A Note of Disclosure & The Need for Faithful Citizenship

As the days are waning towards Election Day here in America (all told, only two months to go), I want to stress the need for Faithful Citizenship. We are not only called to have properly formed consciences on the public issues and policies being discussed, but we must also exercise our rights as dutiful citizens with our properly formed consciences to actively change for the better our society through active participation in political life. How do we do that?


By Making Our Voices Heard

We must never allow our voices to be silenced, even if the stances we take appear to the Mainstream to be backward, ignorant, or somehow "out-of-touch" with their sense of reality. A lot has continued to change these years of this new millennium and the warped nature of things can quickly work to try and silence what is right and what is just out there. We must never give in to or "sit down" and "shut up" to the injustices of our world. Speak to the world for the world is in need of a voice to speak the Truth.


By Being Respectful of the Other Side

We needn't get personal of the other side. We must remain firm in our beliefs but not nasty in our defenses. We cannot win a battle and lose the war on the account of dirty tactics and unfair political ways. We must let the Truth do the talking, our feet do the walking, and our hands pulling the levers of democracy. Be firm and friendly even when it requires turning the other cheek.


By Living and Voting According to Our Consciences, NOT Our Wallets

The question shouldn't be: Are YOU better off four (or eight) years ago? The question should be: Is the world a better place, a more equitable and safe place for all? How do we do this? We must be advocates for equitable treatment and good government. Without it, our society hasn't any legs left to stand on. Remember the axiom of do unto other as you wish others do unto you, even when it means we aren't as "rich" or "powerful" as we otherwise might think.


In the end, we are a country of immense possibilities, but we can also become too narrow-minded and narcissistic. We can end up having tunnel vision in our morality and the application of our morality in our lives. We can accept the unacceptable and refuse to tolerate what we see as intolerable. We have seen in recent years the fog of morality and its application. We have been let down as a nation, but that doesn't mean we have given up.

In the coming days and weeks, I will make the case for who I believe will best answer to the challenges ahead for us as a nation and who, in the end, doesn't have a leg to stand on for in the broad call for the audacity of hope. We must realize in the end, what this "hope" is truly calling for, and what the consequences will be.

Transfigured in Love

Yesterday was the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, and the mountaintop analogy pervades my thoughts this day as it did this past Aggie Awakening.

Yet we ought not to discount the mountains for what they are—mountains—and thus turn them into molehills. I tried to do just that that Sunday. I was a mess. I was stressed, and I snapped. I refused not only to love in that moment, I rejected God's love around me. I couldn't—for that extended moment—turn the other cheek.

It was all of a sudden "about me." That's happened over the summer several times for me, which occurs for us all when we start doubting God's plans for us and all of His children. It's once we let go of our preconditions of love that we are born not into slavery but into freedom to love. We aren't burdened in the same way anymore. We are transfigured in love. And in these days since that weekend, I have seen His love transfigure not only me and my condition but my brothers and sisters in Christ and the whole world around me.

Be transfigured in love and let the world be changed because of it. Don't let that mountaintop experience go but cherish it evermore.

August Sun

Brightening sky,
With orange wisps of cloud,
You give your display
As though I were the only one,
But rather you deserve ten thousand to my one.

How do I describe
What sages and poets once tried?
Dark blues dance into purple,
And purples play into pink
And pinks into oranges with beauty in such a feat.

I struggle to grasp the words,
As though they were your clouds.
Now passing pale purples,
Before your bright canvas,
Show your inflamed glory that stays.

Yet you do not stay the same;
Your beauty constantly changes.
Your brightness and light give way
To the darkness of night
And to flashes of lightning strikes.

You dim this day,
Your yellows and oranges mere dreams instead.
In your place, grayish blues
And worrisome clouds take your stead
In a harrowing tempest foretold.

The winds pick up,
They rustle through the trees,
And thunder rumbles
In the distance
As you fade away.

And yet before this all,
In my audience of one,
I see through the pond's reflection,
A bright red orb of fire dancing,
You, the elusive and fiery August sun.

Stormy Seas

Stormy seas
With strongest gales,
Stormy seas
With drenching rains

What waves dost have,
What tempest swirls;
What deafening roar
Dost possess in anger so great.

You buffet my ship
With anger so great;
The sails flutter
In the winds as they break.

The waves crash in,
Assailing my ship
With gauntlet after gauntlet of despair,
Leaving only destruction in its wake.

Fighting against fight,
Raging against storm,
I rise to take my stand
And vanquish you once more.