In the Zone

This may be unpopular with some of my friends but I just don’t like inaccuracies and hyperbole to get touted as truth without rebuttals. So, this will not be one of my faith-based blogs, but more of a political rebuttal type of piece, though done in love and respect. I’ve been reading many articles and blogs several of my teaching friends in Kentucky are sharing about governor Bevins' proposal to fix the Kentucky pension problem. Here is one of them, though I have read several. Many of the statements are simply untrue and serve as scare tactics. Thus I feel I must rebut them. In one story, I saw one person quoted as saying 30,000 teachers could exit the system and that schools would be understaffed with ratios of 60 students to 1 teacher possible. That is simply not true. First off, I know many qualified people—with education degrees AND teaching certificates—who live in Kentucky who simply cannot get hired. Some of that is due to a glutton of people who obtained t...

It can be a bit overwhelming to watch the news anymore. We see an endless parade of images of death, hatred, injustice, and strife. Over the last week, I've seen countless videos and still photos of the shooting in Las Vegas. I have heard harrowing tales of escape and horror. I've heard the debate over standing or sitting during the national anthem at football games. I've read the hatred on Facebook and Twitter, much of it centered around politics. Evil is everywhere and it can seem overwhelming at times. When we see hatred and injustice and terror and violence and death, how are we, as Christians, supposed to respond? Paul, in his letter to the Romans, tells us how. In Roman 12:21, Paul says that we are to overcome evil with good. Good includes love and service and help for those in need. It includes understanding and pitching in. It means we don't just pray for those who are hurting, but we go to them and try to ease their pain. More than anything it means w...

This week was a horrific week in our country. A gunman opened fire on a crowd of concert-goers in Las Vegas, killing 58 and wounding more than 500 people. It's senseless. It's cold and violent and unthinkable. In a word, it is evil. Let's call it what it is. We can try to explain it. We can look for a motive or an illness or an abusive relationship or any number of things to help us feel better. In the end, I find it best to call it what it is. It is pure evil. Only evil would kill unsuspecting people in mass. Only evil would modify guns to be automatic rifles and rain down bullets at an unrelenting pace for more than 10 minutes. Stephen Paddock is evil, plain and simple. While that doesn't fit into a label or make us feel safer or more comfortable, it is the truth. It's the closest to a real explanation than we'll likely to get through evidence collection or criminal profiles. He was an evil man and he did an evil thing. Evil has been around, almost...