Happy Thanksgiving




I am thankful for so much but I am most thankful for the love I feel each day from my wife Ann, my family and my friends
(yes that includes you) and from the Lord Jesus.

So, on this special day, I wish each of you a blessed day filled with love that is shared with the ones who love you.




... Snoopy image lifted from my blogging friend Wanda.

Is it always bad to be a workaholic?


I missed my dad a lot growing up, even though we were together as a family.
My dad was really a workaholic. And he was always working. -Steven Spielberg


I can relate to having seasons of my life where the balance of work and family was missing. I remembering the ways that I used to rationalize my bad behavior.
Oddly, I do not think that this pejorative view of being a workaholic is a shared by everyone. Consider how these folks seem to brag about it.
You know, I'm kind of a wild crazy workaholic guy. -Randy Jackson

I'm a workaholic. I've been doing my job for a long time. -Gisele Bundchen

I have always been a workaholic. -Jewel

I'm a workaholic. I love every movie I've been in, even the bad ones, every TV series, every play, because I love to work. It's what keeps me going. -Karl Malden

I'm a workaholic. I could easily work 300-plus days of the year. -Michael Chiklis
So what do you think? Is it always bad to be a workaholic? What if you need to work two jobs just to make ends meet? Or what if your company regularly requires you to work sixty hours a week to meet deadlines? What do you think?


If you wanna be happy ...



"Perseverance towards problem-solving versus complaining over circumstances is a symptom of a happy person. Unhappy people see themselves as victims of life and stay stuck in the "look what happened to me" attitude versus finding a way through and out the other side."
...
"I won't argue that healthy discernment is important, but most happy people are trusting of their fellow man. They believe in the good in people, versus assuming everyone is out to get them. Generally open and friendly towards people they meet, happy people foster a sense of community around themselves and meet new people with an open heart."
...
"There's a difference between control and striving to achieve our goals. Happy people take steps daily to achieve their goals, but realize in the end, there's very little control over what life throws their way."
...
"Happy people live in the now and dream about the future. You can feel their positive vibe from across the room. They're excited about something they're working on, grateful for what they have and dreaming about the possibilities of life."


... these sentiments are excerpted from 7 Habits of Chronically Unhappy People by Tamara Star

Interstellar | ★★★★★★★☆☆☆



I thought that this movie had little to do with Space and everything to do with what makes humans human. I loved the many subtle (and not so subtle) messages about how people prioritize their lives and the sacrifices we are sometimes called to make.

The main plot is about a team of explorers who travel through a wormhole in an attempt to find a potentially habitable planet that will sustain humanity. It paints a dark picture of our future and explores how different people react to the pressures of life.

Interstellar is a long movie (almost 3 hours) and moved slow in a few parts - perhaps the film's editors wanted us to experience the monotony of space travels? That said, I found it to be a very enjoyable story - I even chuckled at the way that the lead character tried to explain a strange twist of fate and not even consider a divine explanation.

Overall, I liked the movie and, on a scale of ten, give it ★★★★★★★.


Catch my other mini-reviews by selecting the Movies link in the menu bar above.

Civil Law ≠ Moral Law



The Libertarian Party has a great article on immigration - you can find it here. One interesting aspect of the discussion is the one that centers on the idea that our laws in America have sometimes changed - the example given is how Prohibition was law until it was repealed. Here is a clip from the piece:
"When large numbers of otherwise decent people routinely violate a law, the law itself is probably the problem. To argue that illegal immigration is bad merely because it is illegal avoids the threshold question of whether we should prohibit this kind of immigration in the first place.

We've faced this choice on immigration before. In the early 1950s, federal agents were making a million arrests a year along the Mexican border. In response, Congress ramped up enforcement, but it also dramatically increased the number of visas available through the Bracero guest worker program. As a result, apprehensions at the border dropped 95 percent. By changing the law, we transformed an illegal inflow of workers into a legal flow."
I say all of this to simply caution us from relying on civil law when we interpret events in our world. Many who argue for enforcing immigration law might advocate for overturning abortion laws in the US based on what they might consider a higher moral law. Some feel the same way about immigrants that break US law when they cross our borders.

So, in the end, I think my allegiance is first and foremost to the moral law of love. The Ten Commandments are rooted in this law and the Golden Rule speaks it concisely. Every other law can change but this one law will always be true.


The Deepest Level of Worship




I can so relate to these words.

Knowing God has made a difference in my life.

Loving God has changed me so much.

Listening to His voice has transformed me.

Feeling his presence when I hurt comforts me greatly.

He is the rock and anchor of my life.

Can you relate?



Hysterical Bob




I chuckled when I saw this cartoon this morning.

That said, I find all of the hysteria surrounding Ebola, ISIS and Elections to be disheartening. This hysteria seems to be a vehicle of "news" and pundit vehicles, as well as social media outlets, to garner higher ratings and publicity. Like the mudslinging political ads of this season, "news" vehicles seem to be tapping into our worst fears and darkest expectations.

In spite of all this, I still naively hope that we in America will one day wise up to the dark motives of this sort of fear mongering and put Hysterical Bob in isolation.