During the recent US Presidential Election, candidate Barack Obama used the motto “The Change We Need.” The motto resonated with many in the electorate; I know that it resonated with me. And change we've gotten, to the delight of some and the consternation of others. Our government's policies were what they were, and now they are changing, at least in certain regards. But is change limited to the political sphere actually the change we need? Of course not, even though it is the only kind of change an election can reasonably be expected to deliver.
In my previous posting, Plurality, I suggested that we consider the question, “What is the proper role for Christians in society?” G. M. Palmer proposed
- to love, and
- to teach how to love.
This seems like a good starting place.
Mark 12:28-34 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question
OK, so here's a thought experiment. If we were to poll non-Christians as to what they thought was characteristic of Christians, how likely do you think it is that one of the two principles enumerated above would be mentioned? Will they know we are Christians by our love? I don't think so.
And here's a practical experiment: I went to news.google.com, and searched for “Christian.” Ignoring stories about people whose first name Christian, and political stories about the Christian Democratic Party, and the like, here are the first ten stories that I found (honest folks -- I dreamed up the experiment first, and the number 10):
- Judge: Christian group can't walk with literature at Arab festival ...
- JAMES P. PINKERTON: Anti-Christian Bigotry at The Washington Post
- Christian churches fighting each other
- First Christian Church Women's Circle
- Jesus! Christian Artist's Company Stuck With $2.1 Million Legal ...
- Conservative Christians: Obama's Gay Benefits Order Approximates ...
- Singer brings Christian country music
- Protests Continue to Spread in Iranian Election Aftermath
- Opinion: Can Christian citizenship survive?
- Christian group sues for right to burn gay teen novel
Interesting list, isn't it? There are some articles in here that I think are worth reading (3,8,9), and a couple of personal-interest pieces (4,7). I think the conservative Christian leaders in (6) are misguided, but they're definitely entitled to their positions, which were stated in much more civil and restrained language than I expected. But what can you say about the rest (1,2,5,10)? And sadly, you don't find the word “love” very often, and really only in a positive way in #9.
It seems to me that the public face of Christianity is a face of condemnation. Christians condemning non-Christians, and Christians condemning other Christians who think differently than they do. Of course, we all know that missions of mercy and compassion sustained over generations generate very few news stories, and therefore there is a natural negative bias to the news. But I don't think that our problem is merely a matter of bringing our external image into accord with our actual selves.
The change we should seek first is within ourselves.
Peace
27 comments:
We had two famous campus preachers at UF -- Brother Jed and Sister Cindy. Sister Cindy would point at passersby shouting "whooooooooooooooore!" and "Jezzzzzzzzibelllll!" As pretty fair biblical scholars, they delighted in arguing points of scripture with anyone who questioned their methods.
I got them to shut up one day when I asked them about that little passage in Mark -- and when Brother Jed said "to love your neighbor as yourself" I asked the crowd:
"do any of you feel loved by these people?"
We need to be reminded constantly that our only commandment is to love.
i recently listened to iris dement play a lot of gospel songs on the piano at one point she described her church and said she was attracted there because the byline for the preacher was
"we are all about love" and iris just had to check it out
and she asked the preacher once about all the other stuff bible and church rules and whatnot and the preacher said well we are slow on the first lesson it takes a lot of time there's a big learnin curve and we will wait on the other stuff until we can get that first lesson down
love is always nuanced with justice and truth and lets' not forget beauty
j
G.M. -- I really like your story, and especially your approach to the campus preachers.
jh -- Has Iris Dement embraced religion? What I knew of her religious stance was represented by "Let the Mystery Be," which seems to reflect an exasperation at the difficulty of evaluating religious truth. I'm not surprised though, that if she has, it was because of love.
Entirely separately, I decided to take a crack at the Summa, and hit a stumbling block in [l.1.2], where it seems to me that his argument is logically unsound. This is not auspicious.
It's strange I know but I'm completely against love, and completely against the Sermon on the Mount. I think those are such strange tunes to play, and that they must be about the next world!
I think it's ok to deal with people warily, and to like them, but never turn the other cheek!
Luther said turning the other cheek is insane, and that you can only do this with other Christians if you can even find one.
