Bravo for our senators

We still have not received the rain that was supposed to happen on Monday, but maybe tomorrow... On the positive side, it has been cloudy and we have not been above 100 degrees since Sunday. That's pretty sweet for late July around here.

Kudos to our Texas senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. They have both opposed Sonia Sotomayor's nomination as a supreme court justice. Their opposition is on principle. They feel she will (and has) decide cases on things other than their strict legal/constitutional merits. That alone is certainly worthy of our respect.

However, their stand goes even deeper. There are many people who are supporting Judge Sotomayor just because she is a minority; even as there were many who supported Obama simply because he is half black. This kind of support is certainly racism and therefore unfortunate. But it does exist and it is likely to cost Senators Hutchison and Cornyn politically.

You see, Texas is about 36% Hispanic. Obviously, most of that population is not racist. However, that number probably represents a lot of folks who would be upset with our senators for opposing Sotomayor since she is Latina. So this had to be a tough decision for our senators. I applaud them for doing what they feel is right without regard for the possible political consequences.

When a legislator makes decisions based on what is most likely to keep him/her in office then he/she has transitioned from public servant to self servant. I'm thankful that Hutchison and Cornyn are doing their best to act as public servants for all Texans.

What's happening here

The last three weeks of June and the first couple weeks of July were incredibly hot and dry even for Central Texas. Then almost two weeks ago we had a couple of nice little showers and since then we have been below 100 degrees. In fact we have even had a couple of cloudy days that were almost comfortable. I've been really thankful for the little weather break. It is supposed to be 100 again today but then we get a little front tomorrow that cools things back to the mid 90s.

So its really becoming the dog days of summer as we brace ourselves for six or so more weeks of extreme heat. There is hope, though, that provides a little psychological boost to get through. NFL training camps start soon which is a promise of things to come (the promise of fall and all the good things that go with that). Meanwhile we make the most of summer.

I must be grumpy lately because the other day Kris told me it has been too long since I killed something. So last night when I went out to move the sprinklers and found a snake under the live oak in the front yard I figured I better kill it. Of course, that upset Jeremiah who thought it was way too cute to kill. He's a twisted little kid.

Last night Nana and the boys and I watched a good old John Wayne movie, The Cowboys. The boys had never seen it before and they loved it. I view that as comforting proof that kids are capable of enjoying something besides high tech entertainment. Now I may have to convince them that they don't need a horse, they can just use their bikes and pretend.

This morning I put on my Daffy Duck short which Jonathan laughed at. At first, Jeremiah agreed with me that they're okay because we like Daffy Duck. But a few minutes later he said, "Seriously, you're going to go out in public wearing that? Kind of tacky." I told you he's a twisted little kid.

Such is life, mid summer 2009.

Inquiring minds want to know

How come they don't make vanilla syrup to put on chocolate ice cream?

Seems like rather a double standard doesn't it?

Thinking out loud

Here are some thoughts that have been rolling around my head. They are just thoughts and not even to the opinion stage yet. As such, I hope nobody takes them as criticism. They're not critical, just thoughts.


So I listen to a lot of preachers on the radio. I read a few Christian blogs. I read Christian articles from several sources on a somewhat regular basis. I try to read the Christian books my pastor assigns us for staff development. One thing I've noticed over the past five to ten years, these speakers and authors increasingly use the phrase "follower of Jesus Christ" or "Christ follower" to refer to one who is a Christian. I think that makes me sad.


Don't get me wrong. I don't really have a problem with the phrase. It is similar to the early biblical description of Christians as "followers of the Way". I certainly don't have a problem with people following Christ. I guess its the larger circumstances that bother me.


It seems that over the years the term Christian has taken on negative connotations in America. Although, I'm not really sure why that should bother us, it had negative connotations to many segments of the population in the first century as well. I guess another problem with the term is that many use it simply to indicate that they are neither Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, nor Atheist but not necessarily to mean that they are born again.

That being the case, apparently a bunch of Christian authors and speakers got together somewhere in the middle of the night and decided that they needed a new term to differentiate between "good Christians" and "bad Christians" and between "nominal Christians" and "real Christians". And they decided that "Christ follower" or "follower of Christ" phraseology is the ticket.

Somehow, in my little brain, it doesn't seem to help the situation. According to the Bible, born again people were first called Christians at the church in Antioch (Acts 11:26). We know from history that they got this name because they acted like Jesus. Maybe instead of changing the way we refer to ourselves we should change the way we act? On the other hand, Jesus said that if we acted like him we would have to expect persecution. So maybe its a good thing that "Christian" is sometimes a "bad" word?

I don't really know. It just seems kind of silly to me to stop referring to ourselves as Christians if that is what we are. I mean are we really solving any problems by adopting the trendier terminology? I have to admit that whenever I hear or read the terms "Christ follower" or "follower of Christ" the thought that pops into my head is, "well, for about three years Judas Iscariot was apparently a, 'follower of Christ'."

Book recommendation for parents

You know that I don't read many books. However, here is one that I have read and which I recommend to any of you who are rearing children or preparing to do so.

Kid CEO is not the premier book on parenting but I think it is an important one to read because the author says a couple of things that a lot of the other Christian parenting books don't.

Ed Young writes in a very conversational style and he avoids a lot of Christian-ese. I assume his intention is to make the book attractive and applicable to non Christians. At any rate it results in a book that is very straight forward and easy to read. He also tries to be very homey and down to earth. Towards that end some of his illustrations are too sappy and some are really too much of a stretch to go with the point they are supposed to illustrate. But the content that he is teaching is good enough to make wading through some of the negatives worthwhile.

Pastor Young very clearly lays out the biblical model for how a home should operate. Then he proceeds to address very practical ways to make that happen. He deals with the pace of modern life, the importance of the marital relationship, discipline, and other issues universal to families in our culture.

Based on my observations it seems that parents today need a lot of help and I feel that this book is certainly a great place to start. Happy reading.