Thoughts on faith and politics

I don't think I've ever felt more conflicted about a presidential election than I have about this one. The level of invective and hysteria from supporters (even Christian supporters) of both main candidates is astonishing. I want to make a wise decision, but I'm finding it hard to filter out what I need to know. And then there's the fact that I live in the reddest of states -- it hardly matters if I vote at all (except locally).

One of the things that has always puzzled me is how Christians who believe fundamentally the same things can come to completely opposite conclusions about an issue. You see this all the time in theology, in how we address cultural issues, and in politics. I know sincere Christians who will vote for John McCain. I also know sincere Christians who will vote for Barak Obama. They have all approached the election seriously and with prayer. They read their Bibles and study where the candidates stand on the issues they care about and make their choices. Is one set of believers right and the other wrong? I don't think so. I think Romans 14 applies here -- to avoid passing judgment on a brother or sister who disagrees with you, and to follow your conscience. And guess what -- on Nov. 5 God will still be God.

We live in trying times. Of course I want to make a wise decision about who I vote for, but I have to remember that God is in charge and is working out his plan for the world.

What I hope for is that, no matter who is elected, Christians will exhibit love and respect for those they have disagreed with about politics. More than ever, the church needs to be the church -- the hands and feet of Jesus in this world.

Peace. And vote.

Random thoughts in no particular order

My iGoogle homepage now has the left-hand column. I like it (though not everyone does). It lets me interact with my mail or my reader without having to open a new window. (Click on an item in the left column and the main window is devoted to that application, without navigating away from the page.) I can now share items in my Reader without having to actually open Reader -- great time saver. I tend to browse through my google homepage, so this is actually useful to me. I can skim through e-mail and delete items quickly. Pretty nifty.

I have lots of time to think while I'm riding on the van and here's a few thoughts:
• Small towns are good places to live, but so often get bogged down on quality-of-life issues that appear to cost too much money to deal with. Clay Center has one of the oldest Carnegie Library buildings in Kansas, a swimming pool that was built during the Depression, and an aging movie theater that has been partially restored. All of these things need attention, but we seem to lack the collective imagination to visualize a way to deal with them. The theater is in private hands, but run mostly by volunteers and is used by the community for concerts and events, as well as movies. But the library and the pool are public buildings and yet can't seem to find the funds needed for improvements or (in the case of the pool) rebuilding. I think part of the problem is that these facilities are not streets or water plants and so are assumed to be "optional." Believe me, if you want to keep families with children in your town, a pool and a library are not optional. And maybe neither is a functional theater.

• I've watched the debates this year. They haven't helped me make up my mind about who I'm going to vote for. I know which way I'm leaning, but I still feel conflicted. This is the ugliest election I can remember and I'll be glad when it's over.

• There are some Covenant bloggers I follow regularly, for example Randall Friesen, Brad Boydston and Scot McKnight. Now I've added Eugene Cho to that list. (Actually, I've read him for a while, but I finally got around to adding him to my google reader list.) He always has thoughtful, insightful comments about faith and living it out in this world.

TGIF

A few things for a Friday:

Congratulations to my daughter Julia, who passed the Missouri bar and is being sworn in as an attorney today. She had a baby, finished law school, took her bar exam and passed all in the same year (and while she was still pregnant she received job offers from two law firms -- she works for one in KC now)!

New music from Andy Osenga: Letters to the Editor, II. Once again he took suggestions from fans and readers of his blog and wrote six great songs. You can download it for free or a for a donation. Great stuff.

I like Bono.

I also like Randall's pictures of Prince Albert (in Canada) in the fall -- wow! Be sure to follow the link to his Flickr set.

CFBA Tour: Merciless, by Robin Parrish

Here's a book I've been looking forward to for a long time. My take on it is below the author and book info.

Merciless by Robin Parrish

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
Merciless
(Bethany House - July 1, 2008)
by
Robin Parrish


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Robin Parrish had two great ambitions in his life: to have a family, and to be a published novelist. In March of 2005, he proposed to his future wife the same week he signed his first book contract.

More than ten years he spent writing for various websites, including About.com, CMCentral.com, and Infuze Magazine, which is a unique intersection between art and faith which he also conceived of and created.

