A Follow-up Post: Praying for the President, Whomever He May Be

(I should say that I'm not trying to convince anyone else not to vote, or in fact that I won't vote next year...and I may give in to the grim looks on the portraits of Washington and Lincoln and register, yet.  And I do thank everyone who took the time to comment and email me, and I'm glad to have such concerned family and friends!  You all bless me very much.  This post isn't a rebuttal of your position--you all may be right at that--my yesterday's post was just a cry of frustration in the wilderness.  Also, it's hard as heck to register to vote here.)

Let's move on to a happier topic, shall we?    

(I include this video solely for the line: "May God bless and keep the Tsar...far away from us.")

 Turn with me, as the pastors I grew up with would say, to the book of 1 Timothy:

¹ I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— ² for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ³ This is good, and pleases God our Savior…” -1 Timothy 2:1-3

You can read the verses in context here.  (And you should.  I could be making this all up, you know.)

So what we have here, to my mind, is a command to pray for our political leaders at every level--"kings and all those in authority".  This I think encompasses presidents ("kings") on down to policemen, city council members, and bosses ("all those in authority").

(I wanted to post a clip here from the old movie "A Man for All Seasons" where Thomas More is praying with his wife and daughter and says, "and God bless our lord the king"--i.e., Henry VIII--and the wife and daughter sort of hesitate before grudgingly adding, "and God bless our lord the king."  But it seems like no one on Youtube shares my feelings about what constitutes pivotal movie scenes, so you will just have to imagine it.  Thomas was wearing a hat.)

We also have a reason: "that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness".  The question naturally arises, would "peaceful", "quiet", "godly" and "holy" be how the onlooker would describe our lives?  Not so much?

Sometimes we have the tendency to think that our lives mainly depend on us--that if we want a more peaceful life, for instance, we should quit our jobs and move to the country, where we will raise goats and commune with our souls.

And it turns out, looking at the passage, that the peace in our lives sort of does depend on what we do, but not in the way we thought it did.  It depends, essentially, on our obedience.  Are we actually praying for all these people the way we're asked to?

I'm not claiming it's easy to pray for men and women that you don't know, or that you believe to be scoundrels.  It's even difficult to remember to pray for leaders you like, let alone the ones you'd rather not have anything to do with.  But this is a command, so the difficulty doesn't excuse us.

I'm not pretending like I don't struggle with this, but I'll share a few things that have helped me.

1. When you're making a more Official sort of petition--i.e., you are leading a group in prayer, saying a blessing for a meal, or something like that--include a general prayer covering for your leaders.  Something like this, from the Book of Common Prayer, but probably a lot less formal and without the thous:

"O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world: We commend this nation to thy merciful care, that, being guided by thy Providence, we may dwell secure in thy peace. Grant to the President of the United States, the Governor of this State, and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do thy will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness, and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in thy fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen."

That's a lot of thous.  But you can see what I like about it--it reminds us that God is in control of the nation, asks for the leaders to both know and do God's will, and to be mindful of the responsibilities of their office under God--and then it wraps up by reminding us again that God is in control, because we have a tendency to forget.

 2. When you are making your usual daily petitions--I don't repeat prayers meaninglessly, hoping to get the Lord's attention, but there are certain things I pray for every single day, like my kids, my husband, the salvation of certain people, safety, and so on.  I'd be willing to bet that if you pray, you have some things you pray for almost every day as well.  You can include the president and other leaders in these petitions, even in a very general way:

"Lord, please bless and keep the President, the government, and my local leaders, that they would seek and do Your will and that You would be glorified by their actions, and also by mine."

Incidentally this helps us to speak respectfully of our government, even when we think (as frequently happens) that they are scoundrels.  If we can treat even scoundrels respectfully because of the office they hold, without excusing their wickedness, that's a good thing; and it makes their wickedness show up more clearly.

3. When there is a national crisis, war, or other trouble--many people don't need  prompting to pray in these circumstances, but again our prayers tend to stop at our own front yard.  We pray (and we should) that our sons and daughters won't go to war, that we will be safe, that we will have enough to eat.  But we need to also remember to pray that our leadership will be motivated by wisdom and justice instead of greed and self-preservation.

