The Sad Case of Mr. Whipple

I know this is sad, but it's also funny. I mean, how often do you hear of a guy getting passed-out drunk then floating out to sea on a child pool floatie? Only to be found by a rich guy on a yacht who thinks he's found a dead guy. Who calls in the Coast Guard. Who comes in and picks up the guy (whose name is Mr. Whipple by the way) and takes him in and processes him. Who may get charged for "operating a seafaring craft while under the influence." I mean, you can't make this stuff up. Truth is certainly, once again, stranger than fiction.

Mr. Whipple, you, Sir, win the coveted "Stupid Person of the Day" award.

Full story here:

Coast Guard rescues unwitting drunk man one mile offshore, drifting on pool floatie | Gadling.com

How To Move On

I was listening to my IPod yesterday while mowing grass and U2's "Stuck In The Moment" started to play. It's not my favorite U2 song (mostly for the music) but the lyrics are good. Bono sings in his customary voice, "You've got to get yourself together; you've got stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it". That's happened to all of us at some point along the way. Life hits us hard with a job loss, a failed relationship, a health concern - whatever. And we get...stuck. We don't know what to do. I kind of feel like an "expert" in this area, but only because of a lot of trials and errors. Over time I've been able to develop an Approach on How To Move On (although I haven't perfected it yet).


1. Acceptance.


Now this isn't to be confused with hopeless resignation. But when you get "stuck" there comes a point and time where you accept your circumstances in life. So often we can't change them. You may not get that job back. You may not get the girl back. You may not get the full measure of your health back. But in any event - it's happening for a reason. Now, it could be judgment or chastening. It could be God trying to grow you. It could appear to be unfair, even wrong. But if you believe in the Sovereignty of God then you know that He always has a plan. Nothing catches Him by surprise. He knows the end from the beginning. And whatever the reason is for your going through what you're going through - accept it as coming from Him for His purpose AND He always gets the glory. I can't help but think of Joseph in the Old Testament, when - in his case - he really wasn't doing anything wrong, but he was sold into slavery by his brothers. It took a little while, but he ultimately became one of the most powerful men in the world - even helping to save the lives of the same brothers who sold him into slavery as well as the rest of his family during a horrible famine. Of his unjust slavery he had this to say, "Man meant it for evil; but God meant it for good". Not that is acceptance.


2. Alignment.


If you're able to get over the rather large hurdle of accepting your circumstances as only the beginning of what God is going to do through your circumstances, then your are free to align yourself with Him in the journey. This is extremely important. So often when something bad happens, we think we have to go and fix it - as if God is completely unaware or incapable of handling what's going on in our lives. As Christians we love to try to fix things on our own. We try to figure it all out - find a way to take care of it. But that is not the plan, and if you or I do that during these moments in our life, we'll only make it worse. "But what is God trying to do? What is he saying to me? Where is He!?" He is in you, over you, all around you. And as Philippians says, "It's God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure". Do you want God to work in you - bringing about His will and His good pleasure? Then let Him. Get some bruises on your knees from prayer. Get some sky on your hands from praise. Get some callouses on your fingers from clinging to Him and His Word. Align yourself with Him and what it is He's trying to do. As the saying goes, "When you can't trace His hand, trust His heart".


3. Arrival.


When you have accepted where you are right now in your circumstance as from Him and align yourself with Him knowing that He's going to take your through - then you ultimately will arrive at the place He wants you to be. "I being in the way the Lord led me." This episode of life you are experiencing isn't going to last forever. I suppose there are things that happen in this life that have no complete remedy in this life, but there is certainly a remedy to be found in the life that awaits the Christian after our journey here is over. If nothing else, Heaven awaits and that is enough. But so often in our journey here God is trying to bring us to a destination, and that destination always has our good and His glory in mind. Ultimately it is a place of joy. "Weeping lasts for the night, but joy comes in the morning." God has a place where He is taking us, and because He is leading us - we will arrive safely. I love the King James Version rendering of Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to bring you to an expected end." Be encouraged. You will be arriving at your destination soon.


