Whom to Blame for the Harris Loss

 

To put it bluntly: 

Blame the Democratic party leadership, directly, for Harris' stunning loss today.

Consider this analogy:
Mom is spending an entire week cooking and preparing a huge meal for the entire family; her teen-aged daughter is helping, but in comparatively minor ways.  The morning before the big family dinner, Mom becomes extremely ill and is confined to her bed. She tells her daughter that she must finish all the cooking and preparation, with less than 24 hours to get it all done.

This is precisely the situation Harris found herself in:  Rushed into the role with a hasty pro-forma exercise of awarding her all the Dem delegates and given a mere 100 days to formulate some sort of platform and hit the campaign trail.

It didn't have to be this way:  The Democratic leadership, early on, should have taken seriously the increasingly noticeable cognitive decline in Biden, "encouraged" him not to run, and found a much more suitable candidate to challenge what became a red wave of defeat for their party this morning.  Without enough time to adequately prepare for and execute a successful campaign, the Harris team started from behind and never gained much traction.

2019-2020 Presidential Campaign: During his 2020 campaign for president, there were occasional moments where Biden appeared to misspeak, forget names, or become confused during public speeches. 

2020 Democratic Primaries: Biden's campaign was frequently marked by verbal stumbles, confusing statements, and moments of apparent forgetfulness.

2021-2023 Post-Inauguration: Once Biden took office in January 2021, questions about his cognitive abilities mounted. There were several public incidents where Biden seemed to lose his train of thought, stumbling over words or appearing confused about particular details.

Debate Performances: By now, everyone knows that Biden's disastrous debate performance in June 2024 marked the end of his bid for re-election; but by then it was too late. As early as 2020, during the presidential debates, Biden showed signs of confusion or struggle to articulate his thoughts at times, which should have warned Democratic party leaders that he might not be mentally fit for the presidency.

By the time Harris was thrust into the spotlight, combined with her refusal to distinguish herself from the Biden administration, the writing on the wall was beginning to appear.

Blame the Democrats themselves for their monumental defeat in this presidential election, which surely had repercussions in State races as well.

The Downfall of a Good and Just Society

 

 

On the neighborhood-based social media app "NextDoor" this morning, a woman posted her shock and dismay at seeing a young man stealing snacks and drinks from a local grocery store, in full view of shoppers and even the General Manger of the store.  The GM told him to "put down those items and leave the store", to which he replied, "What are you going to do about it?"  He left with his stolen goods and disappeared long before the police arrived.

American news is bursting these days with stories of people behaving horribly:  From brazen, open-air murders to car jackings, looting, fist-fights (with onlookers shouting encouragement), theft, "checking cars" (where groups of hoodlums canvass a neighborhood to see which cars are unlocked), drivers whose sound systems boom so loudly they rattle the windows of buildings 2 blocks away, and so much more...  

It seems as if we are watching the slow-motion Downfall of a Good and Just society.

There have always bad people doing bad things, of course, and there always will be.  A "Good and Just Society", however, can be approximated as one in which the vast majority of members have a shared sense of Values, a common Respect for authority, other members, and themselves.  What would it look like if those Values and that Respect continued to erode across wider swaths of a Society?

Here's a Thought Experiment:

Imagine you go to see a movie at the theatre... It's a popular movie, the house is packed, and you're excited as the film begins.  But to your dismay and frustration, you hear people crackling their snack packaging here and there, quite a few people around you are talking loudly, and some are even playing media, out loud, on their devices.  None of them, apparently, have any concern about disturbing those around them who are trying to watch the movie.

Enjoying the film would be nearly impossible; if most of the people in that theatre have no Respect (for authority, others, or even themselves), your only recourse is to get up and leave, demand a refund from the management, and go home.  

We can debate why anyone would act that way, and we could even make the argument that bad behavior has always been there and that it is Technology making us all aware of it; these are good conversations to have.  Ultimately, many of us will ask the (mostly rhetorical) question of what can be done about it...

But the results of what seems like a trend toward horrible behavior are not difficult to foresee:  Roaming gangs of opportunists in cities and towns across America, consuming anything they choose, heaping brutality on anyone who gets in their way, and establishing their "territories" through violence and fear.

What's to stop them?

 

The LOVE Collection

THE
LOVE 
COLLECTION

More and more, I am convinced that the central focus of the Christian Faith is LOVE.

This collection of writings can help us understand what LOVE looks like.



LOVE GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE
http://www.openbible.info/labs/cross-references/search?q=Mathew+22%3A37
http://tanovel.com/mere-christianity/-chapter-19-136461.htm

LOVE OTHERS as DIRECT ACTS of LOVING GOD
http://www.openbible.info/labs/cross-references/search?q=1+John+4%3A20
 
LOVE, NOT "RELIGION", IS THE CORE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
http://www.openbible.info/labs/cross-references/search?q=1+Corinthians+13%3A13

GOD WANTS TO GIVE US HIS HEART
http://www.openbible.info/labs/cross-references/search?q=Ezekiel+36%3A26

GOD SAYS MERE "RELIGION" MISSES THE POINT ENTIRELY
http://www.openbible.info/labs/cross-references/search?q=Isaiah+58%3A6
 
WE SHOULD SHOW OTHERS THE MERCY SHOWN TO US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_unforgiving_servant
http://tanovel.com/mere-christianity/-chapter-17-136459.htm

THE HEART OF JESUS WAS ABOUT SERVANTHOOD ... OURS SHOULD BE, TOO
http://www.openbible.info/labs/cross-references/search?q=pHILIPPIANS+2%3A7

WE ARE TO VALUE OTHERS AHEAD OF OURSELVES
http://www.openbible.info/labs/cross-references/search?q=pHILIPPIANS+2%3A3

OUR HEARTS SHOULD BE CHARACTERIZED BY HUMILITY
(NOTE:  PRIDE IS THE WORST SIN OF THEM ALL)
https://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/bible-verses-about-humility-20-scriptures-on-being-humble/
http://tanovel.com/mere-christianity/-chapter-18-136460.htm
 
HEART CHANGE COMES AS OUR MINDS ARE TRANSFORMED
http://www.christinyou.net/pages/renewmind.html

What are your best Features?

Have you ever actively considered what your best facial features are?  Could you maybe name them for someone else?  What do you suppose others – especially strangers – would say are the most pleasing aspects of your looks?

The skin care company DOVE conducted a campaign some time ago, along these very lines:  They found that many of us – particularly women – tend to be critical of how we look.  We minimize what might be our best features, and we focus instead on what we view as “imperfections”.

This disparaging view of our appearance “impacts everything”, a participant noted.  It affects our jobs, our relationships, and our overall sense of well-being.  When we focus primarily on our “imperfections” or “flaws”, we tend to overlook or minimize the objectively pleasing aspects of our looks, and we are less happy than we might otherwise be.

How could Dove help women – and men, too – feel better about their looks?  How might they help people see the Beauty in their faces, and encourage them toward acknowledgment and gratitude for their truly attractive features?

           The answer was to have a Sketch artists draw the face of each person, first from

           their own descriptions, and then from descriptions of others in the exercise who had 

           just met them.  The differences in the sketches were poignant:  The ones drawn 

           based on what others saw in each participant were much more pleasing than the 

          ones drawn from self-description, and each of the subjects was moved to appreciate 

          his or her own natural beauty in a whole new way, seeing themselves through the 

          eyes of others.

The HEART of Christianity

"The giving of the white stone with the new name is the communication of what God thinks about the man to the man. It is the divine judgment, the solemn holy doom of the righteous man, the “Come, thou blessed,” spoken to the individual…. The true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the man’s own symbol—his soul’s picture, in a word—the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is..."

"It is only when the man has become his name that God gives him the stone with the name upon it, for then first can he understand what his name signifies. It is the blossom, the perfection, the completeness, that determines the name: and God foresees that from the first because He made it so: but the tree of the soul, before its blossom comes, cannot understand what blossom it is to bear and could not know what the word meant, which, in representing its own unarrived completeness, named itself. Such a name cannot be given until the man is the name. God’s name for a man must be the expression of His own idea of the man, that being whom He had in His thought when he began to make the child, and whom He kept in His thought through the long process of creation that went to realize the idea. To tell the name is to seal the success—to say 'In thee also I am well pleased.' ”

"The name is one 'which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.' Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God. He is to God a peculiar being, made after his own fashion, and that of no one else. Hence he can worship God as no man else can worship Him."

-- George MacDonald

THIS is the central Theme of the Christian Gospel!  The whole point of all the theology, all the worship and faithful practice, is that we – God’s masterpieces – become what He intends to make of us, all for His own glory.

Prayers Satan LOVES

"It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very ‘spiritual’, that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism. Two advantages will follow. In the first place, his attention will be kept on what he regards as her sins, by which, with a little guidance from you, he can be induced to mean any of her actions which are inconvenient or irritating to himself. Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees; the operation is not at all difficult and you will find it very entertaining. In the second place, since his ideas about her soul will be very crude and often erroneous, he will, in some degree, be praying for an imaginary person, and it will be your task to make that imaginary person daily less and less like the real mother—the sharp-tongued old lady at the breakfast table. In time, you may get the cleavage so wide that no thought or feeling from his prayers for the imagined mother will ever flow over into his treatment of the real one. I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moment’s notice from impassioned prayer for a wife’s or son’s ‘soul’ to beating or insulting the real wife or son without a qualm."    

-- from "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis

2 kinds of Kindness

We often hear about what are commonly called "random acts of kindness", small things people do, spontaneously, for another person, just to show Kindness. These are terrific, of course, and often very heart-warming; YouTube is full of videos showing these kinds of Kind actions...

Kindness is, probably, most often thought of in "pro-active" terms:  We determine to BE kind, to INITIATE Kindness, through actions or words; but there is another kind of Kindness, too, that may be just as important:  RESPONSIVE Kindness.

How We Respond
The Scriptures tell us that Kindness is a fundamental component of godly LOVE, and that we're to not only demonstrate Kindness but to also respond to others with Kindness: 

Romans 12:14
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
 
Luke 6:27-28
But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
 
Matthew 5:39-42
But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

Of course, it's not always about responding in Kindness to BAD things; perhaps we might focus more on responding with Kindness to the needs, wants, wishes, thoughts, feelings and desires of those around us, as a way of showing (and living) true, from-the-heart, biblical LOVE...

Here are some examples of RESPONSIVE Kindness, to spark our imagination:

1.  A homeless person asks for help...
          Respond with money, or food, or at least a kind word
2.  An elderly person boards your train...
          Respond by offering your seat
3.  A child clamors to tell her story to you...
          Respond with your undivided, loving Attention
4.  A friend breaks down as he shares his hurt...
          Respond with gestures of Empathy and Compassion
5.  Your spouse expresses Frustration or Disappointment...
          Respond with Patience and Listening skills... work together toward Resolution
6.  Someone prepares a nice meal for you...
          Respond with sincere expressions of Gratitude and Appreciation
7.  Your child is trying hard to do better...
          Respond by giving him/her words of Encouragement, perhaps
          even a Reward of some sort

Of course, one's Heart and Mind probably have to be ready, at all times, to respond with Kindness when the opportunities come; but of course that's just the kind of Metamorphosis (Romans 12:2) that Sanctification is all about, right?