The President and Transparency

This evening, I was watching the news when the anchorman mentioned President Obama releasing his tax returns and calling on Mitt Romney to do the same. Said Mr. President, “Every candidate should be as transparent as possible.”  Ha! “Do as I say and not as I do,” would be more accurate with the Nontransparent-one-in-Chief.

Dear Mr Obama, if you want us to take you seriously, you need to follow your own advice and be transparent about a few things. Like:

• Your actual, hard copy birth certificate;
• The Indonesian passport you had as a child;
• Your academic records, including the ones from Occidental College with the name you used there, which was not Barack Obama, if I recall;
• And don’t forget the application to Occidental for a scholarship for International students;
• Your records form Harvard;
• Your association with a known home terrorist, in whose house you began your political career.

And the list goes on.  While your at it, have your Treasury Secretary come clean on why he didn’t file his taxes for several years. He says he forgot. Yeah, right. I wish I could get by with that excuse.

Are you ever going to admit that you were not raised in the typical fashion of African Americans of your generation? That you never lived in a real ghetto or government projects, or that you never faced Jim Crow laws, so you cannot really say you know what most blacks go through.

I realize much of this is hearsay, but if you are going to be “as transparent as possible” then you should set the example and prove your critics wrong.

Lilacs, butterflies and the Resurrection

This may look like just any lilac bush, but it has an interesting story. It used to be three times as tall, but a few years ago we had a late frost that killed the bush.  When I finally got around to cutting it down, some new growth had appeared. So I trimmed down the dead branches and left the new growth. Now, after three years, it is blooming again.


Yesterday, when I was outside taking care of the dog, there just happened to be a butterfly on the bush, so I snapped this picture on my cell phone.


Ironically, this is the season we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  Both the lilac and the butterfly can be symbols of the most important event in history.  Just as the bush was dormant for 3 years, so the Lord was in the grave for 3 days.  Just as the caterpillar dies and becomes a beautiful butterfly, so Jesus conquered death and rose again to new life.


And we too can have new life in Christ by repenting and believing in Him.