The Voice
I had the privilege of being involved with The Voice ... the New Testament was just released, available here. Here's a 7 minute video ...
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Beautiful piece … from a white-skinned father to his black-skinned son
Josh Bottomly sent me his response to the election ... It's beautifully written.
It begins like this:
I am a white-skinned father with a black-skinned son.
A little over a year ago, my wife, Amy, and I adopted our son, Silas, from Ethiopia.
Silas turns two in December.
Today our conversations tend to revolve around our favorite snacks - yogurt and lemon pound cake at Starbucks - and favorite TV characters and movies - Elmo and Ratatouille. We also squabble very little these days. Sometimes Silas will take a swing at me when I take away the Wii joystick. And other times he'll treat the cheese sandwich I made him for dinner like a Frisbee.
One day, though, Silas will want to talk about other things.Like the color of his skin. And my skin. And his mother's skin. And pictures and events and people and dates he finds in his history textbook.
There are some historical dates I don't want to explain to Silas then. August 12th, 1955, for example. That's the day Emmett Till, a 14 year old boy, was brutally lynched in Mississippi by white, southern, "Christian" men.
... But then there are days I can't wait to explain to Silas.
Days like December 1st, 1955. The day when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. That small, defiant "no" reverberated out into a large, defiant "no more."
There are other days, too. Like August 28th, 1963. The day Martin Luther King delivered his famous message, "I Have a Dream." It was a day unlike any other day. It was a day of dreaming of another kind of America.
And now there is November 4th, 2008.
This is a day I look forward to telling Silas about - not as a student of history, but as a participator in making history.
And I will tell Silas this: I voted for Obama. For you. For me. For us.
To read the rest - and see a family photo - go here.
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a few more responses … and an apology
Here are a few more excerpts of interest from the dozens of emails I've received about the election ... plus an apology ...
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My words to President-Elect Obama
I am part of a fascinating project at the Sojourners blog ... leaders offering encouragement and counsel to our new president.
My piece begins like this:
As you prepare to begin your historic presidency, I offer you these simple words from another senator of Illinois in whose footsteps you are walking. Abraham Lincoln said, "I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me."
Being a friend to yourself will mean at least four things for you:
First and foremost, it will mean keeping your soul open and connected to God — through prayer, through worship, through fellowship, through confession of your sins and mistakes, through constant thanksgiving, and through a sustained humble attitude of dependence on God. If you seek God’s wisdom, will, and guidance first, you will lead with the same serenity and strength that have brought you this far.
For the rest, go here ...
Also, I am part of the On Faith blog, where I posted on "The Maturing of America" - here. My post begins like this ...
Over my lifetime, I've had the recurring feeling that America was an adolescent nation beginning to come of age. Like a lot of adolescents, our national behavior was erratic, moody, reactive, hostile, defiant. We found ourselves popular, got conceited, broke faith with our best family traditions, made excuses for ourselves, blamed others when things went wrong. We flirted with the drug of war, had some bad trips, pulled back, then relapsed several times. We didn't know how to handle our money. We bullied our younger brothers and sisters. We got caught in some orgies of torture and other shameful behavior. Yet we thought we were "all that" and found it nearly impossible to admit our failures.
During this election, I felt that our nation was poised between the chance to grow up a little and the chance to prolong its adolescence a little longer. By choosing Barack Obama, I believe, we've chosen to mature into a more responsible and humble young adulthood as a nation.
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And now for something REALLY terrifying …
Enjoy this terrifying piece from the Onion ...
Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are
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