I'm not saying that love should be forbidden, but hating people who are way out of bounds is love.
You can't just kiss a creep like hannibal Lector on both cheeks. He'll just maul you, and put you in the ground.
Loving creation is about following the laws, and learning to abide by them, and ensuring that others do it, too.
Otherwise, the place just gets trashed, and Christians enable it!
Call that love?
In Cambodia for instance there is something called the Somaly Mam Foundation that helps young girls trapped in brothels. Somaly Mam was a sex slave! People from the sixties would just say how groovy, she was making love for a living! Groovy man! Isn't that what we saw in Easy Rider when they visit the brothel in New Orleans? It's love, man!
But actually this woman was a slave, and every day she saw young girls who were slaves forced to submit to sex tourists who wanted to "make love" with the slaves. If they don't do it -- some are less than ten years old -- they can be beaten to death.
Is it love to love everyone equally, even slave masters, and whoremasters? Love can be hatred. The terms are so easily confused. You can make love with someone that you shouldn't and in a sense thereby hate them, and you can not make love with someone and show that thereby you actually love them.
These terms are very tricky.
You can hate slavers -- there are two million girls sold into slavery every year. By hating this practice, it can be love.
To just simply love everyone equally, or to thnk as mastermind Obama does that every culture is equal, is actually to hate love, because you are not thinking even about what it is. It's hard to think, and to think with hatred for the abuses of love, might be more like love, than just indiscriminately loving anybody no matter what they are doing and whether they are fulfilling God's commands for us.
I think we have to love law over and above individuals, and thus, I think the campus preachers were in a sense doing their job (I didn't see the women they were pointing at, or whether they were judging them fairly, but maybe they were and maybe they weren't)
It's still important to hate evil, and not just to love everyone, and all that they do, or all that we do. Hatred can be a good thing, so let's not just eject it. Hatred is at least as important as love, and is often its surest sign.
Kirby --
You're closer to the "noisy gong award" than to the Kingdom of God in these last two comments.
It is possible to love a whoremaster, but not to submit to them. This is what Jesus was talking about when he said, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." If we love the whoremaster, our obligation to him/her (and of course, they come in both genders) is to teach them to love too, and of course I mean ἀγάπη, not ἔρως, and to repent.
Did you think that as Christians, we were just to be given the easy jobs?
I laughed. Maybe you're right, but I did make you repost, didn't I?
I think there's a good side to hatred. It's a valid emotion, and shouldn't be discounted.
I wonder at the easy love of easy rider. It seems to me that that's the truth of the left. That that movie captures the truth of the left.
That somehow we should all be able to sell drugs, visit whorehouses, and anybody who gets in the way of this is a big thick clod. That personal whim and desire is the only law, and anybody who says different is a southerner with a bright hue about their neck.
I disagree. Politely, of course. People have to figure out deeper principles, and they have to hate those who don't abide by those deeper principles, because those people are cheapening our culture, and poisoning our values.
Change is a sixties term. The times they are a changing, as that other guy who liked to tack with the wind once sang. I think the sixties wrecked the country. We ought to move past 1968 back to 1517.
iris deMent
played almost all gospel songs
the other night
i awoke the next day with her voice ringing in my ears no particular song just her voice like she has invaded by soul with her voice
and she said she doesn't go to churh all that much anymore but she still plays and sings those ole gospel tunes when she is sad with her life with the world...i think she maintians a working understanding of the importance of jesus and the story of salvation
catholics are pretty certain about the dictum
hate the sin love the sinner
so i agree with kirby to the extent
that it is possible for us to see evidence of human degradation and that we can point to it and say it is wrong because it really destroys what is most beautiful and truthful about human nature
the difficulty is when we become righteious about it...at some level we have to adopt what must be the smile of god when looking upon all the foibles and benighted ways of humanity...but that often does not cut the stench
ultimately the only change we can really observe is the change we see in ourselves and in the ones we are close to in love and perhaps hate
jesus said we must hate mother and father
i think i'm more in the theology of utter absurdity
god's love is absurd and therefor it is true
j
Kirby --
I laughed.
Good :-)
Maybe you're right, but I did make you repost, didn't I?
Victory condition for a troll. Are you a troll?
I think there's a good side to hatred. It's a valid emotion, and shouldn't be discounted.