4. Appreciation.


Appreciation, thanksgiving, praise, gratitude - all of these words are an obvious result of having gone through your circumstance and making it to the other side. Safe and sound - still surrounded by God. Even as I write this I'm thinking about Jesus and the disciples in Mark 4:35-41, 


"35That day when evening came, He said to His disciples, 'Let us go over to the other side.' 36Leaving the crowd behind, they took Him along, just as He was, in the boat. There were also other boats with Him. 37A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to Him, 'Teacher, don't you care if we drown?' 39He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, 'Quiet! Be still!' Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 40He said to His disciples, 'Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?' 41They were terrified and asked each other, 'Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him!'" 


Now, at this point the disciples did not have the appreciation that they needed, even though Jesus promised them the other side. But there's a storm! He's in the boat. But he's asleep! Then you rest, too. If Jesus is in the boat, and He's promised the other side - then you will arrive safe and sound with Him, come hell or high water. And don't worry about the storms that arise and rock the boat. Because He is the maker of the storm. These things happen to prove our faith or to prove we need more faith. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could be still and know peace and quiet in the midst of life's storms? We don't always go through the storms well, like the disciples. We need to move from a place of fear and terror during our storm to a place of faith and trust - which will produce appreciation, thanksgiving, praise, and gratitude when we reach the promised "other side".


I don't know where you're at on the way, but we all get "stuck in a moment", and more often then not we "can't get out of it". Which is true - we can't, but He can. Paul sums it up best in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, when speaking of Christ, 


^"9But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. ¹⁰That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."


And that's the approach that I (try to) take when I find that I need to move on. It sure beats being stuck.

Are You Superstitious?

At first thought, I would have said, "No!" I don't have triskaidekaphobia - the fear of the number 13. Every Friday the 13th is just another Friday, which is a good thing - because it means the weekend has arrived. I've never once thought that I needed a rabbits foot to bring me luck. I don't eat an apple a day, and I haven't been to the doctor in years apart from my yearly checkup. Though I'm a Notre Dame Fighting Irish sports fan, I don't appeal to any luck to help us (finally) win - nor do I get overly excited about four-leaf clovers. I'm not scared to walk under a ladder. I love black cats and can't wait to have one (no room in the inn right now for one more cat!) I have a broken mirror hanging in my house (a very slight defect that I created when hanging an antique mirror - you can't tell unless you're looking for it, but it's there). I recently opened up an umbrella inside a store before I purchased it to check it out - that freaked the cashier out. I step on cracks in the sidewalk all the time - and as of Father's Day (when I last spoke to my dad and mom) my mothers back was not broken. You won't find garlic hanging from the doors in my house to keep evil spirits and vampires from entering (that was free for all you Twilight addicts out there). I can promise you that I have not had beginners luck. I've never gotten a wart in my life and I played with toads all the time as a kid on the farm. I could go on - the list of superstitions is long. 


As I was thinking about this I did recall something I have always done, and it's in relation to sports. As a former athlete, I can think of numerous ways that I exhibited superstitions in the past, and, for that matter, even now. When I was younger coming out of Junior Varsity basketball into Varsity, I became aware of how some of my body was growing faster than others. And I used to be self conscious about that, and how I looked in general. As a Sophomore, I sat the bench mostly so the crowd seldom saw me play, but I was told one day by the coach to be ready - I had earned playing time by how I hustled and played defense in practice. I was so excited, but also nervous to be seen in my tank top jersey. I know it sounds silly, but let's just say I was certainly the scrawny runt of our team. I was all arms and feet. So I wore a white t-shirt under my tank top. The game started, and the star player from the opposing team was tearing us up. Coach put me in and told me to stop him. We went to a "Box and One" defense where I shadowed that guy all over the court. He didn't score another point. I even blocked his game winning three point attempt. Not only that, but I cherry-picked my way to 18 points, contributing on both sides of the ball off of the bench for a big win for our team. Now, no one else knows this, but I attributed that to the white t-shirt. So the rest of my high school career I wore a white t-shirt under my tank top jersey and experienced good success as a result, or so my superstition would have me believe. 


