Greetings from the Vortex Capitol!

Pastor Rick
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So Debbie and I are in Sedona, Arizona for a couple days. We are doing a short holiday before joining Pastor Bill Johnson and 1800 others for a Leaders' Advance at Bethel Church in Redding, California.

Sedona is situated among the most amazing and beautiful red rock outcroppings you can imagine.

Anyway, this is a new-agey place. There are four vortexes in the area (or is it vorteces?). A vortex is a place where the earth's electro-magnetic energy is particularly strong. If you are at all spiritually sensitive, the brochures say, you will feel it. People come to get the energy.

Debbie and I did at least ten miles of hiking today up and around these rock formations. visited three vortexes (or is it vorteces? I digress). Yours truly felt nothing. Nada. The null set. Very spiritually insensitive. Could not get my energy balanced at all. I was feeling quite dull.

Then we visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross. Conceived by a Roman Catholic layperson and artist. Helped in her design by Frank Lloyd Wright. She was inspired to design a modern house of worship that would portray the beauty of the cross and the one who died there out of love for humanity. The outbreak of WWII set aside plans to build the church in Budapest. (Am I remembering right? It was one of the eastern European capitols.) Then, she thought of her own backyard. She is from this part of Arizona.

The chapel is set into the side of a red rock butte and can be seen for miles off. The cross looks like it grows out of the rock face with a frame around it. It is featured in all the tourist literature and when we saw it from another rock outcropping miles away, we knew we had to go and see it.

I was not prepared to be blown away.

The moment I walked in, I knew I had found the vortex. The chapel is open to the public. It is a tourist attraction. Even on this cold and snowy day, dozens of people were in and out of the chapel while we were there. But the presence of God met me as I walked into the alcove. In the sanctuary I could hardly speak. I immediately sat down on one of the simple benches and began to pray. Before Debbie and I left we offered a brief prayer to the Lord quietly. It took a while to gather enough composure before we could do this without crying.

Overwhelming Presence! The Energy that animates all of creation. The Great Balancer of all wrongs, ills and evils. That One made his presence known without words. His age is old and forever new. The age he ushers in is that which makes all things new. He met us today in the rocks and in that house of witness set in the rocks. A vortex of Presence.

RM

American Exceptionalism

Pastor Rick
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Greetings Faithful Readers,

I have been inconsistent in posting. Probably a relief to many of you.

I came across a couple fascinating articles this morning. The first comes from:
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/
It is entitled "They Can't Push Us Around Forever" by State Rep. Susan Lynn from Tennessee. It is a joint resolution by the Tennessee House and Senate, signed by Governor Phil Bredesen. Basically House Joint Resolution 108, the State Sovereignty Resolution, is a call to the other 49 states to stand up for their Constitutional rights in our union against the extraordinary power grabs coming out of Washington.

The tenth amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that which has been delegated by the people to the federal government, and also that which is absolutely necessary to advancing those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution of the United States. The rest is to be handled by the state governments, or locally, by the people themselves.

The joint resolution calls for a joint working group between the states to enumerate the abuses of authority by the federal government, and to seek repeal of the assumption of powers and the imposed mandates by the federal government.

Wow!

You may not be Wowing with me! So let me explain. This is a call to the states and the people to stand up to the power grab of this government. And to protect the rights of the people. This may well provoke a constitutional showdown in the Supreme Court. Will our experiment in self-government under constitutional law prevail--or will we allow Washington to simply gobble up more and more of our rights and legal protections?

Now to the other article. it is entitled, 'President Obama and American Exceptionalism' by Robert Heiler. You can find it on: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

American Exceptionalism is a theory or 'doctrine' of self-government that both the people and the state are answerable ultimately to the Creator and that the state is answerable to the people. This compact, which is codified in our constitutional form of government, is what makes America unique in the history of nations. This is what is worth fighting for and preserving. Elections do not make self-government. Mouthing the word, 'democracy,' does not make for a government of, for and by the people. It is this political creed that has been the guarantor of our rights as citizens of an amazing experiment among the nations.

I believe that our president does not understand or believe in American exceptionalism. He openly scorned it when asked if he believes in American exceptionalism--he stated he believes in American exceptionalism the same way a Greek believes in Greek exceptionalism or a Brit believes in British exceptionalism. We are not talking about love of country here. Or who one roots for in the Olympics. We are talking about a unique contribution to the history of civilization. A concept of authority that allowed our forefathers to cast of the yoke of a tyrannical crown and to embark upon an experiment in liberty that was unprecedented at the time--and which still stands as the best formulation of governing authority the modern world has yet to see.