beth0329

I don't think I realized the implications of this election for president until last night. One of the girls who lives in my apartment is African American and I knew she was voting for Obama but when the results were final that Barack Obama was our new president it really sank in that this is monumental. Also, we had our weekly PH meeting and Phil Skei joined us. He's the director of FIFUL and a really cool guy. He lives in our neighborhood. His wife is African American and before he gave his talk last night he mentioned how historical the night really was. Despite who you voted for I still think everyone can agree that last night was a big night for our country. Merely 40 years ago African Americans were slaves in this country and last night one of our candidates for PRESIDENCY was African American. And then once he was announced as our president-elect I think it really hit me that the black community has really taken a huge step in this decision. And how awesome that it wasn't just the black community who voted for Obama.

And I was even a part of this historical day. I thought I wasn't going to vote because my absentee ballot hadn't come in but on Monday night my mom called me and said it was here and asked if I wanted her to fill it out for me. Of course, the first question was, who do I want the president to be? I just couldn't choose either McCain or Obama so I said mark "other" and I had joked with my mom before about putting in Jesus so she asked if she should so I said, sure. So, my vote went to Jesus :)   

I must admit, sadly and ashamedly, that I didn't really pray for either of our candidates. Now, I talked a lot about it and discussed it with numerous people but I didn't really spend any time in prayer about how I should vote or who I should vote for. But in the past 24 hours I've really come to terms with the fact that my God is a good and awesome God and He's got everything under control. A lot of republicans are really upset right now about Obama being our president. And a lot of Christians are upset but I don't really understand that because our faith is in a God who placed Obama in this position. He is a sovereign God and He knows the big picture. We may think that Obama is going to run this country farther into the ground and that he's going to allow 10 year old girls to receive abortions and that our 6 year olds will be learning about homosexuality but we don't know the future and thankfully, God does. He can take care of us and Obama says he is a Christian so let God deal with him. Let the Holy Spirit convict him. I believe our place is to pray for our new president and to let remind Obama, by letters and petitions, about the things he said he would do for our country once president.

As Christians, God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline ( 2 Timothy 1.7).  Proclaim it!

Blessings,
Bethany

 I got a brand spanking new bike today y'all!!! My mom and I had a really great day too. She woke me up to the smells of biscuits, gravy and sausage this morning and we did some house and yard work. I almost bashed in the head of a gopher, but I was too slow :(   (maybe I'll explain later). And then we showered and headed over to my church for a baby shower. We were only going to stay for about an hour but we ended up staying the whole time, so I think it was almost 2 hours or so. Neither my mom or I really needed to do anything so I told her that we should go check out bikes, just to look around. I still haven't posted pictures of my bike now but I have nicknamed her The Rusty Red Rider. She's seriously on her last tire. But I will be posting memorial pictures of her sometime soon. 

Anyways, we ended up going to this bike shop called World of Wheels. You walk into this show room just full of bikes! mountain bikes, beach cruisers, 3 wheelers, all sorts of bikes! One guy came over to ask us if we needed help and we just told him that we were looking around and I think a few minutes later some other guy asked us if we needed help and again, we told him we were just looking. But soon we had another guy come up to us and we seriously stayed there a good 2 hours, at least. Maybe even more but I can't remember. I asked him all sorts of questions and test drove a few of the bikes in the lot. There were soo many pretty ones and they all rode better than my bike. Soon enough even my mom was testing some of them and we both ended up getting a bike!! Moms is a pretty blue color and it's really cool because the way the pedals are situated on the bike she has a longer leg extension so it's not so hard on her knees. And mine is silver, with a cool brown and black seat and handlebars. It's real pretty. I haven't thought of a name yet so y'all can help me out. 

So, I'm real excited. When we got home we even took them out for a short spin around the block. Mine rides like a dream! I can't wait to start riding my bike everywhere this summer!!