Just this past year during the NFL season, I was watching my beloved Bengals. It was the fourth quarter. We were driving the football down field as time was running out for what needed to be a game-winning score against the hated Pittsburgh Steelers - and at Heinz Field no less. As the drive started, things started going well, so I froze in my position on my couch. I didn't move a muscle. I hardly blinked. My breath came in very measured lengths. It was as if the success of the game-winning drive depended solely on how I was positioned on my couch, in my living room, in Lebanon, OH - hundreds of miles away from the action. My wife, Erin, came in to ask me something, and I - almost like a ventriliquist told her to leave the room. The Bengals were driving for the game winning score, and I couldn't move - much less talk. And you know what? The Bengals won. I've done that probably hundreds of times - for Bengals games, Reds games, Bearcat games - you name it. I have practiced that same ritual over and over again, because I superstitiously believe that in doing that - I am helping the home team. Crazy stuff, but that's what I do.


I have read a couple of recent articles about superstitions. The world is full of them. A recent study by the University of Cologne shows scientific data that "believing in luck-related superstitions boosts confidence and leads to better and faster performance in what you're doing." The researchers "took 28 students, over 80% of whom said they believed in good luck, and randomly assigned them to either a superstition-activated or a control condition. Then they put put them on a putting green. To activate a superstition, for half of them, when handing over the ball the experimenter said: 'here is your ball. So far it has turned out to be a lucky ball'. For the other half, the experimenter just said 'this is the ball everyone has used so far'. Each participant had 10 goes at putting on the green, trying to get a hole-in-one from a distance of 100 cm: and lo, the students playing with a so called lucky ball did significantly better than the others, with a mean score of 6.42, against 4.75 for the others." Another article I read in the New York Times Freakonomics blog centered on pricing a superstition. In Hong Kong, at license plate auctions (sounds like a lot of fun) researchers "found that plates with an extra '8' (a lucky number in Hong Kong) sold for 63.5 percent higher on average; an extra (unlucky) '4' decreased the average plate value by 11 percent.  The authors also found that three- and four-digit plates with an extra '4' are particularly shunned in bad economic times:  A ‘4’ is bad, but it is even worse in bad times.” There are many stories like this with every culture the world over.


What does it all mean? Is it bad to be superstitious? Is is wrong to believe in good luck? In a general sense, probably not. While many people are sincere in holding to some sort of superstition, there is humor in it all (at least to me). But specifically speaking - people can go to far with their superstitions - even worshiping them. And let's face it, we all worship something. People who truly believe in superstitions do so because they believe that nothing or no one exists that is greater than their superstitions. So, it can be worship. If one is not worshiping God they are worshiping something or someone else. They are relying on anything apart from God to show them signs, make sense of it all, show the way. They rely on luck in all things. They see good or bad omens in everything.


Believe it or not, the Bible has a very specific stance on this topic. Colossians 2:6-10 has this to say, 


"⁶Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 
⁷rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. ⁸See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 
⁹For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 
¹⁰and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority." 


Basically, Paul's day - as in ours - there was a whole lot of superstition going on, which flies in the face of the sovereignty of God. Being a superstitious Christian is an oxymoron. If you're a Christian, you have:


1. Received Christ Jesus the Lord (6)
2. A responsibility to walk in Him - rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith. This corresponds to faithful teaching and leads to abundant thanksgiving. (6, 7)
3. A warning to avoid philosophies, deceits, and traditions that are of this world and not of Christ. (8)
4. A realization of who Christ is - wholly sovereign God. (9, 10)
5. A recognition that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. (10)


So it comes down to - do you and I trust in the superstitions of man or the sovereignty of God?

(photo by Andy Mangold)

What If It Was Your Home?

How much thought have you given to the BP oil disaster? How much prayer for the people affected by the worst oil spill in our nations history? This has really weighed on me. I feel like there is little I can do, and this frustrates me. But I write about it almost every day. One company's greed and irresponsibility is costing lives, livelihood, with billions of dollars being paid by the pensions of innocent people. 11 workers lost their lives in the initial explosion. Another man committed suicide today. Not to mention the tragedy of the wildlife being devastated by this symbol of corporate, government, and consumer greed. I'm all about a business being successful, but not at the expense of ethics and responsibility. I'm all for government aid during a crisis like this, but not in the form of a shakedown. What a cluster.

