Yesterday I outlined what I really believe is a huge issue for modern people living in the West (not the Western part of the United States, but the Western World) or else where they are heavily influenced by it’s culture.

The passionate, endless, and at times mindless pursuit of happiness. The problem is compounded when you confuse happiness with any sort of pleasure of course. Once you think the pursuit of pleasure is synonymous with the pursuit of happiness you decend even deeper into a moral quagmire that few ever seem to completely escape from. I say few because I do not consider myself to be free from it at all, I see it all the time in myself, and the more mature I become the more prevalent I see it throughout my entire being.

I call it a quagmire because once you begin pursuing pleasure you tend to bend towards the stronger passions, which in turn usually end up being physical ones like sex, food or drink, power, etc. All things that stimulate some part of our physical/sexual bodies, and hence never satisfy for very long.

So why is it that once you finally achieve (if you do) the thing or things that you have wanted for so long, they don’t make you happy for more than a short while?

Why is it that the ulitmate American Dream experience – winning the lottery and becoming a multimillionare – almost results in divorce, misery and bankruptcy?

Human logic suggests rather strongly that if only done right, the pursuit of happiness just has to work!

But it doesn’t! So why not?

It will come as no surprise to you that I have a theory of two about that. Hey, why else would I be writing all this, Hmmmmm?

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Hello there, if you didn’t read the update to my post on X-men 3, read it before you see it!

I missed the extra scene that occurs at the end of the credits – darn it!

But to make up for it I did some research and here’s the cover of the very first X-Men comic I ever bought – low those many years ago!

Enjoy!

In the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson, wrote these famous words:

We hold these Truths to be self evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.

I suppose you could talk about that paragraph endlessly or nearly so. Christians love to point out the fact that the Founders believed and understood that our rights come from the Creator (God), not from the government.

I say, Right On! (Uh, would someone please explain that to Ted Kennedy please?)

But that’s not what I’m thinking about today. Instead the phrase that has caught my minds eye is “the pursuit of happiness.”

I’m thinking about that phrase because I’m about to start a new series of sermons out of the book of Philippians called, “Finding Joy in the Seasons of Life.” Since joy and happiness are often thought to be the samething and nearly always confused, I’m wondering if finding joy and pursuing happiness might be thought of as the samething.

Of course the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” has been debated ever since it was first written. Some people just hate it, for example look at what John Perry Barlow has to say about it:

Here’s what I believe. I believe that extolling the pursuit of happiness was a toxic stupidity entirely unworthy of my greatest American hero, Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, it is a poison that sickens our culture more wretchedly every nanosecond. I wish he’d never said it.

It produces a monstrous, insatiable hunger inside our national psyche that encourages us ever more ravenously to devour all the resources of this small planet, crushing liberties, snuffing lives, feeling ourselves ordained by God and Jefferson to do whatever is necessary to make us happy.

And yet the American people are miserable. Or so it would appear.

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Update: I blew it!! I just found out today that there is a scene after the credits! It shows something very interesting, and I won’t say more so as not to spoil things.

Darn my haste anyway!!!

Well I finally felt well enough today to go see the new X-Men movie, better late than never is what I say!

They call it, “The Last Stand,” and in story terms they aren’t kidding either! But it’s anything but a last stand for the X-Men at the box office, where according to the Washington Post, they are blowing everyone else away!

I’ve loved for the X-Men for years, in fact I started reading them in the sixties, when their magazine was still in the single digits. I’m not sure anymore, but I think it was around number 6 or 9 when I first discovered our brave band and muties!

I won’t spoil anything for those of you who haven’t seen the movie here. Suffice it to say I think this is probably the best of the three movies, even though I disagree with some of the plot choices made. It’s not that they are terrible, it’s just I would have rather seen certain characters handled in different ways that’s all.

If you haven’t gone, check it out – but be prepared for a high body count. Not much gore, but a lot of folks are dying here that’s for sure!

Oh, and one more thing, do stay till the very end, until the credits start to roll, that last scene could just be the most important in the movie!

Enjoy!

Last Friday was my final day in Spain, in fact I flew out to London that night around 8:30 PM. By that last day we were all pretty tired, so we ended up not doing too much.

But my brother-in-law Scott and I had spotted a castle on the highway and we wanted to see it. Monica was tired and sat this one out.

This little place, called the CastilloSohaiil, was great! Without a doubt I had more fun there than any other place I went in Spain. Being rather small and not well known helped, very few other tourists there. Plus it’s not fully restored, so there’s a raw, unfinished, authentic feeling to it that some other places can lack.

They’ve incorporated a park with it, as well as a great beach to enjoy as well, and it features free parking! One of the only places we saw that has that one!

As you can see it’s beautiful, and not a bad little walk up the hill either! They are still working on it of course, and it even features a small gift shop, but we didn’t buy anything.

You can walk along the walls and check out the views and the towers as well. Here’s a view of the battlements and a tower.

Walking along that small, narrow path was so cool, I kept wishing I had had a place like this to play in when I was a kid! How cooll would that be?

In one of the towers Scott found a doorway behind a door, and we discovered it let up to the very top of the tower. The first one was very narrow and steep. He estimated the steps were about 18 inches high, and it was so narrow that if I turned straight up and inhaled a bit, I was stuck fast!

