Tuesday, September 13, 2005

"I take responsibility."

It's about time and I applaud him for it.

But when do we get anything other than this for Iraq and the economy?
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1 comment:

Videos by Professor Howdy said...

You have an interesting blog
but why do you execrate our
President?

Is it because you had arduousness
with your own Dad who didn't
measure up to your expectations
& ultimately you have a problem
with your Creator - the Heavenly
Father of all who respond to His
offer for forgiveness?

You do know that there is a nemesis
that intends you great and interminable
deterioration? God's Handbook for
Living - The Bible calls him the Destroyer,
Deceiver & the Prince of this Planet.

Ever notice how this Deceiver always
has the same worldview that is always
against our Creator:


1) Always against the family, love
& marriage.*

2) Always for taking the life of pre-
born babies but always for saving
every other form of life.**

3) Always for banning any idea/book
that differs with their viewpoint
(Bible/prayer/Creationism in schools).***

4) Always denying our countries great
Christian heritage...


Wishing you the best & hope that we
might discuss these thoughts - bet you
can't without four letter words &
personal attacks...

Best Wishes Always,
Dr. Howdy
'Thought & Humor'

*Everyone's in favor of the death
penalty - some for death to babies
& some for death to hardened murderers.
**Trees, whales & endangered species
are great but not nearly as important as
any person (born or unborn).
***Everyone is for some form of book
banning: Either porn, real hate literature
or the Bible & Christian books.

P.S. Why has fatherhood fallen into such
low esteem? It's almost fashionable to see
fathers as buffoons. Take THE SIMPSONS
or MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE or any
other sitcom. Is this a passing fad, or something
deeper? Did our rejection of God the Father
in the twentieth century change people's
impressions of fathers? And when we belittle
our human fathers, do we end up belittling God?

One person who believes this is David Lyle
Jeffrey of Baylor University. Dr. Jeffrey gave
a thought-provoking lecture at a conference
where I spoke, hosted in Oxford, England,
by the C. S. Lewis Foundation. Jeffrey
argues that the downgrading of fatherhood
is not just a product of a handful of mediocre
sitcoms; it is a significant cultural pattern that
can be traced back many years to serious literature.

Samuel Butler's famous novel THE WAY OF
ALL FLESH, published in 1903, is a good
example. In the novel, Butler savagely satirized
his own father, portraying him as a pompous
fool -- a portrayal that made a deep impression
on Butler's audience.

It was another well-known novelist, James
Joyce, who later took the same kind of
father hatred and extended it toward the
Christian faith in which he had been raised.
These cultural signposts pointed to
something deeper going on. It was made
explicit in the writings of Freud, with his
theories on the rejection of the father,
and Nietzsche, who famously wrote
about the death of God. It was no accident
that a widespread rebellion against faith
was going on at the same time as this
rejection of fatherhood. Somewhere in all
of this, the idea of the beauty of a father's
strong, self-sacrificial love - an idea
expressed by religious poets and thinkers,
like Gerard Manley Hopkins and St.
Augustine - was lost.

As Jeffrey explained, we see fathers as
symbols of responsibility and authority -
much the same way that we see God.
The rebellion against fatherhood is part
of a general rebellion against authority
and God, and a step toward narcissism:
the desire to stay permanently young,
self-absorbed, and carefree. Look at
our contemporary society, and you'll
see the mess that kind of narcissism
has made.

Well, the good news is that there's
a counterculture struggling to find
a voice today -- a longing for fathers.
We saw it in the response of young
people around the world toward the
fatherly figure of George W. Bush,
a man who effectively combined
compassion with authority. We see
it in the success of recent
novels like GILEAD and PEACE
LIKE A RIVER, novels with loving
fathers at their core. And through
that longing, we're rediscovering
our desire for God, the great Father
of all of us.

Jeffrey argues that to rebuild our
culture in the twenty - first century,
we must recognize and respect the
role of fathers. He reminds us of the
truth of Augustine's words about
fatherhood and the beauty of God:
"All things are beautiful because you
made them, but you who made all things
are inexpressibly more beautiful."

The more we respect our earthly father,
the more we recognize the majesty of our
heavenly Father. And as we submit to the
authority of one, we learn to believe in the
authority of the other. The decline of faith
and fatherhood went hand-in-hand. To
restore one will help restore the other.

5:08 PM

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