Here it is the 30th of December and I am contemplating what I am going to do about my weight. A congregation member said to me that "You don't seem to be comfortable with your body.." (It was a women who made the comment) My response to this was that, no, when I keep going up and up in weight, my knees and feet ache all the time, I cannot tie my shoes without holding my breathe, I am in a "pre-diabetic" state and now, as of yesterday, my doctor told me to track my blood pressure because it was high enough to treat with medicine. Comfortable? No, I am not comfortable. I went to see the doctor yesterday about my face breaking out in weird red patches and when they weighed me I was 252. I am now officially closer to 300 lbs than I am 200 lbs and I need to be at 180 to 185 lbs. That is about 70 lbs that I need to lose now and when I started this blog (for the purpose of, ironically enough, tracking my weight loss) in July I had got down to about 211.

it really seems that once you go over a "point of no return" the weight gain starts to accelerate. You are less likely to exercise (because heaving 252 lbs of me up and down a step class step is not an easy task) and your blood sugar is so out of whack that you overeat, eat the wrong foods and then can handle those types of food less than if you were not so insulin resistant.

I have the knowledge of what it takes to lose weight, I understand nutrition, exercise and the right levels of both to be healthy. I even have a free health club membership because my wife works at the best gym in town (shout out to my peeps at the Fitness Center). All that I need to do now is start making time to go back to the gym. I used to work out with Tracy, but when the baby came we both stopped. I felt better, looked better and performed better as a theologian when I was more active. Why I stopped, I will never know. I have blogged about wanting to store food for an emergency, but I did not mean under my belt!

We just got back from my parent's house in Mattoon and we had a great Christmas with the whole family. Sydney was a bit young to get into the event but at least Eleanor liked the wrapping paper. All the kids made out like bandits with Grandma and Grandpa and I am glad I took two cars!

For Christmas my wife bought me Guitar Hero, one of the coolest video games ever. I think that she bought it for me so I would stop playing it at the local Wal-Mart. She seemed quite embarrassed the last time that we went. We might also get Dance Dance Revolution for the PS2. The Wisher's had that game at their house Christmas Eve and I was surprisingly taken to it and was challenging all the 10 year olds in the house to "dance offs." Those 10 year olds are really cocky until the rubber hits the road!

I also got the above Thermos from my Wife AND my Mother. How blessed am I that I have not one, but 2 giant Thermos bottles for which to keep my coffee warm. It is for this reason that I chosen the title for this blog entry and the audio selection when you open the page. You might ask "Why would you need a gallon of coffee at any one time?" Any one who knows me very well understands that this is a ridiculous question! Now I may laugh in the face at any potential crisis or emergency for I have 2 Thermos Bottles. DANGER! HA HA I LAUGH AT YOU!

Kaiser finally got his Red Ryder BB gun that he has been pestering me for since I mentioned something about BB guns 4 months ago. I have learned an important lesson about Kaiser: Never give him advance notice of what I am hoping to do with him because every minute of every day until said event, he will be talking and talking and talking about it. For those of you who are wondering, Kaiser still has both eyes.

As I think about it, this has been the first Christmas EVER that I did not receive one piece of clothing; No ties from the kids, no socks from mom, no shirts from the Mrs., Nothing. I am not complaining, mind you, for I much prefer life gadgetry like the above thermos and my Leatherman tool that I got 4 years back (I use it every single day). I am just saying that it is strange.

This year was a bit tight financially so Tracy and I did our best to get gifts for each other that would be special. For months she has had her eye on these tortoise shell combs for her beautiful long hair. I had not been able to afford it with the price of coal rising so quickly, but then I remembered a pocket watch that I have not been able to wear due to my lack of a decent chain. I sold the pocket watch and had enough to purchase the combs for Tracy and even had a little left over to purchase some chops for Christmas day.

I got home late on Christmas eve and Tracy had already gone to bed so I decided not to wake her. We I woke up this morning I discovered that Tracy had cut off all of her hair. I was shocked, as you might imagine, since I had just bought these combs for her formally long hair. It turns out that she had sold her hair to be able to purchase a new chain for the pocket watch! I could almost not bear to tell her that the watch was gone to pay for her combs! After everything became known Tracy and I both decided that this was the best Christmas ever.

