Tiller shot to death

I just saw the news that abortion provider George Tiller has been shot to death.
He was shot as he entered his church just after 10 a.m. this morning.
Here is a link to the story in the Wichita Eagle.
http://www.kansas.com/topstories/story/833730.html

Police are looking for a while male in his 60s. They have a tag number and a vehicle id. They are not saying if they have the shooter in custody.
I feel this deserves some comment.
This should not be made into a political event. This was the act of a sick person. I don't know of any Christians who could condone such an act. There are plenty of political people who would however.
Sometimes its hard to tell the difference between a bible-centered political world view and conservative politics, but here we see the difference.
I don't know if the shooter will claim to be Christian or not, but one thing is clear, his actions were not Christian.
Murder is never the correct response, no matter what you believe about abortion.

The right to protest is a fundamental American right. I would hate to see this act used as a means of silencing protesters.
There are political games here to be played by both sides. Let's just not allow ourselves to be taken in by either side.
This is a tragic event. Murder is wrong. Political games that may follow will be wrong too.

Pray for the Tiller family in their time of loss.

Sunday thoughts

Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-yes, even his own life-he cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
>>
Jesus told this parable while visiting with the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the religious authorities of the day, and they were watching him closely to find some reason to discredit him.
At the same time, many of the common people were following him, partly at least because he was miraculously healing people and providing food for the masses.
As was often the case, Jesus did not say what one might expect. He went past the surface issues - those following out of anger, mistrust or greed - and went to the deeper issue.
The deeper issue being one's motive and attitude.
It is good to question things as the Pharisees did, but they were assuming that Jesus was wrong and were questioning only to prove that point.
The masses were following for what they could get. There are benefits, but that cannot be the only reason for believing.
This was the deeper point. Jesus - God, wants disciples, or followers, who love God above all else. He does not mean we must hate our family and ourselves. He is not talking about feelings, but about choices. He wants us to put our faith above everything else as a priority, even above our own life.
When he talks about carrying your cross, it seems strange to us, but it would not have been strange to people hearing it. There was only one reason to carry one's cross. That reason was to be executed.
When we come to God, we do have to give up our life, and that is real salvation. But we receive a new life - which is what being born again is - and that is a great treasure. By comparison, the treasure is worth more than even our families and even our own lives.
This is the life - the new life, the exchanged life - is the life we were meant to live.
Jesus does not want us to literally hate people, or to kill ourselves.
What he wants is for us to give up our life that is sinful by nature, so that he may give us a new life that he has created for us. This is a matter of faith. Being born again is not a matter of "cleaning up your act" or making a new start.
We have to give up - crucify - our old life and begin a new life of faith.

Romans 6:4 - We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Round-a-bout

Takes a little time to get settled back in when you've been out of town. Just last night I realized the construction of the Roundabout on Kansas Ave. had started.
I lived with Roundabouts on the east coast, but there we called them traffic circles.
I always thought they were fun. They do keep traffic moving along.
I never saw, or heard of, an accident at one.
Im sure there will be some anxious people, but they are easy to figure out once you see it.
Here is a link to a study done comparing them to two-way stop signs.
http://www.ite.org/traffic/documents/AB00H1903.pdf

health and safety fair

The Arkansas City Fire Department is hosting a health and safety fair today until 3 p.m. There is a good turnout so far.
There is lots of safety information available. Several agencies are represented. One is the clean air group that will be working toward a smoking ban in ark city.
The police are doing the CD for kids. This is where their information, finger prints, photos, are recorded. If the child turns up missing, you will have that information ready to hand over to law enforcement groups.

worksession

cit y commission

City commission work session today at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall
Here is the link
http://arkcity.org/DocumentView.aspx?DID=2406

Ill have the live blog up and running.

Back home

Got back home around 11:30 a.m. today, Thursday.
Should have known that cutting across country on backroads would not be faster for us.
All those interesting places to stop and take a look.
Most of the day yesterday was just driving, across New Mexico and into Texas and oklahoma. It was about 10 last night when we decided we had had enough and stopped in Fairview, Okla.
Found a really nice hotel with an interesting design. Each room had a "back door" with a parking space literally at the door. Then the other door opened into a courtyard with a pool. Small place, cheap, and clean.
There and in Seilig, Okla., were really cool murals.
Also in oklahoma we saw a sign that said "antelope hills" so ... of course we had to go see what it was since it was not on the map. It was a great back road into the country. We did see a herd of antelope, maybe 10 of them, just hanging around in a field.
We got a lot of pictures.
We also saw a jackrabbit on that road. Hmmm, does that mean we saw a jackalope? :)
There were also a few deer.
We stopped for a bit in Santa Rosa, NM, which was interesting. Lots of old buildings and some old mission type spanish buildings.
They also have a 80-foot deep artesian well where people go scuba diving.
Anyways, good to be home.
Love being on the road though.
Ill post some pictures later on.



