Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Reflections

I'm excited about the Christian Legal Society (CLS) at OCU. We're planning to help OU's CLS start a legal aid clinic. We're also thinking about planning a statewide conference for pastors and other interested parties who want to learn about the legal issues that a church can become involved in or, better yet, how to avoid legal issues as a church. Everyone likes to learn about avoiding legal issues (or maybe just the lawyers)! Lawyer jokes aside, it really looks like we're going to do some serious outreach stuff this year, so I'm very excited.

"I have said that we should never get a Christian society unless most of us became Christian individuals. That does not mean, of course, that we can put off doing anything about society until some imaginary date in the far future. It means that we must begin both jobs at once - (1) the job of seeing how 'Do as you would be done by' can be applied in detail to modern society, and (2) the job of becoming the sort of people who really would apply it if we saw how."
---------- C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity"

This, I believe, is the reason that Christians should, and do, get involved in politics, in the schools, and in society in general. This is why I believe that pulling out of the public schools is a bad idea. This is why I believe that Christians secluding themselves is a bad idea. If we are truly called to be light, the city on a hill (Matt. 5:14), and all that, then, we must not sequester ourselves away from the very people we are to be light to. After all, what good is a light without someone who can use it to see? It'd be like that forest and tree question (if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Who cares? There's no one to hear it!). Lewis always says things much better than I can, so I like his quote better than my explanation about it.

In other news: gas prices keep going up, and we really need to be praying for the survivors of Katrina and all the people affected by that very bad storm. I love that song by Natalie Grant, "Held", and I think it has great application here:

Who told us we'd be rescued?
What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We're asking why this happens
To us who have died to live
It's unfair

This is what it means to be held
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Gas and stuff

So, the price of gas is rising rapidly. What is a good metaphor for this phenomenon? How about: rising faster than the temperature in the middle of the Sahara in the middle of July? Nah.... How about: rising faster than the blood pressure of a man who has just been told he is wrong? Nah.... How about: rising faster than the anxiety level of a law student the day before a final? Well, whatever metaphor you want to come up with, driving is getting cost prohibitive (I could say that another way, but I like the way 'cost prohibitive' sounds). Who knows how long it'll stay that high.

In other news....one week and one day through classes and I actually have more time than I thought I would have. Interesting since I thought I was so busy. I seem to get more done during the breaks between classes than I thought I would.

Watched "The Aviator" over the weekend. Not a bad movie, especially if you know anything about Howard Hughes. I don't know if I would suggest it if you're just looking for something short, light, and humorous, it's pretty long, but it's enjoyable.

"The LORD longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him!" Isaiah 30:18. This my verse of the week, or perhaps longer - probably longer. I really like the verse because it reminds me that I don't have to do anything but wait for Him. I really like that because I have a tendency to get really busy and forget to take the time to just sit and wait for God to speak to me. So, I need the reminder every so often :).

One more Biblical item as food for thought: "It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else that would cause your brother to fall." Romans 14:21. I found this the other day during my quiet time, and, even though I've read it before, it struck me anew (that's the thing about Scripture - no matter how many times you read it, there's always something more God has to tell you through it - gotta love that!). I think it probably hit me again because since the last time I'd read it, I had a conversation on that topic with my mother. So, it brought the import of the verse home to me in a completely different way. And, I started thinking about the way I talk about some things that I don't do, but I talk about like it's okay for everyone. That probably doesn't make any sense to anyone, but I thought I'd write some of it down on here and just give some food for thought.

Finally, there is a description of heaven in C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" that I really like: "The regions where there is only life and therefore all that is not music is silence." I like the idea that when we get there, the time we do not spend singing praises to God will be spent in silent adoration of Him.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Worldwide Prayer?

When's the last time anyone heard about this happening (not that it hasn't happened, we just don't necessarily hear/think about it)?
I'm watching Apollo 13 on the History Channel - very good movie, and since it's on the History Channel, they of course have the commander of the mission, James Lovell, commenting on the history of the mission. Well, here's an interesting tidbit: during the movie, they comment on the fact that the near tragedy united most of the world in prayer - the president of the United States asks for the people to pray for the mission and, get this, the Congress of the United States passed a resolution asking that the American people pray for the men in space (gee - I wonder if that is a violation of the Establishment Clause). The Pope led thousands in prayer before St. Peter's Basilica. An amazing event - not just because of the miracle, but because of the outpouring of prayer. So, someone had the idea to analogize that incident to the war in Iraq - here's a short comment I found discussing what happens when the world unites in prayer to merciful God (I actually found it when I searched for something about the Congressional resolution, so it wasn't my idea to find something about the War in Iraq and link it to Apollo 13). I'm not sure that I like the end of the article, but I think it gives some good things to think about.

Update: What I like about the History Channel is that after any movie it shows, there's a show about whatever the movie was about. The one after Apollo 13 is about the restoration of the rocket used to get the Apollo spacecraft beyond the atmosphere. Well, here's an interesting factoid: in the command module - there is less technology than in your typical cell phone! How crazy is that?