I just came across this article from CBS news that reported on a conference that focused upon denying that the holocaust happened or that it was as severe as reported. This conference was hosted by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran and was attended by none other than David Duke the notorious Klu Klux Klan leader. The Iranian President was quoted in saying "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom" and "By the grace of God, the arc of the Zionist regime's life has reversed and is heading downward. This is a divine promise and the public demand of all nations of the world." Take these statements and read them in the context of this article about Iran's vow to accelerate enrichment of uranium and one has to wonder if we invaded the wrong country. For decades, Iraq and Iran counterbalanced each other in the region, but now a weakened Iraq has no way to resist Shiite power emanating from Iran.

In my discussions with college age people I often hear the comparison of our President, George Bush with Adolph Hitler and you can even seen T-Shirts and Mugs with similar sentiment (apparently t-shirts are the 21st century alternative to actually becoming involved in civic-minded activities) How can they even come close to justifying this comparison when you have people like Ahmadinejad making such sweeping anti-Semitic statements and seeking nuclear weapons? Who is really like Adolph Hitler? I think I have made up my mind on who fits that bill and it is not our President. I am concerned, again, with the amount of polarization in our country and it is reflected in the ad hominum attacks against our fellow citizens (this goes for both sides). In a world that is filled with people and groups who have clearly expressed their desire for other people to be "wiped out" I would think that identifying who our enemies truly are would be simple. The people who are chanting "Death to America", planting bombs and trying to build nukes are the ones we ought to be concerned with harming us, not the local Conservative Republican banker, the Liberal Democrat college professor or even the old fashion Communist labor leader (ahhhh, the good ' ole days when commies were the biggest concern we had!)

We live in a country that people of all types can come and live in relative safety no matter what they believe or what race they are. To be certain, there are problems here and there, but for the most part you can be Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, Hindu or any other religion not worry about being attacked. The greatest challenge you might encounter is being exposed to a random nativity scene, Christmas tree or Ten Commandments monument (GASP! not a nativity scene! Non-Christians might burst into flames!) There are cases of religious violence now and again in the United States but they are incredibly rare and are not even close to the amount of religious violence you find in more "enlightened" countries like France, The Netherlands and Germany. My point in this is that we should not buy into the idea that all the violence in the world is "our fault." We are far from faultless, but we cannot let some strange collective "American Guilt" drive our foreign policy or our national dialogue.

I was rolling along after giving a lift to Nate Turk, a friend and pre-marital counselee, and my mind became preoccupied with emergency preparedness and the need to stock up on certain items in case of emergency. The Explorer then began to lurch unexpectedly and then I remembered that I needed to stop at Wal-Mart for gas. I turned around and headed back north but it was too late. The car rolled to a stop and the irony hung thick in the car like the smell of cabbage in a carnival worker's trailer.

I called Tracy and assured her of my undying love before I asked her to pack up all the kids and bring me my gas can. Then I heard the voice of a women who had something over her man's head. About 5 years ago I got a call from Tracy who had run out of gas about 1 block from the gas station in Savoy. It was probably the coldest day of the year and she was at the Savoy Post Office trying to mail out the last of the Christmas gifts. I had the kids at home and made the decision that she was close enough to walk to the gas station. This would prove to be an error of judgement on my part.

Fortunately for me, Tracy is a much better person than I am. Although she firmly reminded me of that day 5 years ago when she had to walk in near blizzard conditions, she relented and brought me a can of gasoline. I pledged to her my gratitude and a promise that I would blog about the fact that I was so absolutely wrong not to come get her 5 years ago and that today she displayed an amazing amount of Christian love and mercy.

Last weekend, we went to the mall for the first time since last Christmas. It is such a rare occasion that we darken its doors that I took the family out for Chinese food first and then took pictures of our outing. Considering that the mall will probably be the closest thing my children get to Disneyworld for a long time, I made sure that we walked past the Disney store. Please notice the antlers on my son's head, he has not removed them since our friend Jane bought them for him last weekend at K's play. He even stumbled out of bed the other morning wearing only his underwear, his blanket and the antlers. I am so proud.

I have had several Haiku posted in my ongoing contest. This first one was posted by my beautiful wife who feels that I am inaccurate and unfair in my portrayal of her in Fear and Trembling.

I'm not an ogre

An ogre you make me be

I'm nice most agree

Another reformed minded blogger named Mustard Grains has left this Haiku

I cannot write good

Haikus are not my forte

Though I wish they were

And finally, these were emailed to me by a friend/congregation member, Erica Hoagland

Poetry I'll write,

Though my muse has went astray-

Left to seek new job.

and

Find Hope in the Lord.

