Feel free to submit an answer even if you don't know ... could be fun seeing the guesses. I'll announce the winner in a few days."I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
Dan Kimball posted these pictures. I liked them and thought I'd post them just to get us thinking about essentials vs non-essentials.Feel free to submit an answer even if you don't know ... could be fun seeing the guesses. I'll announce the winner in a few days.We make a living by what we get,
but we make a life by what we give.
Winston Churchill
O'BRIEN: But I'm going to ask you a delicate question. Infidelity in your marriage was very public. And I have to imagine it was incredibly difficult to deal with. And I would like to know how your faith helped you get through it.
CLINTON: Well, I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith.
And, you know, I take my faith very seriously and very personally. And I come from a tradition that is perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear their faith on their sleeves, so, that a lot of the ... a lot of the talk about and advertising about faith doesn't come naturally to me. It is something that -- you know, I keep thinking of the Pharisees and all of Sunday school lessons and readings that I had as a child.
But I think your -- your faith guides you every day. Certainly, mine does. But, at those moments in time when you're tested, it -- it is absolutely essential that you be grounded in your faith.
For some people, being tested leads them to faith. For some people, being tested in cruel and tragic ways leads them away from faith. For me, because I have been tested in ways that are both publicly known and those that are not so well known or not known at all, my faith and the support of my extended faith family, people whom I knew who were literally praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me, and people whom I didn't know, who I would meet or get a letter from, sustained me through a very difficult time.
But I -- I am very grateful that I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought. And that's all one can expect or hope for.
O'BRIEN: If you think something is morally wrong, though, you morally disagree with it, as president of the United States, don't you have a duty to go with your moral belief?
EDWARDS: No, I think that, first of all, my faith, my belief in Christ plays an enormous role in the way I view the world. But I think I also understand the distinction between my job as president of the United States, my responsibility to be respectful of and to embrace all faith beliefs in this country because we have many faith beliefs in America. And for that matter we have many faith beliefs in the world. And I think one of the problems that we've gotten into is some identification of the president of the United States with a particular faith belief as opposed to showing great respect for all faith beliefs.
O'BRIEN: Do you think this is a Christian nation?
EDWARDS: No, I think this is a nation -- I mean I'm a Christian; there are lots of Christians in United States of America. I mean, I have a deep and abiding love for my Lord, Jesus Christ, but that doesn't mean that those who come from the Jewish faith, those who come from the Muslim faith, those who come from -- those who don't believe in the existence of God at all, that they don't -- that they're not entitled to have their beliefs respected. They're absolutely entitled to have their beliefs respected. It is one of the basis for which our democracy was founded.
WALLIS: If you were the president, what kind of moral and political imagination would you bring to finding some real solutions?
OBAMA: A couple of things that we have to do is to fix our politics, and we have to get beyond what Dr. King called the "either/or mentality" and embrace "the both/and mentality." And our politics have exacerbated this notion of either/or.
So we say either people are entirely responsible for their own lot -- and this tends to be expressed within Republican circles, but not entirely -- pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, act responsibly, act morally, a great emphasis on private morality, or, conversely, that individuals are responsible, society is acting on them, and they are not free agents.
And my attitude -- and I think the attitude of every religious leader and scholar that I value and listen to -- is that we have these individual responsibilities and these societal responsibilities. And those things aren't mutually exclusive.
I think that missional theology is a very positive development. But some missional theology has not gone far enough. It hasn't asked, What is the mission of the Trinity? And the answer to that question is communion. Ultimately, all things are to be brought back into communion with the triune God. Communion is the ultimate end, not mission.I like thinking about faith in these terms. I guess it can be said that true communion with God will always lead to missional living ... if we could just define what those things mean :)
If we see communion as central to the life of the church, we are going to have an important place for mission. And this is reflected in the ancient fourfold structure of worship: gathering, proclaiming the Word, celebrating the Eucharist, and going out into the world. The last, of course, is mission. But mission takes its place within a larger structure. It is this sense of communion that the evangelical world especially needs. Communion is not just introspection or fellowship among ourselves. It involves, ultimately, seeing God and seeing the heart of God as well, which is his love for the world.
| Your Dominant Intelligence is Interpersonal Intelligence |
How will you vote in November 2008? Have you thought about what issues are really important to you? Here are a few of mine in random alphabetical order: 
You stand accused, but how can I accuse you?A beautiful poem revealing a beautiful heart. Lynne gets a "You Inspire Me" award.
You are my brother still – how small a price
I paid for you, compared to my redemption –
My freedom cost the bitter death of Christ!
This article says one in five people toted laptop computers on their most recent vacations. Danny Sims must have his laptop with him because he is posting blog pictures on his vacation. 
This shadowy something is what someone says is a photo of the Loch Ness monster in Scotland. An amateur scientist claims he has captured what Loch Ness Monster watchers say is among the finest footage ever taken of the elusive mythical creature reputed to swim beneath the waters of Scotland's most mysterious lake.I've wondered about Nessie when I was younger but hadn't given her much thought for years. Can't wait until this one gets out on YouTube!!
