Overwhelmed

This is a song written by my brother-in-law, Brandon Sampson. I'm playing bass with him in this video.

Pickens Plan

I've been seeing a commercial on MSNBC lately for what's called the "Pickens Plan." This is a life-long oilman, T. Boone Pickens, who sees a problem with our dependence on foreign oil. It's an interesting concept. I'm looking into this plan further to see what it entails, here is the introduction:

Alternative energy

Politicians keep talking about supporting alternative energy programs through boosting funds for research and development. This is silly. We have the technology now, we just need to deploy it. We do need more research, but that's simply to make the technology more effective.

My proposal would increase green collar jobs in America, boosting the economy and adding jobs, especially in the middle class suburban areas. It would also reduce the dependency on coal, petroleum and other pollution inducing forms of energy production.

Solar. We hear quite a bit about funding solar technology research. What's the point? We have solar panels now. We need to deploy them.

Create large tax benefits to install solar panels to the roofs of existing homes and to new construction homes. We have this technology now. This puts the average home on a very limited need for additional energy to the home, and when energy use is lower than created energy it feeds back into the grid.

Doing this means we wouldn't have to designate land to install solar panels, they would go on top of existing structures. You could essentially have communities providing their own energy only pulling energy from outside the area during peak hours and to supply the non-residential infrastructure used (street lights, et al).

This may not work in all areas, but in most of the southwest and southern states.

Some cities have already offered rebates for homeowners adding energy-efficient appliances, insulation, and other energy-reducing installation. If we could do this on a grander scale it would certainly help.

Not to dismiss research and development, but this great infusion of money into the solar market to deploy this would add a lot of money into these companies naturally without having to necessarily receive subsidies.

12 step program

I was talking to one of my co-workers about his cousin who is addicted to heroin and cocaine. This co-worker himself is a recovering alcoholic (several years sober). I commented in disbelief when I heard this cousin's story that, "I don't know how to even get in that condition."

A little back story here for clarity: This cousin was just arrested for possession of cocaine in Mexico, and has been in trouble with the law time and again on both sides of the border. He's also been legeally dead more than a few times, once having his abdomen ran over by an 18-wheeler without serious injury, yet he still persists in this lifestyle.

When you can go through so much and yet still stick with it, it doesn't make any sense to me.

My co-worker told me, through is own experience none-the-less, that when you are an addict you don't wonder how you got there, you simply don't know how you can't be there. You don't know how life could be without the drugs and/or alcohol. It's scary to think of life without it because it is what you know life to be.

Over the past couple weeks I have been pondering the concept of discipleship as Christ expressed is the actual realization of the created order of life, and the life we live as fallen humans is a distorted way of life. I first began thinking of this concept thanks to a post on Halden's blog Inhabitatio Dei.

If Christ Jesus tells his disciples that his way is good, his burden is light, it seems from our perspective that he was either crazy or a fool because it's so hard for us. Perhaps it's because we're trying so desperately to have it both ways, to live our sinful lives and serve the Lord.

When I was told this revelation about addiction from my co-worker, it clicked to me. We're addicted to this world, this sin, this corrupt flesh. If we could rid ourselves of this body we could finally live in the simple way of Christ. We can live according to the created order of the universe.

But we cannot do this, we must rely on God, in his grace, to rid us of our flesh. This is the same as the 12 step program addicts go through, they need an outside source of power to help them through the process (usually God, but often a nameless "higher power").

If only we could develop a 12 step program for the Church so we might break this addiction to the world. I will contemplate this still, and maybe I can steal a 12 step program and change it for this purpose.