One of his more "high concept" ideas for Infuze was to return to his love for storytelling and create a serialized tale that would play out every two weeks, telling a complete, compelling story over the course of nine months. That serialized story eventually came to the attention of several publishers, who saw it as a potential debut novel for Robin Parrish.

In 2005, Bethany House Publishers brought Robin full circle by contracting him for the rights to not only that first book, Relentless -- but two sequels including Fearless and Merciless. A trilogy that unfolded in the consecutive summers of 2006, 2007, and this year, 2008. One massive tale -- of which that first, original story would form only the foundational first volume of the three -- spread across three books.

Robin Parrish is a journalist who's written about pop culture for more than a decade. Currently he serves as Senior Editor at XZOOSIA.com, a community portal that fuses social networking with magazine-style features about entertainment and culture. He and his wife, Karen and son live in North Carolina.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The world as we know it has ENDED.
DEATH and CHAOS creep across the globe and only the POWERLESS can RISE UP to stop it.

But can anything stop the onslaught of the DARKWORLD

From the earth's depths crawls a figure with skin like granite, flames for eyes, and the face of Grant Borrows.
Oblivion has arrived.

Every clock around the world has stopped. Time has frozen.

The Secretum have fulfilled the prophecy, unleashing on earth the most powerful being to walk the earth in thousands of years. His name is Oblivion and his touch is death.

He can't be slowed.
He can't be stopped.
And he can't be killed.

But as long as any live who trust in hope and love and freedom, the fight is not over.

They have only one chance before he brings forth the Darkworld.

Oblivion is: Merciless

If you would like to read the first chapter of Merciless, go HERE

Last year, when I finished Fearless, I really couldn't see where the story was headed. So, I started Merciless with a pretty open mind about what would happen next. And boy, I was not disappointed. What a ride. From the opening scenes, Robin Parrish takes the reader on a harrowing journey through darkness and chaos. At times, I wondered how he was going to resolve the story, but in the end, he did, and pretty satisfactorily, too. If you've ever wondered what the world would look like if evil was really let loose, Merciless offers a pretty convincing vision of the possibility. It's hard to talk too much about the plot without major spoilers, but I'll just say that though the story goes to some very dark places, hope and redemption awaits.

With his Dominion Trilogy, Robin Parrish has attempted something quite ambitious -- crafting a new mythology for a post-modern generation. I think he's succeeded. These are good stories, full of truth, but told in a way that is accessible to people from lots of different backgrounds, not only Christians.

Because any day is better with a picture of Kiernan

There's our boy smiling big. I went and helped a few weekends ago while Julia studied for her bar exam. I know, it was a tough job, but somebody has to do it. (the babysitting, I mean)

We had a good time, Julia got in some good studying and even a date with her husband. (And the bar exam is done and she is greatly relieved.)

A sign of the apocalypse?

Two quirks of my family:
1) We haven't watched the Olympics in years because the two stations we could get with the rabbit ears didn't carry them. But now we have cable and so that has changed.
2) Our three younger sons have no interest in televised sports.

So imagine my astonishment yesterday morning when I went into the living room and Joel was watching the U.S. men's soccer game.

What I'm reading ...

I have eclectic tastes in reading, and usually have multiple books going at once. I've been reading some good stuff lately, so I thought I'd share:

His Majesty's Dragon, by Naomi Novik. I saw a review of the newest book in the series and thought it sounded like something I would enjoy, so I started with the first one. I was right -- I really enjoyed it. The stories are set during the Napoleonic wars, and the twist is that all the countries have, besides armies and navies, dragons! It's very cool, sort of Master & Commander meets Pern, but different. Novik writes consistent with the style of the era, her characters' attitudes reflect that time, and her descriptions and characterizations are vivid. Now that I've finished the first one, I can't wait to get hold of the next book in the series and see what happens to Temeraire (the dragon) and Will Laurence, his aviator.

The River at the Center of the World, by Simon Winchester. Back about 1995, Winchester took a voyage of the Yangtzee and this book is his account. It's also a voyage through Chinese history and it's fascinating. This is one of his earlier books, but I picked up a recent reprint this summer and I'm enjoying it (I haven't finished it yet).

Graphic Discovery: A Trout in the Milk and Other Visual Adventures, by Howard Wainer. I found this book about the development of information graphics when I was looking for a book by Edward Tufte in the K-State library. I suppose it's more of a textbook, but Wainer's style is engaging and the subject interests me. I deal with charts and graphs in my work and have always been interested in them. This book, along with Tufte's work (such as The Visual Display of Quantitative Information) are good explications of the subject.

