We, (my wife and I), have finally made it to Anchorage to start off another part of my vacation. We went to see "Momma Mia" last night, and it was much better than I expected it to be. The music is all written by the writers of ABBA of the '70s and '80s fame. It became a Broadway classic and now is on film. The cast does all their own singing, which surprised me. If you get a chance to see it, it is a fun movie, and the music will carry you away.
The blog comment that has been running through my mind the last several days is the emails that I have been receiving at the office. Some are wonderful emails of how God works through our lives, then there are others that make the rounds. Realizing that the presidential elections are this year, politics continue to try and separate one another. Some of the emails are wonderful statements of how some of the soldiers are being received on their trips home, and on their way back. Whether the soldiers are really being received with applause throughout the airport, I do not know. But their are political statements that are added at the end of the notes, making statements like, "if you support your country, support the soldiers, pass this on. If you do not love your country, just delete this message." The message that is not so subtle, "To be a true American is to believe this way, all others are not true Americans."
During the 9/11 days and the war that followed, there appeared to be a hijacking of what it means to be a "true patriot", and I believe it is still true today. Of course this is true concerning any war, of any country. One email that I received at the office, the underlining message that I received was: "To be a True Patriot and American, you must be a member of the Conservative Christian movement as well as Republican. We are the TRUE PATRIOTS." I know that the majority of the people do not believe that way, but there are times...
One of the things we all need to remember is that any one political party, any one church, any one country does not have all the answers. When we try to declare that we alone have the truth, the one and only truth, we are farther away from the truth than we want to believe.
We all like to think that we believe the "right way", vote the "right way", live the "right way". But when we set ourselves up as the "only way", we are heading to trouble.
Just a quick thought that has been hanging around for a while....
Peace and blessings.
1 comment:
Very nice post. I admire and respect your thoughts.
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