Stop Your Wining!

I've turned into a winer. I don't drink alcoholic beverages much, anymore, but when I do, generally I'll have a glass- or maybe two- of wine. In the Church year, it's Lent. Lent is a time of reflection and atonement in preparation for Holy Week, as I've mentioned a time or three before. It's also a time when many folks give up unnecessary or frivolous things, such as sweets or alcoholic beverages. Yesterday, I was feeling kinda sanctimonious and, maybe, just maybe, I wanted to get my smug on, I announced that I'd all but decided to give up wine for Lent...


but then I got a sign that maybe I ought to reconsider. The sign? Well, I was reading the Psalms and hit the following in Psalm_104: "Praise the LORD, my soul... He makes ... wine that gladdens human hearts" Or, maybe you prefer King James: "wine that maketh glad the heart of man". Now, I'm not saying God told me to drink! After all, John the Baptist, who worked hard for the Big Guy, didn't touch the stuff, and a lot of folks have trouble with alcohol and really do need to leave it alone. I AM saying I'm pretty sure God doesn't want anyone using him to Lord it over folks. Even during Lent.

Freedom.

Freedom's a tricky thing. William the Bruce died rather than let Englang and its local lackeys tell him and his fellow Scots what to do (A lot of my ancestors trace their lines back to Scotland. A cantankerous lot, the Scots. Their National motto? No-one_Attacks_Me_With_Impunity). So did a lot of American Colonists. So, no one would willingly give up freedom, right?


...Wrong! way back in Biblical times, the Israelites begged Samuel to give_them_a_king, to fight their battles,and so they could be cool like other peoples. Samuel told them they were giving up a ton of freedom, but they got their way in the end.


Personal freedom is trickier still. 1960's guitar wizard Jimi Hendrix begged for freedom, and died exercising it in the form of a drug overdose.

We get more freedom over our money with decreased payroll deductions... but we lose that freedom in a hurry if we come up short on April 15!

So, what's the answer? Well, now, that's a personal choice, idnit? In the interim, here are some songs of freedom:

Performing Death Defying Acts.

I stopped defending the public long enough on Tuesday morning to get my CPR card. Actually, Lady Di, whose Lowcountry Area Health Education Center (AHEC) in partnership with Eat Smart/Move More, sponsored the class, points out that the certification is "Heartsaver, CPR and AED". C.P.R., as you may know, stands for Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation. AED means Automated External Defibrillator. Heartsaver... well, you know what that means.


Our instructor, Richard Harvey, did his best to lighten his load as Colleton County's Coroner. Rich did a fine job, and has begun his quest to have Colleton County approach Seattle's ratio of one CPR certified citizen in three. Lofty, but today's turnout was encouraging.

It was Valentine's Day, and my lovely Lady Di was mouth-to-mouth with this dummy. I'd've torn him limb from limb, but he (or she. You really can't tell), didn't have any.

I got some measure of revenge by compressing the life back into the bum...

We also got to learn how to use an A.E.D. Dana Cheney seemed to take way too much glee in pressing the "Shock" button. Sorry, Dana, these one's aren't live.

More classes are promised for the future. Shoot, if I can do it, you can, too!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rick Santorum, and Mary I, of England, Walk into a Bar...

My wise grandmother, Gina, told me more than a few times never to discuss sex, politics and religion in public because everyone had an opinion which you were unlikely to change, and that you'd probably just make people angry. I know this to be true, but I just can't help myself sometimes. It's primary season in U.S. politics, which means we get exposed to lots of allegations of "bad" sex and lots of questions about candidates' religious proclivities. The "bad" sex allegations have pretty much been all aimed at Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. The allegations are well-worn, and I'm frankly a little bored by them. Religion, on the other hand, gets my heart racing. One of my favorite people on the planet recently forwarded along to me an e-mail exhorting me to carefully watch the candidates for there religious stances because of the importance of these practices and views to the proper governance of the Country. So I did. Here's my primer:

Newt was raised Lutheran, became a Baptist, and converted to Catholicism. This combo played pretty well in the Palmetto State, which has been Newt's only primary victory so far.

Mitt Romney is, of coure, a Mormon, and he appears to be a very_active member of the Church of Latter Day Saints . The Latter Day Saints Church shares many characteristics of the Christian Church as described in the early Christian Creeds, but also varies_from_it_in_significant_ways, including its rejection of the Holy Trinity.

Ron_Paul was raised Lutheran, became a Baptist, and had his children baptised as Episcopalians. That's a pretty good smorgasbord of Protestantism, but as far as I can tell, Ron is not trying to convert anyone to any particular religious ideology.

President_Obama's_description of his faith is that he was raised by non-religious parents (his father was an atheist who'd been raised Muslim, and his mother was a lapsed Methodist), but was Baptised in the Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago as an adult. Of his faith, he says "I'm a Christian by choice. My family didn't—frankly, they weren't folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn't raise me in the church. So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead—being my brothers' and sisters' keeper, treating others as they would treat me" (I've heard people say that they don't believe that President Obama is actually Christian. I guess you could say that about any of the candidates if you wanted to. Like I heard in church camp many moons ago: If you were on trial as a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Depends on the standard you use, I guess. I'll take Paul's (the Apostle Paul, not Ron Paul) in Romans_10:9-13. 'Course, trying anyone for being a Christian has been done to death, hasn't it?).

If you want a candidate whose politics match his religion, then Catholic Rick Santorum is your best choice. Rick has apparently said something to the effect that separation of Church and State has caused great harm in America. Give him credit: he's not flip-flopping on his religion. But is bringing the pulpit or altar to the White House a good thing?

The Founding Fathers, most of whom were Christian, made sure to include certain Amendments to the U.S. Constitution to protect the rights of individuals against the awesome power of Government. Their first amendment?

Amendment I. Religion and Expression "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".

Why would the Founding Fathers want to guarantee that individuals could worship as they please, but deny them the power to have an official American religion? Maybe they remembered Henry VIII's daughter, Mary I of England, a/k/a Bloody_Mary who had a lot of English folks burned at the stake for the crime of not being Catholic.

But that couldn't happen in the age after the Age of Enlightenment, could it? Sure it could. In fact, it happened in post-Wiemar Republic Germany.In a wonderful biography I've just finished on Dietrich_Bonhoeffer, the author, Eric Metaxas, points out that when Adolf Hitler wanted to mold popular opinion to accept genocide, he created an official German Church in order to get rid of the pesky pro-Jewish sentiments that seemed to permeate the Bible (BTW, Metaxas' book is a great read).

So, what's best? Beats me. But I'm always wary of anyone tells me he knows God better than the next guy...