Kathleen Parker expressed today what I have been struggling to articulate. Good for her. A great read!

Came across these thoughts and they spoke to me. Hope they are helpful to you as well.

The worst thing for a person of good will is to want to be what they cannot be and not want to be what they must be. They desire to do great things, which may never be expected of them; in the meantime, they neglect the little things which God puts into their hands every day.

There are thousands of little acts of virtue
Like
- to help bear the troubles of our neighbors
- to suffer with kindness a biting word from someone else
- to refrain from sharing gossip passed on
- to refuse to say a harsh word
These acts are possible for everyone so why not practice them?

Very seldom do we have the opportunity to gain large sums, but we can daily earn little ones. By handling these little earnings, there are many who become rich. What great saints we would become just by taking advantage of every little opportunity that life presents us!

(St Francis de Sales - Spiritual Diary)

What do you do with Naser Abdo? A 20 year old young man who enlisted in the U.S. Army just over a year ago. His unit, the 101st Airborne division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, has already deployed to Afghanistan. PFC Abdo has not. His deployment has been deferred.


Why? Because Abdo now says that he is a “conscientious objector.” He says that he is exercising his freedom as an American to choose to understand his Islamic faith in a way different than he did a year ago when he originally voluntarily chose to sign up to join th Army and to serve in a military already engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Abdo is claiming to be a conscientious objector. Really? When Muhammad Ali sought such a status as a member of the Nation of Islam in the late 1960's (a case ultimately resolved by the Supreme Court in 1971 on a technicality due to the government's failure to execute the details of its own policy), the Department of Justice contended that three tests must be met in order for a person to receive status as a conscientious objector.

First, the candidate must be opposed to all war, i.e., war in any form. Mere opposition to a single war (e.g., Vietnam, Afghanistan, War of 1812) is not sufficient. A conscientious objector morally objects to the very concept of war. Think the Quakers, the Amish, or the Mennonites, whose moral compasses intrinsically reject war and violence in all forms at all times.

Pfc. Abdo would have us believe that he is opposed to all war when his statement reads, "I realized through further reflection that God did not give legitimacy to the war in Afghanistan, Iraq or any war the U.S. Army would conceivably participate in." That is an odd way of saying, “I completely morally reject the concept of war.” In fact, it sounds more like a fellow who is having enlister's remorse when faced with the real prospect of engaging terrorists who prefer hacksaws and YouTube when dealing with American soldiers who happen to be Muslim

Second, a conscientious objector's reasoning must be based on religious training and belief. Again, Quakers were instrumental in the formation of America, but they steadfastly refused to serve in the Revolutionary War due to their moral objection rooted in Quaker thought and theology.

Abdo would have us believe that Islam is a longstanding example of pacifist teaching. Really? Perhaps Mohammed, Islam's founder, missed that particular revelation while exercising his military leadership in raiding caravans, massacring villages, and organizing armies for war. It would also be helpful if Abdo might pass on his newly received Islamic pacifist revelation to the jihadists who have led 103 terror attacks in 14 countries since Ramadan began less than three weeks ago. The 472 persons who died in those global Islamic-motivated attacks will be glad to know that PFC Abdo has discovered a new level of Islam. Pacifist strain in Islam? We all should be so lucky.

Finally, a candidate for conscientious objection status must demonstrate that he/she is sincere. In spite of the absurdity of the above claims to pacifism, let's give PFC Abdo the benefit of the doubt on sincerity.

In the end, the government will have to decide what to do with Pfc. Abdo. Send him to Afghanistan to fulfill his oath and service and you risk another Hasan Akbar, who rolled three grenades into the tents of his own fellow 101st Airborne members in Kuwait in 2003. Allow Abdo to serve the remainder of his military time stateside, and you potentially sow seeds of dissension in the ranks. Release Pfc. Abdo as a humanitarian gesture and invite others to enlist voluntarily and then use extreme Corporal Klinger-esque tactics to remove themselves. Or court martial Abdo and forward his mail to Ft. Leavenworth.

None of these options accomplishes much in executing and advancing the mission of the U.S. Army. Nevertheless, valuable Army time and resources will be wasted considering the absurd claims of a young man who appears not to have known himself very well when he enlisted and then discovered either a strong dose of cowardice or a conversion to a religion that heretofore has not existed.