Monday, August 22, 2005

First Day Back

Well - here's a happy thought - after this semester, I will be halfway through law school. Here's an almost happier thought - after last semester, I am 5/7ths of the way done. I think the first one sounds better when you think that law school is only three years, so that's only one and a half years left. Ok, that's enough about that.

Today was the first day of the second year of law school. I'm not really ready to work full time without going to school, but I feel very ready to be finished with school. School would be better without the finals. I don't mind the classes so much. Speaking of the classes - criminal procedure is going to be very interesting - all about the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments to the Constitution and how they 'protect' your average American citizen - sorry those of you who are not citizens - you're not as protected. Here's a factoid from today's class that everyone might be interested in - the Fourth Amendment - the right not to be unreasonably searched or seized has only applied to the states since 1949. And only since 1961 have the courts excluded the evidence gathered from these illegal searches from trials in the states! The exclusionary rule (as it's called) has applied to the federal government and federal courts since 1914. There's your trivia for the day.
Professional Responsibility may be a little different - it should be fun to learn all the ethics governing this great profession I have decided to join.
Ok, I have class really early in the morning and three classes, so I'm going to leave this post here. Hope everyone has a really really good Tuesday!

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Tearjerker moments that shouldn't have been

Warning: this is going to be more like a journal entry than any of the previous posts (except the very last paragraph - if all you want is what I usually write, skip to that) - an opportunity to vent more than anything. No complaints - remember - you have been forewarned; and forewarned is forearmed.

Today is one of those days, when coupled with yesterday, that proves the old saying about life being full of hills and valleys. For the most part. Allow me to explain. Yesterday was a day of good news and great energy, etc. Today, on the other hand, was one of the most frustrating, tear inducing days I've experienced in awhile.

The day started off fine, I got up early and made it to work on time and really had an uneventful first couple of hours. However, in the middle of the morning, I got an email that changed the entire tenor of the day. This email announced that one of my classes would no longer be taught by the same professor as scheduled. This change caused a change in syllabus and a change in textbook, not to mention rendering moot the two hours last night I spent reading the assignment in the other book. The bookstore is supposed to get the new books in by Monday (a good thing since the class is Monday afternoon, wouldn't you say?), and someone has provided photocopies of the first two weeks assignments just in case. Unfortunately, there are no photocopies of the supplement to the textbook readings (I don't know if they just hadn't created them or if they were just all gone), and so I will have to scramble around between classes on Monday to get everything done before that class. Fine and dandy - although, inexplicably, frustrating enough to make a person cry.

Then, on my big project for the afternoon - preparing jury instructions for a trial in September - I couldn't get the formatting to cooperate. Raise your hand if you hate wordperfect as much as I do. That program never cooperates with me when I need it to. I'd rather use Word any day of the week and twice on Mondays. Another aggravating moment that, once again, inexplicably induced tears of frustration.

Orientation was running rather late this evening, so I sat through a couple of boring speeches I didn't intend to sit through. Even the professors got to leave early from that! Also, grades from the summer semester were supposed to be posted by 5:00 this evening, but guess what was occurring around that time? Yes - the administrative confusion that is system maintenance. Why any sane person would schedule system maintenance at the same time that a few scores of students were wanting to check their grades is beyond me.

To top the evening off, once I returned home, I got stuck on a website because I couldn't find the answer for which I was looking. Is it really so difficult to answer a simple question about how much a computer costs? Apparently, unbeknownst to me, it is. All they really want to tell you is how much you would have to pay per month. They don't want to tell you how much you would end up paying for the computer if you actually took them up on the monthly payment option - I guess it's the same when buying a car. Stupid interest rates and my seeming inability to do simple math in my head combined to make that another near teary experience.

Probably what I need is a couple of hours around people so that I can recharge my cheerful batteries. I know this sounds weird to some people - but being around people usually energizes me - it's certainly better than sitting around and reading my law school assignments!

On the bright side, though, grades were finally viewable and I did pretty well in a class I thought I had failed (shush all you people who keep telling me I'll do fine - this means you, Kevin and Nicole). So, I suppose I should have written this post before I checked that grade so the frustrating moments (which also included reading a confusing case about enemy combatants and my second legal profession assignment - the details of which I have spared you) would have been fresher in mind than the recent elation at the sight of another grade.

On a completely unrelated note, I am going to steal a page from Holly's book and point everyone to a couple of new links on the sidebar of this blog. First, Miss Mandy Kay - Mandy - if you're reading this, I promise I'll email back soon, and I too am unfortunately apparently addicted to this whole blogging thing. Everyone check out her livejournal - she puts some pretty insightful stuff on there. (Mandy, I especially liked "The List" - I laughed and thought it was pretty good) Second, I'd like to point out the link to Richard Posner and Gary Becker's blog. If you don't know who Posner is, he's an appellate judge on the 7th circuit and writes some very good opinions - if he weren't too old, he probably would have made a good addition to the Supreme Court - he's usually very logical and clear. As far as Becker goes, I don't really know who he is, but he writes some pretty good stuff on that blog. They always incite interesting commentary. And, my final pointer is to check out this article by Cal Thomas, always an insightful commentator. I don't have it linked on the sidebar, but you could get to it through two different links that I do have on the sidebar, so I think it should be part of this paragraph.
Alrighty then, everyone have a wonderful weekend, I'm still singing Green Day songs!