Coming up is Merciless, by Robin Parrish, the final installment of his Dominion trilogy. I'm eager to get into this. I also just bought Water for Elephants, which everyone tells me is an excellent book, and The Jesus Creed, a book I've been meaning to read for a long time.

Derek Webb is offering a new way to acquire music

Derek Webb has started a new initiative called NoiseTrade to distribute music in a new way. You can choose to download music after recommending it to three friends, or you can pay whatever you want for it. This is how the e-mail I got today puts it:

It was through the support and success you gave the Mockingbird experiment that inspired Derek, with the help of a few friends, to start NoiseTrade. Now any artist can freely distribute their music online, via NoiseTrade's remarkable and embeddable widget, offering fans the choice to tell 3 friends or to pay any amount in exchange for an immediate download.

Derek concludes, "If artists and fans realized how they could help each other and started making direct connections, without a middleman, the whole industry would change overnight. It would start a revolution."

Rather than over-charging for music, we want to let you choose your price or will give you the record for free in exchange for a little help. NoiseTrade believes it's time to stop applying the old rules to a new world. If we can work together, an environment is created for the long-term benefit of both fans and artists.

I think it's a good idea from a ground-breaking artist.

Sailing on a tall ship

When I was in Michigan I went with my group (the Ace Leadership Institute) on the tall ship Manitou in Traverse Bay. Very fun. Here's proof (video by Jeff Hino, of Oregon State):


Choose the high quality option (it didn't embed very well, so I'm linking). I'm the person who more or less introduces the ship.

Impressions: 'So Brave, Young and Handsome'

I read Leif Enger's new novel, So Brave, Young and Handsome, this week. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I had hoped to. That's probably not fair, but you see I loved Peace Like a River so much and was really looking forward to this novel. Of course, even a somewhat disappointing effort by Enger is still many times better than my best effort, so this is all relative. Still, here goes:

The narrator of the story, Monte Becket, is a writer in Minnesota in 1915. He's written one bestseller and has spent the five years since writing and discarding seven tries at another novel. He's getting pretty discouraged and it comes as no surprise when he agrees to accompany a vagabond named Glendon Hale on a quest to find Hale's long-lost love. The journey takes them through Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico -- all the way to California. Along the way they encounter some colorful characters, including a former Pinkerton's agent who wants to arrest Hale for an old crime. Before the end, both Monte and Hale will change, and lots of things happen.

The journey is significant in the story's development, but it also suffers from the problem shared by a lot of road stories -- it becomes a little disjointed, a series of incidents in each successive location. This is hardly a fatal flaw, but at times I found myself peeking ahead, which is not usually a good sign with me. It means I'm getting a little bored.

I think the main problem for me, the reason I feel a bit disappointed, is that the narrator never quite engaged me. Monte is certainly involved in the story, but his voice comes across somewhat detached. I don't know how it could be fixed, but at the most exciting moments of crisis the narrator's tone seems to fall a little short. The result was a story that could be put down and taken up again another day. (When I'm really engaged in a story, I can't put it down.) I'm not sure I was completely pulled into the world of the story.

I don't want to be completely negative about this book because it is a well-written story. Enger has a wonderful vocabulary and he sets the scenes well. Monte sounds like a (fairly well educated) person of his era. Enger gives a good sense of a time when the old West was fading, but still visible in places. The plot takes some unexpected turns -- one good thing about a road story (anything can happen on the road). I liked the ending, which is more satisfying as I reflect on it than it felt when I was reading it.

Like I said, I enjoyed the book and I would recommend it, especially if you enjoy Enger's style of writing. It's an entertaining tale with some meat to it. It's just not Peace Like a River. But then, why should it be?

Listening to ...

Nine Lives by Steve Winwood. Excellent album. It's all good, in a kind of jazzy style, but the outstanding track is "Dirty City," featuring Eric Clapton on guitar. It sizzles. Winwood gets better with age.

Happy Birthday, Sam!

Today is my son Sam's 22nd birthday. The picture was from a family gathering a few weeks ago -- he's actually smiling. (He doesn't usually like having his picture taken, but maybe Kiernan softened him up.)

So happy birthday, Sam.

Should travel really be this hard?

