Life Lessons from Little Miss Sunshine

I'm a big fan of sarcasm. Sarcasm makes people sound smart and witty. I also appreciate how much disillusionment can occur using pithy and simple observations.

Anyway, I was watching a movie today, Little Miss Sunshine, and this line stuck out:

Sarcasm is the refuge of losers. Sarcasm is losers trying to bring winners down to their level.

I know, the movie was making a point with that quote. Of course, there is a lot that can be learned from losing things in life. A sarcastic comment is an expression of truth, which is healthy. Sarcasm also makes people laugh, which is healthy too.

So, if laughing and the expression of truth are healthy things, why is sarcasm so bad?

I'm glad you asked.

Someone whose teaching I respect very much wrote about why sarcasm isn't always a good thing: anti-sarcasm one and anti-sarcasm two. In short, sarcasm gets old after a while because it identifies problems without identifying solutions. So I've been trying to be less sarcastic about things. Unfortunately, if you know me, you know that it hasn't really been working out too well.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:16-19 (NIV)

What is it exactly that you do here?

Show of hands. Who here is as glad as I am that our president knows his job description?

You need to read this

I got to this story via Jeff's blog, who got it via Kamp Krusty. Good stuff. Have a kleenex handy before reading.

"God have mercy on them."

My first reaction to most things is usually cynical and/or skeptical. I'm trying hard to not react this way so much because I feel that most times these attitudes result in inaction and/or whining.

That being as it may, I read this article on Reuters and I'm a little cynical of Saudi's intentions.

"(King Abdullah) saw you on television and was extremely affected," Health Minister Hamad al-Manei told the girl, Jamila, at a meeting of Arab health ministers in Riyadh.

It's good that someone is caring for innocent children who have been severely injured by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, maybe it was the explosives and not the children that were in the wrong place. In any case, the children are alive for at least one more day to [hopefully] recognize God's grace through Jesus Christ. Now they just need someone to tell them the Good News that can really save their lives.

Meanwhile, in other news, some Christians in Gaza are protesting the conflict by wrapping themselves in bandages covered in fake blood. I'm not sure what this is supposed to communicate that the actual images of war don't communicate already.

Obama to increase Title X funding?

First, a little light reading:
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=356962
http://www.reproductiverights.org/pub_fac_titlex2.html
http://catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14645
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=40949
http://otrans.3cdn.net/3b21d35e246c18a427_d7m6bw2o1.pdf

I am not surprised to read about the potential for increased federal funding for abortions. I am surprised to hear that there are Christians who are still surprised that Obama wants to make abortions more easily accessible. After all, he did promise that the first thing he would do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.

Here's my point. The issue of abortion is a moral one and laws can not be called upon to enforce morals. Even if abortion was illegal, and the punishment for aborting a fetus was punishable by death, people would still find a way to do it. How many murderers do you think are on death row today, who knew in advance that the crime they were about to commit was wrong? Yet they did it anyway. The law can only condemn.

To quote one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Rich Mullins:

"The church is the only institution in this world who can bring about a change. The government can not do it so stop depending on the government. Education systems can not do it so stop trusting education systems."

The most powerful way we can impact a woman who's considering abortion is to love her and her unborn baby with the same kind of love Jesus shows us. Reveal God's grace to her through your life. Reach out and listen and care for her. We're not going to convince her that abortion is wrong by writing letters of protest to our congressman or picketing up and down Main Street. Not that writing letters to your congressman is bad. Write all the letters you want, but don't hold your breath.

I can understand if you're upset that your hard-earned money is funding something you believe is wrong. I'm not happy about it either. I'm guessing our money is funding a lot of other things we would think are wrong; probably more than we could even imagine. But guess what. If less and less women want to have abortions because they have found grace and truth and life in Jesus Christ, eventually less and less money will go towards women who want to have abortions. It's not rocket science.