Answers He will give in time,

Patience in the wait.

The thing that I like about the Haiku is that they are so short and easy to form that they can accurately reflect current states of mind without being so laborious that you lose the moment.

Can anyone tell that Erica is looking for a job?

Like many people my age, The beginning of the Christmas season was marked by the appearance of the RONCO commercials on television. The Pocketfisherman, the Smokeless Ashtray, the Rhinestone Setter, and the Inside-the-egg-egg-beater were all brilliant inventions to make my life easier and they MAKE PERFECT GIFTS. You can follow this link to the Biography website and watch all the Ronco commercials. There are three pages of videos so make sure you do not miss the Mr. Microphone on the second page of videos. "Hey good lookin', be back to pick you up later!"

In another example of how my son is almost clone like in his likeness to his father, Kaiser is an infomercial junkie. Given the opportunity to watch Spongebob or a commercial for the Magic Bullet Blender, he will be torn. He constantly explains to us that if we had Space Bags, we could store all of our items in "half the space." Kaiser even says things like "It will make our life easier."

When you look at some of these gadgets you will see that Ron Popeil actually foresaw some items that would become modern staples of life, like the Automug, which he created even before there was cup holders in cars and I see gadgets like his Salad Spinner in Bed, Bath, and Beyond. There is even a fishing rod on TV right now that is a combination of pocket fisherman with a Nerf rocket launcher.

I discovered that those Commercials disappeared after the 1986 Christmas season because the banks that held Ron Popeils loans, called them all in and bankrupted the company. Popeil then used his own personal fortune to make a comeback and now he is selling most of the above items plus uber-successful items like the Showtime Rotisserie, which has been copied by a lot of "real companies."

"Honey do we have X, Y, or Z cable?"  "Check the box."  "Do we have an adapter for x, Y, or Z?"  "Check the box."  "Do we have a something to tie up the muffler?"  "Check the Box."

In the 7 years since I have joined the digital revolution, (I did not have an email until 1999, can you imagine?  People were treating me like I was homeless when they discovered I did not have "an address")  I have amassed an amazing array of cables, plugs and adapters that look so official that I cannot bear to throw them away.  They all get crammed into this big ammo box.  I am afraid that after this Christmas, I will have to get a bigger box.

K Elizabeth was in a local production of Miracle on 34th Street last night. She had a small role, but to watch her at the curtain call you would think that she had the starring role. K was in her element. I can easily imagine my daughter doing this professionally. K has always been a "special' girl with a penchant for the dramatic and an imagination to match.

One of the things that I noticed was that K had no hesitation in mingling with the rest of the cast. I took her to a practice last week and we were a little late so we both sat in the back of the auditorium. Within 2 minutes K leave her seat with me and goes to sit with a group of other actors and strikes up a conversation. This is not the first time that I have seen K in action like this. Last year I took a Sunday off and went to an Episcopalian church in Mattoon. I had never been to an Episcopalian service before, so I took K with me and we went to see what it was like. After the service, there was coffee and refreshments served in the basement and I decided to have some conversations. K Elizabeth got a drink, a cookie and proceeded to start conversations with different adults while I was talking to some of the men in the room. If that were Tracy with me, I would have had to fight off her looks, sighs and tapping foot while I tried to have conversations.

I have never written poetry other than the haiku that my wife and I used to write at the Corner Diner when we were first married. We used to write haiku about the very next person that would walk through the door. I am not sure why we did that.

Drip drip on my head

It has been raining all night

left my hat at Dave's

I think that I will have a haiku contest. The best haiku will receive a prominent position on Fear and Trembling. Just leave your Haiku in the comments section. A haiku is a short poem of 3 lines. The first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 syllables and the last line has 5 syllables. 5-7-5. Real haiku usually have something to do with nature, but I really don't care.

The UPS man brought three heavy boxes to my doorstep yesterday. Within the boxes were a set of books that I have been wanting for a long time. My mother got them for me as a Christmas gift had them sent directly to my house so I did not have to cart them home on Christmas eve.

Here is the link and description from Christian Book Distributors. For those of you who do not know, this is the best source of Christian books anywhere.

