LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

This is not a time to pray and pay

– Bumper sticker of the week: There is always a price.

– Quote of the week: "Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy." Joseph Campbell

– I received 25 e-mails regarding my suggestion that it may be time for a referendum to determine whether or not we should remain a home rule municipality. Twenty-four were supportive of the notion to cough up a referendum. One was supportive of continuing as a home rule city. The mayor really should have had the city manager send the e-mail from the library.

– When the Democratic leaders in Congress follow along with Bush's plan to eavesdrop on Americans, it's bad. When they give him more money to run his own private wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's worse. When they refuse to end his shunning of habeas corpus, it's over. They're all looking more and more the same. The best thing we can do this coming election is boycott. Rather than another year as usual, 2008 could be a marker in history. The year the citizens of the United States declared that we are better off with no one leading us, rather than more of the same. What a year it would be! "Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?" Joseph Campbell

– Bush and Musharraf come from the same mold. It needs to be broken.

– Sell the landfill. There's a novel idea. The only business the county runs that makes any money, and the county board wants to sell it. They must have been filled with Christmas Folly. The only buyer would be Waste Management. Then watch our disposal rates go up.

– The city should put a tax on penis use. If they weren't used so much, our STD's would go down.

– Speaking of taxes: They can't tax our dissent.

– The world doesn't need any more ministers. We need doers. We need people who fashion their life after Christ. To say less and do more. This is a radical way of life that cannot be measured by the size of a congregation or the splendor of a cathedral. This is working on the street with the poor. There is no need for a robe or a collar. They'll know who you are not by your words, but by your actions. Then you can proudly call you're a Christian, following in the footsteps of Christ. Then they can see what it is you're doing, and people can make their own judgments about how righteous or charitable it might be. Until that happens, a minister is wasting everyone's energy and time, hiding behind a pulpit, begging for more money to build a bigger building and pay themselves more. Each year they slide further down on the "significant profession" poll. They become more distant from the model Christ demonstrated for us as people who should give their possessions away and follow Him. And He didn't go to the country club or the temple, He went to the street. He declared those people His brothers and sisters, and did what He could to help. That's our calling. Sitting in that pew on a Sunday morning should be a time to rest and plan, not a time to pray and pay.

– Why is it those who are fighting for truth and justice are often assassinated? People begin to think that evil is prevailing. Often, those fighting for justice, equal rights, freedom, are killed for their efforts. Look at Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy, Che Guevara, Benazir Bhutto. Evil shot them down. One gets the notion that evil triumphs over good. But that's not so. If the liberators of the world retaliated, then evil wins. You have to hold yourself up, stay out of the quicksand of killing, guns, revenge. I had a guy e-mail me about my advocating non-violence. He said if l wasn't man enough to defend myself and my family, he would be willing to kill anyone trying to hurt us, as something of a favor. I said no thanks. He just doesn't get it.