Where Were You On This Day in 2001?

Today is September 11, 2008. It's hard to realize that it was seven years ago when the World Trade Centers fell. I remember that day so vividly. It was one of the first weeks of my freshman year in college. They announced in chapel that a plane (I was thinking small chartered plane) flew into one of the towers and we had a special time of prayer before ending that morning. I quickly raced back to my room to find news on this piece, but the internet was ridiculously slow and I couldn't get on to any news site. I went downstairs to the lobby where there was a crowd gathered around the television in the corner. We watched as they replayed tape of a plane (a commercial jet) fly into the first tower and explode. Then live footage started as a second plane flew into the second tower, and then the first tower completely collapsed from the first explosion (I think, my timeline may be faulty...just going by memory). I broke down crying, right there, in front of all these other people who I didn't know, but who were also greatly affected by what they saw. I don't cry often, but I just realized that I was watching something that would impact our country. I thought, "we're the United States, this isn't supposed to happen here." And to realize that those buildings would be gone forever, and those people would be gone forever, and children who right now were in daycare or school would go home to find out that their parent or parents were never coming home again. Today, pray for those who lost loved ones in those buildings, in the Pentagon and the crash in Schwenksville, either because they worked there or were working to rescue those inside. I'm sure today is still a sad memory for them.

The plane in Shanksville, I believe, was somewhat of a blessing from God? Not that those people died, I don't mean that at all. That is a tragedy. But that we were left at the end of that day with a glimmer of hope and profiles of courage. The people on that plane realized what was happening and decided to take a stand. Todd Beamer and others showed us, and the world, that Americans aren't weak pansies, that we're not just going to let people walk all over us. But we'll fight back and thwart their evil plans. I cannot imagine doing that myself, although I wish I would, but the sacrifice of the people on that plane to spare the lives of others is awesome and humbling.

My words are pretty shabby to talk about all of this and to express what I'm really feeling today, but I hope that this gives you a glimpse.

Where were you on this day in 2001? I want to hear from you.

P.S. - I recommend watching the movie, United 93. I think it does a good job of telling the story of what was going on during that day.

We Have A Greater Hope

At church this morning someone shared a word from Philippians 3:20-21, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself." We have a citizenship in something other than the U.S. Yes, we should be good citizens here and vote and get involved in our government and country, but as Christians that's not all there is to our life. We can look past this world here and this election and look forward to when we will be with Christ for all eternity. Everything on earth is subject to God, doesn't that make you feel a whole lot better about life?

We also sang "Nothing But the Blood" by Matt Redman and this line stuck out to me:
"What can wash away our sin?
What can make us whole again?
Nothing but the blood
Nothing but the blood of Jesus"

I was struck by these words because of all the talk about uniting the country and bringing us all back on track, etc. While we need good government to do this, we can't rely fully on it. Only the blood of Jesus has the power to change anyone or anything. So while others are begging for more government programs and relying on certain candidates as a "messiah," let's remember the real Messiah and the change that he brings. Let's pray for revival. That's a real change you can believe in!

Why I love Sarah Palin

1) She's a wife and mother who cares about her family
2) Not afraid of her femininity and honoring her husband
3) Strong charisma
4) Dynamic speaker
5) Clear with the facts
6) Funny
7) A great role model for younger women
8) Reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher (from my knowledge of Thatcher)
9) The future of the Republican Party (a party I'm able to support with passion)
10) Not afraid to burn the competition

For more on the Margaret Thatcher comparison check out the two following articles from the Wall Street Journal:

John Fund - A future Thatcher

Obama is the Anti-Thatcher

Why do you like Sarah Palin? Post your comments.

Establishing My Street Cred

When I interned for Townhall.com I was attacked on a few blogs because I made some crazy liberals angry. Just thought I'd share from the World O'Crap blog that obviously didn't like me:

Emily the Intern:

It is with great delight that we present a major new wingnut talent: Townhall summer intern Emily Shaheen. She has written a brilliant column about the profound and beautiful lessons taught by Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. Here are some highlights:

White Goodman (Ben Stiller) is the founder and owner of Globo Gym, frequented by the professional athlete and all around beautiful person. Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn) is the laid-back lackadaisical owner of Average Joe's Gym, which caters to the misfits of the community. Debt problems force La Fleur to come up with $50,000 to prevent Goodman from turning Average Joe's into a parking lot. This leaves his gang of misfits searching for a way to raise the money. They find it in an "Obscure Sports Quarterly" ad for The National Dodgeball Championships, which offers a grand prize of $50,000.

The Championships have no prizes for second, third, or fourth places. This is very different from the feel-good sports of today, including the Olympics, which give almost everyone a prize. Why should a 16th place finisher receive a ribbon? They have not achieved the goal of being the best.

Liberals espouse this same ideology in society. They want all winners and no losers, but this is not real life.

In real life, and in sports, the losers go home with shame.

