St.John LYF, Charter Oak
Here is St. John's LYF website-
http://stjlyf.blogspot.com
Visit for information on the National Gathering, the Des Moine Gathering, and a few pictures from last week's homecoming parade.
Please bookmark it to your favorites list so that you can check it at least once a month to see what's going on.
Please pass it on to other kids and parents who's email address you have.
And, please pray for our youth group and the youth of our congregation and community.
Pray for a revitalization of our LYF, with only 3 active members, a lot has got to give, fundraisers, service projects... there's a lot that we can't do anymore, at least not the same way.
And please pray for me, with 3 kids of our own, coaching 2 sports, taking on extra work like the school newsletter, school website, freelancing t-shirts and freelance work for the newspaper- I'm spread a little thin. And I'll be candid, I've had a lot of bumps and dips in my faith walk in the last year or two, so I need some prayer for my wrestling-match with God while we're at it.
Thank you thank you thank you.
In His hands,
Ted
Friday, September 16, 2005
Katrina aftermath: Faith, Politics, and Culture
Katrina and the uncomfortable truth
by Richard E. Stearns
Perhaps the most disturbing comment I have heard over the past few weeks, as I have been glued to the 24/7 Katrina media coverage, came from a man who lost his home in New Orleans and was living in a shelter. It came in response to the controversial use of the word "refugee" to describe the thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. He said: "'Refugee?' I'm not some poor African with flies on his face - we are not refugees, we're American citizens!"
There is a profound and uncomfortable truth captured in this man's angry statement. The truth that all men are not created equal; that the 2.8 billion poor who live on less than $2 a day are not valued with equal importance; that their suffering is less important; that their pain can be tolerated; that their lives are somehow less significant; and that they don't have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the same way the rest of us do.
Hurricane Katrina exposed this uncomfortable double standard to us. It is a double standard that suggests that we don't have a moral responsibility to respond to human suffering if it occurs in a different hemisphere and it is a double standard that showed us that the poor - even in America - are the most vulnerable of our citizens.
Read more:SojoNet: Faith, Politics, and Culture
by Richard E. Stearns
Perhaps the most disturbing comment I have heard over the past few weeks, as I have been glued to the 24/7 Katrina media coverage, came from a man who lost his home in New Orleans and was living in a shelter. It came in response to the controversial use of the word "refugee" to describe the thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. He said: "'Refugee?' I'm not some poor African with flies on his face - we are not refugees, we're American citizens!"
There is a profound and uncomfortable truth captured in this man's angry statement. The truth that all men are not created equal; that the 2.8 billion poor who live on less than $2 a day are not valued with equal importance; that their suffering is less important; that their pain can be tolerated; that their lives are somehow less significant; and that they don't have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the same way the rest of us do.
Hurricane Katrina exposed this uncomfortable double standard to us. It is a double standard that suggests that we don't have a moral responsibility to respond to human suffering if it occurs in a different hemisphere and it is a double standard that showed us that the poor - even in America - are the most vulnerable of our citizens.
Read more:SojoNet: Faith, Politics, and Culture
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Take Action: The Katrina Pledge: A commitment to build a new America
Take Action: The Katrina Pledge: A commitment to build a new America
"Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute (Proverbs 31:8). "
"Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute (Proverbs 31:8). "
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Conservative Calls for Bush's Impeachment
Conservative Calls for Bush's Impeachment
Paul Craig Roberts, a Hoover Institution fellow and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Ronald Reagan, calls for Bush's impeachment:
The destruction of New Orleans is the responsibility of the most incompetent government in American history and perhaps in all history. Americans are rapidly learning that they were deceived by the superpower hubris. The powerful U.S. military cannot successfully occupy Baghdad or control the road to the airport -- and this against an insurgency based in only 20 percent of the Iraqi population. Bush's pointless war has left Washington so pressed for money that the federal government abandoned New Orleans to catastrophe.
The Bush administration is damned by its gross incompetence. Bush has squandered the lives and health of thousands of people. He has run through hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars. He has lost America's reputation and its allies. With barbaric torture and destruction of our civil liberty, he has stripped America of its inherent goodness and morality. And now Bush has lost America's largest port and 25 percent of its oil supply.
Why? Because Bush started a gratuitous war egged on by a claque of crazy neoconservatives who have sacrificed America's interests to their insane agenda.
Paul Craig Roberts, a Hoover Institution fellow and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Ronald Reagan, calls for Bush's impeachment:
The destruction of New Orleans is the responsibility of the most incompetent government in American history and perhaps in all history. Americans are rapidly learning that they were deceived by the superpower hubris. The powerful U.S. military cannot successfully occupy Baghdad or control the road to the airport -- and this against an insurgency based in only 20 percent of the Iraqi population. Bush's pointless war has left Washington so pressed for money that the federal government abandoned New Orleans to catastrophe.
