Cabbages and Kings

Why do Christians have to be conservatives?  Once I was talking to a preacher about his thoughts. He said, “But of course I’m a conservative.” I wondered at the time, why “of course”? I have learned since then how indoctrinated many Christian communities have become in the belief that conservative=godly and liberal=hedonism.  Even though I consider myself a liberal, I still feel the value judgements of those words.  But why? Was Jesus a conservative?  Conservative means people who want to hold on to tradition and who are reluctant to change. The dictionary offers orthodox, cautious and safe as other synonyms. But was that Jesus?  Jesus said repeatedly, “This is what you were taught, but now I’m telling you….”  His harshest words were for the religious leaders.  He stayed out of Roman politics, but jumped into Jewish politics with both feet and a whip.  Jesus was not just liberal, he was radical.  He was revolutionary.  He was so unsettli...

Here’s things that no one tells you.    *Not everyone loves being pregnant.  *Not everyone bonds with their baby in-utero.  *Sometimes pregnant women can feel like an alien has invaded their body.   Sometimes, not knowing this can really make an expectant mother feel inadequate. It causes worry that they won’t be able to love enough.   I have three children. With the first one I worried all the way through my pregnancy that I wasn’t going to have it in me to be a good mother. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to love him enough. I worried that I would never bond. I wondered what was wrong with me.    As soon as he was born, I fell totally in love. He was the center of our world. I couldn’t have loved him more.    The second time around was the same. I loved the older one so much, maybe I wouldn’t be able to make room for another baby. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to love her. I had the same worries the second time around.    But, w...

I have rules. 1. I never watch news. I only read news.  2. I use a news aggregator that allows you to prioritize news sources.  3. I stick with news sources that are judged center, but may lean slightly left or right. 4. I stick with news sources that are judged to report and analyze fact.   5. I avoid (like the plague) all news or fact check sites where links, that seem to be information are actually click-bait.  Ad Fontes Media is a media watchdog organization from Colorado. They have published a media bias chart, which judges sources on their bias and the accuracy of their reporting.  All Sides is another media watchdog site that pulls stories from all sides of the issue for comparison. They also have a media bias chart, but it only includes bias, not the reliability of the information.  Here is a list of media sources, selected for websites and articles, and eliminating those that are primarily TV, Video, Podcast and Audio. I started with...