The Early Church Fathers, 38 Volumes

Broken into three sections, this authoritative collection of writings by the Early Church Fathers is essential for understanding patristic thought. Series I of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers consists of eight volumes of the writings of St. Augustine, the greatest and most influential of the early Fathers, as well as six volumes of the treatises and homilies of St. Chrysostom. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series II contains in fourteen volumes the works of the Greek Fathers from Eusebius to John of Damascus and the Latin Fathers from Hilary to Gregory the Great. The Ante-Nicene Fathers represent the first primary sources of Christian history following the canon of the New Testament, and include writings from the Apostolic Fathers as well as various third and fourth century sources.

Needless to say, when this big pile of theological goodness arrived, I immediately wanted to take a sabbatical and hole up somewhere and start reading. I opened up the boxes and immediately went to the Augustine volumes. I discovered an entire volume on Augustine's Anti-Pelagian writings! On the surface this might not sound too exciting to those of you who are my congregation members, but this book directly addresses the exact same questions and dilemmas that we have heard in our Sunday School classes in the past few years and it was Written in 415 AD. If nothing else, text like this should illuminate how long these issues of God's grace have been debated and give us enough historical perspective to remove the heightened emotional states when discussing the matters among ourselves. Are you troubled by the Bible passages about predestination and election? That's fine, lots of people, including myself have been rocked to the core by these teachings, but I would encourage those who have been troubled to put serious effort to work through the issues to come to a conclusion. I firmly believe that there was a great blessing for me on the other side of all that work. That is the essence of Philippians 2:12-14, "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose."

If you want the "easy" version of the Christian life, head over and read Joel Osteen. "Brother" Joel will make sure that you are not bothered by all of that scripture and unpleasantness of difficult issues. I am quite sure that "brother" Joel has never quoted this passage of scripture before and if he has, he surely provided a more sanitary explanation. My only warning is that the "easy" Christian life might not be a Christian life at all.

"The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

This first album, in no particular order, is an album that I came across on accident. I was sitting at the Aroma Coffeehouse in Champaign and the first track, Roscoe, came over the speakers and I was instantly hooked. I asked Ryan Groff, a great local musician and the Barrista on duty, about the group and he told me that it was Midlake's The Trials of Van Occupanther. I was fixated on the 4 part harmonies and the instrumentation that served to set the context and drive the song forward instead of carrying the brunt of the musical work. Many net reviewers have commented that this is a "70's style" band but I do not want to pigeonhole this band just because they use 4 part harmonies. Seals and Croft they are not. Instead, I would say that they are one of the few bands that transcend genre and could have an wide appeal if enough people were to hear them. Even the lyrical content has a time defying quality without becoming an anachronistic contrivance like many bands that have an ax to grind or a message to give. Finally, this is an album that I can listen to in the car with my kids present. This may not be a criteria for some, but an album of this quality is going to get a lot of play around my house and in my car, so I need to be careful what young ears will hear. K Elizabeth already has the lyrics and harmonies down.

The second album is Bob Dylan's Modern Times. There is a lot written about Bob Dylan's conversion to Christianity in the late 1970's and even more written about where his current faith stands, but I would say that this album demonstrates a man that has matured into his faith. On albums like Saved and Slow Train Coming (both fantastic albums), Dylan's Christianity seems like a shiny new toy. On Modern Times you hear a man that has walked with the Lord "fer a peace." The best way to explain this is: Dylan is not invoking religious imagery to describe the world around him, instead, he sees the world through religious eyes and the Divine is now the reality that the world is trying to describe. The lyrics are almost painfully introspective and filled with the kind of resolve that a man cannot reach until he has been down as many roads as Bob Dylan has.

There is sort of an irony with the title of this album and its musical stylings. This should be no surprise coming from Dylan. Much in the same way as the Midlake album, the music serves the song instead of the other way around. This is also a uniquely American album that is like a digital Smithsonian of American music. I don't know if this will be Bob Dylan's last album, but it is so good that it could be. The entire record feels like the capstone to a brilliant career.

This story is about a sick boy who is treated with cells taken from an aborted fetus. Proponents will say that "the cells were going to be discarded anyway, we should at least put them to good use." but this ignores the core concern that if you develop a product to be sold in the marketplace from aborted babies then you risk creating a demand for more aborted fetus cells and when demand goes up supply goes down, prices go up and then the market will respond by providing that supply of aborted babies. Simple economics will create a demand for fetuses created in the lab for the sole purpose of being destroyed. This already happens, of course, but a "cure" for something like Parkinson's will send the practice into factory-like production houses.