It is really hard for us to enter in to a situation like this - to understand, because we are not there. It is not affecting most of us (yet). But what if it was your home - my home? What if you could visualize this in a more personal way? Well a website has dedicated itself to just that.

http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com

I challenge you to go there for a visit. First, look at the map chronicling the spread of the oil spill in the gulf as it currently stands. Then, type in your address, and see just how much your home and surrounding communities would be affected by this disaster. It is sobering. Observe:

(The Gulf)

(My home)

What if it was your home?

Life Unplugged

Living in 21st century America is synonymous with being busy. Too busy. Our calendars are full of activities - business appointments and deadlines, family matters, church involvement, community service, entertainment options, consumer pursuits - the list goes on. While the world has become so much smaller due to technology, that doesn't equate to intimacy. You would think with so much available at our finger tips that makes life so much easier than it has ever been before that we would have gained more time by the conveniences that we have today. But that has proven to not be the case. We have become poor stewards of such gifts. We are enslaved to a lifestyle that is always on Play. And the strangest thing about this is very few of us are probably doing what we really want to do anyway - something we're gifted at. A lot of talent and opportunity gets wasted because "life gets in the way", but we often allow that to happen to ourselves with wrong - or not quite right - choices. Our life gets completely cluttered by things that really don't matter that have nothing to do with who we are.

I spoke to a dear lady earlier this morning and she was talking about how she needed to go through her attic, her basement, and her house in general and remove "all the clutter". "But it takes so much time and effort to do so!" It's true. It does take time and effort. It takes a conscious choice to remove clutter from ones life. But it is the right thing to do and well worth it. She said that she'll have plenty to give to the Goodwill - which is great! Not only will her house be clean and clear of clutter, but others will benefit from this as well. We all have good things in our life that aren't the best things because they aren't the right things.

Later I reconnected with a dear friend who called me out of the blue. It was great to catch up with him. I'm trying very hard to do those types of things these days - catch up with people from different places and time periods in my life. It was a great blessing. He mentioned how he and his wife decided to "unplug" the cable television. The goal was to devote more time to their marriage and their children. They also made a commitment to join a gym and take the time to get in better physical shape. This really struck me and was coincidental with an event that happened at my house just last evening. My cable and internet went out. Time Warner couldn't figure it out. They told me the earliest they could have someone out was Saturday - four days away! To think that I would have to go without cable and internet for four days! My wife and I freaked out a bit. The prospect of not watching "our shows", or my games (which does not include World Cup by the way!), or movies on demand - the thought was almost unbearable! Plus - no internet?! Life is cruel sometimes. Now, to be fair, I have trimmed back my television quite a bit of late, and I work from home a great deal and require the internet as part of my livelihood. But to think that it would all be down for four days - what ever would we do? It ended up being exactly what I needed. Erin and I had great conversation. I read. We took a walk. I went to bed earlier and slept like a baby. It was actually nice. Time Warner was able to get out today - three days earlier than expected - and they took care of the problem (which is why I can write and publish this now). So the catastrophe was averted! Only, it wasn't a catastrophe. It was nice to hit the Pause button - though unintentional. Life kind of caused it in an unexpected way. Our busy routine was thrown off - a routine filled with unrecognized wasted time and clutter. And I wouldn't say our life is full of bad things. Quite the opposite. But to have life unplugged - to be still - I found this to be very rewarding. But that's not the best part. I allowed my self to not rush through my quiet time with God in order to complete the usual practice. I didn't worry or think about what happened before or what was coming just after that scheduled time. I just got in the moment and stayed there a while until true communion was achieved - a two-way communication with my heavenly Father through prayer and reading. It was wonderful.

Psalm 46:10 says it better than I ever could, "Be still and know that I am God." Mary found this to be true in Luke 10:39. She had a sister Martha, who was very busy trying to do things just right for their house guest Jesus, but Mary "sat at His feet and heard His word". Jesus told Martha that she was troubled about many things, but Mary had chosen the better part - which would never be taken away from her. Our choice to be with God, to stop all else and not worry about the business of the moment and remove all the clutter around us - that is an eternal choice. That is how we truly know God - in the stillness. God is more interested in who we are not what we do - in our being and not our doing. First comes the worship; then comes the walk; then comes the work. To try any of those steps out of sequence will cause our lives - even the best of lives full of good things and activities - to be weighed down with troubles and cares. First things first.