Emily claims that liberals are outraged that "Bill Gates makes more money than Joe Schmo." See, in real life, Bill is a winner. Everybody else is a loser. They should go home in shame -- and not get any insurance or retirement benefits.

Liberals want everyone to be winners, but if everyone is a winner then there is no excellence. There's no motivation to become better if nobody is in front to beat. Failure creates motivation, motivation inspires work, and work leads to victory.

Emily, honey, you're a loser and a failure -- even Ben Shapiro and Mike Adams did better than you did. I hope this motivates you to work harder so you won't suck so bad next time.

I don't really like talking about my flair...

Excerpt from my latest column in the magazine I edit:

How many pieces of flair do you have? What are your favorites? Do you even know what a piece of flair is?

Pieces of Flair are the latest application on Facebook (a social networking site). Here’s the online description:

“Show off your interests with Pieces of Flair for your profile! Describe yourself with buttons. Send them to friends as gifts. Browse through our growing collection. If you don't find what you want, it's easy to make your own! Track how popular your creations become as they spread from friend to friend all over Facebook!”

This sounds very exciting to a teenager or a college student, or, I admit, even to a young professional like me. But, as I began sifting through all the different buttons with their unique phrases and designs, I caught myself wondering, what does describe me and my interests? How can I narrow that down to several buttons?

Most of the buttons say, “I love shoes,” “I love frogs,” “swimmers rule” or include movie quotes. There are buttons with different pictures of actors and actresses, singers, athletes and brand names. All designed to fit specific interests and to help the user display a broad picture of themselves so their friends can know more about them.

Am I really only about shoes, sports and my favorite movie catchphrases? Is that what I want people to see about me? What if I died and the only thing left were my Pieces of Flair? That doesn’t really describe my life, or at least I hope not. To truly know someone, you need to make a connection with them and get beyond the flair.

When voting for a candidate for office, don’t just latch onto the catchphrases and the media sound bites. Delve into their policy statements and their voting records. When reading about the numbers of women choosing an abortion, don’t assume that they made an informed decision, volunteer for a pregnancy care center and find out what’s really going on in their lives and offer them an option for life. When a strip club sets up shop in your small town, don’t assume that the goings-on are legal, go find out if you can fight for your community.

We need to get beyond the statistics and the news and get involved. Will you join me?

PA Primary Today

Don't forget to vote!

The Things that Divide Us

In today's political climate you hear a lot about the evil of divisiveness. We need unity and change, not arguments and disagreements. Let's all hold hands and chant or something...*note sarcasm*

This theme of divisiveness has been used recently to attack the "religious right" who bring up those polarizing issues of abortion and "same-sex marriage." How dare they introduce legislation that makes people feel uncomfortable, bring up topics in conversation where people passionately disagree. That's not loving. That's not compassionate. This Sunday's Patriot-News featured an op-ed by the president of Messiah College talking about their forum they held with presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

"The Compassion Forum is an important step forward to broaden the religious-political dialogue. The time has come for people of faith to expand the dialogue beyond a few limited issues and include morally significant concerns such as the global AIDS epidemic, domestic and international poverty, climate change, abortion, genocide in Darfur, human rights and torture."

Mrs. Phipps said their forum was going to be hospitable and gracious, not hostile and divisive. Good deal. EXCEPT, do we really believe that abortion and homosexuality are the only issues people disagree on? Let's talk about each of these topics mentioned in the quote above:

• global AIDS epidemic-
  
• side one: throw money at the problem, give them condoms and comprehensive sex education.
  
• side two: abstinence education, encouraging strong families. Very divisive. We have had debate on this very issue in Congress within the past few weeks.
• domestic and international poverty-
  
• side one: forgive all international debt and add more welfare programs and free handouts for poor Americans.
  
• side two: support beginning democracies and good money management, and domestically, focus on incentives to work and get out of poverty. Another passionate debate in the U.S.
• climate change-
  
• Wait, there are two sides to this issue? I thought we all agreed on this. Yeah, we don't. There are a large number of scientists who disagree with the whole global warming scare. This issue is so divisive that the pro-side chooses to act like the other side doesn't even exist!
• genocide in Darfur- I actually don't know two sides to this one, but I am sure there are.
• human rights-
  
• side one: right to abortion and right to marry anyone you want.
  
• side two: not everything is a right. Yikes, they kind of stumbled into very divisive waters here including the ones they wanted to avoid...(note: I was not at the forum so I don't know what this topic covered).
• torture-
  
• side one: waterboarding is evil.
  
• side two: we love Jack Bauer and waterboarding is A-ok. Pretty divisive. Did you see the protests in DC?

Why did I point all this out? Just to show you, my readers, that almost every issue is divisive. It's not a bad word. Yes, we should be polite and hospitable, but that doesn't mean not disagreeing and never telling someone that they are wrong. It's called public discourse. When people complain about divisiveness, it means they want you to just shut up and go along with what they think. Don't let them bully you.

Please leave comments.