Heed the Call

Jesus Christ was approximately 30 years old, and he was ready to step from the shadows of a life which to that stage had been lived in relative anonymity.

He had learned of the fate of his cousin, John 'the Baptist', and decided that it was time for he himself to begin a public ministry. It was what he had waited his whole life to do. It was the entire reason for his being alive.

Jesus knew as he began that he would need to start somewhere. And so he set out along the edge of the waters of the sea of Galilee, beginning to spread there a message" that the people should "repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

As he made those first tentative public speeches and teachings, he was mostly alone, and he quickly came to realize that he needed help. He needed people to help him travel, to organize, to simply be his companions on the journey.

Walking along the edge of the Galilean sea he observed two brothers named Simon and Andrew, and he began to talk with them. He talked and taught, telling the brothers "Follow me, and I will make you fisher's of men!" His divine inspiration was so great that the brothers left behind their nets and began to follow Jesus.

The trio moved along the sea a bit and came upon the fishing ship of a man named Zebedee. Tending the nets with their father were his two sons, James and John, and Jesus again began to speak to the men and called on them to join him, which they did.

From this humble beginning has arisen the greatest church in the history of the world. The very church of the one true God Himself, founded by His only son.

Palin's People Power

As someone who is completely sold on her, it is very difficult for me to understand how anyone outside of absolute liberal ideologues can not get the whole Sarah Palin thing and not like the woman as much as I like her.

The self-described 'hockey mom from Wasilla' has more real world human substance and experience to her than the vast majority of U.S. Senators and Congress persons, and had more executive experience at the time of last year's elections than the Democratic presidential candidate and ultimate victor Barack Obama.

The fact is that Sarah Palin is viewed publicly through two lenses, the two that have the American public as polarized as they have ever been at any time in the nation's history since the Civil War.

On one side are the former mainstream media outlets such as the majority of the nations daily newspapers, weekly news magazines, and it's network television outlets such as ABC and CBS. These outlets became partisan shills for the Democratic Party in general and ultra-liberal, sometimes communist and socialist world views decades ago.

On the other side are large swaths of the new media, including talk radio and much of the internet. Ultra-conservative talk hosts like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and conservative websites such as TownHall.com present Palin favorably, sometimes heroically.