Say It Ain’t So Jo(aquin)!

With the aging of Harrison Ford, my favorite actors over the last few years have been Matt Damon, Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix.

It’s been a tough year for my favorite actors. Tragically, Ledger died of an accidental overdose back in January, and now comes the news that Phoenix is retiring from acting.

At 34, Joaquin isn’t moving into a retirement home just yet. Apparently, he’s taking a break from the movie business to pursue a career in music.

Back when he play Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, I was blown away by Phoenix’s voice, and I have no qualms with him recording some albums, but here’s my basic thought: if people like Jessica Simpson who don’t seem to have talent in acting or music can do both at the same time, can’t Joaquin at least give it a shot?

Does Pro-Life Make A Difference?

I know quite a few people who are opposed to abortion, but whose voting decisions aren’t actually affected by those beliefs.

After all, electing pro-life politicians doesn’t actually have any effect on abortion in America, right? Well, actually, according to this article, it does:

“Most of these authors attempt to make one of two points: either a) that there is little that elected officials can do to curb abortion through legislation, or b) that the pro-life movement has not reaped any real benefits from supporting candidates who oppose abortion. Voters should, therefore, they argue, place greater emphasis on other issues. However, an examination of the history of the pro-life movement and a careful analysis of abortion trends demonstrate that these arguments are deeply flawed. In fact, the success of pro-life political candidates has resulted in substantial reductions in the abortion rate.”

The article then goes on to describe all the ways in which pro-life politicians and anti-abortion legislation have decreased the number of abortions in the United States.

So what does that have to do with the impending election? Well, one of the candidates opposes abortion, while the other, according to another article, is “the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.”

If you’re opposed to abortion, it should be something to think about. I understand that there are other moral issues as well that we have to deal with, but I always come back to Jesus’ words about “the least of these” in Matthew 25.

Who better qualifies as “the least of these” than an unborn child?

Moderation

In Ecclesiastes 7.16-18, Solomon writes:

“Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.”

Those verses come in the context of a longer passage on wisdom, and Solomon suggests that avoiding extremes is a wise thing to do.

Generally speaking, I consider myself to be a moderate sort of guy.

Politically, there are a few issues that I am very, very conservative on, but for the most part, I’m not dead-set on a lot of things and can see both sides of a lot of issues.

Religiously, in the broad spectrum of Christianity, I would certainly be considered conservative, but in my specific religious fellowship, I’m pretty much in the middle (in the past, I would’ve thought I was pretty conservative, but over the last few years, I’ve come into contact with more and more people who have verified my middle-of-the-road-ness).

I say all that to say this: the problem with moderation is that when you’re in the middle, you have to deal with the people on both extremes.

It can be a frustrating endeavor.

A 3,000 Mile Journey

One of the (many?) strange things about me is that I always have numbers flying around inside of my head.

When I walk somewhere, I often count the number of steps that I take. When I see numbers on road signs, I often add or subtract them without thinking about it. When I go running, I often translate my pace into MPH. Yeah, I already admitted that it was strange.

The other day, on the way home from work, I discovered that I had picked up a hitchhiker—a little spider was on my hood, clinging on for dear life.

The distance from the church building to my apartment is about 8 miles, and it got me to thinking—in spider terms, how far of a trip were we making?

After estimating the size of the spider and comparing it to my own size, and making several tedious conversions from inches to feet to miles, I determined that for the spider, the trip to my apartment was roughly the equivalent of a 3,000 mile journey for me (it’s a ballpark figure—I did the calculations in my head while driving and listening to thumping techno music).

I was just reflecting on how traumatic it would be for me to be unwittingly deposited somewhere 3,000 miles away, when I looked down to discover that the spider was no longer on my car—sometime during my calculations he had apparently lost his grip and been blown away (speaking of traumatic).

Yeah, this is what life is like inside of my head.