". The same is supposed to be true of faith in Christ - to paraphrase: Jesus lives in everything we do. He lives in how we react to atheists, in how we love our neighbors, everything is Jesus.

Spray painting "God" on someone's property is not Jesus.

Ugly

Well, I have had a good week. Nothing ugly about it. No complaints. But there have been two things that have happened that are forcing this entry. 1) McGuire's just informed me that the stout is only $1 tonight (and I'm nowhere near Pensacola) leaving me rather grumpy and 2) I just finished another book, and as Stephen King taught me "read a lot, write a lot". So, I'm turning up Queen and writing.

Keeping my tradition of not wasting my time on books that have not offended anyone, I chose to read a book that was stamped with that statement "If this were not a free country, this book would be banned". Yeah, had to read it when I saw that.

So I read "The Ugly American" by William Lederer ad Eugene Burdick. It was a challenge to dive into a work that had a reputation that promised to challenge me. But I have come to love such stretching and just dove in. As usual, there was a lot to reap.

I've come to learn in the last several years that the arts, especially books, offer a multi-tier message that cover intended and unintended topics. The authors intended to address the problems within the united States Foreign Service during the Eisenhower Administration and Americans abroad in general and I was forced to deal with that. But the topic also covered the state of the modern Church in America.

Regardless of which way you look at it, the whole idea boils down to the choice of mutually beneficial actions or self-serving actions, symbiosis or parasitism, altruism or arrogance. It comes down to on question, in policy and in practice, "do we really care about people or are we just here to use them?"

I understand the frustrations of Gilbert MacWhite, "The Ragtime Kid" and "Tex" Wolcheck as they attempted to try to make a difference in southeast Asia by actually understanding the people, the culture, the way of life of the native people. These men, and others, understood that capitalism was the best opportunity for the people of Asia but that it was not going to look like American capitalism. They understood that the people didn't need the flash, glitz and the price tags that the u.S. government put on its foreign policy. They needed a better chance to earn a living and they weren't looking for handouts. They were looking for opportunity to do it themselves. I understand these frustrations because I have confronted evangelical leaders and begged them to care about people and have been labeled as a heretic for my efforts.

MacWhite sent off one final letter to Washington to seek the resources, the manpower, the permission to do the things that needed to be done to really empower the fictional nation of Sarkhan - only to be disappointed by politicians that were unaware that the box had an outside and who could never hope to think there and who were too self-serving to care about the people of rural Sarkhan.

"The Ragtime Kid" had his ultimate opportunity squashed by a staff member that couldn't see past his own Americanism to understand the culture of Sarkhan and the fact that one man was about to eliminate the influence of Red China over an entire nation.

Wolcheck found himself drunk and and unimpressed at the rebuke of a powerful senator, threatening him with bodily harm if he did not "have a drink with us and keep your mouth shut" or leave.

The consensus among the powers that be were that the new, innovative and, more importantly, benevolent ideas wouldn't work, weren't feasible and "wouldn't do enough". But the problem is that when it comes to helping people, bigger is not always better, handouts are not always better and people aren't looking to be just like us.

So, if an American can help a Cambodian farmer get his chickens to lay more eggs or help his fellow man find answers to the spiritual questions he is seeking, it doesn't matter if the farmer remains Cambodian or the seeker is never "presentable" in most churches. The question is "was a need met?" This might require someone learning to speak Khmer or to learn to not speak "Churchese" but if the best outcome is truly desired, the effort will not be difficult.

But if we are stuck in a box, I think I'll go fishing...or better yet, just play with my kids.

This post might be a little ambiguous for those who have never read the book....maybe ambiguous enough to fix that problem. Give it a try.

A Summertime Surprise

I was glad to wake up this morning and see some college football news. Granted, it was a bunch of silliness and grandstanding by second tier programs but a football fanatic is well into the DTs this time of year and you take any port in a storm.

Colorado headed to the Pac-10? How pleasant. They may take the Texas delegation with them? Isn't that special? Looks like 16 programs? Maybe between all of them, they'll field at least one legitimate team. I'm really hoping they at least change their name to the Pac-16 instead of leaving us wondering which ones don't count even in their eyes like their Rose Bowl cohorts in the Midwest.

