I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
Things have been busy again. Once we finished the Emmaus walks a few weeks ago, I thought things would slow down, but I have found out different. Being the board president, I am tasked with getting calling potential lay directors and pulling together the team selection committee to put together the teams for the next set of walks in September. Planning has never been my strong suit, so I know I have to get these things done before the next board meeting, or I’ll really be in trouble, not necessarily by the board, but the fact that it will put the new teams at a disadvantage with less time to prepare and putting together the walks is a big task.
Otherwise, Paul Block, the youth pastor at First UMC here in Gaylord, gave Mary and I Thursday night off from the Jr High Youth, which allowed Mary and I to celebrate our 6 month anniversary (I asked and this is the only 6 month one we will have to celebrate).
Time has flown by since getting married. Kaleb and Karlie are doing well, with this, but keep asking when we are going to move to Boyne. Mary and I are working on that. Hopefully, this summer it will take place. Brandon is doing pretty good, but with him living in Petoskey we don’t see him as often. Ben and Trisha, if you haven’t read Mary’s blog recently are expecting their first child, which means I’ll be a Grandfather in about 6 more months. Things are going well with the expectant mother and the father is excited. So are Mary and I.
I hope to put together another What I believe post soon as the confirmation class progresses and I have come into posession of a couple of books on doctrine and theology which has become a recent facination of mine. Mainly, because as I listen to different points of view from different schools of thought in Chrisitanity (a lot has to do with Emmaus and the various churches we serve) I have wanted to see what are the differences, if for nothing else to understand the others when there are disagreements.
That’s about it for now. Type at y’inz later.
I had the privilege to participate in a recent Walk to Emmaus as the board representative. Somehow, in the three years since my Walk to Emmaus, I have been elected by the community and then recently elected as the president of the board. This kind of blows me away, and something that I don’t take lightly, as I must continue to humble myself so that I can remain as a servant to the Northeast Emmanuel Emmaus community.
As the board representative, you are tasked as the quality assurance person. There is a manual for putting these things on, even outlines of what the 15 talks are about. It’s not a legalistic type of job as you can follow as the spirit prompts, but with the rigid time schedule, there are certain things that need to take place for a smooth walk. Not to mention that there needs to be some way of consistency for each walk.
Many times in the past, the board representative was known as the “bored” rep. I probably take a bit more active stance on this. I make sure that the manual is being followed, but I do try to pay attention to the talks to glean new insights from the different speakers and from the pilgrims themselves. Interaction in a community is key to it being healthy and vibrant, which I happen to think we have in ours. Do we have problems from time to time? Sure. We are all human beings with temptations to try and sway us from our mission as Christ’s hands and feet, but as a family of God, we do try to make this place a commUNITY (emphasis on the Unity).
I’ve kind of gotten off of my topic of how great the men’s Walk was now one week ago. We had 20 pilgrims with many evaluating their walk with God and realizing that there needed to be a course correction somewhere in their life. It is awesome seeing people wanting to draw closer to God. Now to work on the next set of walks in the fall…
Check out this story of Joey Cheek, the US speed skater who after his second gold medal pledged the prize money to relief work in Chad for refugees of Darfur, something I think the government should do more about. Read the NPR blog and the links to the stories about it all. Great stuff!
I ran into this analysis from Pajamas Media about the music industry. I was talking about music with my stepson Kaleb earlier today. He asked why it was some bands come out with good stuff and then seem to fade out. I think that this article was how I basically described it to him. The music industry doesn’t get it. They need to leave the artists alone and let them create the music; the hits will come. They wonder why nobody is buying any music. Crappy music that is over priced does it for me. I can’t wait for Podshow Music Network to come online. There’s a lot of good independent music out there. Of course, I never stray away from my favorites…TFK
Okay, the National Academy of Sciences has agreed to referee the discussion about climate change. I greatly respect the NAS to help get to the bottom of this, since I get tired of hearing the political aspects of this. However, I still think that we do a poor job at taking care of the planet and our fellow man. So whether they find that we are the cause or not, we still need to do better in cleaning up the planet and the things that we constantly dump in the name of “progress.” The story was in the Wall Street Journal.
Hat tip to Instapundit.
Evangelical Leaders Urge Action on Climate Change: “In an ‘Evangelical Call to Action,’ 86 leaders call on President Bush to take greater steps toward curbing global warming. The initiative is a bit of a political departure for a movement that is often closely aligned with the president and the Republican Party.”
There is a group that is out there from what some would call conservative Christians that are calling for curbing global warming. However, if they are, they have broken ranks with some of the big leaders and I’m all for it. The reason? While I agree that the globe is warming; I think that there is more to it than just us as the media and some would say. However, as I have posted before, we do a poor job with taking care of the creation that God has given to us.
One of the leaders that is standing against the 86 for urging action against climate change(which includes Pastor Rick Warren, author of the Purpose Driven Life) thinks that:
…the Bible makes clear that God expects human beings to take care of the earth. But “human beings come first in God’s created order,” he adds. “And that primacy must be given to human beings and for human betterment. If that means that other parts of nature take a back seat, well, then they take a back seat.”