I have no doubt that they might be able to cure many diseases with stem cells, but the question remains: Should they cure Parkinson's in that manner. This is not a fringe question, it is a common question in all of the biological sciences and it is the reason that practices and standards are developed for research on living beings.

Again, I want to draw your attention to some key phrases in this article and show that this issue is almost never discussed on a theological or even philosophical level, it is played out in the court of the emotions or is so scientifically clinical, that it is removed from arena of real ethical judgements.

“We don’t think that is a coincidence,” (that it happened on Hanukkah) said Marcus Kerner, who said a deep faith in Judaism and long hours of prayer prompted the family to volunteer Daniel for the risky procedure."

If my faith in God and my prayers cannot be invoked when representing unborn life, I hardly see how another man's faith and prayers can be invoked when there is a decision that brings harm to fetuses. This picture below is certainly heartbreaking and as a father of four I cannot imagine what this father is going through. I would give my life for my children, but I would not take the innocent life of another child for them or be part of an experiment that could have global consequences. Since I consider an unborn fetus as deserving of equal protection under the law, it would not be different than me shooting another child (or having someone else do it) so that their heart might be harvested for one of my children.

In most states a person who shoots and kills a pregnant women is charged with two counts of murder (Scott Peterson, for example) but if that same women has an abortion, it is sanctioned by the law. There seems to be some discrepancies concerning the legal status of unborn babies and as I have said in the past, these artificially lines of demarcation in pregnancy are man-made and are not based on "good science" but rather old traditions of "quickening." In the end, I am not qualified to draw the line anywhere in a pregnancy and say "Today the baby is a person, but yesterday it was not."

This is not one of Schubert's song cycles per se, it is just his last 14 songs with an additional 4 lieds on this album including my favorite: Der Erlkönig. This particular clip that was played is Der Atlas and I have been playing it over and over the past week. With snappy lyrics like what you find below, it is sure to become sure hit after the exposure that it receives on Fear and Trembling.

Ich unglücksel'ger Atlas! Eine Welt,
Die ganze Welt der Schmerzen muß ich tragen,
Ich trage Unerträgliches, und brechen
Will mir das Herz im Leibe.

Du stolzes Herz, du hast es ja gewollt!
Du wolltest glücklich sein, unendlich glücklich,
Oder unendlich elend, stolzes Herz,
Und jetzo bist du elend.

I, unblessed Atlas!
I carry a world, the entire world of pain,
I bear the unbearable,
And the heart within me wants to break.

Proud heart, you have wanted it thus!
You wanted to be happy, eternally happy,
Or eternally miserable, you proud heart,
And now you are miserable.

If you would like to purchase a fine version of 

Schwanengesang by Franz Schubert

Click on the blue link above and you can purchase it from Amazon. 

I figure that a few thousand sales generated by my site and I will be sitting pretty

My friend Jason and I were talking tonight and he says to me, "I am seriously considering a beret"

"Oh really?", I said

"Yes, every morning I have to ask myself, is this the day? Is this the day I wear a beret?"

Who hasn't been faced with that question? Godspeed Jason Hodges, Godspeed...

My friend Kevin has commented about my man purse posting yesterday and he said this:

"Dude, that's a satchel, not a purse, and a sporran is about the closest thing to a purse you'll ever find me wearing. (Okay, maybe a diaper bag, but its a manly diaper bag)."

I found this definition of a sporran in WIKIpedia and a picture:

"A Sporran is a pouch (the word is simply the Scottish Gaelic for purse), now a decorative part of Highland dress but originally an everyday practical item, made of leather or fur, usually with more or less elaborate silver or other ornamentation, especially on the clasp or hanger."

Now, I am not one to judge, but the guy who wears a kilt out in public and sporting one of these little numbers has no room criticizing my man purse. I really thought that the West Coast people were supposed to be enlightened people who were not constrained by the normal social conventions of we red state type people. Apparently I am very wrong. My West Coast friend obviously needs to come out from under the crushing weight of society's "norms" and proudly wave his purse high in the air.
The hardest part of this will be trying to explain it to his parents. With Thanksgiving out of the way, he has missed a great opportunity to tell the family, but Christmas is right around the corner and I hear that there are support groups for this sort of thing. "We're here, We carry man bags, GET USED TO IT!"