The "hard" part of the title does not refer to the picture. This is sunset over the West Bay of Grand Traverse Bay, from my hotel window in Traverse City, Mich. I think it turned out pretty good. Traverse City is a lovely town and has a great bookstore, Horizon Books. I was there last week for a conference and enjoyed it.

No, the hard part was getting there and getting home. We were supposed to fly out of Kansas City at about 11 a.m. on Sunday, June 8 (United Flight 682). We were to change planes in Chicago (O'Hare) and arrive in Traverse City around 3:30 that afternoon.

Unfortunately, June 8 was the day that Chicago was pummeled with severe thunderstorms and we weren't even allowed to take off. I was fine with that. After a short while, our plane pulled back up to a gate and we were allowed to get on and off. It became considerably more tiresome, though, as hours passed and we still weren't able to leave Kansas City. The gate areas at KCI have sandwich kiosks and restrooms, so it's not like we were stuck on a plane with no food or drink or clean restrooms. But by mid-afternoon, the sandwich kiosk was getting pretty empty. Our pilot gave us updates as he had information, but it wasn't much. Finally, a little after 4 p.m. they said we could take off and our plane taxied out to the runway and we were first in line. And then our pilot came on again and said "You won't believe this, but an indicator light just came on." He said it was something that needed to be fixed and we headed back to the gate. And then, after probably another 20 or 30 minutes, we were told the crew had worked as long as they were able to legally do so and they couldn't find another crew and we were all getting off the plane. That's when the fun really began.

Let me be clear -- I don't want to fly into a thunderstorm on a plane with a dicey engine. I can understand weather and mechanical delays. Up to this point, I think most of us on the plane recognized this and knew it was beyond our control and mostly beyond the airline's control. There were families with small children and even a little dog and nobody was going ballistic or crying.

But when we got off the plane, the communication from airline folks mostly stopped. There seemed to be poor communication between the crew on the plane and the employees at the ticket counter. We got our luggage back and got in line to find out what was going to happen next. And we stood in that line, barely moving for long stretches, for 2 1/2 hours. At first we were told that it was a weather-related delay and we were on our own. Then they said that since we were told it was mechanical the airline would provide hotel vouchers and we would be automatically booked on the earliest flight out in the morning. We got this information pretty quickly, but then all communication stopped and we just stood there in the really long, non-moving line and wondered why on earth it was taking so long to issue hotel vouchers. Some of the slowness was people trying to change arrangements because the morning flight wouldn't work. Some of it was short-staffing. (Sunday in KCI is not a day with full staffing, believe me.) Of course they had to take care of passengers for other flights that evening. But I was not impressed with the quality of United's customer service.

I have a lot of sympathy for people with thankless jobs, but a few things could have helped, such as:
Asking us to wait in a separate area.
Opening up another line or two as soon as possible (some people did go to other lines eventually, which forced the ticket agents to take care of them).
Maybe dividing us up into our boarding groups to deal with the situation.
They could have asked the people who needed to make different arrangements to get in a different line so they could handle them separately, instead of slowing everyone's progress.

Keeping 200 people standing in line for 2 1/2 hours is not good public relations.

Eventually, we did get our hotel vouchers (it was after 7:30 when I got mine) -- a lot of us ended up at the Howard Johnson's. Our van driver told us all about his hangover and how he wasn't supposed to be at work that day but he got called in. Some of us ate in the little restaurant, which had one surly waitress. Then we got up at 3 a.m. to take the hotel van (at 4) back to the airport. The ticket counter doesn't open until 4:45, and it couldn't have been plainer that the morning crew had no idea what was waiting for them. Again, I think it could have been handled in a more organized fashion. It's a wonder we all made the 5:45 a.m. flight because it was getting kind of chaotic at the counter. United has check-in kiosks, but they're right beside the counters and the lines get all mixed up and traffic does not flow smoothly at all.

Once we got through the check-in, though, the trip got better. We made it to Chicago in time, they let the Traverse City passengers off first since we had about 30 minutes to change planes, we made it to our next flight and made it to Traverse City just fine. My luggage all arrived with me, but quite a few people didn't get theirs until the next day.