If this argument is valid, explain to me why it doesn't work with hatred replaced by lust, gluttony, envy, etc. Not everything that we are capable of is good for us. Hatred, in particular, damages our souls, and makes us blind to the Kingdom of God.
I wonder at the easy love of easy rider. It seems to me that that's the truth of the left.
Establishing a strawman and knocking him down is not a reasonable form of argumentation. I reject your characterization of the left. Are there people who put satisfaction of their own desires above the law, and above the commitments that they've made? Of course there are, but it does not seem to me that libertine values are a distinguishing characteristic of the left. They flow as well from the "greed is good" strand that marks the worst tendencies of the right, too.
People have to figure out deeper principles, and they have to hate those who don't abide by those deeper principles, because those people are cheapening our culture, and poisoning our values.
So let me get this right, we're supposed to pitch a fit every time someone doesn't do it our way? Or believe just exactly what we believe? So the first amendment exists just to grant me the freedom to say things that you agree with?!
Change is a sixties term. The times they are a changing, as that other guy who liked to tack with the wind once sang. I think the sixties wrecked the country.
A singularly unnuanced view. The sixties did bring change, some for the better, some for the worse. You look at the sixties and see only the sexual revolution, which had a few positives, and many negatives. I see these as pivotal years civil rights movement.
The problem with the sixties wasn't change, it was that there was so much challenge and change going on that people didn't have time to think through the consequences of everything that was changing. Uncontrolled change is simply chaos. Some of what happened in the sixties fits that description. But to tar everything that happened in the sixties with that broad brush is intellectually lazy.
jh --
she said she doesn't go to churh all that much anymore but she still plays and sings those ole gospel tunes when she is sad with her life with the world.
Ah. So she's still in pretty much the same place. Too bad.
i agree with kirby to the extent
that it is possible for us to see evidence of human degradation and that we can point to it and say it is wrong because it really destroys what is most beautiful and truthful about human nature
Love should not blind us to what is wrong with ourselves, with the world, etc. That's infatuation, not love. Love desires to protect, restore, and heal. It can't do these things if it does not understand in a realistic way the threats to the beloved.
jesus said we must hate mother and father
I'd be careful with that verse. It comes from Luke 14:26, the Matthean parallel (Matt 10:37) conveys essentially the same idea, in terms no lest stark, but phrases it without using the word "hate." Here is a case where I think you have to look at what Jesus was trying to teach -- and that is that God comes first, and that we should not let earthly obligations stand between us and God -- and not read more into what he was saying than he intended.
When Jesus was actually preaching about hate, per se, he said, "But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you."
i know about the intricacies of expression inherent in hebrew and aramaic
but i think it's just so cool that jesus is actually depicted as a purveyor of hatred...even within the family
but a case can be made that the understanding of christian fidelity was a cause for conflict even within families is no mere narrative fiction....our commitments oftentimes still harangue the minds in the kitchen with crashing of pots and pans
love our enemies does have to win out
but then there's that delightful image of pouring hot coals over their heads
j
Hatred and fear are very fine things, things our fine and proud country was founded upon. Madison and Hamilton, wonderful examples of fear-mongers, who assumed that faction and rivalry would be a permanent part of the landscape.
Deep down you are a communist, I fear, Stu. It's the thing I fear the most. Communism is a form of kindness that kills.
Everyone is fallen. That's the basis of the Protestant self-image, and other-image. We are not ever going to be risen, and we are not saints, and are never going to be capable of being saints.
"I confess that I am in BONDAGE to sin, and cannot free myself."
Are you guys at least saying the creed at your church??
That's the most basic building block of the Lutheran faith: that we are swine, from the ground up. You talk often like a Unitarian, as if we can reason our way forward, and drop our disgusting behavior.
We cannot!
And we might as well get used to it. Communists would have us believe that we can share and share alike in this world. Then, of course, they say, let me help you redistribute your income. Just turn it all over to me.
Communists are actually ants marching in matriarchal array with a giant insectoid matriarchal image as their true colors. And it always ends with Mr. Unselfish Himself in the form of Kim Jong-Il, or whoever's in charge of Vietnam at this point, ordering the rest of us around like ants, while living in big palaces, and screwing everybody in sight.
