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After much consideration I finally added advertisements to this blog.  Visitor traffic is up, as is bandwidth usage, so I’m hoping that the two will balance out.  Some of the ads are context-based, and some are referral-based ads that I selected from a list.  Please don’t assume I endorse anything, although there should be nothing illegal or immoral displayed - if there is, please email me to let me know at laura@pursuingholiness.com.

Out Of The Office and Obituaries

I’ve been out of the office the past few days for several reasons, so posting has been nonexistent/light. I’ve had time to moderate a few comments, but that’s been about it. One of my clients died suddenly, and I’ve had some personal issues to deal with including feeling like absolute crap physically. I did manage to get to the wake - it was such a tragedy for such a young man to die. He had just turned 31, and died in a car accident. The same thing happened to my cousin - also 31 - in June, and I wasn’t able to go to the funeral. I’m reposting what I wrote about it at the time.

This wake was much like my cousin’s had been described, although for my cousin there were quite a few political figures from his state, whereas at this wake, there were celebrities. I don’t follow entertainment news - with the exception of being force-fed information about Paris Hilton by Fox, CNN, and MSNBC - but I saw a lot of familiar faces and couldn’t connect the names other than Christie Brinkley, Cindy Lauper and Lenny Kravitz. My client, like my cousin, had a remarkable life, ended without warning. It’s very sobering. And it reminds me that today is the day that we choose what will be written about us when we’re gone.

____________________
Write Your Own Obituary

I suffer from some chronic health problems, but nothing life-threatening. Nevertheless, I not only have a will, but my funeral service is planned right down to the music; songs that I think will comfort whoever I leave behind. I have not, however, written my own obituary. At least not directly. I certainly can control what’s in it as far as source material. Sunday morning, my uncle heard the words no parent wants to hear. His son is gone.

[Larry], 31, of **** and ****, passed away in **** on June 10, 2007 from injuries received in a motor vehicle accident. [He was driving home in a bad fog, very early in the morning after a kayaking trip.]Larry was … a published freelance photojournalist and his photos and articles were published in papers such as ****.

Larry lived life to the fullest and was an avid outdoor enthusiast. He was a skilled whitewater kayaker, and enjoyed spending time on the rivers with his many friends across the country. He also enjoyed downhill skiing and did so in the Swiss Alps as well as numerous mountains in the U.S. Among his many other interests were tele-skiing, ice and rock climbing, biking and motorcycling. Larry also was known as an environmentalist and animal-rights activist.

Larry and his friends enjoyed rebuilding vintage Land Rovers and one local paper described him as “able to build a four-wheel drive out of the junk in your basement.” His friends describe him as a natural comedian with a quick wit and always willing to do anything to help a friend. He will be remembered as a great son and brother and will be sadly missed.

Sounds like a pretty good life, doesn’t it? Anything missing? Right now, our whole family is shocked and grieving. A death, especially one as unexpected as this, a man as young as Larry was, shakes you up, breaks the routine as family members all over the country scramble to get to a small town in Maine where the funeral will be held. And moments like this make you reflect. Why him? Why not me? Why not you? What comfort is available for my aunt and uncle right now? Their grief must be unbearable. But they have to bear it. So we get in cars, trains and planes to go see if we can shoulder part of that burden. We can’t, really. But maybe the knowledge that so many would like to will be a comfort to them. And maybe they’ll turn to the One who can carry that load - whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. I hope they will.

What would you like to see written about you when you’re gone? Sooner or later it will be your turn. Today is the day you get to choose what people will say about you when you can no longer speak for yourself.

The Jena 6: Open Thread

Keep it polite, and everybody act like grownups or we’ll go to a registered-users-only system.

Aaron Broussard, Unmitigated Disaster

Remember Aaron Broussard, “lyin’ and cryin’” on Meet the Press in Katrina’s aftermath? He’s actually running for re-election. Wuzzadem had him pegged very early on, but here’s the video if you need a refresher.