So my cable went out and it was great. I had great conversation with friends who reminded me of what's truly important. And I had a real, personal quiet time with God.

Life unplugged - it's highly underrated.

As If This Story Couldn't Get Any Stranger

PETA has found religion! The extreme animal rights group has offered the Solid Rock Church in Monroe, OH grant money to rebuild the "King of kings" statue (you may have known it as "Touchdown Jesus" or "Big Butter Jesus"). They would want the statue built with Jesus holding a lamb with the inscription, "Blessed are the merciful. Go vegan." Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for the ethical treatment of animals. But I am a carnivore, and there is nothing biblically wrong with that. Nor is there anything wrong with being a vegitarian or vegan. But one side should not impose its will on the other side. I find this story to be a bit funny, because I would have never thought that PETA had such a religious stance in their agenda. I learn something new everyday.

PETA offers to help rebuild 'Touchdown Jesus' - with a catch | cincinnati.com | Cincinnati.Com:

I couldn't help but laugh at Pastor Darlene Lawrence's response to this offier, ''We're not interested. We raise cattle. We would never build a statue with stipulations that we would have to advertise for PETA." For my part, I just hope they are raising their cattle ethically. If you want to know what that doesn't look like, then you need to watch Food, Inc. It is indeed eye opening, thought provoking, shocking, and sad. The average American consumer I fear either has no idea or care as to how they get the food that they get. I will always endorse buying organic and supporting local farmers. My two cents.

Anyway, this story about the statue is not going to go away anytime soon, and the stories that come out of it keep getting stranger and stranger (see my original blog on this topic and subsequent comments for past stories).

I leave you with this image below for your viewing pleasure. It is the PETA visualization of what they want their statue to look like (I must say the Jesus part is a drastic improvement over the original. Just sayin').

Ghost in the Machine

I'm always looking for something new and cool - and this qualifies. 26 year old artist Erika Iris Simmons out of Atlanta has come up with a great original idea for making art out of a fading medium - cassette tape ribbon. She takes iconic images from some of musics greatest legends and creates art - out of cassette tape ribbon and other recyclable materials. Check this article out for more. 

Ghost in the Machine on Cool Hunting

You may also check out her forthcoming exhibit at Wisconsin's Peninsula School of Art.

Again, cool.

More Blackberry Apps Please

For any developers out there looking to get paid and get known with your potential earth shaking Blackberry app - go for it. Cause I love me some Blackberry apps.

Third Annual BlackBerry Developer Challenge Calls for Creation of Super Apps

Is Jesus Your Lord Or Your Idol?

I was listening to Matt Chandler (The Village Church, Dallas, TX) this morning on the way into work as he continues his Colossians series - "If You Are Raised With Christ" which is part 11 of the series. He preached this message on 5/23/2010 (here is a link to the series).

Loved it when he said, paraphrasing, "If Jesus is not your goal, but what you can get from Jesus - then you are an idolater." So good. Very often we believe God is going to do this or that, or give us this or that, when God never made any such claims. His only claim is that He is God. We treat Him as some giant ATM machine in the sky, or some cosmic genie. We need to make sure that He is our goal and not what we can gain from Him (and we gain plenty by the way through knowing Him - just not always what we want.) Does God delight in giving us the desires of our hearts? Absolutely. Are our desires always what He wants for us? No. The joyful Christian is one whose desires are directly correlated to a true and personal relationship with God - come what may.

Access Your Dropbox Quickly in Google Chrome - How-To Geek

I love Google. I love Dropbox. They just keep giving me more reasons to do so!

Access Your Dropbox Quickly in Google Chrome - How-To Geek

How BP's Deepwater Horizon Failsafe Failed

This will only take one minute and fifty three seconds of your time, but it's worth watching the technical explanation of how this failure occurred.

How BP's Deepwater Horizon Failsafe Failed

"If the valve fails, the well will not be sealed. There is no backup."

Sobering.

