This quote came up on my daily calendar: “Remember that contentment is true wealth.” I agree, like I wrote a short time ago regarding marriage and other issues of life.

I watched “The Italian Job” last night again, great movie. In the credits, it lists the actors Frankie G and Mos Def (who happens to be my favorite actor). How do you get names like this?

They have an FCA at KHS and I am an advisor, even though I have only been to like two or three meetings. They just meet at a time that does not work for me. However, I am going to ask the leader if I can come to a meeting in the near future and speak to them for a short time. I have become concerned by the actions of some of the leaders as I view in the halls of the school. No one is perfect, and I don’t expect that, but I have heard language from some of these people like I have never heard before. I plan to be transparent and discuss my own shortcomings as well and hopefully point us to where we all need to be as followers of Christ. I believe I’ll come from Matthew 18 with this talk.

I also read the following on Vox Day’s blog today regarding the Terri Shiavo case:

As laudable is their motivation, it is a terrible mistake for conservatives to seek to use the power of the federal government in what is likely to be a futile attempt to stop the state-sanctioned starvation of Mrs. Schiavo. They would do far better to use civil disobedience, as that is less likely to come back to haunt them in the future. But that would require personal sacrifice, instead of the much easier sacrifice of principle, to which, unfortunately, conservatives have become all too accustomed in their enthusiastic embrace of the decidedly anti-conservative Bush administration.

I like how he wrote how much more difficult personal sacrifice is than sacrifice of principle. We talk about the former but more often engage in the latter. However, if we look at the personal sacrifice and civil disobedience of men like King and Ghandi, they were the most successful. Rather than fighting through the courts, they gained their momentum and success through personal sacrifice of themselves and their followers. I remember Ben Kingsley portraying Gandhi in the movie of the same title, starving almost to the point of death due to the Muslims and Buddhists still waging war. He would not eat until the stopped fighting. Almost cost him his life at the time, did in the end. Yet his cause was successful, same with King.

With the Shiavo case, I don’t know where I stand. On one hand she did say she didn’t want to live like this and neither do I know if I would want to. Lisa and I had to set up a trust this summer and decide if we would want to be kept alive if we were brain dead or being kept alive by a respirator. We said no. The difference here is that she breathes on her own and is not brain dead, just can’t eat. Frankly I’m getting very sick of hearing about it. Obviously I am not a fan of her husband. He has been offered a million dollars and full book and movie rights to turn Terri over to her parents for full custody. He turned it down. I think he is a pawn in a much larger game. Actually, both sides are a pawn in the larger game. Let the lady live and go on and live your life with your new family.