In spite of personally causing between $3 and $5 BILLION dollars in damage to Jefferson Parish, he actually has the nerve to run again. It’s actually very hard to get recalled in Louisiana - the law demands an unreasonably high number of signatures. But it should be easier to get him out of office at election time. There is so much hostility against him that even though he has vastly outmatched his opponent, Alan Leone, in spending, there is an excellent chance he will lose.Broussard is an unmitigated disaster, and I don’t say that because he’s a Democrat. The fact that he recently ran campaign commercials taking credit for the economic boom after Katrina has infuriated many people. We know where that boom is coming from - the tens of thousands of new appliances we had to buy, the millions of dollars homeowners have spent trying to make their homes livable again since Broussard made the unbelievably bad decision to send the pump operators to the state line instead of keeping them local like other essential personnel. While it’s true that he caused it, it’s hardly something he should be bragging about. His poor decisions didn’t stop there - he commandeered a local hospital and drove nearly 700 employees to the brink of unemployment. He paid a friend of his $15,000 to “manage” the hospital while Broussard used it as a hotel. He followed up these offenses by using taxpayer money to defend himself with advertising in the Times-Picayune.

It’s high time he was removed from office. If you’re a Jefferson Parish voter, click here to check out AnybodyButBroussard.com, with links to help you register to vote or to find your polling place.

The Jena 6: “Free the Jena 6″ t-shirts not allowed at school

Jena High School bans ‘Free the Jena 6′ T-shirts:

The LaSalle Parish schools superintendent says T-shirts supporting six black students accused of knocking out a white student, then kicking and stamping on him are a “threat to the order of the campus” at Jena High school.
Superintendent Roy Breithaupt says the “Free the Jena 6″ T-shirts worn Tuesday by eight or nine students caused disruption on campus, and that — not the shirts themselves — was why administrators announced that the shirts cannot be worn at school.

This is going to make a lot of people angry, but the superintendent is on solid legal ground. In a school in Michigan, a student was banned from wearing a message t-shirt, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision (emphasis added):

Yesterday, the 9th Circuit majority said “the school is permitted to prohibit Harper’s conduct … if it can demonstrate that the restriction was necessary to prevent either the violation of the rights of other students or substantial disruption of school activities.“

How’s that petard feel, political correctness advocates?

The Jena 6: Mychal Bell’s Criminal History

I have posted a lot of about the Jena 6, and nearly all of it has been supportive. I still believe that attempted second-degree murder charges are excessive and that this should have been handled within the juvenile justice system. But I have to acknowledge that several commenters (From Jena, James Black, Lillie) who have insisted all along that Mychal Bell had priors were correct. While I don’t necessarily agree with the way those priors were characterized (”Bell terrorized his own community,” etc.) this article confirms the fact. While it’s undisputed that Mychal Bell was an honor roll student, it is now also proved that he had a criminal record, including violent crimes, starting two years before the Justin Barker beating.

• Battery - 12/25/2005
• Criminal damage to property - 7/25/2006
• Battery - 9/2006
• Criminal damage to property - 9/2006

This explains the fact that Bell’s bail was much higher than the others.  As I said, I still disagree with the 2nd degree attempted murder charge and the fact that 5 of the 6 are being charged as adults in any event - and for those who use Bell’s priors to justify it, how does that factor into the fact that the other 5 in the Jena 6 are still facing that charge?  However, this is important information and should be noted by all Jena 6 defenders.

Christian Business

As a Christian who is also a business owner, I sometimes struggle with decisions where my faith and business intersect. Though that may seem odd to non-Christians, people who truly practice Christianity do so in an all-encompassing way. And as with any other faith, Christians believe that we are in possession of The Truth. This frequently offends non-Christians. Ace, a non-believer, had a post that expressed this phenomenon better than I ever could. It’s long, but here’s a snippet:

Most religions have a dogma. If you believe in it, you’re part of the religion. If you don’t, you’re not. So let’s have an end to this childish insistence that Christians re-write their religion, removing the very Christ from Christianity, just so some people don’t have to feel bad about going to a Christian Hell they’re quite certain is a dark fairy tale told to imbeciles.

But It’s Impolite To Say! No, what’s impolite is cross-examining people until they say so.

Most Christians who get heat for this don’t offer the statement “You’re going to Hell” of their own volition. What usually happens is that non-believers begin badgering them — “You can’t possibly believe I’m going to Hell!” — which Christians initially attempt to deflect away. Because they do in fact wish to be polite, and don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.

But if you keep badgering a committed Christian this way, your are forcing him to choose between 1) Being polite and 2) Expressly repudiating his religion.

