Drunken Mystic

Pinocchio is a classic Disney cartoon.  As with most of the Disney stuff from that era, it was literally ahead of its time in animation. 

My introduction to Pinocchio came at a very young age.  Before the popularity of videotapes and DVD’s, they used to replay movies in the theater every few years, if they thought people would come back to see it.  The classic Disney movies were like this.  I saw all the classics in the theater (it was the 70′s … ah, nostalgia).  My mother took me to the movies and wouldn’t tell me what we were seeing – she sang, “I got no strings”, for like five minutes and I still remained clueless.  Of course I loved the movie.

I was a teenager the next time I saw Pinocchio.  I went with our youth group from church to see it one afternoon.  It was one of the first times God began to reveal to me messages within movies and other media.  Right after the movie I shared my thoughts and either blessed the others or wierded them out, depending on who wanted to hold onto “I just came to see a movie.”  I do remember the adult chaperone being impressed … made me proud then.

That was close to twenty years ago now and here I am about to write about it on my blog.

Pinocchio is the story of redemption and the new creation.  Our God is at heart a redeemer.  “Behold, I make all things new.”  Some of you, just seeing the title, can make many of the connections yoruself, but I encourage you to go along for the ride over the next couple weeks.  It will be enlightening and fun, I think.

Peace.

Not much more to say on the Presidential race … moving on to the issue of the week …

(By the way, I’m running out of political issues I had listed to discuss – which might make some of you happy – but I thought there might be some suggestions for future topics? Leave in the comments …)

Health care. Primarily, what should the government do about health care in our country?

Well, to begin with, the idea of universal health care is a releatively new concept, much less the idea that health care is a “right.” This doesn’t make it wrong, but anything politicians invent that puts more power in their own hands makes me skeptical. Even the type of health care we have is new. The ease of modern health care has overshadowed prevention. In other words, many are pretty unconcerned and undisciplined about preventative health because modern medicine is fairly effective in treating modern problems that would have completely debilitated or killed people a century ago. That speed of change, while impressive, has its consequences.

Our advances have saved lives, but those same advances have contributed to a drugged culture – the amount of newborns I know that are given for reflux these days is alarming. I don’t know the actual percentage, but it seems like a lot of people in our culture are on some type of prescribed medicine, and that’s happening younger and younger each year. Ironically, most of those prescribed medicines cause physical problems worse than the one they were initially given for. This doesn’t count the number of over-the-counter medications that people consume.

First side note – what type of mixed message does it give our culture, and our children, when we give a pill for every ailment then tell our kids to stay away from ?

Medicine – drugs- might keep you alive but they do not give life.

The other major issue with American health care is the sweet couple of the insurance industry and its partner, frivolous lawsuits. These two have raised the price of health care beyond any bounds of reason.

These are the real issues with health care in our country. Current plans of universal or socialized health care would not address either one. In fact, it would make them worse. Universal health care at this point is like a guy who has an and his injuries are an arm torn off at the elbow and a sprained ankle … and I start treating the sprained ankle while he bleeds to death. There are more pressing issues here.

Living in Korea, to bring an international perspective, I saw a universal health care system that really worked. I liked it. But the Korean culture is very preventative minded and they aren’t able to bring all those lawsuits.

The current ideas for universal health care would be disastrous on a financial level. Socialized health care would necessitate a whole new federal department with offices all over the country to administrate, which not only increases the size of the government but would cause health care to actually cost MORE.  A couple poor people might get it for free, but the cost to everyone else would be way higher in taxes. Taxes would have to be raised considerably, again placing more fiscal power in the hands of a government only making it worse.

We could also tie in the failure of the public school system, and its continued failure, as evidence of why the government shouldn’t be put in charge of our health.

And without a strong collective change in our mindset towards prevention, many will be taking advantage of the system … actually discouraging genuine health in a country that is already the fattest one in the world.

I would completely support a universal health care plan if these major issues were addressed, just like I would welcome tending the sprained ankle after managing the bloody stump of an arm. But the drug companies and the lawyers (which is the background of a lot of our elected officials) might be incapable of this.

Another side note – we have to be careful; the preventative industry is highly unregulated and scams abound. There’s some good stuff out there, but a lot of it takes advantage of the same quick-fix culture that is the problem.