We are right to be afraid of others. Fear is common sense. What are you most afraid of?
I say, communism is the worst thing coming down the pike, and it's represented by the supposedly fearless who've turned off all the warning symbols as they are brought down an assembly line to total destruction. Awaken, and fill your heart with fear and loathing, and suspicion!
Life is death, and it is slavery, too, for all those who are not vigilant to the desperate evils that surround us day and night!
OMG! The vampyres are coming, and they are talking about redistributing our corpuscles!
God help us.
Kirby --
Hatred and fear are very fine things, things our fine and proud country was founded upon.
I disagree with both clauses. Indeed, when I look to the principles that our country was founded upon, I find this:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Deep down you are a communist, I fear, Stu.
You fear in vain. I am a liberal, and indeed a liberal whose liberality is firmly grounded in his faith. This is very far from communism, even if there are a few points on which I would agree with the them.
We are not ever going to be risen, and we are not saints, and are never going to be capable of being saints.
This is not correct. Luther's famous claim is that we are simultaneously sinners and saints: Simul Iustus et Peccator.
I confess that I am in BONDAGE to sin, and cannot free myself.
I confess words to this effect every Sunday (the language is a bit different in the ELW than in the LBW, just as it was different in the SBH), as a part of the Order for Confession and Forgiveness.
What do these words mean? Consider the full context of the corporate confession in which they occur, especially the concluding sentence, "Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name." Yes, we cannot free ourselves from sin, but what we cannot do for ourselves, Christ can do through and for us.
The point of the sentence you quote is not self-flagellation, it is honest self appraisal as a precondition to repentance, which leads to a prayer for forgiveness and redemption.
Of course I do not view myself as perfected in Christ, far from it. The struggle against sin is lifelong -- fortunately, Christ fights it with us. I believe that as soon as you stop struggling to grow in faith, faith starts to die. May you struggle mightily all the days of your life.
And although I approach these matters through reason, I know perfectly well that reason in and of itself does not suffice to do Christ's redemptive work. But reason can serve faith, and assist faith in its redemptive work. Approaching these matters using reason to augment faith is not folly, and finds precedent in the Lutheran Confessions.
Are you guys at least saying the creed at your church??
Every service we confess either the Nicene or Apostle's creed. Our liturgical practice is to confess the Apostle's creed during the green season, and the Nicene creed in all other seasons.
Trust me when I say that my Lutheran bona fides are solid. I know that it makes you uncomfortable that I can be who I am and yet have views on politics and the role of religion in the world that are so different from yours, but I think you're just going to have to learn to accept that this is so.
God help us.
Amen. Peace.
Dude, I loved this note.
You are strange, but you are indeed bona fide.
I just don't know what you did with the doctrine of complete depravity. It's like you conjured it into thin air.
But no matter: I was amazed by it, and think you are you.
I'm me.
And yet we can say that the twain HAVE met, and will continue to do so.
Peace, brother.
Kirby
Kirby --
I loved this note.
Thanks. I worked at it.
I just don't know what you did with the doctrine of complete depravity. It's like you conjured it into thin air.
No, I just put it in context. Here is the critical sentence, with parenthetical commentary:
Yes, we cannot free ourselves from sin (affirming the doctrine of complete depravity), but what we cannot do for ourselves, Christ can do through and for us (placing the doctrine of complete depravity within the context of the doctrine of sanctification, where it belongs).
If you're going to learn a joke, make sure you learn the punch line too. ;-)
Peace.
It's strange I know but I'm completely against love, and completely against the Sermon on the Mount. I think those are such strange tunes to play, and that they must be about the next world!
Right here is a far larger division than whether or not priests should be allowed to marry and what's an indulgence and can we sell one.
All of Jesus's message is distilled in the Sermon on the Mount.
That's how we're supposed to behave.
If we get nailed to a tree for behaving like Jesus, well, that's about what we should expect out of life. Anything (and everything) else is a gift from God and we should spend our lives in gratitude trying to be God's hands.
Kirby, all you (and in your mouth, Luther) sound like when you say I think it's ok to deal with people warily, and to like them, but never turn the other cheek!
