I am watching the process of picking the President of U.S.A.  Democrats first, Republicans next week.  I am a Republican.  But nothing impresses me–at all.  I’ll vote for the man, because the other is a mess–an utter mess.  But I have never been less motivated about a political campaign in my whole life.  And that is sad, because this is one serious choice, and serious crossroads in American history.  I just hope John McCain doesn’t pick a total loser for Vice-President, and I do mean the Mormon.  Don’t do it, John.  DO NOT PICK THE MORMON!  NO ROMNEY!   NO, NO, NO!!!

Later.

Hi. I’m fighting the flu. So has Gail. But the Lord of heaven is taking care of us. We’re reminded of the Scripture that says, “Wait upon the Lord (to get well), my soul waits. I will wait upon the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning! More than watchmen wait for the morning!”

Gail and I have been busy trying to juggle developing business with blogging, with doing administrative work, and finally doing some online political volunteer work (blogging, commenting on discussion threads on online communities, phone calling to contact voters using Skype). It is incredible that we can do significant work on behalf of a cause we believe in, and never leave your house. That is definitely cool, especially when Gail and I have to pass the Kleenex box to each other.

At any rate, I am fine. I am in the position of having to rethink everything that I am doing as an advocate for the Christian faith (we used to call ourselves “preachers” or “evangelists”). It’s not a crisis in my faith, nothing like that. My heart goes out to men and women who try to do ministry while having their faith shaken like that. It is such a terrible load of guilt that they have to carry when that happens. But that’s not my situation, thankfully. I have had that happen before, but that was long ago.

What I’m doing is seeking to reconnect with God’s mind, and come to understand what He wants to do with me. I have some pretty good idea of where He may be guiding me into, but I don’t want to get presumptuous and tell everybody–only to turn around and be wrong and look like an idiot writ large.

So, I am careful. But what I am thinking is happening is actually a great relief to me.

Have you ever had a moment when you thought you had to do something, a job, a new career, a relationship, a project of some kind, only to find that you were not only doing what is clearly wrong for you, but you were so overwhelmed by the situation that you getting a first class case of burnout?

Well, that’s what I have had to come to grips with. My religious ambition’s eyes were clearly bigger than my stomach. I had plans that would ‘change the world.’ And I dragged my sweetheart into it. Fortunately, I think God didn’t let them succeed, except for a little while, or else “the ministry” would have broken us both and put us in the hospital, or the morgue.

So, I am doing something else. Nothing dramatic, just blogging and writing. And helping Gail tutor international students. I can handle that. There are other projects for the future, but I’ll let those things happen when I’m able to do them, not when I think that I have to.

In the meantime, I would just encourage anyone who is reading this post who may feel that the world is on their shoulders, and they are working harder and getting less done and hating it more, consider these words from Jesus: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily laden and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, and from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. And you shall find rest for your souls.”

Life is effort, work, and reality won’t let you run away. But when we find that Jesus is a living God in the here and now, not a mere distant figure, and we let ourselves do things His way, there is peace. Not an absence of trouble, by no means, but the presence of Him who is smarter, bigger, and who is able to enter into your spirit, even while ruling the vast universe. How is that possible? Hey, He’s God, He’s able to do anything that can be subject to His power, within a plan that is beyond our understanding.

I hope to talk to you tomorrow. See you later.

Hasta al pronto.

—The Old Alcalde—

Heath Ledger will be buried in Perth, Australia, his hometown. It is strange, because that is the city that I have fantasized as the city where I would want to live, if I were to live outside my country. It is truly sad to me, as I read about his plunge into darkness over the last few months: the breakup with his fiance, and the loss of relationship with his two-year old daughter with it, the further plunge into drug abuse done alone, his increased isolation, his taking parts in films which showed artistic brilliance but in roles that were dark and deeply disturbing (the psychopatic and genocidal version of ‘the Joker’ in the soon-to-be released version of Batman most notable). He was, in seeing his earlier movies: ‘The Patriot’, ‘A Knight’s Tale’, ‘Casanova’, ‘Ten Things I Hate About You’, all of them so positive, so full of hope, full of laughter. He could have been an actor known as one filled with sunshine. Lord knows we have enough ‘noir’ in real life. What is it that so often drives the creative, the artistic, the beautiful, to so inexplicably self-destruct?