Speaking of the conference that doesn't count so well....

So the Cornhuskers are bound for the Big 10...11...10...whatever. Bo Pelini coached in the SEC. Yeah, he's probably going to own that conference. What with powerhouses like Northwestern and Illinois running around up there? What a joke.

So now there is talk of championship games for these realigned conferences. Welcome to the 1990's, y'all. People are even wringing their hands asking if the Pac-however-many should have an additional BCS automatic bid. They already had one which was at least three too many. I mean really, you played nobody all year, why break that trend in January?

Then there is the news that The Diploma Mill of Southern California has been slapped with a 2-year post season ban and 4 years of probation for something that happened when their current players were in middle school. I don't care for the over-rated Trojan program and usually don't feel sorry for them but punishing these kids for the transgressions of a multi-millionaire NFL player is really kind of sad. But Lane Kiffin has to take it too, so maybe it's a wash. Lane, can we borrow your dad in Tampa for a few years while you aren't allowed to play big boy ball?

Anyway, all this shuffling around and the SEC will still be by far the superior conference in college football. A mid-tier SEC team will still be a championship favorite in any other conference in the nation. The ACC will still be a distant second that is still miles ahead of number three.

And regardless of all this rambling above and who pulls what moves it is apparent that troy is still way too chicken to show their faces in Jacksonville. The Pit may look a little different, but it is still the place Bama trojans go to get whupped.

Forever After

I don't typically go to the movies. It isn't some political boycott or anything. I just know that if I wait a few months, I'll be able to see anything for a dollar from a Redbox - a price that is more suitable for the produce of most film makers these days. I still pass on the Will Farrell movies. Why waste a dollar?

That being said, my wealth of otherwise worthless knowledge was able to score me two free passes. I knew that the red poppy is the Memorial Day flower and the local radio station thought that the contents of my neurons made me worthy of a night at the moving picture show. They paid for my wife as well. She had a few passes for the kids. After we paid the 3-D fee for all five of us, we got in the doors for $12.50 - a bit steep for most movies, but I wouldn't be writing unless I was pleased or VERY disappointed.

Shrek did not disappoint. And the sounds of Lacuna Coil educating Depeche Mode on the art of performing "Enjoy the Silence" is helping my fingers tap away tonight.

There is a lesson in this...for me and maybe for you. If you hate spoilers, come back to this article after you see the movie. I'll try to keep them to a minimum.

Right out of the gate, I perked up to see Shrek's disillusion with the mundane life he found himself in and the pull to live up to the expectations of all these other people. There are times in all of our lives where we just wish there was more excitement or more "me time" or whatever. You know about that grass on the other side. It was very easy to see that "yeah, I know what he is saying". And like so many of us often do, Shrek did something stupid. "Hey, y'all watch this..."

My ability to relate to the characters continued on through a scene where a short man with incredible head covers is in a grand ballroom surrounded by intriguingly dressed women. I can't say that I have found myself in that situation but it was fun for a short man to dream...

I was feeling rather cozy with myself relating to the depressed dad and the ladies' leprechaun when Josh Klausner and Darren Lemke made me feel like I could crawl up under a door. I felt that way because our big green hero did. And I'm short but not that short.

As the story progressed, Shrek realized that while he was a hero that saved a beautiful princess as well as a kingdom of fans, he had to learn the lesson that living out in that swamp all alone was...well...lonely. The boy came to grips with the fact that he was rescued as much as he was a rescuer.

Eureka!

How could a short man be the least bit distracted by that ballroom, his selfish stupidity or even the throne itself when his "ezer kenegdo" (life-saver) is still standing beside him ready to take on all comers in a battle to the death? Yeah, he can't.

So I'd like to raise a glass of ice-cold sweetened Luzianne to my own Princess, children's movies that teach lessons - even to adults, and the timely revelations that can only come from above, regardless of the delivery method.

Seems like she said something about some more free passes and a date night....