Always Reforming

Dear LeBron, Hello.  You don't know me.  My name is Josiah and I am a fan of yours.  I haven't always been into basketball.  In fact, when I was young, basketball fell firmly in third place behind football and baseball on my list of favorite sports.  When I was a teenager, however, one of my friends, a basketball enthusiast and Cavs fan, got me into watching the sport.  A few years later I began to play it every Wednesday and I began to love the game.  Ultimately, it was not the Cavs or my friend or even playing basketball that got me into it--it was you.  You see, I was born and bred in NE Ohio.  I grew up in a rural area between Akron and Canton, but I was actually born in Akron.  I remember when you were in high school and the hype was already huge, and then I remember how crazy it was when your hometown team actually drafted you.  I started watching basketball primarily because LeBron James was from Ohio.  There's just som...

Here we are again.  It's 2018 and another American Institution is under fire.  This time it's Laura Ingalls Wilder and her beloved Little House on the Prairie .  For me personally LHotP invokes memories of my childhood as the TV show was one of my mom's favorites (Michael Landon will always be one of my favorite Western heroes, both from this and especially Bonanza).  How could the liberals go after such a valued tradition?  You might as well burn the flag! Well, okay, let's be honest...there are some dicey things in the books/show.  Even modern conservatives would probably grimace at some of the viewpoints that pervade the series.  The treatment of American Indians/Indigenous Peoples/African Americans is, of course, the biggest issue.  It is, to put it simply, not well-balanced.  White people are good; red people--bad, right?  Black people?  I guess they're simple and helpful.  That's about as complex as it gets.  It i...

I hate abortion.  I really do.  My mother was a pro-life warrior until the day she died, which is one of the only reasons I exist .  So as you read this, don't think that I am supporting abortion in any imaginable way. That being said, pro-life advocates have a problem.  You see, we take every possible issue and we make it about abortion.  Gun control?  Abortion.  Immigration?  Abortion.  Donald Trump sleeping with porn stars (even though there was no sleeping involved)?  Abortion.  Every time an issue is brought up for discussion, we just remind liberals about abortion like it's some sort of trump card (pun partially intended).  We act like abortion ends every conversation about any political, cultural, or moral issue.  Again, let me clarify.  There is nothing wrong with pointing out moral and intellectual inconsistencies.  I think it's a good thing to do, both as an evangelistic tool and as a debate tactic...

I am an opinionated guy.  Sometimes I'm too opinionated.  Sometimes I form opinions on an issue just to have an opinion on the issue, not because I actually know anything or even care about the issue.  I wanted to write something about this whole immigration fiasco going on right now, but then I had a sudden realization.  I realized that I don't actually have a strong opinion on the matter.  This time my lack of an opinion is not due to apathy, but to ignorance.  In other words, I care, but this issue is truly that difficult to navigate.  Do we open up our borders and let anyone come in?  Do we allow people to stay in our country because they snuck in and had a baby, thereby rewarding lawlessness?  That can't be a good idea.  On the other hand, do we throw out millions of people who have been here for years, sometimes even decades?  Do we ship off people who have families, homes, jobs--in short, lives--here in this country?  ...

Few emotions are worse than hatred.  Few things divest a person of his dignity and sense of purpose like knowing that someone hates him.  This is particularly true when those who hate him are those who are closest to him, especially his family.  Nevertheless, there are a few things worse than hatred, and one of them is being despised.  In modern usage  despise  is often used synonymously with hatred, but, historically speaking, it had a much different meaning.  To despise a person once referred to looking down upon a person or viewing him as worthless.  For many of us, being hated, as degrading and hurtful as that might be, would still be preferable to being despised.  You can still be respected, even if you're hated.  Once you're despised, however, you've lost all respect.  Being respected is a fundamental desire of all mankind, a desire we seek to fulfill through two (at least) different means.  The first is personal self-a...