Luther said turning the other cheek is insane, and that you can only do this with other Christians if you can even find one. is the Devil, tempting us with the easy road when the far more difficult -- and more true -- road has already been mapped out for us.
Of course the life Jesus laid out is difficult. Of course we will fail trying to live that life. But that's the point to life -- pick an impossible goal, fail every day at achieving it, and wake up every morning and try again.
Who the hell only wants to do what they know is possible?
Oh no, you must deal with probability, GM. It's almost very important.
Otherwise, we'd go out of business like the Shakers.
We musn't do that.
Since Augustine we have had the two kingdoms' business. It's almost very important to allow this.
We are two people, and there are two economies.
One is vertical (if you like, the vertical bar of the cross) and the other is horizontal.
Christ already died for us. We don't have to do that again, and it would be hubris to do so, as if we thought we were his equal. We're not.
We're hambones with trombones.
Luther said that even the Pope was a stinking sinner. I can't understand how this has been overruled. we are at most 2% decent. Total depravity though means total depravity, and I think that total means 100%. He also said somewhere we still have common grace, that part of grace left over from the fall. Maybe that's 2%. I have never heard a numeric estimate.
Our only real job is to believe in God and follow the ten commandments. It doesn't make us suddenly into saints. There aren't any saints in the Lutheran tradition except the actual disciples plus Paul.
Kirby --
Luther said that even the Pope was a stinking sinner.
Of course he did. Luther knew sin. To him we are all stinking sinners. As well as saints. Indeed, Article VII of the Augsburg Confession states, "The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered." Likewise, the New Testament uses the word saints (ἅγιος) as synonymous with the followers of the Way, c.f., Rom 1:7, Rom 12:13, Rom 15:31, 1 Cor 6:1, and many others.
There aren't any saints in the Lutheran tradition except the actual disciples plus Paul.
So who do we remember “All Saints' Day?” Not the apostles, but instead all believers who died in the past year. You've done this for years. Why do you think we call this day "All Saints'?" Lutherans believe that all believers are saints, rather than a select, canonized few. It is true that Lutherans do not view the saints as intercessors, as the Catholics do, nor do we ascribe particular powers or interests to particular saints. We do not believe that saints are suitable for veneration, but even we celebrate days of commemoration in which particular saints are remembered and held up as models of Chistian living (c.f., Pfatteicher & Messerli, "Manual on the Liturgy" -- your Pastor will have a copy if you don't).
What I'm seeing in your notes is a fixation on the doctrine of total depravity, but no understanding of its role within the greater context of Lutheran theology, and indeed an active unwillingness to consider it within that context. And this leads you into manifest errors that are easily refuted both through scripture and through appeal to the Lutheran confessions.
Tell me, what do you make of the doctrine of sanctification, if you reject my interpretation?
See, Kirby, that's where you're wrong.
Our only job is to love God and to love everyone else.
Jesus spells that out quite clearly.
You can follow Luther if you want.
As for me and my house, we follow the Lord.
Pfatteicher was my college English professor. He moonlighted as a pastor in E. Stroudsburg. Now he's in Pittsburgh. I'll ask him about these questions. He is now assistant pastor at a big church in Pittsburgh.
He's a lot more liberal than I am, but he's pretty sharp. No, he's very sharp.
There is a more conservative intepretation of Luther, and you're steering me into a more liberal mind ( I know Pfatteicher personally, and have known him now for four decades!), but I'll tap him personally for this information. He's a genius.
Pfatteicher was my college English professor. He moonlighted as a pastor in E. Stroudsburg.
Excellent! And an unanticipated point of contact -- my Mother was a student at East Stroudsburg, before transferring to Penn State.
I'll tap him personally for this information. He's a genius.