Now that’s narrow! Here I am in the low doorway that led to that first tower way.

In the second tower we went too we found another stairway up to the top, a bit wider this time thank goodness! I managed to get a shot of that one!

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Last Thursday we drove up to Granada to see the amazing site known as Alhamabra. I can’t go into all the history, but if interested you can start here, or here.

Again there’s no picture or set of pictures that could really do justice to this place. So what you’ve got here are just a few samples to wet your appetite!

Above is just one of the buildings on site. They are HUGE and beautiful and you can spend hours and hours exploring the parts of them they let you into.

One of the most famous sites is the courtyard of the 12 Lions. Below you can see the Lions in close up.

When the Arabs ruled here these Lions were given to them by the Jews celebrating the good relationship they had with them (my, how times have changed huh?). Originally the Lions were little fountians, squirting water to the four points of the compass.

But when the Christians drove the Muslims out and took possession of the palace, they took the Lions apart to see how they worked, and since then they’ve never worked again! In the picture above you can see the channels for the water that once flowed from them.

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Last Wednesday, the third day of my week long vacation in Spain, we took off for Sevilla. It was about a two hour drive for us, and the drive went smoothly.

We spent our time there at two sites, and today I’ll just focus on one, the incredible Chapel.

“Let us build a church so big that those who see it will think us mad”, that is what the cathedral chapter decided in 1401 when the mosque had to be knocked down. It is one of the last Spanish Gothic cathedrals, and the Renaissance style is already evident there. Its impressive size makes it the third largest in the Christian world, after Saint Peter’s in Vatican city and Saint Paul’s in London. – Sevilla website.

The Chapel is HUGE, simply huge. It’s so big that you can’t really take a picture of it from the outside or the inside, there just too much of it! Remember as you look at the pictures that you are only seeing the smallest portion of the real thing.

That’s me outside the chapel, you can see the work they are doing there. On the roads and the chapel itself as well. It’s a huge restoration project and I imagine it’ll go on for many years.

Just one of the amazing sites outside the chapel. The amount of craftsmanship you see in this building, and the others that I saw, is simply incredible. It’s hard to believe something this huge and intricate was done, but it was and it’s something to see that’s for sure!

Once you step into the sanctuary of the chapel, it just stops you. I know they designed these buildings to bring a sense of reverence and awe in the people, and oh were they ever successful. Even today, with all our technology and progress, what you see inside is literally stunning.

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Our second day we actually did the total tourist thing and paid for a bus trip/tour that took us across the straits and into Moorocco. We visited Tangiers, and I really loved it.

I was really looking forward to it because while I’ve been in Africa before (last Fall in Malawi) this would be my first experience in a Muslim country. Even though I knew it would be a very brief exposure, I still expected to learn from it.

And I did. As we walked through the town we went through the very narrow streets (more like alley ways – some about the width of a hall way in America!) and noticed the same thing. The young girls we saw were all dressed in typical Muslim dress and were laughing and smiling with their friends.

Their Mothers on the other hand look very different. There were no smiles, no joking and no joy in their eyes at all. I felt so bad for those young girls that the religion that dominates their lives was going to doom them to a largely joyless and hopeless existence.

How sad, and just one of the many terrible things I see Islam do to it’s followers. Perhaps someday I can go back and get out into the country and see what’s really going on out there.

Here’s a shot of Tangiers from the beach- since I couldn’t take a picture from the ferry due to some fairly rough seas, this is as close as I can come to showing you what the town looks like as you approach it from the sea.

We took a bus tour of the town and then got out of the bus for the main event, a tour of the old town. Here’s a shot of the remaining walls and main gate of the old town.

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Yes, I am back! You are underwhelmed I’m sure!

As I write this on Sunday evening I’m still suffering from a fairly strong case of Jet Lag, but hope to be past that in a day or two. This week I’ll be putting up a few pictures of my trip, and I hope to do some think pieces I have in mind, IF I can find the time!

We flew straight to London from Phoenix and then onto Malaga. Got lost trying to go from the airport to the timeshare my sister had. By the time we found our way there, it was late and we had been up a looooong time!

But the next morning we were off for our first trip – Gibraltar!

I just loved Gibraltar – it’s very English with narrow winding streets, quaint shops and very old buildings everywhere. It was full of shops and all sorts of things, and of course we didn’t have time to see very much of it. But I loved what I saw.

We hired a van to take us up the mountain, see the monkeys, the views from the Rock, a few of the tunnels, etc. That was so cool, I just wish we had had time to see the WW2 Museum and tunnels, but you can’t squeeze everything into one day, so I’ll gladly take what I can get!

This trip wouldn’t have been possible without my sister asking me to come along. I stayed at the time share she had paid for. I stayed there with Monica and Scott, my two nephews and a friend of theirs.

Here’s two pictures of Monica and Scott and myself, as we neared the entrance to Gibarltar.

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Hi all,

I’m back from Spain - more on that later!

I’ve decided to put up notices when I’ve updated the church sermon page and/or the church podcast.

Both are updated this afternoon – you can access the podcast here – http://www.ccr-online.org/CCRPodcast.xml

You can either stream or download the message at  http://www.ccr-online.org/sermons.htm