The Bush administration is damned by its gross incompetence. Bush has squandered the lives and health of thousands of people. He has run through hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars. He has lost America's reputation and its allies. With barbaric torture and destruction of our civil liberty, he has stripped America of its inherent goodness and morality. And now Bush has lost America's largest port and 25 percent of its oil supply.
Why? Because Bush started a gratuitous war egged on by a claque of crazy neoconservatives who have sacrificed America's interests to their insane agenda.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Friday, September 02, 2005
Katrina Relief
Still grieving 9/11, America suffers another blow
This Sunday will mark the fourth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on the domestic United States. Three years ago we decided to commemorate the nearly 3,000 Americans, both innocent victims as well as police, fire and emergency rescue workers lost in the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center by renaming September 11, “Patriot Day.”
Unfortunately, when we should be beginning to heal, our grief as a Nation has been exacerbated, first by a difficult and divisive war, and no by the worst natural disaster in our Nation’s history. Her name, was Katrina.
New Orleans already had a staggering poverty rate of 28%. That’s more than twice the national rate. The poorest parts of the city were worst hit. Their homes were at the lowest elevation and were the least structurally sound. It was harder for poor people to evacuate. They don't own cars, can't afford to rent a car. Sometimes they can't even afford a tank of gas - especially lately. They can't afford a plane, train, or bus ticket. People in poverty can't afford to pay for motel or hotel rooms, and don’t always have credit cards.
We will be coping with the aftermath of Katrina for perhaps years to come. New Orleans had a population of around a half million. Imagine 500,000 people suddenly homeless and unemployed. Of course, the death toll will probably be in the thousands as well.
Commentators spoke in the wake of 9/11 about the end of America’s innocence. It is an awkward situation for us to be in to be the richest, most powerful country in the world, and to have scores of national governments offering us aid the same way we did for victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean last winter. The proud, independent Uncle Sam, receiving charity.
Perhaps, like a stubborn adolescent, we are suffering through growing pains. Perhaps we will do well to develop a humble sense of interdependence. Perhaps we need to recognize the five stages of our grief.
Stage ONE: Denial and Isolation. At first, we tend to deny the loss has taken place, and may withdraw from our usual social contacts.
I remember being dumbfounded on September 11, 2001. Surely it didn’t happen, this can’t be real, I thought. No doubt residents of the Gulf Coast can barely believe what they’re living through. Even today, four years later, there are conspiracy theorists who claim that our own government staged the September 11th attacks.
Stage TWO: Anger. This is when you become furious at the person who inflicted the hurt , or at the God, or world, for letting it happen. You might even get angry with yourself for letting something happen, even if, nothing could have stopped it.
Last week New Orleanians were outraged that emergency relief had not arrived yet. Many people want to blame under-funding of the Army Corps of Engineers for levy failures and global warming for the severity of the huricaine. Others blame New Orleans for being such a sinful place.
Toby Kieth made a fortune on his angry country-rock anthem “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue” after 9/11. Many justify the war in Iraq as “taking the war to the terrorists” even though Iraq had nothing to do with Bin Ladin, Al Queda, or 9/11. When you’re angry, you desperately want to take it out on someone.
Stage THREE: Bargaining. Eventually, the grieving person tries to make deals with God, asking, "If I do this, will you take away the pain?" What do I have to do to change things? This is also the questioning stage, as it “why did this have to happen?” WHY ME? When will it end? What did I/we do to deserve this? What did they do to deserve this? As if it was anyone’s fault.
Stage FOUR: Depression. This is when you feel numb, although anger and sadness may remain underneath. Watching the news coverage of the Katrina aftermath is certainly depressing, mostly because it makes me feel like there’s nothing I can do to help. Fortunately, there are ways we can help. I’ve listed a few of them at the end of this column.
Stage FIVE: Acceptance. This is when the anger, sadness and mourning finally taper off. You just accept the reality of the loss. You don’t ever “get over it,” you’re never “better.” In fact, you’re probably never the same, but you are finally able to move on and the pain is finally not so intense or acute.
Will we ever get over 9/11? How long will it take to get over Katrina? Will there ever be a New Orleans again, and what will it be like? We can’t know, but we have to believe that eventually we will accept what has happened to us and how it has changed us.
In the early stages of the hurricane clean-up the best ways to help are by donating blood or money. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a website with a list of agencies you can contact to find out how to help:
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease_print.fema?id=18473
You might also get in touch with these organizations:
American Red Cross
1-800-HELP NOW (435-7669)
Salvation Army
1-800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769)
This Sunday will mark the fourth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on the domestic United States. Three years ago we decided to commemorate the nearly 3,000 Americans, both innocent victims as well as police, fire and emergency rescue workers lost in the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center by renaming September 11, “Patriot Day.”