I, as a Christian, but as one who has lived with his own frailties and witnessed that of others, reserve judgment carefully. I am subject to the commandment of my Lord to “judge not, lest ye be judged.” But I am also admonished by Him to observe the deeds of man and evaluate him without fear, “by their fruits ye shall know them.” Heath was, like me, a sinner. Somewhere he got the message that God and his life was like ‘oil and water’, they just didn’t mix. Maybe he had witnessed enough poor demonstrations of the love of my God that he felt that he could never live the life and the profession he had chosen as part of the Christian faith. He definitely got plenty of condemnation from Christians with his role as the gay cowboy in ‘Brokeback Mountain’. I was one of them. I don’t apologize for that, nor should anyone else who understood that what we were condemning were Heath Ledger’s deeds, not Heath Ledger. To back off of a moral stand on this issue—homosexuality, would take a proverbial brick out of our moral superstructure that would make our faith–my faith–worthless, “good for nothing, except to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men.” But where was the person who could be there for Heath Ledger? And at the moment when he most needed to hear that God loves him unconditionally, that there was nothing he did that would deter His love and redemption for him at his worst moment? Two hours sleep at night. Drinking and drugging alone. Depressed, alone, devastated, downing prescription pills to force his tormented mind to stop the graphic images of the dark roles into which he had immersed himself—where was somebody?

And what horrific beings did Heath see as his spirit left his body….for good….finding what his eternal fate would be….discovering the horror of what it entailed….the deception and self-deception that made it possible….and its finality….again, where was somebody?

For that matter, where is it for so many others, who die so young?  Or those who die alone?  Or so unexpectedly?  The young mother dead at the hands of the sexual predator?  The Al Qaeda or Hamas suicide bomber who would sacrifice a whole life for a false idea of sex with 72 virgins?  The drug dealer bleeding to death in an alley shot in the heart?  The illegal immigrant left to die by his ’smuggler’ in a stifling hot cattle car in the middle of July?  The young college student dying from a drug overdose, or from a botched abortion? Or the gunshot suicide from the young lawyer who thought that he was worthless if he didn’t make partner by 30 by defrauding his clients or lying to a judge, and now he cannot face the surrender of the law license he devoted his life to–to build a career with it…now gone?

What is the matter with us as a civilization that we have abandoned the God of our fathers, for gods that give no comfort, no permanence?   Worse yet, when those of us who do our best to share hope and redemption with these individuals, we are surrounded by a culture that would rather destroy us, our families, and our careers, rather than give us the satisfaction of saving these individuals from their own dark demons.  And that, not mentioning the very real demons who are there, ensuring that the world keeps up the hate for true believers in the God who the Bible says “is love.”

Heath Ledger is gone.  I am beyond sad.  I am beyond merely angry.  I am a poor, isolated man who feels, above all, powerless.  I don’t blame God for that.  The lack of power is my own fault.

Forgive me, Lord.  Forgive us, Heath.  I wish someone had been there.  I just wish.

I’ll look for the next one.  No mere sentimentality.  This is real.

Hasta al pronto.

—The Old Alcalde—

Well, hello.  I have not had much to say over the last several months on this site, but I’m working on changing that.

The world has really been chaotic over the last few days, especially in the business sector.  It’s a great way to be reminded that “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions..”, to quote Jesus.   But I am confident of God’s care and protection in the coming year.  I’ll talk about different stories in the Bible, or notable cases in history, where God showed Himself a provider and prosperer of those who trust in Him.

More to come.  Hasta al pronto.

—The Old Alcalde—

This is the first time in a very long time that I have been writing upon this blog.  Hopefully, the long time of inactivity will not be repeated.

This day is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion.  The total numbers are uncertain, for the estimates made by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which most of the world’s media quotes as authoritative on numbers of abortions in the U.S. and worldwide, frequently overestimates its information, even admitting that they factor at least 3% above their own figures, which themselves are inflated as to the number of doctors and medical (?) personnel that are present in abortion centers, distorting their per-staff member abortion statistics.  Either way, there were about 1 million children slaughtered in 2007, a reduction of 25-30% from its high in 1983, but a total of 45-48 million children slaughtered since 1973.

48 million.  Unreal.  And about 1.6 billion worldwide.  Oh, and that is supposed to be a benefit to society.  That many children.  That many wounded mothers.  That many destroyed families.  That is simply unacceptable.

The world’s attention was focused upon a possible financial meltdown.  24-hour cable news watches, real time Internet sites, constant review of the developments in the markets of the world.  The actions of the Federal Reserve and the central banks of the world, and the President of the United States, all and more are monitored as if on the edge of a nuclear war.