4. Whenever you notice a particularly bad example of our decadence--granted, it's hard to pick and choose these days, but let's keep it political and say you should probably pray more for your leaders when the government is in the midst of a scandal.  In that situation it's more tempting for people to behave wickedly in an attempt to hang onto what they think they're losing; shouldn't we pray for genuine repentance and brokenness?  If it could happen for Nebuchadnezzar, surely it isn't out of the realm of possibility for a congressman or two.

I have to tell you, I know only a few Christians (although I know some of them who do pray read this blog and have been exhorting me to vote--;) ) who pray regularly for our leaders.  Sign a petition? Sure.  Donate?  Awesome.  Forward emails?  Every day.  Commit to pray for our leaders every day for a year?  Crickets.

And again, I'm not claiming I have this nailed down.  Some days I'm doing good to remember to yell "Thank You, Jesus, for this food!" before the kids manage to snarf their dinner.  This is something I need to improve on, as well.  But I know it can be done, and I know it has to be done.  Because our country needs prayer, and not just at flagpoles and on Sunday mornings.

That's my talk for today.  Bless you, and stay safe at the polls.  I'd vote early, in fact, if you're in a state where you can.

Cheers,

Breanna

The Lesser of Two Weevils: Why I'm Not Voting This Year

I know.  I'll wait until the shockingness of it has died down.

(Don't read anything in to the fact that the winner in the video looks a little like Mittens.)

It actually is a little shocking to me; I've voted in every election since I turned 18, usually at considerable inconvenience.  I believe I'm blessed to live in America.  I believe that the only way for democracy to work is for everybody to keep an eye on the sticky fingers of everybody else.  So why on earth would I choose to stay home on November 6?

Well, friends, it's no secret that our choices aren't stellar this year.  On the one hand we have the gentleman affectionately known on this blog as PBO; on the other we have his opponent, another gentleman we'll call Mittens.  They are both (affectionately!) either idiots or dishonest.

Neither of them will get us out of the economic quagmire.

Neither of them are anxious to be above-board about their past and their money.

Neither of them seem to think ordinary people are too bright.

Neither of them are nearly as anxious to protect your freedoms as they are to ensure their own political survival.

I don't mean to discourage you.  There are a number of third-party candidates that some folks find more palatable than PBO and Mittens--Ron Paul, for instance.  But I can't in good faith vote for Ron Paul for one of the same reasons I can't vote for Mittens: Ayn Rand.  (Paul Ryan, Mittens's veep candidate, is an Ayn Rand admirer, as is Paul.)   Rand, poor woman, was bat-poopy bonkers and what I've read of her writings tend too much toward Nietzsche and his Superman for my taste.  They are also horrid as novels, but what can you really expect from a philosopher.

So why I'm not voting: I can't find someone who I believe would be a good President to vote for.  Short of writing in Chuck Norris--the political equivalent of sloshing beer on someone and yelling WOO!--there is literally no one that I think would do a good job with their hats in the ring.

So rather than feel myself backed into a corner, yet again, and trying to vote for the lesser of two weevils, I'm Opting Out.

(This won't actually make that much difference, by the way.  I know this goes against everything we've been taught, but look at the Schoolhouse Rock cartoon above.  It IS, in fact, literally true that my vote doesn't make a difference, because the popular vote isn't what determines elections.  I would still vote if I could find a candidate who didn't make me throw up a little in my mouth.)

So far Opting Out has been lovely.  I don't watch the debates.  I don't follow the coverage.  I don't have signs in my yard.  I don't have to talk with the door-to-door people (I simply smile, take their brochure, and shred it for the compost pile).  I don't have to do any complex Weevil Measuring.

And since God is the one controlling elections anyway, I figure I can do without a big fat dose of stress this November.

I'm not going to tell you to go against your convictions, and yes, I'm aware that by doing this I'm forfeiting my right to complain about the Gubmint.  But I offer this mea culpa as a little piece of solace to people who are trying hard to figure out an ethical way to vote: just don't.

You can still "vote" on things, by the way, even if you choose not to vote on November 6--vote with your time, and your money, and the way you speak.  Buy from companies that support what you value (even if that value is "companies who produce very inexpensive products", it counts).  Spend your time doing things that align with what you believe is true, not the opposite.  Speak in the ways that you really believe the Lord would have you speak.