Unfortunately, when we should be beginning to heal, our grief as a Nation has been exacerbated, first by a difficult and divisive war, and no by the worst natural disaster in our Nation’s history. Her name, was Katrina.
New Orleans already had a staggering poverty rate of 28%. That’s more than twice the national rate. The poorest parts of the city were worst hit. Their homes were at the lowest elevation and were the least structurally sound. It was harder for poor people to evacuate. They don't own cars, can't afford to rent a car. Sometimes they can't even afford a tank of gas - especially lately. They can't afford a plane, train, or bus ticket. People in poverty can't afford to pay for motel or hotel rooms, and don’t always have credit cards.
We will be coping with the aftermath of Katrina for perhaps years to come. New Orleans had a population of around a half million. Imagine 500,000 people suddenly homeless and unemployed. Of course, the death toll will probably be in the thousands as well.
Commentators spoke in the wake of 9/11 about the end of America’s innocence. It is an awkward situation for us to be in to be the richest, most powerful country in the world, and to have scores of national governments offering us aid the same way we did for victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean last winter. The proud, independent Uncle Sam, receiving charity.
Perhaps, like a stubborn adolescent, we are suffering through growing pains. Perhaps we will do well to develop a humble sense of interdependence. Perhaps we need to recognize the five stages of our grief.
Stage ONE: Denial and Isolation. At first, we tend to deny the loss has taken place, and may withdraw from our usual social contacts.
I remember being dumbfounded on September 11, 2001. Surely it didn’t happen, this can’t be real, I thought. No doubt residents of the Gulf Coast can barely believe what they’re living through. Even today, four years later, there are conspiracy theorists who claim that our own government staged the September 11th attacks.
Stage TWO: Anger. This is when you become furious at the person who inflicted the hurt , or at the God, or world, for letting it happen. You might even get angry with yourself for letting something happen, even if, nothing could have stopped it.
Last week New Orleanians were outraged that emergency relief had not arrived yet. Many people want to blame under-funding of the Army Corps of Engineers for levy failures and global warming for the severity of the huricaine. Others blame New Orleans for being such a sinful place.
Toby Kieth made a fortune on his angry country-rock anthem “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue” after 9/11. Many justify the war in Iraq as “taking the war to the terrorists” even though Iraq had nothing to do with Bin Ladin, Al Queda, or 9/11. When you’re angry, you desperately want to take it out on someone.
Stage THREE: Bargaining. Eventually, the grieving person tries to make deals with God, asking, "If I do this, will you take away the pain?" What do I have to do to change things? This is also the questioning stage, as it “why did this have to happen?” WHY ME? When will it end? What did I/we do to deserve this? What did they do to deserve this? As if it was anyone’s fault.
Stage FOUR: Depression. This is when you feel numb, although anger and sadness may remain underneath. Watching the news coverage of the Katrina aftermath is certainly depressing, mostly because it makes me feel like there’s nothing I can do to help. Fortunately, there are ways we can help. I’ve listed a few of them at the end of this column.
Stage FIVE: Acceptance. This is when the anger, sadness and mourning finally taper off. You just accept the reality of the loss. You don’t ever “get over it,” you’re never “better.” In fact, you’re probably never the same, but you are finally able to move on and the pain is finally not so intense or acute.
Will we ever get over 9/11? How long will it take to get over Katrina? Will there ever be a New Orleans again, and what will it be like? We can’t know, but we have to believe that eventually we will accept what has happened to us and how it has changed us.
In the early stages of the hurricane clean-up the best ways to help are by donating blood or money. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a website with a list of agencies you can contact to find out how to help:
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease_print.fema?id=18473
You might also get in touch with these organizations:
American Red Cross
1-800-HELP NOW (435-7669)
Salvation Army
1-800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769)
FEMA: Cash Sought To Help Hurricane Victims, Volunteers Should Not Self-Dispatch
Click HERE for a list of chairitable organizations and ways that you can help victims of hurricane Katrina.
FEMA: Cash Sought To Help Hurricane Victims, Volunteers Should Not Self-Dispatch
Click HERE for a list of chairitable organizations and ways that you can help victims of hurricane Katrina.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Here's my shingle. I thought that it was about time that I hung one up. Click Here for Ted's Tees
You can see some of my t-shirt designs on my new blog. email me at coachmallory@hotmail.com or call 712-678-3397 for a free estimate.
Mallory
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
"Love and Tenderness; and Davis Sandborn's Sax" oil and acrylic on board, 1992
this was a present to a dear, dear friend of ours, the best man in our wedding. He played his alto sax at our wedding, even though this is a tenor or baritone in the painting, the spirit of jazz is the same- free improvisation, cool and sophisticated, yet playful and free.
Mallory
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