Thursday, August 18, 2005

GreenDay

Ok - I think that how much the concert rocked was inversely proportionate to how much I disagree with their politics and their moral choices. In other words - it was awesome! Both GreenDay and Jimmy Eat World (or J.E.W. as we affectionately call them ;)) were great. All the band members knew how to play to the crowd and were great showmen! The ringing has just left my ears and we were pretty far from the stage! Ok, though, the point is - it was great - I wish Oklahoma could get more bands to come to the state.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Public Schools

And we wonder why people want to take their children out of public school??? Phyllis Schlafly is one of the most logical people I think I've ever read, and what she discusses here, in her commentary on the NEA and unconcerned parents, is appalling.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Monday

Usually Mondays don't bother me - they're just the first day of another God-given week. However, given today's rather dreary weather, I thought that the lyrics to Breaking Benjamin's "Rain" were stunningly apropros:

Rain rain go away
Come again another day
All the world is waiting for the sun

Saturday, August 13, 2005

In other news...





So, anyone who knows me knows that I have a younger brother (I've quit calling him my little brother since he turned 18 and got taller than I am - those events, incidentally, did not coincide - the second happened much earlier than the first) who is a near genius. Well, here's (I say here, but I guess I should say above because I can't quite figure out the picture thing on this and I don't have the time or the patience to work on it right now - it's being very contentious) his latest project:

This is a Lockheed P38 Lightning (don't ask me what that means - call him and ask him - or better yet, find him online and ask him - actually - he may not know either, so better to just look it up on your own). He has created the entire thing from scratch - pattern and everything - it's pretty amazing, although it's not nearly finished.

The first picture is the path he took to get to this point, what I affectionately call the 'airplane graveyard' (and the amazing thing is that I didn't even get all the planes/helicopters/and certainly not any of the RC cars in this picture!):

Anyway, I just thought this was all cool, and you can check out some of his other stuff on this website. I'm not sure everyone will be able to get there, but if you can, I suggest you check out the artwork pictures!

Monday, August 08, 2005

Man and Woman He created them...

Genesis 1:27 says: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." If male and female were the same, He wouldn't have used two different words to describe them. It's nice to know that scientists are finally jumping back on the bandwagon and recognizing that there are differences between the sexes that are not explained by the psychological tendency of parents to give dolls to girls and trucks to boys or to paint girls' rooms pink and boys' rooms blue. Studies: Differences between the sexes matter.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Dostoevsky

I am in the middle of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's (one of my favorite authors) The Brothers Karamozov, a story about a Russian family, and I found this short passage that I thought I'd pass along. One of the brothers, Alyosha, is a novice in the Russian Orthodox Church, and he is having a discussion over dinner with one of his brothers, Ivan, about the existence of God. Ivan claims that he accepts the existence of God but cannot accept the existence of the world God created because of the suffering of children (of which he gives several fairly graphic examples). Here is part of their exchange:
"'imagine that you yourself are erecting the edifice of human fortune with the goal of, at the finale, making people happy, of at last giving them peace and quiet, but in order to do it it would be necessary and unavoidable to torture to death only one tiny little creature, that same little child that beat its breast with its little fist and on its unavenged tears to found that edifice, would you agree to be the architect on those conditions, tell me and tell me truly?'
'No, I would not agree,' Alyosha said quietly.
'And are you able to allow the idea that the poeple for whom you are construcing the edifice would themselves agree to accept their happiness being bought by the unwarranted blood of a small, tortured child and, having accepted it, remain happy for ever?'
'No, I cannot. Brother,' Alyosha said suddenly, his eyes flashing, 'just now you said: 'Is there in all the world a Being that could forgive and have the right to forgive?' Well, that Being does exist and It can forgive everything, everyone, man and woman alike, and for everything, because It gave Its innocent blood for all things and all men. You have forgotten about It, but on It the edifice is founded and this it is that people will exclaim to It: 'Just and true art Thou, O Lord, for Thy ways are made plain.'"

Friday, August 05, 2005

Another opinion on Stare Decisis

"It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever hath been done before may legally be done again, and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities, to justify the most iniquitous opinions."

----Jonathon Swift

lawful: (adj.) compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction
----Ambrose Bierce

Update:
Just in case anyone has forgotten: Stare Decisis is from the Latin meaning "To stand by things decided." The idea behind stare decisis is that courts are bound to follow the precedent they set (specifically the Supreme Court because all the other courts are legally bound to follow the SC's decisions - but the SC is only bound by stare decisis to follow its own decisions). Stare decisis has engendered such decisions as Planned Parenthood v. Casey (where the SC decided that since Roe v. Wade had been decided, they couldn't overturn the right to abortion). The reasoning behind stare decisis is that there should be stability in the law - people should know what the courts will allow and what the courts will not allow. There's a quick and dirty summary of it for you :).