Marshal William T. O’Neil: How deep are you in?
Security Sergeant Montone: Not too deep… I’m paid to look the other way.
Marshal William T. O’Neil: I get it. You don’t do anything bad, you just don’t do anything good, right? 

— Outland

It’s time to pick sides.  It’s time to decide with whom you will stand when the votes are counted.  It’s time to force the same kind of commitment on the part of our political candidates.

Primaries for the election this fall are starting.  Will you side with the status quo, or will you help us go another way?  Even if you’re fed up with both major parties, you need to find candidates you can support.

I’m becoming a single issue voter.   My issue is this:  Do you trust the average American to be responsible for his or her own life?  It could be how you look at drug policy, or free speech, or abortion, or gun rights, or whatever, but if you’re not ready to loosen the grip of the government around our necks, then you don’t get my vote.

We all need to figure out what’s important to us and then vote for the people who share those values.  We’ve been compromising long enough.  We’ve gone too long electing and re-electing people who just want to profit from the public trough.  It’s time to put people with steel in their spines and fire in their eyes into office.

I took a course in art last winter. I learnt the difference between a fine oil painting, and a mechanical thing, like a photograph. The photograph shows only the reality. The painting shows not only the reality, but the dream behind it. It’s our dreams, doctor, that carry us on. They separate us from the beasts. I wouldn’t want to go on living if I thought it was all just eating, and sleeping, and taking my clothes off, I mean putting them on… — Harvey

Americans, at least, seem fascinated in knowing what the world of the prophets looked like.  We spend hours reading and watching material about how Jesus grew up.  It seems that every week there is a new scroll or tablet or tomb that is found that gives us a little more insight into the world of the Bible. There are advertisements for trips to the Holy Land that regularly show up in my email and websites.  “Walk in the footsteps of Jesus!”  “See what Moses saw!”.  A lot of people want to be baptized in the River Jordan or say a prayer at the Wailing Wall.  It seems that we think that by learning about the ancient world and experiencing it ourselves, we will know more about our faith.

I think that such things are interesting, but they miss the point.

Faith does not require evidence, or at least not the kind of evidence you dig up out of a hillside in Israel.  Archeologists could dig up a Roman record that read “On the third day of Venus, in the month of April, on the orders of Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea, a Jewish preacher and carpenter from Galilee, going by the name of Jesus, was crucified in Jerusalem for the crimes of treason and blasphemy.”, and it wouldn’t change my beliefs at all.

My faith is the faith that I gained through reading the Scripture, through talking about it with elders and friends, and through what I have seen and done in life.  Relics and ancient buildings are nothing more than curiosities for me.  They don’t hurt, but neither do they help.  I don’t need anything concrete upon which to base something that is anything but concrete.

As we celebrate the rebirth of Jesus Christ today, we must remember that the important thing is not the rock that was rolled away from his tomb, rather it is the act of its being moved.  The hill on which he died and the tomb in which he lay are nothing but places.  The shroud he wore is nothing but linen.  The reason he died and the reason he rose again is what we need to concentrate on.

After all, the wool from the black sheep is just as warm. — The Sound of Music

This weekend, Christians are celebrating Easter.  This is the season where we remember that God walks among us, and that no matter how sinful we become, we can always be redeemed.  Christ did not come only for those who already believed.  He also came for those whose hearts are as black as night.  He also came for those whose hearts are torn with grief and anger.  He came for all of us.

I think this is one of the places where the modern church fails on a regular basis.  At several times in my life, I have known people who were basically shunned from their communities of faith.  One was a young woman who became pregnant out of wedlock.  Another was a man who got in trouble with the law.  Several have been entire families that have, for one reason or another, split up.  In these cases, their church families turned their backs on them, viewing their situations as too outside the tenets of the faith to allow them to remain.  In most cases, this was done with the approval of the minister, if not their active participation.

I’m as guilty of this as the next guy.  A lot of the things I write about here include the phrase “get a rope” and other condemnations of others’ bad acts.  I forget the teachings of the Gospel when I do so, and I need to do better.  To do anything less is a repudiation of Christ’s message of love and forgiveness.  Yes, the sinner needs to acknowledge their guilt and make amends, but the church should be there to help them find their way back into the fold.  Once that is accomplished, the sin should be forgiven and forgotten.

The homeless drunk has as much place in the church as the living saint in her Easter bonnet.  The murderer in prison deserves forgiveness as much as I do for my transgressions.  We have to remember that Christ comes to us as a shepherd in search of lost sheep, and it doesn’t matter to him what color the lamb is.  It shouldn’t matter to any of us, either.

Mary Ellison: You must be mad.
Major John Smith: If I wasn’t, what would I be doing in this job?

— Where Eagles Dare

It’s a rare and lucky person who has the perfect job.  I’ve been that guy for short stretches of my life, when I had to marvel at the fact that someone was paying me to do something.  Most of the time, I haven’t been that fortunate.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a good job, and I work with a great group of people.  I just wouldn’t do it for free, and it makes me crazy on occasion.

I guess the trick is to find that one or two facets of your job that interest you, and try to emphasize those as much as you can in your day.  If I can’t find those, or if they come around too rarely, I start looking for another job.  Life’s too short to let the day job take away the pleasure of the other half of your life.

Young Gru: Look, Mom, I drew a picture of me landing on the moon.
Gru’s Mom: Eh.
Young Gru: Look, Mom, I made a prototype of a rocket out of macaroni.
Gru’s Mom: Eh.
Young Gru: Look, Mom, I built a real rocket based on the macaroni prototype.
[Fires rocket]
Gru’s Mom: [holds her breath in amazement for a moment] … Eh.

— Despicable Me

Every parent has been there.  You’re trying to do something, and the kid wants your attention.  You may be enjoying your first quiet moment in weeks, and suddenly some child wants you to look at something.  You want nothing more than to ignore them or tell them to be quiet and go away.  You’ve worked hard.  You have things to do.  You deserve some peace.

But you can’t, or at least you shouldn’t.  I’m as guilty of this as the next dad, but you need to listen to your kids.  You need to look at what they think is important, because it tells them that they’re important.  You can’t make them feel like there is anything more important than them.  I’ve been that dad, and the results suck.