RevCyn

So Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, and arguments broke out immediately across America. The comments that made me the saddest today were from Rush Limbaugh : "And with this 'award' the elites of the world are urging Obama, THE MAN OF PEACE, to not do the surge in Afghanistan, not take action against Iran and its nuclear program and to basically continue his intentions to emasculate the United States." As I've thought about this over the day, listening to different takes on the issue, what it comes down to for me is something a colleague said, which reminded me that Obama is creating a paradigm shift in America and in the world, and that this is putting us on a path towards peace. No, peace isn't achieved yet; that's not the point. Part of what this paradigm shift is about is getting the American people to wake up to our role in creating a world of peace--individually. Here's some of Obama's words from his acceptance speech: I do not view i...

In honor of the somewhat newly created, and not yet fully embraced, holiday " Chalica ," I'm doing a series of posts on the Seven Principles this week. This is my post for Saturday. Day Six: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. This is one of the largest principles, with arms to cover the whole world. Peace is, after all, the ultimate goal. All the other things--justice, liberty, truth, equity, compassion, inherent worth and dignity, respect for the interdependent web, the democratic process--all these other elements of our principles are steps to peace or results of it. If we can have peace, I think we can have the whole lot of them. It's inconcievable that we might achieve true peace without justice, for example. How do we get there? My thoughts turn first to Maya Angelou, whose poem "Amazing Peace" I have used at Christmas Eve for the last few years: Maya Angelou recites her Christmas poem A brief excerpt: We, Angels and M...

My cousin Wes Weddell was in from Seattle and performed at our church a couple of weeks ago. Now, his parents have e-mailed me another West-Coast music sensation: the Righteous Mothers . Here they are singing "Old Fat Naked Women for Peace." And if you missed Wes, here's one of the songs he performed for us: