An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last. -Winston Churchill

Please get on board. Make up your mind, you either need to get with the program, or quit pretended you condemn terrorism.

You are no friend to Britain or the U.S. You only prance around trying to appease both the U.S. and the terrorist at the same time, hoping to get as much economic benefit as possible without pulling your own weight.

Fine, sit there, spineless as ever. One of these days, even your own people will throw you out of office, no matter how much you blame your fledgling administration on Bush.

I’m not sure how I feel about the Union Jack flying over our State Department today.

Actually, I’m pretty sure I do know how I feel about it. I’m all for solidarity, that’s not exactly customary, and it doesn’t really even do anything to help anyone.

It was very bleak today. I’m not just referring to the weather, though it contributed, but rather to the piling up of things I don’t know how to deal with. I woke up with very little sleep over the course of the last few nights. Last night was because Mamaw underwent emergency exploratory surgery; without it, she’d have surely died, but with it the doctor only gave her a 50/50 chance. She made it through, and was in stable condition, but by that time it was already past midnight.

I wake up this morning–barely–to the hard rain outside my window. As soon as I make it out of the shower and flip on the morning news–I’ve gotten into the habit of doing that lately–I hear the terrible news about London. I could only muster a furrowing of my brow. Ali’s in London right now, and I’m worried about her. I know she’s alright, but that doesn’t let me rest easy until I’ve heard something.

I am sad, and it’s a deep continuous sadness that I’ve felt all day. It’s the kind of underlying emotion that’ll make you tear up at some random time without provocation. You’ll find yourself staring at a dusty bookshelf as your vision goes blurry until someone breaks in with, “Are you okay?”

No… not really.

Who are you? Who am I? Let’s go ahead and admit that we’re all constantly searching to find our identity. Oftentimes it seems people are looking outwardly to determine their identity: from the particular styles of clothes they choose to the kinds of people they associate themselves with. Sometimes it’s not so apparent. Personally, much of the energy I spent on my identity in high school was in an effort to become the kind of person people wanted to be around, and hardly for noble reasons. I simply wanted to be surrounded with people who coddled me and told me they liked me. And I wanted to be “the sensitive guy” that all the girls claimed they wanted. All those personalities only bought me a lot of heartache.

More…

Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he would not need it.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity p. 57

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity p. 39

Away Message evangelism:

A young man was training to be an Olympic diver. Raised as an atheist, the only religious influence he’d ever had came from his Christian friend. Even though he heard his friend’s sermons often, he never paid much attention. One night, the diver went to his college’s indoor pool. The lights were off, but skylights and a full moon gave enough light to practice. He climbed the steps of the high dive, walked to the edge of the board, turned his back to the pool, extended his arms out… and then he saw his shadow on the wall– forming the shape of a cross. He felt an odd sensation, like someone was speaking to him. Instead of diving, the young man knelt down on the board and finally asked God to enter his life. He stood as a maintenance man came in, turning on the lights. The pool was drained for repairs.

The guy who wrote this piece has only heard about what pools are like from stories told to him long ago during his childhood. Also, there’s enough light to form shadows but not enough for a seasoned swimmer to notice the pool was empty?