Nearly your final chance to register to join me and Matthew Kelly in Alpharetta, GA for our Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose experience on Sept. 11. It is gonna be a wonderful day! Get details here.

Contrary to expectation, big winnings usually ruin your life (even though we all think we'd like to give it a try!). Six years ago, Callie Rogers won about $3MM in the lottery when she was just 16. After developing a cocaine addiction, she has whittled her fortune down to about $150,000, has tried to commit suicide multiple times, and has lost custody of her two small children.

But Alex Snelius is the exception who proves the rule. Alex and his wife, Ursula, took an $18.5MM lump sum payment, when they won the lottery 10 years ago in Chicago. While Alex has experienced a few rough patches, he has nevertheless managed his wealth in a wonderfully healthy way - by generosity. Rather than hoard or worship his wealth, Alex chooses to give with reckless abandon. He helps out struggling families standing in line in stores where he is shopping.Alex partners with his beloved Chicago White Sox to assist their charities. Every time a White Sox player homers, the announcer shares that money is given to a local charity in memory of the now deceased Ursula. Alex still drives his 10 year old car because he wants to give his money to help others rather than indulge himself, and he has bought houses for each of his children and several other relatives to live in.

He shares his own lesson: "I feel sorry for all of those people who are filthy rich because they cannot take the money with them. You come with nothing, and you leave with nothing."

Well done, Alex, well done!

The news scrolled across the bottom of my screen and I had to scrub my eyes to be sure I was reading it correctly. “Openly gay actor, Neil Patrick Harris, and partner, David Burtka, expecting twins.” Two men “expecting twins?” How, exactly, does that work? Expecting twins to do what?

As I learned more, the facts became clear. Harris, of Doogie Howser and How I Met Your Mother fame, and his lover have retained a surrogate womb to incubate twins. Whose sperm and whose eggs are being used to produce the twins is unclear. In their press statements, Harris and David continually emphasized the word, “normal.” One sentence even had them speaking over each other as Neil begins, “...We get to do it a normal (then David interjecting: normal) way – like people would normally (then David interjecting again: emphasis on the word, 'normal') do.” They used the word “normal” four times within two seconds of audio. Methinks they doth protest too much.

How exactly is it “normal” for two men to retain a surrogate womb (for fee, I presume) to birth twins? Perhaps someone can help me understand that.

In fact, it is deeply concerning. Intentionally creating the lives of two children and then intentionally denying those children the love of a mother is simply wrong. Indeed it reeks of selfishness. How can anyone bless as normal the decision to deprive two children of experiencing the ongoing, daily unconditional love of a mother? Many families are forced to cope without a mother as a necessary response to exigencies of life. However, Harris and Burtka are doing it on purpose. No person or couple should ever set out from the beginning to deprive children of the presence of their mother.

In America today, we often have the conversation regarding how fathers matter. Such a conversation is crucial in a culture where over 40% of children were born to single mothers last year. But now, we are actually having to engage in a conversation on whether mothers really matter. There is nothing normal about this.

Mothers are unique. They hold children in ways that men do not. Research demonstrates how a mother's touch nurtures, calms, and soothes. In contrast, a father's touch stimulates and energizes a child. Children need both. Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable parts in an assembly line; they complement one another. When both are present, children thrive. Why intentionally set up a child never to have any chance to experience that complementarity from the outset of life?

Children have rights. After all, they are human beings, real persons in their own right. They are not pets or accessories. They do not exist merely to make their parents happy or to make them look good in public. In the same statements mentioned above, Harris noted how he and Burtka already work all the time, so he guesses that they will just have to give up sleep. In other words, “We are bringing children into the world on purpose, but we do not have much room for them, nor for a mother. Please celebrate this news with us!”

The couple's behavior smacks not only of selfishness but of consumerism at its zenith. Retaining a surrogate to satisfy a desire that they cannot fulfill themselves. Denying the nurturing role of a mother because children in this couple's world revolve around adults and exist to bring satisfaction to the “parents.”

Children thrive when they know who their life-giving parents are. They also deserve to know those parents as fully and completely as possible. After all, those parents serve as the primary source of identity, genetics, and self by virtue of their procreative role. Children also deserve to know that their lives were created in an act of love as the foundation from which their existence springs rather than from an act of selfishness sought on the open market or from a sperm catalog or an egg bank.