Please do. I hope you'll report back.
i'm tardy on this blog
so much happening a new conversation
it is a bit of a nebulous proposition to think that we can have an effect on the political cultural atmosphere obviously a president can do a lot to garner sentiment in the masses you do have to ignore about a 50% apathy rate however
luther thought he understood the balance of power between civic needs and religious needs and because of his preoccupation with depravity he decided they must be completely different but what has happened...i think this was the foundation of modern skepticism that idea that states only good can come from holding the leaders to account only good can come from calling foul all the time only good can come from pointing out the depraved souls of those presuming to lead
metanoia is a standard principle for christians we are giving ourselves over continually to the possibilities springing from the revelations we trust
the list posted from google is deceptive it is one of the areas i most detest about this medium...everything gets superficialized if thats a word
there is tension no doubt in the warm family life of christianity in the world...we do well to ask why but i think it is largely due to antiintellectualism in the ranks we need christians who read lots of books not just one
having now lived 25yrs in a religious house i can say quite positively that holiness on this earth does happen it is not simply in accord with a pure white angelic wholesomeness it is more something growing right out of the earth something earthy and real and something not afraid of the evil in the world i have seen this quality i have been blessed by this quality in others it is not easy to describe but it happens despite the utter depravity in the soul
maritain entertains the notion of epistemology in prayer that the mind is constantly attracted to a way of knowing that is beyond reason a way of knowing that is gotten in prayer a way of the mind opening outward to ever greater freedom of knowing,,,that can be a personal objective
to see this somehow appear in the political culture of our day is a little harder to discern but i think the wave of hope is as sincere as the debacle in florida in 2000 or the ramrodding of 2004
hope springs eternal
dope rings infernal
nope stings like sterno
i think what was touching in the last election is that people were emotionally tied into the result people really wanted it people cried in chicago
obamaramadadadingdangdoodle
will be a good man because he knows
he is not simply working out an ideology he is riding on the hopes of humans with expectations
and he will fail
but i am so impressed with michelle
there's a girl for the world to admire
bush didn't care about expectations
he just wanted to play in the sandbox war in the back yard
moving tanks around and soldiers
he was a boy in the sand box with war toys
obama is speaking to the world about ways in which we might try to get along a little better
this will probably fail...given the inherent depravity of man
but it's sort of like toilet training and learning walking at the same time...sure there's bound to be failure sometimes for years on end but that doesn't mean you give up...you more or less trust that the human being will walk upright and learn where to shit
it's an act of faith
but we have to do it
come on everyone
walk this way
j
Michelle's arms are not perfect.
Arms talks especially on MSNBC tend to claim that they are perfect.
For a first lady, maybe they are 10s, but there are better arms.
The Venus statue's arms -- which we could call in a sense "Farewell to Arms" -- are not better, but they partake of the spirit more readily, airy nothings that they are.
In that we arise from worms (Wurms), one could say that an exclusive Diet of airy nothingness might not be precisely what is needed, but I am also doubtful if the lion will lie down with the lamb as in the Edward Hicks pictures, as the Peta people seem to believe, ni which the religious logic of the Constitution (all MEN) is extended to ALL species.
We can't change. That's just the point. We're stuck, and our job is to ACCEPT it, not to attempt to pull some kind of Pelagian Houdiniesque maneuver that unshackles us from our wormy origins, and vaults us up with the angels.
I deny this capability along with Augustine, who at least didn't have the temerity to call HIMSELF a saint, or to think he was anything but a worm lying close to the ground from which he sprang, and from which he would never be released until that day.
To seek to change in one giant saltation, as if we can actually CHANGE, in that sense, is pure monstrous hubris, in short, the same heresy that got Pelagius into all that trouble. Are we Pelagians? Please say no.
jh -- good to have you back...
there is tension no doubt in the warm family life of christianity in the world...we do well to ask why but i think it is largely due to antiintellectualism in the ranks we need christians who read lots of books not just one
I agree with the prescription, but I'm not sure it is a cure to the tension of which you speak. We'll still disagree on abortion, for example. But I think we would agree on the importance of working towards a just and peaceful society, and the positive role that government could play in this.
obama is speaking to the world about ways in which we might try to get along a little better
this will probably fail...given the inherent depravity of man
Obama is an adult trying to bring accountability to the frat house. It's an uphill fight, but you don't win it by giving up.
Michelle's arms are muscular. Muscular arms on women are creepy.
her arms aren't that muscular
i mean they have some muscle up around the shoulder
but the forarm tapers to a rather elegant narrow lightness right at the wrist and her hands and fingers are quite fine and feminine
no she's a babe
no gettin around that
i get disgusted with women body builders yeeeccggghhhhhhhqhhhcghphftphoooooey!
no siree
there's elegance and grace in those arms
j
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