A Little Slice Of Heaven

That's Magnolia Springs, Alabama according to Jamie Hinton who is the volunteer fire chief at the Fish River Marlow Fire Department. This little hamlet is in the Gulf coast and it is in great danger of being contaminated by the Deep Horizon oil catastrophe. The oil threatens to invade this quiet coastal town that is a throw back to the way things used to be and should be again. The spill seeks to gain entrance to this community via the mouth of the Magnolia River at Weeks Bay - threatening the 19 federally-protected species and marshland that exists there. It's a tiny town - maybe a thousand residents. It's not easy to get to - the mail arrives daily by boat. But to Chief Hinton it's home - "a little slice of heaven" in his words. So he's going to fight for it to protect it from the inevitable contamination that is on it's way. The federal government hardly knows this place exists. BP stopped by and put up a boom that the local residents warned would not last. It didn't. They haven't been back. These folks appear to be on their own. But the chief has a plan - he's going to line up spud barges and put booms on both sides of the barges as a barrier to keep the oil out. He even goes so far to say that if he has to he will "stand chest-deep in the waters of the bay, linked arm in arm with my neighbors" - if that’s what it takes to stop the encroaching oil from spoiling the sublime latticework of bogs and bayous that he calls home." That kind of love and dedication is admirable, humbling, and challenging. He recognizes the danger that is just outside his waters, and he has a plan to deal with it - to keep it out.


Anymore that would seem to be a foreign mindset in this 21st century version of America. I wonder just how many Americans are even remotely concerned about what's happening just off our shores. When it's all said and done, millions will be effected in a variety of devastating ways - physically, economically, topographically - you name it. I would that we all had this type of spirit. It is the type of spirit that made this country great, and the lack of it is turning us into nothing but a bunch of mindless consumers, bent on pursuing our own pleasures no matter the cost to anyone around us. We are so completely disconnected from the real world around us as we immerse ourselves in technology that diverts our attention away from much more important things. When I read this, I could see my grandpa doing something like this. I was certainly challenged to examine what my response would be to my community if impending doom was on my doorstep. To make it a little more significant, I was also challenged to consider whether or not I have this type of mindset toward sin. Sin seeks to creep its way into my life in a variety of ways. What barriers do I have in place to keep it out? How am I utilizing the resources God has given me to protect my mind, my heart, my home, my community, and my church from the blackness of sin? 


May I be the kind of citizen that this man is for this country - in this world. But even more important - may I be the kind of citizen that I need to be for my King and His Kingdom - being vigilant to not allow sin to creep in and making a blight of all that is beautiful. This is not my home. I am a sojourner on my way to a city whose builder and maker is God. But I want to be an exemplary tenant while here - helping to make it a little slice of heaven - until I experience the complete perfection of eternity with the Creator of this world and the one to come.

Stop The Madness!!!

Stupid is as stupid does. No wonder the Florida Marlins have no fans - it takes a stunt like this to even get anyone to show up. I love the part in the article below where the players had to wear ear plugs. That would not be good.

Seriously, though, I better never go to GABP and hear a vuvuzela. That's the quickest way I can think of to drive fans away (apart from a horrible bullpen).

Vuvuzela craze spreads to baseball | Sports | Reuters

The Stained Earth

For some, only seeing is believing. So I thought I would try to help with that (in the context of the BP "oilpocalypse").

Or watch this simulation of the potential scenarios of oil travel courtesy of the NCAR - the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Astonishing.

Or else wait for the Pixar movie. Maybe that will get our attention. But it will probably be too late by then. 

Anyway, sorry to disturb you from your Starbucks latte and IPad.

For more on this, check out:

The Stained Earth, Courtesy of BP

When All Else Fails...

Now don't get me wrong - to have lawmakers in the 2010 version of America propose a day of prayer for divine intervention concerning this epic oil spill and the devastating consequences that it's having on literally everything in the gulf coast is, well, nothing short of miraculous. But doesn't it seem that we turn to prayer as a last resort - when all else fails - instead of a first response? There is a lesson here to be sure for all of us.

Anyway, God help us - because President Obama seems to be too busy golfing and BP CEO Tony Hayward is too busy yachting. God, on the other hand, is never too busy.

Louisiana lawmakers propose prayer to stop oil disaster - CNN.com