Finally, as impolitic as it may be to point out, the incidence of pedophilia and molestation by homosexual males is dramatically higher than such rates in heterosexual males. Dr. Ray Blanchard's work, as documented in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, suggests that homosexual men are between 6 and 20 times more likely to engage in pedophile behaviors than heterosexual males. Kurt Freund and others have produced similar data in the Journal of Sex Research. I have no reason to imply or suggest that Harris or Burtka will demonstrate such behaviors in their own particular case; however, it is important for our culture to note that placing children (whether by design or by circumstance) in homes led by gay men locates children in the highest risk settings for abuse. It is hard to imagine that anyone would define that as good or healthy.

When a child's welfare and future are at stake, adults come second. Harris and Burtka do not seem to get that. This is all about them and what they want and their desire to play a giant game of pretend.

We are “expecting twins.” No, really, you are not. Your relationship may be loving and fulfilling in many ways for you, but it is intrinsically incapable of producing a new life. And your selfish actions at the expense of children are anything but normal.

Not surprisingly, President Obama's comments over the weekend about the Ground Zero mosque set off quite a firestorm of reaction. Unfortunately, the president framed the issue as one only of religious freedom when really it is a matter of charity and grace. No one disputes that Muslims have the freedom to build a mosque in New York City. Of course they are free to do so.

However, if the leaders behind the mosque truly desire to demonstrate goodwill, they will voluntarily offer to move to a less controversial location, farther away from the scar/scab that is Ground Zero. Such a move would be charitable and loving. This thoughtful act is much to be preferred over a stubborn forcing of their will and their rights on those who will rightly be distressed that a mosque is not only located in the shadow of Ground Zero but in a building where part of the plane flown by the Islamic terrorist, Mohammed Atta, actually crashed through the roof.

It is the job of planning commissions, zoning boards, and local planners to assess the appropriateness of any construction and its location. Just ask any Christian pastor who has tried to get zoning approval for a new church or ministry facility. I have never met a single pastor, myself included, who got a project approved by the government exactly as it was originally submitted. That is what governments do - decide how much and in what location certain building projects will fit. Governments and planners do that in every situation, it appears, except this one.

To study the origin of the conflict that Islam has with the West, and the values of freedom and equality, I recommend a book I just came across. Not the easiest of reads but gets to the core of the issue on how Islam rejects serious reason and reflection. And that the conflict is not economic or political but rather theological and philosophical. Robert Reilly's
The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis

Michelle Obama is a woman of her word. In July, she made a drive-by through the Gulf coast region and urged people to "do a few things [to] help this community." Emphasis on the word “few.” She even recorded an ad inviting Americans to “come on down” to the Gulf as she herself then headed back to Washington to collect her family to head to a holiday in a national park in Maine. At least Maine is in America.

With her recent holiday junket to Spain, she has now officially spit in the eye of Gulf coast residents. Rather than vacation in the spill-ravaged region, her family headed overseas. Does Spain's economy need stimulating? Perhaps so.

On vacation now, the Obamas will execute another 24 hours on the ground drive-by in the Gulf coast before heading to Martha's Vineyard for 10 days. What gives? Why encourage Americans to stand by Gulf coast residents in solidarity and with vacation spending while you fail to do so yourself? In a word, hypocrisy. Like the chain-smoking parent telling the child, “Do as I say not as I do.” This lack of integrity may pass for average parenting, but it makes for extraordinarily poor leadership as a national icon.

In fact, Michelle Obama's vacation to Spain raises all kinds of questions about judgment and leadership. I begrudge no one a vacation. The Obamas live under a microscope, and the office demands 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Feel free to vacation as often as you like. The requirements of the office will follow you. But use a little prudence in deciding how and when to vacation. Thus far, prudence is lacking in this White House couple, and hypocrisy abounds.

Her visit to Spain was wrong on at least five levels. Most obviously, why spend millions of tax-payer dollars (or borrowed Chinese yen to be exact) to provide Secret Service accommodations, personal transportation, and other expenses in someone else's economy? Far better to choose a lovely American location and set the example of stimulating the American economy in your own personal way.

Second, as mentioned above, the stunning lack of Obama vacation time and money invested in the Gulf coast region leads to the obvious conclusion that the Obamas see themselves as different from the Americans they were elected to lead. “We'd like YOU to vacation in the Gulf and help these poor people. Meanwhile, WE will be in Spain. Please write us. We'd love to hear how it is going down there.”

