The Faithful Skeptic

So Hillary is running…  Personally I think the US could use a woman president.  I’m not sure if Hillary is the right woman, but that’s another discussion.

The problem with Hillary is that a lot (and I mean a lot) of serious Republicans hate her guts.  They hate her so much that the eventual Republican candidate could go on national TV and strangle puppies and kittens and these people would still vote Republican.

The thing I have trouble understanding is why they hate her so much.  Really, she’s not all that liberal.  She’s a pretty moderate candidate, all things considered.  But that’s not really the issue here.

Whatever the case, she’s a lightening rod.  If the Democratic money machine can’t figure that out, they’re their own worst enemy. If the Democrats want to win in 2008, they can’t nominate her. 

There’s an interesting post at Concurring Opinions (a legal blog) on the Bible as pedagogical tool for law students.  While that particular topic may not be of interest to people, the author talks a little about whether the Bible is the basis of our legal system and the types of laws we see in the Bible.  I found it interesting.  YMMV.

Blogging has been virutally non-existent because of work, but also because of life. Work is crazy as my organization is in the middle of a very large software selection process and planning for implementation. I’m the project manager and this has meant lots of hours over the past couple of weeks. Things should slow down in about 2 years…

I’ve been frustrated with myself that I haven’t been able to keep up a decent pace of blogging on religion/theology topics. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been in a spiritual funk for the last several years. I think part of the problem was some challenges our family was dealing with at our former church. But we’ve changed churches and the funk has persisted. I’ve started playing in a handbell choir, which has been very fulfilling spiritually, but not intellectually.

I think part of my intellectual funk is the reality of family life. My daughter was born almost three years ago, and my son was born a little more than a year ago. I love my family and wouldn’t trade them for anything, but at the same time I joke that I don’t have time for any personal pursuits that require more than 10 minutes of uninterrupted activity. That’s pretty limiting.

I don’t resent (most of the time) the requirements of family life. Sarah and I definitely chose to have children and chose the timing as well. I’ve chosen to be an involved father and I love spending time with my family. I can’t imagine not being involved in the lives of my children. But I also have interests that I want to nurture.

So I think I’m going to use this space to talk about the things that I’ve found time to stay interested in. Those topics have a relationship to the church, if only passing. I’m going to try to focus on technology, parenting, and other topics as they come up.

…too busy this week.  We’re selecting a new financial accounting system at work.  I’m swamped.

As we were driving south on I-5 near Salem last week I noticed something I hadn’t seen before: a large cross on top of a hill had a cell site attached to it. The pics are here. The cross is very large and on top of hill on a busy section of I-5 - it must be a great site for some cell phone carrier. The cross is located on the property of the Willamette Christian School.

On one hand I’m inclined to congratulate the school for finding a unique way to bring in some cash because it isn’t that noticeable. On the hand, it feels a little wrong to use that particular symbol to bring in some cash. But then our society has exploited the cross for commercial purposes in every other conceivable way, so why not this one?