A change in lifestyle is the healthiest thing you can do, nothing can substitute for that, and Christians should be the examples here. Unfortunately, many Christians do not have the personal discipline to eat right and exercise, change their lifestyle. It is ironic to see an overweight preacher proudly hail that he doesn’t smoke or drink because his body is the “temple” and then he goes out for Sunday dinner at Golden Corral and eats more than an Indian village could consume in a week.

Christians should be the healthiest people on the planet – they should be truly wise about what they put in their body; righteousness, joy, and peace reduce stress; service burns calories; fasting cleanses the system; whatever major sickness we might have can be supernaturally healed; and dying is a celebration because we are with the Lord. We don’t have this testimony because of our lack of discipline and faith.

Sons and daughters of the King shouldn’t need insurance.

Peace.

For those of you still checking out the blog … I’m trying to not post everything I’ve written over the past week or two … I’ll try to space it out a little …

As far as political stuff goes, we have had some interesting events, namely Obama getting defensive about personal questions and not the “issues” and coloring white conservatives as just bitter, angry people (again with that liberal racism again).  The Pope comes to town and gets the royal treatment from Bush and has some interesting things to say, all while getting protested as being a “Nazi”.  Ah, Christian liberal love.

But not much to say about all that, really.  Pretty much speaks for itself.  Let’s move on to a continuation on education … more tomorrow in part 3 …

Okay, so we’ve looked at some of the problems … not all of them by far, but let’s start a discussion on solutions.

First of all, more money is not the solution.  We are wasting, and in many cases overspending, on education as it is.  Liberals don’t believe you can overspend in some areas, education being one of them.  Let me define for you what I mean by overspending: if I give a mechanic a thousand dollars to change the oil … or I give a mechanic two thousand dollars to change the drive belt and it breaks a mile down the road from the garage … two examples of overspending.

Let’s look at some numbers for those who don’t agree.  Gwinnett county (local ATL county) spends roughly $8000 per child in their system.  Decatur city and Atlanta city both spend $12000 a year (2007 figures).

But all three have different outcomes.  Gwinnett’s SAT scores are high but graduation rates are pitiful.  Decatur has high SAT and graduation.  Atlanta city is really low in both.

By the way, before we move on, don’t let some liberals play their little game and compare federal spending on education (or law enforcement) with spending on the military.  The Federal gubmint gives little money to local education (elementary, secondary, or college level).  They do give some, but the majority is raised by state, county and city gubmint taxes.

Let’s round some numbers just to give a clue.  Let’s say $8000 a year is average.  Let’s also say we have 500,000 kids in public education (1/6 of our population?  maybe low, but stick with me).  That means that our country spends somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 trillion dollars on elementary and secondary education … this doesn’t include money raised by boosters and other fundraisers for local schoos … or what state colleges and universities spend.

The biggest employer in Gwinnett county is the GCPS system … maybe the biggest in the Atlanta area.

Let’s compare some other numbers, just for fun.  One of the cheaper private schools in metro Atlanta starts around $4,000 a year.  A better average is $6,000 a year.  One of the more costly and prestigious private schools goes to $14,000 a year, only $2,000 more than what Atlanta city schools spend on their kids.  By the way, private schools do better, on average, in SAT scores, graduation, and college placement.  (oh, and most people who send their kids to private schools pay the majority of the property taxes that pay for other kids’ public education)

In other words, spending has little correlation with school success.  The biggest differences will be seen is in policy and philosophy.

Of course there are bad private schools, too, but if a private suburban school can educate children for $6000, why does Atlanta spend twelve?

Well, the liberal philosophy that more money in a program is a solution to a program that’s not working.  Throwing more money at a problem, however, can make it worse because it is placing fiscal power in the hands of incompetents, the gubmint in this case.

So let’s look at some philosophies that need to change:

First, kids heed to have the right to fail if they are to ever truly succeed.  “No Child Left Behind” has set American education backwards more than forwards, probably one of major things that has disappointed me about the Bush administration.

Because of modern education philosophy, most kids now believe that graduating from high school is their “right” and therefore something that the gubmint must ensure, even moving on to college, despite not being able to spell or pick out their own country on a map.

Second, we must teach kids that education is not free and that it is a privelege.  This is why kids educated in underdeveloped countries kick our butts in any tests that matter.  Our kids could kick their butts at X-box and PS3 – except for maybe those pesky East Asians .. they’d probably kick our tails in that, too.

In other words, you need an education to open up more opportunities in life.  Students should be thankful for the educational opportunities in this country and take advantage of the ones we have instead of complaining about the ones we don’t have … which is a pretty short list.  People from other countries come here and take full advantage of every educational opportunity, but “Americanized” kids claim they either need more opportunities or that it’s someone else’s job to motivate them to do it.