 

  Check out THIS INFORMATIVE VIDEO about the MURSE

Below you will find my man bag of choice. It is made by Eagle Creek, the makers of all kinds of neat-o luggage. I really hate having all the modern tools of life in my pockets and the purse enables me to keep it all neat and readily available. I have a real ISSUE with losing items that are important. Since I started to use this manly tool, I have dramatically decreased the incidents of lost glasses, keys and wallets. The murse brings order and quietness to the chaotic mind. On any given day I will have the following items in my murse.

1. A Bible (NIV)
2. A Leatherman WAVE multi-tool
3. Wallet and Checkbook
4. Cell Phone (Motorola Razr)
5. Voice Recorder
6. My Hipster PDA
7. Pens and Pencils
8. Quarter for the parking meters outside the coffeehouse
9. My glasses/sunglasses
10. The day's mail
11. My car keys

I will be posting a more complete man bag post at a later date, but for now this picture says it all.

Most science fiction shows have had a story arc about knowing what is going to happen in the future and then all of your efforts to avoid the future lead you right into what you were trying to avoid in the first place.  Minority Report is a good example of just such a movie.

This seems to be happening with My wife and I today.  We came to the conclusion a while back that we have a huge fight on December 6th every year, the day before my wife's birthday, and that I have started these fights.  She claims it is because I am trying to ruin her birthday and not have to take her out for dinner and a movie, I say it is because of the stress of the Christmas season.  Whatever the reason, I decided that this year would be different and that I would not fight with my wife on December 6th.  This is how our story begins....

at 2:00 am this morning (officially December 6th) my wife wakes me up out of a sound sleep to tell me that the dog is scratching at the door.  I say "if you are awake, then why did you wake me up to go let the dog out."  This did not set well with my wife and she continued to press me into action.  Now I need to explain that I have been under a bit of stress lately and have been unable to sleep well.  I had just fallen into a really good sleep when I was so rudely awaken.

SO, I let the dog out and, of course, she won't come back in after doing her business. I am little irritated at this and I may have made more noise that I should have trying to get ZuZu to come inside.  Then, in Twilight Zone fashion, my wife lets me know "displeased" she was at my irritation.  Yes, we had the brief but intense annual fight on Dec 6.  However, I want it to be recorded for all time that I personally did everything that I could to avoid this!  I was trapped by the science fiction Time paradox...

She looks pretty, but that kitten has claws !

The Midwest was hit by an early winter storm last week and there are still thousands of people without power 5 days later.  5 days without power with the temperature in the teens is a serious issue.  Even "gas heated" homes need electricity to operate the furnaces.  Electricity is no longer a luxury, it is an absolute necessity for those who are not equipped to live without it.  This is an example of the sort of emergency that can strike any community at anytime. 

I have also received multiple mailings from different government agencies about the possibility of the bird flu epidemic.  The CDC and FEMA recommend having a 2 week supply of food on hand in case your family needs to sequester itself until the flu runs its course or in case normal supply chains break down. If you think that this cannot happen here, please remember the lessons of 1918.  The Spanish Flu of 1918 killed over 600,000 Americans in less than 6 months.  Follow this link to see what happened to the U.S. Population in 1918.

As a local church we have a unique pre-established community of people that can be mobilized in a time of crisis to provide for the needs of our membership and the needs of our community.  It is obvious that FEMA is not able to handle such a large crisis and I am not sure if we should expect them to be that prepared.  Giving over responsibility to someone else to fix all of your problems always leads to a loss of freedom.  FEMA is important, but it is only a part of the social safety net. 

I have discussed this issue with a few of the men in the church and they agreed that we could be better prepared, as a church and as families, for times of disaster.  One of my men, Dave Wisher, is a Urbana Firefighter and has been trained for these kind of contingencies. Dave himself would be called away to serve in emergencies, but he will be critical in helping us develop a plan for different types of events.

I started by considering my family's needs in case of emergency, but soon realized that I could not abandon my church family in a time of crisis.  The church can provide manpower, resources, facilities and most importantly, spiritual maturity in times of need.   If AMEREN cannot restore power to Springfield during times of peace and prosperity then what happens during a real emergency?

Finally, establishing a community response team in the church and coordinating that team with other groups in the community might be a fantastic outreach opportunity and a way that our church can take an even more active role in the community.