And now on to some things I've been thinking about...I mentioned in my last post that my friend Mark has started writing blogs on spirituality and one of his blogs is primarily about a conversation he and I had about politics and Jesus. He called me politically liberal. And I probably sound 'liberal' with my passion for social issues and my desire for a better environment and other such things but I wish I were the type of person who couldn't be pinned down to a certain political party. I really don't believe that Jesus could have ever chosen a specific politcal party. I mean, come on Jesus wasn't JUST a fan of the green party and I can't see him joining the Republican or Democrat's candidacy campaign. I just wish that I could be seen as an instrument of God's love...Him pouring His love into me so that I can pour it into others. But thankfully Mark also called me a hippy and that put a smile to my face so it wasn't a complete downer.

Today is the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's death. Doesn't seem like it's been that long ago that he stood up in front of America and told them his dream. I'm just curious as to what he would think of America now, 40 years later and his children and hundreds of other black people (and other non-white people) are still judged by the color of their skin, instead of the content of their character. Of course, we've made some improvements. Black people can sit where ever they want on the bus and we all share the same water fountain and restuarants, at least here in California but is that really all Dr. King wanted? I sure hope not.

With all this hub-bub about Barack Ohama's pastor, Rev. Wright, I've been thinking a lot about America and God. Last weekend while I was up north I had a shocking revelation, of sorts. My old pastor, Nick is an ex-air force guy and has been a pastor for a really long time. He's really intense about politics, in a bad way, so that when you bring up anything politics-related and you don't necessarily agree completely with him he'll make you feel really bad about it and it always seems as if he can somehow say it to make you wonder if that's the way Jesus believed too. I remember 4 years ago as I was getting ready to leave for college, he would continually remind me not to let those "liberals" change my views and morals. "You stay strong!" ...So, Jesus is a republican then, huh? God help us if he is! 

Anyways, on Saturday night after my birthday party a couple of people came over to our house to visit. It was me, my mom, Nick and Sue, Paul and Shelley and our friends Dwight and Nancy. My mom and her big mouth looks over to me while everyone is talking and says, (while everyone gets quiet) "Hey you know how you're not really in favor of the war because all those innocent people are dying? well, did you know that I'm reading that a war that Joshua was in that God allowed hundreds of innocent people to die." Or somethin like that. And, right away Nick jumps on it and goes, "Yea, God said that they'd all die like that." And I just said, "Obviously, God had a plan in that." And it just got worse from there. During most of it I stayed very quiet and tried to will God to snap his fingers and take me out of the room. But because I was busy doing that I can't really remember everything that was said. But at one point Nick looked at me and said something to the extent that Sadam Hussein killed a lot of people and we had to react to that and all I could say was, "Well, he deserves the same grace that you and I received." I don't know if Nick was shocked or appalled or what but he goes, "Well, you know I've said it before...it's a good thing I'm not God." and I almost can't believe I said it but I go, "Good thing!" And then, this is the real kicker...he goes on to talk about Manifest Destiny! (the belief common in America in the early 1800s that it was the destiny or fate of the US to expand west to the Pacific Ocean. For many Americans, the belief had an almost religious intensity, and was often considered an obvious part of God’s plan for America’s future). And how, didn't I know that God gave us this great country!? blah, blah, BLAH! I almost cried, right there on the spot! I just kept praying that he was kidding...right? A follower of Jesus who believes that God gave us this "amazing" country so we could use all of HIS (GOD'S) money for our consumerist ideals and attack other countries to kill their people?!? 

So, I've been CNN.COM the last couple of days about Dr. King and all the stuff that's going on, comparing him to Rev. Wright and all that jazz and I found an interesting quote pertaining to the Vietnam war that really resounds in my heart right now about America and the "war on terrorism,"  "God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it." And that was over 40 years ago!

Dr. King; I apologize that your dream hasn't completely become a reality but thank you! Thank you so much for pursuing your dream and not giving up! Praise be to God for our strides and please forgive us!

