Highlights from My Day

Today, Thursday I woke up bright and early to take my sight singing final. I was looking forward to getting this over with so I could get on with other tasks and just get it out of the way. I don't think I did as well as I expected to do but it should all turn out alright. After my final I did my laundry. I used the time waiting for my clothes to wash and dry to do the practice final for theory and also get in some reading from this book I've been reading, "The Faith of The American Soldier."

Much of my afternoon was spent trying to solve computer problems. Somehow I messed up my computer this afternoon and I spent much of my time talking to a customer service man online. Finally he helped me serve my problem and my computer was back to normal. I also spent some more time this afternoon reading and starting this new solo for clarinet. I am really excited about this new solo I am starting. As many know, I have been working primarily on a method book and etudes this semester so I'm ready for a change.

Tonight for Journey Groups Curran, Alan, Nik, Aloysius, and I went to Olive Garden where we held our discussion. It was real nice to get some food in my stomach since I was starving by 7 o'clock.

While reading my book today I was very intrigued by one of the chapters I read. In, "The Faith of The American Soldier," Stephen Mansfield discusses many of the trials facing our soldiers, chaplains, and the military as a whole. One chapter is entitled, "Anvil of the Warrior Code." This chapter discusses the problems with a military without any moral guidance. He speaks of how ironic it is when we have a military that we give such high moral standards without giving them any moral guidance. Specifically, a faith-based moral code. One problem military chaplains face is that they are unable to justify the reason for fighting with any religious backing. Our chaplains may not say that our military or government is fighting on the behalf of Christianity when it really comes down to this. In the American Revolution our military was inspired primarily by Christianity. Many pastors in those times left the pulpit to fight because they felt a calling by God to fight for religious freedom. Mansfield speaks very well when he says, "Any nation that wages war without moral consideration, but demands moral conduct from its warriors, asks the impossible. It would be more consistent to simply discard morality in the conduct of war and return to the amorality of barbarian warrior cultures." Many Americans became upset when some U.S. soldiers abused and tortured detained Iraqi's in Abu Grhaib prison. I think it is only evident what our military really needs.

In 1917 when our military prepared to enter WWI, the New York Bible Society decided to give each soldier a pocket New Testament. As a part of this, they requested President Teddy Roosevelt (an outspoken Christian), to include a message in the front cover. His message frames a warrior code that has come to be known as the Micah Mandate:

The teaching of the New Testament is foreshadowed in Micah's verse, "He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: but to do justice and to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).

Do justice; and therefore fight valiantly against those who stand for the reign of Molech and Beelzebub on this earth.

Love mercy; treat your enemies well, suffer the afflicted, treat every woman as though she were your sister, care for the little children, rescue the perishing, and be tender with the old helpless.

Walk humbly; you will do so if you study the life and teaching of the Savior, walking in His steps.
Remember, the most perfect machinery of government will not keep us as a nation if there is not within us a soul, no abounding of material prosperity shall avail us if our spiritual sense is atrophied. The foes of our own household will surely prevail against us unless there be in our people an inner life which finds its outward expression in a morality like unto that preached by the seers and the prophets of God when the grandeur that was Greece and the glory that was Rome still lay in the future.

Roosevelt gave the soldiers of that generation a moral code to act by. How would WWI turn out if those soldiers conducted themselves in the same manner of those they fought? This is exactly the thing that our soldiers need today. Morality comes from the Christian beliefs that our nation is based on. In George Washingtion's Farewell Address he says, "Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion."

Now that you have read what I grasped from this chapter here is a less serious subject. Tonight I stumbled upon a video that many of those from inside the White House made as a special Christmas Greeting. Here is the link, http://www.whitehouse.gov/barney/barneycam2005.wm.v.html.

Only 16 days till Christmas! Narnia comes out tommorrow!! :)



(The Capital Christmas Tree which was returned to its proper name this year to celebrate the true reason)