(from the 2006 firstmorning newsletter)

Things I believe..(you can quote me!):

1. There’s nothing wrong with ignorance. It only becomes bad if you build a fort around it to defend it against new information.

1938 Book Burning in Germany

2. If we didn’t know we were going to die, there would be no reasons to paint pictures or compose music.

Cave drawing-France, Mexican String Art, Painting by Toulouse LaTrec

3. The worst moment in Christian history was the day, in 325, that the Emperor Constantine marched his army through a river, pronounced the men baptized, and declared the Roman Empire to heretofore be the Holy Roman Empire. On that day, Christianity ceased being a movement and became an institution.

4. The Bible is not a god. It is a collection of documents inspired by human interactions with God. It is the best place to learn about God, but not the only place. Wherever there are birds and wildflowers- those are excellent places for doing that, too.

5. Anything that is done to intentionally hurt a child is evil.

abandoned- Honduras; propagandized- Libya; overfed- United States

Things I wish:

1. I wish Bill Watterson was still doing “Calvin and Hobbes.”

2. I wish Oxfam America, Doctors Without Borders, and Kairos Prison Ministry could have the money that is flushed down the toilet every time a check is written to a televangelist.

www.oxfamamerica.org www.doctorswithoutborders.org http://www.kairosprisonministry.org

3. I wish the world wasn’t being homogenized into the image of an American suburb.

Krakow, Poland London, England Kyoto, Japan

4. I wish there was a really good home for every single dog.

5. I wish Europe and the United States were willing to clean up the three centuries worth of mess they made in Africa.

Refugees in Darfur, Sudan..the world is too busy elsewhere..