Ultimately, those choices are going to make a much bigger difference than Mittens or PBO.

Cheers,

Breanna

A Lot of Pictures

I finally figured out how to get pictures off my phone!

So here is Miss Boo in her car seat, much earlier this year.

Ditto her brother.  Was experimenting with the "vignette" feature on the phone at the time.

Naked-legged baby (hot day) eating chocolate (good mother).

Waking up and watching cartoons.

"Braid my hair like Kirsten!"

The Husband's Dunkleweitzen brew.

More chocolate.  This is choconana pudding (1 avocado, 1 banana, 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 1/4 cup honey, blender it until it is pudding).

He likes it.

A sunset from the back yard.

Butter that Buddy mangled.  ("Look mama!  It's a little house-home!  For fingers!")

Reading.  (She's on to bigger books nowadays.)

Reading TO me.

Working on caulking the gaps between the rocks on the front of the house, with Daddy.

Posing.

Playing with his cars.

The mountains where we go hiking.  Nice, huh?

Posing.

Posing.

UBER Posing.

This was either a train or boats.  I can't remember.

A jailed baby.  (Not really.  It's the stair railing.)

Sunset from the front yard.

Sleepy baby.

A little boy, in Carharrt bibs, in an Italian restaurant.  Luciano's.  I had the duck.  Fabulous.

Another backyard sunset.

Another front yard sunset.

Watching cartoons together.

Posing.

This is a scorpion that ran into my kitchen one morning, when the landscapers first dumped the wood chip mulch on our flowerbeds.  I haven't seen another one, but this one made me jump pretty high.  I hit it with a notebook and put it in the sink to take this picture.  It wasn't very big.  It does have a horrible name: "Arizona Hairy Scorpion".  I looked it up.

A hat I knitted for the Littlest Sasquatch.

Miss Boo relaxing on the back porch.

Lining up cars.  (He has a diaper on here, I was about to put his pajamas on when he sprinted back to his cars.)

This is what happens when a brother tries to drive his car through your long, blond curly hair.

Sushi we made...

Beer we made (and mead, on the left)...

More reading, in our flannel nightie (you can tell we're getting more recent, here).

The Evil Castle Buddy built.  Actually I don't think he realizes it's disturbing to take the little Lego hands and stick them on top of the wall, and pile the heads in the yard.  I think he's going more for Festive Castle.

Buddy's foot.  I just thought it was cute.

Getting ready to dance (see the "Managers of their Home" scheduling book, as Mama flails desperately trying to get a handle on things?).

Dancing!

More dancing, with dogs!

Dancing!

Not tired.

Also not tired.

My to-do list.  Ha!

That's it!  You'll get my next wordy post next time.  This is just a bribe to keep you reading.

Cheers,

Breanna

Pictures for Grammy (And Some Commentary)

I said something this morning (my memory is strictly taken up these days with important matters like who hates the yellow spoon and who needs the yellow spoon) to Grammy along the lines of "I have to go grocery shopping" and she said "yeah, and UPDATE YOUR BLOG."

So I am.  I didn't go to the store yet though.

This is a picture, from when I thought about my blog a couple of weeks ago, in the back yard.  It really was warm enough for shorts that afternoon.

And he really does want to climb the slide whenever we're outside.

Not that he doesn't usually have help; this can turn into a dilemma because he doesn't actually want to go down the slide, he just wants to stand at the top of the ladder.  And Certain People behind him really, really want to go down the slide.

So they just go around.

(Yes.  Bud came outside so he could sit with folded hands on a chair.  I don't know why.)

(But he's pretty cute, huh?)

Here's the Husband checking on the health of our fir trees.

Here is the first leaf that fell off our ash trees, on the bizarrely still-green grass.

Here is the back 40, behind the fence, where we run the dog, and a fair example of what our whole yard looked like pre-landscapers.

He did go down the slide some, and run around, but he got very shy when he saw the camera.

This one also steals everyone else's milk cups.  Common knowledge that stolen milk is sweeter.

Me: Don't play with the faucet.