The Bible also says this: 1 John 4:20-21(NASB), “If someone says , ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.” We all will be affected by global climate change, but the ones that will feel the affects the most will be the poor and oppressed, not to mention the generations to come. So which is more important, bettering humanity at the expense of nature, which will probably add to our consumerism mentality and continue oppressing the poor, or dealing with the pollution caused by our consumerism, taking care of the environment and thus better humanity? Things like this has come down to the story of Jesus healing the paralytic on the Sabbath in Mark. The question Jesus asked the Pharisees was which is better to do good or evil on the Sabbath? So the question that I raise is, which is better, to continue to pollute the environment to the detriment of future generations or to clean up the environment and so that we save God’s creation (and in addition better the human race)?
Let’s face it, I can be a slacker. I should have responded to these a while ago.
The first is to a family member, who emailed me about not giving to the 700 Club anymore, and giving me an alternative. As it happens I was giving to UMCOR as well as the 700 Club (not to mention the local Salvation Army chapter and Compassion International). So not to worry, the money will be reapportioned.
Second, is to John of Locusts and Honey. I had made the comment to the Santorum bill which would threaten the NWS as it now exists, not that change would be bad, but in my estimation, it would degrade the protection of life and property clause of the NWS mission. John responded,
One must call into question the legitimacy of federal
activity in this area.Please tell me what article and section of the
Constitution grants the federal government the authority to establish or fund a national weather service.
While not explicit, there is support to having the NWS. One is in the preamble, where it states the purpose of the Constitution,
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common
defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of
Liberty…” (emphasis mine).
You could even argue that it promotes the general Welfare.
The next comes out of the Article II, Section 2:
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the
United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the
actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of
the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject
relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to
Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in
Cases of Impeachment.
If you follow the history of the NWS you will find that we were part of the Army Signal corps as found from the NWS history web page:
The beginning of the National Weather Service we know today started on
February 9th, 1870, when President Ulysses S. Grant signed a joint
resolution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to establish a
national weather service. This resolution required the Secretary of War“to provide for taking meteorological observations at the military
stations in the interior of the continent and at other points in the States
and Territories…and for giving notice on the northern (Great) Lakes and on
the seacoast by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force
of storms.”
So we, the NWS, were under the Army at the beginning to protect the life and property
of the United States.
So if the Executive Branch is expected to protect the people, how does the President do it? He delegates.
I’m not against privatization per se, but what if the Army or Navy was privatized? Other than the President having authority to command them, it doesn’t say in the Constitution that the government has the authority to establish or fund an army. So where does that leave us? The Constitution is the infrastructure for the Federal Government to provide the services that the nation needs to carry out the preamble. If there is a part that isn’t working, then the people will speak through voting and change the departments that need to be changed, by putting the people in power that need to do the changing, but that is a whole other thing to think about.
So that’s my opinion…
Reading the story about the poll on what is causing the downward trend of the music industry. The RIAA really needs to wake up and realize that with the digital technology available that they need to embrace them. I know that my biggest beef with them is the fact that they are trying to stop people from recording CDs and putting them into mp3 format. For me, it is so much easier to by the CD and put it into mp3 format so that I can carry it with me and play it on my mp3 player. That way, I have the permanent copy of the song, and I can delete it off the player if needed and reload depending on my mood. I don’t share the files, just because it is unethical for me to give or receive an illegal copy. The Podsafe Music Network will do what I want, with independent music by allowing us to download mp3s with no DRM, so I can transfer the music onto my compact flash card and play it on my Axim whenever I want to.
For those of you who don’t know me, my two most favorite teams just played in the SuperBowl! And my Favorite team Won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, now I can rest until the next season starts.
New Orleans Mayor Says God Mad at U.S. (AP): “AP – Mayor Ray Nagin suggested Monday that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other storms were a sign that ‘God is mad at America’ and at black communities, too, for tearing themselves apart with violence and political infighting.”
While this isn’t a defense of Pat Robertson (I’ve made my thoughts pretty clear on that subject in a previous post), I do think that the mainstream media should cover this just as much. While the AP has carried it, NBC Nightly News said nothing about it and where are the liberal bloggers and organizations who chastise Pat Robertson for his wild sayings? Is there a double standard? I only bring this up as someone who tries to be middle of the road in politics, though I admit that I can lean to the right.
That being said, after a recent study in the book of Amos, an Old Testament prophet, I wonder out loud, if the engineers and scientists that warned of the failure of the levees with a greater than category 3 hurricane in New Orleans were God trying to use “prophets” to tell us protect those who are in need. I say this because one of God’s main reasons for Israel’s exile to Babylon was that the rich cheated the poor when it came to food. I’m not in a position to say that God brought Katrina due to America being “bad”, but when you follow the money trail of the New Orleans levee boards (not all of the money was to upgrade the levees), the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the state of Louisiana (with not acting quick enough), and the city of New Orleans, they obviously weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. Helping those in need. That’s not to say that individuals didn’t try, though.
So where does that leave us? Because of my atmospheric science background, I used to point out the flaws of global waming, but after celebrating my 11th year since being in Antarctica and the data that I have seen pointing to man’s contribution to global warning, I am inclined to agree now. So are these scientists the prophets, sent by God, whether they believe in God or not, for the next set of atmospheric disasters?