Spending money (personal or public) on Mediterranean villas is beyond frivolous in an economy you yourself have described as the “worst since the Great Depression.” Mediterranean villas look frivolous to the 10% of Americans who are out of work. That's because villas are frivolous, and they lead naturally to the comparison already drawn by media outlets: you are behaving like Marie Antoinette. “Let them eat cake,” although we know Michelle would never say that, given her strident efforts to rid the world of desserts and fatty foods.

Fourth, the taxpayer money you are spending on large Secret Service details to accompany you on Air Force Two to Europe is borrowed money. With a recent monthly deficit exceeding $140BB, the federal money supporting your boondoggle comes first from Chinese investors and then later from our children and grandchildren who will be paying interest and then the principal on your bill. Obscene.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, President Obama instructed the American people in January that we would all need to “sacrifice” and “give a little” as we make our way out of this recession. Fair enough, but where is the Obama sacrifice and giving? On the Mediterranean? Their record of personal charitable giving, as documented on their tax returns over the last decade, is the lowest of any presidential family in the last thirty years. Take away the Nobel Prize money, and their giving is embarrassingly small. In other words, the Obamas verbally champion their concern for the poor but choose not to give much of their own money to advance that cause. “While we vacation in Spain and at the Vineyard, please ask the peasants to populate the Gulf coast and to sacrifice a bit. Oh yes, and be sure someone takes care of the poor. See you in September.” Hypocrisy.

Cake anyone?

Good conversation on the show on Tuesday night regarding the runaway flight attendant on Jet Blue (or should I say slide away?).

Still not sure how abandoning your job, insulting everyone on board, grabbing a few beers, and then activating the emergency slide makes you a celebrity. He cost his employer a lot of money in lost flights and repacking safety equipment costs (more than $35K to be exact). Frustration is one thing. Frustrated flight attendants make sense. But how is his behavior heroic?

Two fun responses - one on air from a caller who is the caller of the week on the home page

And one on Facebook from a listener who quit in a hurry too.
Enjoy them both!

Many years ago, I went to work for the Bell (phone) Company. I finished my initial training and was placed in a long-distance unit which was located on the 7th floor of the building. As an operator, I was never in view of the public, but I began to receive 'pressure' to wear nylons and lipstick. These items were nowhere found in the rules for the job, but the pressure mounted until I finally caved in and bought nylons and lipstick to wear at work. I had been dressing in skirts and blouses, anklets and shoes - like many other women there. I always went to work neat and clean in appearance.

I was a bit frustrated that I couldn't apply for other jobs within the company, but I worked hard to be a good operator. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was when I got called on the carpet one Monday morning. I went into the office not knowing that I was 'in trouble', greeted the chief operator respectfully, and sat down when directed to do so. "Della", the chief, then asked me why I had missed my hair appointment. Since I had made no such appointment, I was surprised, to say the least! She went on to say that so-and-so had arranged for me to have my hair styled and had apparently gone to some trouble to set it up. I became so angry that I asked for a sheet of paper and a pen, and wrote out my resignation on the spot, detailing why I was leaving. I went down to the ladies' room and removed the nylons and the lipstick, leaving paper towels and the nylons on the floor of the room, and flounced out the front door of the place never to return! I was so mad I walked home (18 miles) instead of jumping on the bus!

Steven Slater lost it. Frankly, if I had to deal with people cramming their entire closets into airline overhead compartments every day, I would lose it too! But Steven couldn't rein in his anger and frustration on the Jet Blue flight landing at JFK airport in New York. In his frustration with an uncooperative passenger, Slater cussed her out, got on the PA and cussed out the whole plane, grabbed some beers, pulled the emergency chute, and slid down to run away from his frustration. As he did so, he muttered, "There goes 28 years." One moment of lost control. Career sunk. And possible prison. A high price for lacking self-control.

If your job, or your life, is getting on your nerves, what do you do? A good place to start is by memorizing and applying these words:

Whatever is true, whatever is noble,
whatever is right, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -
if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -
think about such things.
(Phlp. 4:8)

When crisis hits or frustration mounts, take a moment and recite these words to inject some stillness and peace into the frenzy. Breathe some space into your soul. And allow self-control to take root as you remember what is deeply important and what is not.

Remember also you are invited to Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose as I join Matthew Kelly for an inspiring day of dynamic teaching and application. September 11 in the Atlanta area. It will be a great day! Details here.