Lots of people at the conference had travel troubles because of the Chicago weather. But even when the weather in Chicago is fine, O'Hare is prone to delays, as I discovered on my way home last Sunday. Once again, United didn't distinguish itself in the customer service department. The Traverse City airport is small and the airlines don't have a large staff there. Earlier in the afternon, some flights had been canceled and the ticket agents spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with the problems while the line backed up. I stood in line for an hour because of that. (I think one more staff person, or a better division of staff efforts, could have helped.) But I did get through and got on my 6 p.m. flight fine. But when I got to Chicago, my 9 p.m. flight was delayed until 11 p.m. so I didn't get back to Kansas City until 12:45 a.m. It made for a very long day.

Maybe I've just been really lucky, or maybe I don't fly that much, but this is the first time I've had anything like this happen to me. But the whole situation makes me wonder if it's really worth it to fly. I'll think twice before I fly with United again, and probably think three times before I get a flight that routes through O'Hare.

Maybe travel isn't supposed to be easy; maybe we were spoiled during that brief era when air travel was comfortable and easy. If it's uncomfortable and expensive and unreliable, maybe we won't fly so much. For most of history, travel was dangerous and left to adventurers. Now, at least in most developed nations, we think of easy travel as a right and get upset when it's hard. But I wonder if at some point the inconveniences of air travel will outweigh the benefits. I don't know -- I'm just thinking on the page. What I do know is that later this year I have to take a couple of trips -- one to Colorado and one to Atlanta -- and I'm thinking about driving instead of flying.

A season of change

I've been a sporadic blogger for several months (or longer) and I don't see that changing soon, though if my planned technology upgrade at home goes through I'll be able to do this a little easier.

But it's not just the blogging. I haven't written anything substantive in months. I have been thinking and I've done some planning on a rewrite of a novel I wrote a few years ago. It would be a major rewrite, though, and I haven't figured it all out yet.

But there's more. Today a story I submitted to the next issue of Coach's Midnight Diner was rejected. If I'm honest with myself, I have to admit I'm not surprised. It's just not good enough and it was lacking in other ways.

I'm not sitting here feeling sorry for myself, or vowing to never write again. That's just silly. But what I do need to do is figure out how I'm going to do this writing thing and develop some discipline about it. There are other disciplines I need to work on -- spiritual disciplines -- and I think that has something to do with the creative drought.

Add in that our youngest will be off to college in a couple of months and another one of our boys is probably moving out (and to another state) before then, and it means I'm not going to be blogging much this summer.

I hope that by fall I'll have a plan in place to do some regular writing and can better focus the direction of this blog. Till then, have a great summer. Oh, here's a couple of pictures of Kiernan because I think any blog post is better with a picture of Kiernan.

In honor of the season ...

You Are a Hot Fudge Sundae

Classic, simple, and divine. Why mess with perfection?

What Kind of Sundae Are You?

Graduations

This is a big weekend for our family. We have two graduations: our oldest from law school and our youngest from high school. (How's that for timing.)

Here's the two graduates a couple of weeks ago: Julia (holding Kiernan) and Joel.

We're so proud of both of them.

How well do you know Prince Caspian?

In honor of the new Prince Caspian movie opening this week, they've got a quiz online to see how well you know the story. I did very well -- I'm a Centaur.

“[Glenstorm] was a prophet and a star-gazer, and he knew what they had come about. ‘I watch the skies, Badger, for it is mine to watch, as it is yours to remember.”

Like Glenstorm, you are strong in character and knowledge. You are truly an authority on Prince Caspian! Congratulations, your vast understanding of the tale has earned you the highest of honors.

Happy Birthday!

The smiley guy holding Kiernan is Tim, who is 20 today. He was a happy baby and he's grown up to be a happy young man. He has a knack for making friends and looks out for them, which is a lot of why we have so many extra "kids." Tim invites them into our home and into our family and our lives are richer because of it. So happy birthday Tim!

Happy Mother's Day!

This is a special Mother's Day for us, as this picture attests. That's 4 generations: my mother, my daughter and her son, and me. (the picture was taken at Easter)

It was just before Mother's Day a year ago that Julia told us they were expecting and we're so glad that Kiernan is here and healthy. Julia and Mike are wonderful parents. And my mom and I are thrilled to be grandma and great-grandma.



And I want to send a big congratulations out to my brother Jim, who received his master's in worship ministry yesterday -- and he graduated with honors. I'm so proud of him -- this is a big accomplishment.

Quote of the day

Here's a great quote:

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
- Flannery O'Connor