Meanwhile, 2,500-3,000 children are murdered in abortion centers in the United States today, and 146,000 in the world!  All in one day.  More children are slaughtered over the past 18 months through abortion than died in the entirety of World War II.  That is incredible, but was there one single word about that?  Not only “No”, but “Hell, No!”

The economic crisis was caused by the immorality of men & women, in their financial practices.  Predatory lending, irresponsible financing practices and reckless use of financial leverage, driven by greed and arrogance, have now placed us at this point.  Immorality.  Selfishness.  Godlessness and wickedness.  The same things that make people willing to kill, when a baby is not seen as a treasure but as an inconvenience or worse, even a threat to individual pleasure and success or worse still, to a nation’s or civilization’s plans for a society made to their satisfaction.  And I speak of the likes of China ranging to the majority of activists in the Democrat Party of the United States.

It does not matter of which I am accused.  It does not matter of which you counter-accuse my political party.  It does not matter that some in my party are a party to this wickedness.  The engine of the practice of slaughtering the unborn is unmistakable, it is the Left.  It is the humanists.  It is at their door, beyond all others.

For that alone, I will never be a Democrat.  I refuse to allow blood to be on my hands.

Jesus Christ will not countenance it.

Hasta al pronto.

—The Old Alcalde—

Well, once again I wait until an ungodly hour to put any of my thoughts down.  I have to admit that it has been a pretty ambivalent time for me to write on just about anything.  But I think that I am going to give it a good effort.

The new American attorney general appointee, Robert Mukasy,  who everybody considered a “compromise” candidate that would not raise controversy, was subjected to the same question posed to everyone.  The question I objected to the most was, “Do you think waterboarding is torture?

I’ll make myself clear:  waterboarding is a fraternity prank.  It may give the inmate the sense that he is drowning, when he’s not.  But that’s just it, it’s not a felony and it’s not torture.  No permanent physical trauma, but a great way to get information on terrorist activity.

I’ll discuss that more tomorrow.  Promise.

Summer is ending, though you wouldn’t know it. I have had a day that I would just as soon forget, though I suspect that forgetting is not going to be on the agenda for a while. Thankfully, the problem is not Gail, she has been wonderfully strong for me today. It’s one of those days where you want to yell, “Why?”–but you can’t. That’s right, can’t. To give in to those angry desires is not only a serious underminer of faith, it’s an unacceptable drain on one’s energy. And I need all my faculties around me to maintain self-control. No, it’s nothing that’s going to get me thrown in jail, so no need for the rumor mill to unleash itself. But I am upset, embarrassed, and more than a little worried.

It seems that everything is hitting a screeching halt at this moment. I have new opportunities coming, but as usual they drag on into manana, manana, manana. Well, King David held on to his faith when bandits stole his wives (yep, could do it then), children, everything he owned, and his fighting men lost their families and property, too, so they were going to stone David to death. “David found comfort in the Lord his God.” (1st Samuel 30).  So, I can certainly do the same for a lot less.

When you don’t have much else to discuss, you go on.  So, today, I’m going on.  Adios.

—The Old Alcalde—

Well, hello. I know that during these days I do not have many people reading this blog, or even knowing its existence. I can understand that I have to be realistic about it, and that’s ok. I have had to come and accept that truth. I will be doing more things to change these circumstances, but I will also be patient. God will cause people to see what I have to share, if it is indeed worthwhile, otherwise not.

I am constantly aware of the fact that circumstances are coming that noone will want to ever dread in their worst nightmares. I have talked about that several times over the last few days. But I would rather think about how good God was over the last week or more. In particular, I am extremely thankful that only a few people died in the recent hurricane, Hurricane Dean, that struck several Caribbean nations and Mexico. I am particularly struck by the fact that it was a category 5 hurricane when it struck the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. Yet, in that impoverished area, long ravished with far inferior health and communications systems, and subject to horrible floods and landslides and mudslides, had a death toll of exactly zero. Yes, zero. Would that New Orleans have been so fortunate when Katrina struck it two years ago.

I am rather impressed as to what would make that possible.  Do I think it merely random?  No, I don’t.  But I’ll talk about that later.  Adios.

—The Old Alcalde—

I have been a very busy man, going about a lot of other things.  But I have been mindful of what I have been writing about the last few days.  I will have more to say tomorrow, or that is, later today.

Hasta al pronto.

—The Old Alcalde—