I just finished Zlata's Diary. It's about a young girl in Sarajevo during the war. She starts writing her diary right before her eleventh birthday in 1991, before the war that stole her childhood. She's called "the Anne Frank of Sarajevo" and she actually mentions Anne Frank a couple of times throughout her diary. I'm not going to write out a synopsis of her diary (you should just read it) but one line especially touched me, although the whole book tore at my heart. I'll just write out the whole entry and italicize the line that stood out to me.
I've been thinking about politics again. No matter how stupid, ugly and unreasonable I think this division of people into Serbs, Croats and Muslims is, these stupid politics are making it happen. We're all waiting for something, hoping for something, but there's nothing. Even the Vance-Owen peace plan looks as though it's going to fall through. Now these maps are being drawn up, separating people and nobody asks them a thing. Those "kids" (government officials) really are playing around with us. Ordinary people don't want this division, because it won't make anybody happy- not the Serbs, not the Croats, not the Muslims. But who asks ordinary people? Politics asks only its own people.
Isn't that the truth? It was incredible reading this diary of a little girl and even more incredible that I saw a young woman coming out of the pages, instead of a 13 year old child. War is so ugly and I just don't understand how people (and our government, political leaders) can stand by and allow INNOCENT people to die. I would like to say that our leaders care about the women, children and men of Iraq but sadly our politcs are just concerned about us, the great and mighty USA. How many lessons we could learn from Zlata.

 I could never say it any better....

Five years ago, I was in Iraq. It was as a member of the Iraq Peace Team, living in the middle of the "shock-and-awe" bombing of Baghdad -- some of the scariest days of my life. As Easter approached, we walked through the Lenten season with brothers and sisters in Iraq. One night I had a terrible dream, and I wrote about it in my journal. As I re-read it this season I found it as timely an image as five years back, and I decided not to doctor it up or try to polish it – but just to include the recollection of that dream as it is in my journal.

Sometimes it is hard to sleep -- so many thoughts. A bomber flew over. I looked up and could see, "U.S. Air Force" on it. I tried to think only of Jesus – the beautiful Lover of Nazareth. The other night I dreamed of Jesus. At first I could only see his back, somehow I knew it was him. His large, strong back was shirtless (and not as fair-skinned as I had once thought!). He was stooped over on all fours as if he were cradling something on the ground. I wondered what it was, so I tried to get a better glance.

A little head popped out from beneath his arm, giggling hysterically. Then another squirmed out from the other side. And another. How many were there?! Still kneeling on all fours with his arms spread wide, Jesus frantically tried to keep them gathered beneath him, as if he knew danger was looming. There were hundreds of little faces [Author's note: Jesus was gigantic, not to scale. I know it's weird; it's a dream.] So there was this huge Jesus, sprawled out above all the children. He looked like a kid frantically trying to keep a litter of young puppies from scattering.

And then there was a loud crack. Out of nowhere a whip struck Jesus on his back. He yelled in pain. Then again – the skin ripped open. And again. The children began to cry. A few young stragglers ducked safely under Jesus' chest with the others. As the whip continued to strike him, rocks began to fall from the sky like hailstones – pounding on his back and bouncing off. The children huddled beneath him, sobbing. His body convulsed in agony, but he never loosened his grip on the little ones below. As the rocks kept falling, something else started to drop from the sky. These objects looked similar to the rocks, but when they hit his back they did not bounce off like the rocks had. They sunk into his skin ... and then they exploded, tearing huge holes into his back, one after another. His bones became exposed, and soon his body stopped moving. Blood poured off his sides and rained down on the children.

STOP! STOP! In the name of God, stop. I could not wake up. The holes continued to tear into his flesh until the body barely resembled anything human. Then, at last, there was silence. Stillness. Slowly, the children began to stir. They crept timidly from beneath the rubble, covered with blood ... but alive. And I awoke ... sweating, panting, but alive.

After I had that dream, I remember going to a worship service, one of the most powerful services I've ever attended. There were thousands of Christians from all over the Middle East gathered just before Easter. We sang "Amazing Grace" in Arabic. We said the Lord's Prayer together in all kinds of different tongues. Then the bishops read a statement addressed to Muslims, which read: "We believe that you are created in the image of God and we love you." It was pregnant with hope. Afterward I confessed to one of the bishops that I was surprised to see so many Christians in Iraq. He looked at me blankly and said gently, "Yes, my friend. This is where Christianity began. You did not invent it in America. You have only domesticated it. Go back and tell the church in America that we are praying for them … to be the body of Christ, to embody the gospel of Jesus." His words still echo in my soul.

May we remember this Easter season -- that it may be Friday, but Sunday is coming. Death may be all around us, but in the end resurrection triumphs. Another little one clinging to Jesus.