Third, we need to stop seening public education as the place to endoctrinate kids with religion, namely secular humanism, while every other religion, namely Christianity, is not welcome.

That’s right.  The American public school is a religious education.  They teach “creation” by macroevolution, the big bang, and other concepts that take more faith and persecution of other perspectives to believe.  The public school is actually more closed minded and dictatorial about their religious beliefs than any fundamentalist Christian ever conceived of.

Will any of these things ever happen?  Probably not.  But I can hope.

Part 3 maybe tomorrow …

Peace.

The wealthy cannot follow God and retain their identity as the rich. Neither can the poor follow God and retain their identification with poverty. Neither are acting as Sons of God. A Father seeks to free us from both mentalities of rich and poor. We are neither and we are both. Such is the Truth of living in His House.

Jesus was NEVER in a hurry to do ANYTHING.

We’re given the example of Peter who did not give the lame man silver or gold to spend or comfort him in his bound physical state but instead gave him the power to walk. There are “Christians” today who would try and comfort him with the phrase “you were born that way” and give him money, balking at the miraculous.

Tithing proves you are a stranger, not a son. The sons are free.

Tongues without interpretation creates foreigners not fellow citizens.

Peace.

Well, by “we” I mean you and me …

Servers were down last week … so while I was trying to get caught up, God said, nope, not gonna happen.

We’ll try to get back on track this week … all up to Him, you know.

Peace.

Had Spring Break last week, bought new computer (maxed out Mac Mini), built a swingset (with major help of Mr. d10), recorded some new demos on the new computer (way more frustrating than it should have been), spent time with the fam, and moved my blog over to the new website.

Trying to get caught up, so here are the quotes of the week.

The last batch from The Pursuit of God by Tozer. Not that I expect any different from Tozer, a fellow mystic, but there’s a reason this is a classic. I can honestly put this up there with Knowledge of the Holy in organization and just basic, transcendent truth for Christians. Here are the quotes for this week:

His [Jesus] words are the essence of truth. He is not offering an opinion; Jesus never uttered opinions. He never guessed; He knew, and He knows.

The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and crushing thing. The word Jesus used means “a load carried or toil borne to the point of exhaustion.” Rest is simply release from that burden. It is not something we do; it is what comes to us when we cease to do. His own meekness, that is the rest.

As long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol.

The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of this world is not worth the effort.

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather, he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself … In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring … He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own pricetag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteous shall shine forth in the kingdom of their Father. He is willing to wait for that day.

… needed grace will come as we learn that we are sharing this new and easy yoke with the strong Son of God Himself. He calls it “My yoke,” and He walks at one end while we walk at the other.

The sacred-secular antithesis has no foundation in the New Testament.

Paul’s exhortation to “do all to the glory of God” is more than pious idealism. It is an integral part of the sacred revelation and is to be accepted as the very Word of Truth.

His [Jesus] presence in human flesh sweeps away forever the evil notion that there is about the human body something innately offensive to the Deity. God created our bodies, and we do not offend Him by placing the responsibility where it belongs. He is not ashamed of the work of His own hands.

Perversion, misuse and abuse of our human powers should give us cause enough to be ashamed. Bodily acts done in sin and contrary to nature can never honor God.

We need no more be ashamed of our body — the fleshly servant that carries us through life — than Jesus was of the humble beast upon which He rode into Jerusalem … If Christ dwells with us, we may bear about the Lord of glory as the little beast did of old and give occasion to the multitudes to cry, “Hosanna in the highest.”

A concomitant of the error which we have been discussing is the sacred-secular antithesis as applied to places. It is little short of astonishing that we can read the New Testament and still believe in the inherent sacredness of some places. This error is so widespread that one feels all alone when he tries to combat it.

By innumerable distinctions God taught Israel the difference between holy and unholy … By these means, Israel learned that God is holy. It was this that He was teaching them, not the holiness of things or places … Then came the day when Christ appeared … The Old Testament schooling was over. When Christ died on the cross, the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom … Shortly after, Paul took up the cry of liberty and declared all meats clean, every day holy, all places sacred and every act acceptable to God. The sacredness of times and places, a half-light necessary to the education of the race, passed away before the full sun of spiritual worship.

It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it … Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act … For such a man, living itself will be a priestly ministration.

Peace.