This week or so has been a little nutsy... my computer should be done by Friday with a new 40Gig harddrive and a new keyboard as well as new OS programming - sweet.

Also, Carrie and I found out that we'll be on campus to work for at least September and then when we're done (9% or so left to go) we'll be on campus full time. Today at the first planing meeting campus assignments were given: I have all of the Erie County schools as well as Pitt Bradford and Titusville, and Cal U of PA.

Sweet.

Last night when I went to start my computer last night, it said that I was not able to find a hard drive of any kind. That stressed me out.

It started this morning, allowing me to archive some essential files. I'm still quite stressed about it, but I'm taking it to a repair shop right after I post this.

Pray for my computer's soul.

This weekend has been a hard-work-weekend. All three sets of parents were in Grove City to help us move to a new house. We moved all the big stuff, almost all of the rest of it as well and painted two more rooms - Ashley, Beth and Matt helped out a whole lot with moving and the one upstairs. Grandma Merry helped with cleaning; the woman is a cleaning machine.

Here's picture of the new digs with Matt on the porch, I took it in between paragraphs.

For dinner tonight we hung out with the Weimers for a bbq, Rebecca (who used to be on staff here in WPA, but is now in Northern Africa) was in town with her man-friend (also on staff in NA), Trish from the Weimers' church joined us as well.

Jason and I had some cigars while he cooked... the mexican segundo was okay. I still have my favorite, but I have no clue how to tell what brand they are or anything by the label.

Off to painting.

Man, I am not looking forward to painting the inside of this house at all! The smallest room took us a good two hours just to prime it. We're going to have to have some sort of painting party with friends to finish it.

We are painting every room in the house with the possible exception of the bathrooms. Maybe our parents should come a different weekend, the weekend we're done painting and need to re-clean the entire house.

"I consciously choose the dog's path through life. I shall be poor; I shall be a painter..."

Carrie and I went to E&P tonight to read and chill a bit. I brought along a book that we received at the National Staff Conferece for free (not from the conference, someone just had a ton of them and were giving them away) called Mind Siege by Tim LaHaye (of Left Behind fame). The beginning part of the book talks about all of these things that pastors in the US should be warning their congregations about and inviting them to vote for or against. Most of them didn't bother me, even if I didn't agree with them. But, when he says that as Christians people should vote for "pro-American" politicians, something about that seems to run afoul of my understanding of being a follower of Jesus Christ.

It seems that when I've talked to other followers of Christ, specifically ones who lean right politically they tend to be anti-globalization; this baffles me. Christians, particularly those of us that fall into the orthodox Protestant camp, tend to aim to base beliefs directly on what the Bible says or implies. From my reading of Revelation 20:1-6 (in combination with Isaiah 11:4; Zechariah 14:9; Jeremiah 3:17) it seems like a one-world government is the ideal; granted, these examples have Christ as the King and ruler, but it is the ideal none the less. Carrie and I discussed this a while and by referring to a conversation with a friend, Tony, the best we could figure was that the fear of globalism probably stems from the fear of the power of the entire world being in too few hands.

This got me thinking toward more logical conclusions: if it is bad to have the power base of the world being controlled by a few, why is it okay for the power of the third largest nation in the world to be so concentrated? It seems that this would be just as bad. The powerbase of the US is simply a micricosm of the world.

Also, I have a hard time seeing how being a follower of Jesus Christ would lead to any sort of nationalism. (See Nationalism article on Wikipedia) As Carrie pointed out Judaism is the only major world religion that could possibly advocate nationalism, and that only to a single nation - Israel. Christianity, on the other hand rejects any sort of nationalism at is base, even going on to undermine the Jewish nationalism by putting relationship with the God of Israel on a base of faith alone and not on natural or national origins.

Christians are called to be as Christ Himself. Christian in its original form actually meant 'little Christ'. Jesus Christ had no political or national aspirations, he rejected the calls of the people to raise Himself up as King; they had expected the Messiah to do just that. The goal of the Gospel and the Great Commission is that every nation would be inhabited by followers of Jesus Christ, that every nationality would be represented in heaven. How, then, can we think that now, when every human institution is imperfect that our American system is closer to God's plan than a global system?

To alleviate the fears of too much power in the hands of too few, I advocate a confederate system of government. (See Confederacy and Confederation.) Break down every area of the world into nation-states determined in size by either landmass or population, or even by political affinity. Then, as a whole come to a consensus of a global constitution, however specific or vague - only by a particularly large margin may each peice of the constitution be agreed to (perhaps a 75%) by popular vote. Continuing, allow each nation-state to rule themselves, therefore putting the power of each small piece in the hands of a few, and the power of these combined few in the hands of many.

This plan breaks down where every plan of humankind breaks down, the problem that every human institution is plagued by - sin. There will always be greed and hegemonic ambitions... and the only cure for these is Christ Himself, and His personal and invited rule of each of our lives.