I’ve learned to enjoy history. I can’t say I ever liked the subject much in school, nor did I get anything much more than a passing grade. I think history starts to become important the moment you find yourself saying, "I remember when...."

In other words, history becomes more exciting when you start recognizing your own. We grow into realizing that we are the product of our past bent by the pressures of the present tempered by the beauty of our uniqueness. Our family backgrounds, genetically and environmentally, truly mold us into what we become. The newness of life, the fact that everyday is different from the one before changes us with new facts, new technology, new findings, everything new. And we are each one of a kind. We think, react, discern, understand God, come to life, and face death in a way that attributes differently to each one of us.

Seventy years ago the holocaust began. It changed everything. Thirty years ago the suicides of Jonestown stunned the world and changed the way we see things. Sixty years ago last week my mom delivered me, and I can only hope that in some small way, something has changed for the better.

Pastor B.

News item. Apparently some number crunchers somewhere, with way to much time on their hands have revealed an interesting statistic about switching back to standard time. On the night when everyone gets an extra hour of sleep, the next day records fewer heart attacks than would be expected. Message: setting the clock back one hour prevents heart problems.

I think we should take this news to heart. The main stream media has not followed up. In fact the back street gutter trickle media hasn’t followed up either. I believe we need to look more closely at this scientific truth. Hey, if the honchos in D.C. can change Daylight Savings Time to cure all our energy ills, they can certainly make laws to save lives.

What they need to do is make it a law that we have an extra hour of sleep every night by setting our clocks back. Just think of all the lives that will be saved.

And look at all the other interesting things that would happen. In a matter of days we’d start going to work at dusk and to bed at dawn. But days later we’d be back to what we’re used to. Life would be so much more exciting because the routine would change.

Over time we’d celebrate Christmas in the heat of summer. Independence Day fireworks could start a lot earlier if we celebrated in winter. All our holidays would have a different look that would change every year. How exciting is that?

Plus, not only would there be fewer coronaries, but birthdays would come more often which means we would all get older faster and significantly raise the average age of morality. We’d live longer!

Let’s start a movement to set the clock back each night. Sounds like a great health care program to me.

Pastor B.

At 10:00 PM on election night, the television broadcasters were able to say what they already knew - Barack Obama had been elected to be the 44^th President of the United States. My eyes welled up with tears while I watched the celebrations begin and the electoral numbers add up. Why the wet eyes?

Joy? Yes. Certainly. I believed that he was the one who would make a better President, so there was that joy of winning.

Tears that reflect the emotions of emerging from a long struggle were also there. I was not personally a part of the struggle, but a very interested witness of the fight for freedom among minorities, especially African-Americans. By the miracle of television I saw the terror wrought upon minorities as Blacks attempted to desegregate schools and take ownership of their civil rights, even the right to vote. I was seven years old when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Just old enough to have a beginning awareness of racism, prejudice, and bigotry. I remember well the I Have a Dream speech of Martin Luther King, Jr. No one believes the struggle is over, but the election of Obama is to the struggle what a reversal is in wrestling.

Tears came because hope finally returned with youth at its side. I was young once. I was one of the millions of baby boomer youth filled with visions for a better, almost Utopian tomorrow. We skated on the coattails of the Kennedys and those who followed in their mold. Then, suddenly, we got old. Our visions dulled with the tarnish of our own shortcomings, and we became what we wanted to change. Along came a bright, articulate Chicago politician who is a generation or two in my rearview mirror. Tuesday night passed my generation’s corroded torch of hope to someone who represents a movement to polish it, shine it, and lift it as a beacon for the world. This is more than a change. This is a major shift.

I suppose I also felt warm and fuzzy simply because, as a person who deals with words, I am thrilled to have a master orator at the helm of our country. Obama’s victory speech grabbed pieces form King’s Dream speech and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. He knows the power of words, and he knows how to use them. It doesn’t hurt that the sound of his voice pleases the ear. Eloquence, however, is a gift that comes as raw ore that needs refining through study and hard work. How providential it was that one of the daily Bible readings for the day after the election was from Proverbs and included the verse, "The mind of the wise makes their speech judicious, and adds persuasiveness to their lips."

Now the world goes on, and we live in the hand of God.

Pastor B.

Tomorrow the handful of Americans who haven’t voted early will line up at voting booths across this great land to exercise their right to vote. As ususal, the campaign season has wearied us all to where election day is more like let’s-get-it-over-with-day. I’d love to see our campaigning limited to six weeks. Maybe that would allow us to experience a more positive spin on it all.

From this year’s stumping three images have emerged, Joe Six Pack, Joe the Plumber, and Hockey Mom. Although the plumber began as a real person, his name has transcended his actual being so that it joins the other two as titles representing Everyman. Joe, Joe, and Mom slide out of mouths hoping to capture all of us. We’re just regular folk, aren’t we? Regular Joe’s and regular Mom’s.

But I think there is another side that so often escapes the majority of us when we grasp on to the inclusive nature of Joe Six Pack, Joe the Plumber, and Hockey Mom. When you picture these three representational ideals, what color are they? My guess is that we see them as white. I know that I do.

And that leads us to ask, is race an issue in this 2008 presidential election. To me, the answer is yes. Not a resounding yes, but still yes. Our nation has come a long, long way in the last 50 years. The walls that blocked opportunities for persons of color have crumbled, but many still exist. Appeals to racial fears come embedded in terms that don’t sound prejudicial. But it’s still there. Joe, Joe, and Mom carry a subtle racism that may or may not be intended. The attack hoax of a female in Pennsylvania two weeks ago more overly struck at our big-black-man-molests-innocent-white-girl inner fears. There are racial issues at play here in this election.

Let me get personal here. I know that seated and anchored deep in my heart is a racism planted by my suburban Minneapolis culture and blond Scandinavian roots. It will never go away. Only my experience, my intellect, and my faith can effectively counter the prejudice cemented in my childhood.

That a black man can effectively run for President in America is a sign of positive change in the racial divides of America. That race is an issue at all and that subtle race bating still emerges is a sign that we’ve still got a ways to go.

Pastor B.