At some point the deflections stop working and this becomes a very easy call.

I don’t go marching around like some kind of eternal life travel agent, telling people where they’re going to go. I think that’s both useless and offensive, and I’ve had to help clean up the mess after other Christians have done that to people I love. I do share my faith; it’s so all-encompassing that I can’t not share it. There is no part of my life which is separate from my faith; my faith IS my life. It affects my business all the time, but in ways of which others are not aware.

I was Googling for information about portolets for a client who tends to give me no information, but who wants content to magically appear on his website. I know nothing about portolets except they’re all basically the same, so I wanted to see what other vendors had to say about them. Instead, I found this distressing article. Evidently the business owner felt that providing any services to pagans would violate his convictions. But… they had a contract. What a terrible witness to go back on your word! How awful that he had to be pressured by adverse media attention into doing the right thing.

Recently I had to make a decision to take on a client who is selling a product which is not compatible with my faith. It’s perfectly legal, and perfectly moral, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it from a worldly perspective. But do I want to spend my time and energy building this site? Will it damage anyone, or hinder them from understanding Christianity? Would the decision to not build it hinder the client, who is a seeker? Is my encounter with him a “ministry opportunity?” These are questions I ask myself, remembering that I am “in the world” and not “of the world.” There aren’t easy answers, and I’m just as susceptible to poor judgment as anyone else. In making decisions, including business decisions, I rely on the bible, prayer, and advice from mature Christians.

Nothing restricts me from doing business with non-Christians, and I don’t do business solely with people I agree with or admire. I’m careful about making commitments to people - careful to find out what is involved before I give my word. And I have referred potential clients to another web developer. Before starting a project, not afterwards. My job involves the promotion of ideas, and ideas matter. That’s why people want a website, after all - to promote something. But if I were selling pencils - or providing portolets - what ideas are relevant then? Is anything being promoted? Will anyone be swayed? Back when my job was to provide computer training, I did so without regard to the client, his industry, or his beliefs. As I see it, in those circumstances, my job as a Christian is to represent.

John Piper writes,

On almost every disagreement that Christians have about what should be believed and what should be done, someone is living in “unrepentant sin”—that is, they are not doing what they ought to do and they are not confessing it as sin…. The question is: what do we do with all these Christians who can’t agree on what ought to be done and therefore do the wrong things and don’t confess it as sin? I argue that every Christian has always had a category of behaviors and a category of attitudes about behaviors that they believe are not what God wants us to do, but do not consign a person who does not believe the same to the category of church discipline. We agree to disagree in the faith, because we agree that the other person is earnestly seeking for the light of God and that the nature of the sin is not such that it calls their faith into question or threatens their soul or undermines the gospel. Admittedly this is muddy, but it seems inevitable (Phil. 3:15).” (from an email newsletter)

I don’t know whether the portolet guy was right or wrong for refusing to do business with pagans.  I know a man with an employment agency who flat refuses to work with the gambling industry.  He just will not do it.  My clients run the gamut of different political persuasions, sexual practices, faiths and philosophies.  For me, I draw the line based on what idea is being promoted.  What about Christian pharmacists refusing to dispense “morning after” pills and Muslim cab drivers refusing to carry dogs or alcohol?

Once you have given your word and signed a contract (or taken a job that clearly requires you to do certain things), it’s a whole other ballgame.  If he felt that strongly about it, he should have first shopped around until he found a replacement at the same price - or made up the difference himself for the length of the contract - then approached his clients and explained that because of his religious convictions, he was asking them to release him, and that the level of service and the price would not change with his replacement.  Reasonable people - and from the post, they certainly seemed reasonable, and even have a pretty well developed sense of humor - would have released him.  But if they had not, in my opinion he should have continued with the contract as originally agreed.

As for me, I’m still working all this out and taking it on a case by case basis.  In the case of that recent project I mentioned, I declined the job and sent him on to an acquaintance of mine.

Gov. Blanco One Of “10 Most Inspiring Women” ?!

‘Inspiring Women’ list includes Blanco

Gov. Kathleen Blanco has been named to SELF Magazine’s list of “10 Most Inspiring Women” in the September issue.

WHAT have the editors at “Self” been smoking?!

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