Her: Mama, I'm just...

Me: I said don't play with the faucet.

Her: Mama, I'm just....

Me: If you don't stop touching the faucet--

Her: MAMA!  I want to spray the dog with the hose!

Me: No.

Her: Oh.

The Littlest Sasquatch has also recently discovered bikes/trikes/wagons/dirt.  It's pretty awesome.

Part of my ill-deserved reputation for being hardworking.  (I think I am not lazy, but I'm not overworked by any means.)  This is Homemade Wheat Bread, and fabulous.  The secret is to use sunflower seed oil, I've discovered, having bought it by accident one time.

No, I don't have it all together as a homemaker.

I mean, I can prioritize something and get it done--that's a plus--but then I have to let other things go.  So for instance, on a given day it might be clean bathrooms/floors/sinks/counters, OR vacuuming.  Or lots of reading to the kiddos, OR working on writing projects.  It's never both, at this season of life, when I can't delegate a dang thing beyond "pick up your underpants, don't shine that flashlight at baby, he doesn't like it!".

I imagine it will be the same way after they (sob) start to move out, and I'm left with only my own devices again.  On the one hand it will be my own devices without the constant Entropy Team disbursing toys, crumbs, books, papers, and fur around my house, but on the other it will be an adjustment and sort of lonely.

It's a good thing the Lord only asks us to do one thing at a time.

The Entropy Team and I had a lazy, lazy day today--I needed to recover from finally finishing The Novel (which still needs to be edited, but I have to take a break so I can actually see my typos and such), and they needed to recover from me being absorbed in my laptop.

The Commentary:

Even mainstream sources (the news ticker on the MSN homepage, for instance) are realizing that the recession isn't getting any better.  It'll probably be easier for all of us if we just expect things to stay interesting for a while.

The world won't come to an end--unless the Lord has that planned--but you may want to consider doing some very specific practice: Getting Along With Annoying People Who Do Stupid Stuff.  You might have to move in with one; one might have to move in with you.  You will almost certainly be doing business with them.

This is more than just keeping your mouth shut, which tends to lead to festering and psychotic breaks.  It means actually hearing the annoying statement and then deciding whether you're going to deal with it (as in, "no, you may not wash your socks in my stock pot") or forget about it ("eh, I own bleach as well as a stock pot").  There is no middle way.

It's easier to forget about stuff than you would think.  By nature I'm an OCD, picky, organized, methodical, change-resistant person.  But it's just too much effort to get worked up about folks who don't do things the way I do them.  Yes, we all know that I practice The Proper Awesome Way of filing financial papers.  Yes, I could get annoyed when I catch a glimpse of a friend's desk and their Stack of Misery.  But it isn't my desk--so, not my business.  Likewise, people rarely set events up in a way I think is most efficient.  But it isn't my event--so, even if I attend, all I give myself permission to do is laugh.

See, the alternative to dealing with it or forgetting about it is fussing.  And I don't allow that in my kids, so I can't do it.  Fussing doesn't make anything about a situation better--it doesn't find the solution faster, boost anyone's morale, help anyone think clearer, or speed up the work.  All it does is make everyone except the fusser miserable.

Even the fusser's pleasure in fussing is short-lived.  It feels good to vent feelings on someone, for a moment, but only the most self-deluded among us can escape the eventual realization that fussing at someone the whole time that they're trying to clean up a less-than-ideal situation is technically referred to as Being A Butt.  Don't be a butt, get it in gear and help clean up.  Whistle, if you can't think of anything nice to say.

A nice accompaniment to the two viable solutions is encouraging.  Whether you're dealing with it or forgetting about it, everyone responds well to having their work noticed, having their good intentions acknowledged, and their mistakes tactfully handled.  Nobody responds well when it is implied or stated that they, or what they are doing, is The Dumb Way.

These relationship skills are always important, whether you're a homeschooling parent, an employer, an employee, or really anyone else who has to figure out a way to exist in groups of people who need to get things done.  They may come in handy in the coming months as folks do more and more bartering and informal business.  But it's also Biblical--Christians aren't supposed to be butts.  (That's a loose paraphrase.)

Now, let me go get three little butts in gear for bedtime.

Cheers,

Breanna