Who Are The Sheep?

President Obama: The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And I’m asking you to choose that future. I’m asking you to rally around a set of goals for your country – goals in manufacturing, energy, education, national security, and the deficit; a real, achievable plan that will lead to new jobs, more opportunity, and rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation. That’s what we can do in the next four years, and that’s why I’m running for a second term as President of the United States.

Candidate Romney: If I am elected President of these United States, I will work with all my energy and soul to restore that America, to lift our eyes to a better future.

What is the difference between these two pledges?  In the first, the President tells listeners that they are themselves responsible for the success or failure of the nation's economy and society.  The choice is with the people who live here.  In the second, the candidate tells listeners that he will do it -- he will "restore America."  Obama says "we," Romney says "I."

Voters next week have a choice between a President who is telling them that we have to work together to solve our country's problems and a President who will solve those problems for them.

Now, who are the sheep? The people stepping up, accepting their own responsibilities in the success of the enterprise, accepting the challenge to "choose that future;" or the people lounging on their couches, turning the project over to the candidate, letting him do the work "to restore that America"? The people who get out and solve problems, or the people who wait to be told what to do? The people who ask questions, or the people who just accept whatever the candidate tells them? The people who say, "What can I do to help?"; or the people who say, "What's in it for me?"

Who are the sheep?

Poverty

 The following is the text of a Mission Moment I gave at church on 23 September 2012.

The numbers have become numbing and meaningless. 1.29 billion people living in absolute poverty. Which is defined as “... the state of severe deprivation of basic human needs, which commonly includes food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter, health care, Education and information.” Destitution. 15% of Americans live below the nationally defined poverty line. The poverty line in America is an income of $23,000 a year for a family of four. Which is an income of $1916/month.

Could you live on $1916 a month? What would you have to give up? Your car? Your house? Your cable TV sports package?

Poverty is a way of life. Poor people are not sitting at the kitchen table working out possible ways to get out of poverty. When you're dog-tired from working whatever job you can; and overwhelmed with figuring out how to find clothes for your kids or how to Pay the electricity bill; and putting catsup on your spaghetti for dinner; and feeling the shame of having holes in your clothes, clothes that you don't have the money to replace; you're not reading Atlas Shrugged and scheming how to make a million bucks.

Or, maybe you are. Because scheming is all you have – no job prospects, no future but the present. $5 worth of lottery tickets every week, to keep the dream alive. Because winning the lottery represents the only hope you have for getting out of this cesshole of a life.

I've been poor. I have lived that life. I've shared my room with cockroaches. I've walked through the snow to the food stamp office in shoes with my toes showing through and my “winter coat” out at elbows. I've stood in line at the Department of Agriculture food giveaways and been grateful for a 5-lb block of American cheese, even though I detest the taste of American cheese. And I've looked at the electricity bill in despair, with no money to pay it; and gone to a friend's house to use the phone, because I couldn't afford one. And tried unsuccessfully to persuade a prospective employer that my lack of a phone and lack of a car would not prevent me from being a reliable employee.

These days, that's all behind me and I live the life of Riley. Living in a comfortable house, driving a luxury car, buying subscriptions to expensive magazines, eating restaurant food several times a week, keeping the thermostat turned up in winter time. Dish Network. High-speed internet. A fancy-sounding job title and business cards to go with it. But, I remember.

It was the gov't that helped me when I needed help. I had nobody else to turn to. Now, in these heady days of wealth and comfort, I want to be the somebody that was not there when I needed them. And I am asking that all of you think about that $1916 a month, and think about the billion of people living on $1.25 a day and open your wallets and purses and look at their contents and remember. Remember that the money therein is a gift from God – and share that gift. Help me, and together, let's be the somebody who lifted someone, somewhere out of the stinking pit of poverty – even if only for a day, make somebody's present brighter than yesterday.

Gandhi said, “What you do is insignificant, but you must do it.” And somebody posted a photograph on Facebook, a photograph of a sign that reads “You have never really lived until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” Let's live – let's really live – as Christians.

Comparison of Tax Rates, 1967 and 2011

According to memory, my father was making around $10,000 salary in his job at Bell Aerospace in 1967.  I might be totally off in that recollection, but that year I was making 75¢ an hour working on a nearby farm, so ten grand would have been a goodly sum of money at the time.

Using the BLS's CPI Inflation Calculator, that salary today would be $68,800.

Let's compare tax rates for my Dad making $10,000 a year and someone making the corresponding $68,800 a year in 2011.

Using the Tax Foundation's Federal Income Tax Brackets 1913-2011, I can create the following simple table.

Year	Bracket	Marginal Tax Rate
1967	$8,000 - $12,000	22.0%
2011	$17,000 - $69,000	15.0%

So, if I were making the equivalent amount of money as my father was making 45 years ago, I would be paying a marginal tax rate 32% lower than what he was paying ((22-15)/22).

For the purposes of this thought experiment, I make the convenient assumption that this dollar is net.  I will make the observation that tax payers in 1967 had many more deductions available (e.g., credit card interest) than are available today.

The fundamental point is that taxpayers who are falling in the center of the curve ("Neither the tip of fortune's cap/ Nor the soles of her shoes") are paying a significantly smaller percentage of income for Federal tax today than they would have been paying for equivalent income 45 years ago.

TEA Party?  Too much whine with the cheese.

Evolution of the First Amendment

Madison's original text

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.

The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.

Version passed by House of Representatives

Congress shall make no law establishing religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, nor shall the rights of Conscience be infringed.  The Freedom of Speech, and of the Press, and the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and consult for their common good, and to apply to the government for a redress of grievances, shall not be infringed.

Version passed by Senate

Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith, or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition to the government for a redress of grievances.

Final text passed out of joint committee and sent for ratification

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.

The Triune God

Some time ago, my grown daughter Stephanie confessed to being confused and puzzled by the concept of the Triune God, which is central to most modern divisions of Christianity. "Father, Son and Holy Ghost." And I have to admit, that the concept doesn't bother me at all, principally because I don't see how it affects the precepts by which we are commanded to live. But, the question set me thinking about how this idea developed.

The conception of the Trinity is the result of meditation on the text by early Christians who found compelling the text "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19). The Trinity is generally regarded as central to church doctrine by those who believe it. Major disruptions within church organizations have occurred as a results of disputes over what actually is meant by the Trinity, and whether or not it actually is the true and accurate depiction of God.

The conflict appears to center around the terms used to describe the three aspects of God. When we think of the individual elements of the Trinity, we tend to regard them in the same way we would regard individual persons -- i.e., wholly realized, self-actualizing independent beings. However, our conception of the Trinity comes from the early Church Fathers, who sought to codify our understanding of the Trinity as "three Hypostases in one Ousia."

According to Origen, one of the early Church Fathers:

Hypostasis means an objective reality capable of acting. In modern times, it is commonly translated into English as "person." This is exceptionally inaccurate, as it is completely divorced from the original conception. "Personae" is a closer explication. Ousia means being or nature. As there was only one God, the three hypostases had the same ousia.

To the present day, theologians are still arguing over the meanings of these words and whether this understanding of the Trinity represents a Biblically sound perception. For example, the word ousia is not used anywhere in the Bible in a context that reflects this Trinitarian usage. And in some cases, hypostasis is used in Biblical times in ways that make it interchangable with 'ousia.'

Readers of the translated Bible are being confused because they are injecting their own understanding of or conception of a person into the text; seeing "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" as individual beings, rather than as Origen and the other Church Fathers described them, as individual representations of a core essence, with the representations being some self-selected subset of qualities of the entire being.

There are still Christian churches which reject the Trinity, principally because it is not specifically described in the Bible.

---

References:

• Origen and the Defintions of Hypostasis and Ousia
• Hypostasis in Religion and Philosophy
• Ousia

Those Overpaid Teachers!

Stolen from Spadway, commenting on

Beyond Unions: 5 New Rules for All Teachers

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year!

It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan-- that equals 6 1/2 hours). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day ... maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE...
That's $585 X 180 = $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries.)

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is! The average teacher's salary (nationwide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

The Christian Sensibility

I dreamed I saw St Augustine
Alive with fiery breath
I dreamed I was among the ones
That put him out to death
Oh I awoke in anger
So alone and terrified
I put my fingers against the glass
And bowed my head and cried.
-- Bob Dylan

The beginning of Christian sensibility is the realization that one could commit an evil act and get up the next day and live with it. At that point, one understands the nature of Original Sin; and the true value of God's grace is revealed. Until that evil within has been confronted -- as in Bob Dylan's dream -- God's grace seems but a "nice to have," and the absolute necessity of it is not apparent. Grace abounds when one is "so alone and terrified" by one's own sin ... and not before.

Too many Christians have been seduced by what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace" -- the belief that one could live in the world, be of the world, and still accept God's grace. But, he was right that grace is "costly." It requires that one give up living in the world and live only in God. Most of us are unwilling to pay the full price; perhaps, only saints fully accept the cost of grace. Each day presents those decisions -- in thought, word, deed. Peter, in our Lord's darkest hour, faltered. How much more likely then, are we?

Acceptance of the cost of grace is made bearable, finally, in that moment of lonely terror when one looks over the edge into the abyss that is one's own heart. Then, one begs -- not for forgiveness, which is foregone -- but to be saved. Crying out into the darkness, "How can I bear this burden alone?" brings the echo back from the abyss: "You don't have to."

Make me Thy friend, Lord, be my surety: I
Will be Thy client, be my advocate:
My sins make Thine, Thy pleas make mine hereby.
Thou wilt me save, I will Thee celebrate.
Thou'lt kill my sins that cut my heart within:
And my rough feet shall Thy smooth praises sing.
-- Edward Taylor