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Tuesday, about to start home

Today was very busy.
We started out in Carrizzozo. Another cool little town.
Soon we found life sized burro statues around town, painted very nicely.
So we had to look for those.
Then we went to the petroglyphs. Another national monument. This place has thousands of pictographs done by Indians several thousand years ago. They are pretty mystical and there is not much knowledge of who they were.
They don't seem to be related to the Navaho or Apache tribes that were prevelant here in the last few hundred years.
That was interesting.
We went back to Carrizzozo. Went into this little local diner, Manny's Cafe. Tiny place. An older man and his daughter invited us to sit with them. People are really friendly here.
But the place was very packed.
Got some more real authentic mexican type food there.
Everywhere you go they have Green or Red chilis. The thing is, you have to ask which is the hot one. Down around Carlsbad the Red was the hot and the green was mild. At Manny's today, halfway up the state, its just the opposite.
The guy and his daughter turned out to be ranchers who live near there.
They explained about the burros, which gives me ideas for ark City.
The burros are brought in and are plain white. Local artists paint them, and they are auctioned off, and put around town, whereever the winning bidder wants i guess.
The idea has possibilities.
After lunch we went to this place that has had a lot of lava flow over the past couple thousand years. Its called the fire lands.
We saw rabbits there, as well as several lizards.
We went back to the mountains after that.
We found some ruins of old Spanish missions from the 1600s. It is easy to forget that when the americans arrived in this part of the world, the Spanish had already been here a few hundred years.
It was pretty interesting.
We saw three of those that were in the same area.
From there we made our way to Interstate 40, and are in Santa Rosa, about 50 miles from the state line.
Hope to get back home tomorrow night.
Probably will be driving straight through.
Glad I dont have to go back to the .... place you know.
:)
but it will be good to be home.

monday

Yesterday I was unable to post. We got a room in this little town called ruidoso. Cool little town, cheap hotel. But their internet did not work.
We started out at White Sands national monument. This is a huge area of white sand desert.
It is where a lot of missile testing is done. It is near where the first atomic bomb was blown up. That wasnt open.
We went on some other drives into the mountains.
What was interesting to me was that within 30 miles we went from desert sand to mountains full of trees and streams. New Mexico certainly has a wide variety of landscapes.

Day 4, more new mexico

We saw a lot more of the "real" new mexico today. Way out in the wilderness, the desert.
Early on we went to the living desert near Carlsbad. Its a nice zoo with lots of desert animals and plants.
Stayed longer than we thought we would, so it was nearly noon when we got out of there.
More driving then. My wife saw a water fall on a map that was way out there.
I was remembering another waterfall adventure in chatauqua county a few years back when we got stuck miles from anything.
But this was much better.
This was probably 50 miles from the nearest town. Much of it was open range. On the way there we had to look out for cows and horses on the road. The road was narrow and no side rails through the mountains.
But the waterfall was worth it. We got there just in time as a large group of tourists showed up just behind us.
We stayed there a long time walking around trails and along the water.
Then we made our way to Rosswell. Sight of the most famous alleged alien sighting in the world. This is where a spaceship supposedly crashed in 1947. There are books about the conspiracy to cover it up, and what all happened.
This museum is dedicated to that event. Its called "the incident."
They do a good job of presenting both sides.
One side says it was a coverup, the other side says there never was anything to cover up, it was just a weather baloon.
Fact remains, the guys who saw it, and who saw the bodies of aliens, and who found spacecraft material, were quoted in newspapers talking about what they saw. Then a few days later - after meeting with government people - told much different stories and denied ever having said what they said. I saw the story in the Roswell paper about it, yet only days later, everyone was denying everything. It is as though that story never existed.
They also make a lot out of the fact that the area around the crash site remains off limits to this day.
Then there are several government reports showing that its all bogus, That it never happened and such.
Pretty interesting stuff.
All day we dodged storms, just as we did yesterday.
We saw storms to our left and right, especially in the afternoon. We missed most of them though.
We got to Roswell and it was still sprinkling, but was soaking wet.
From there we headed north and went to this little place called Lincoln. It was a settlement of the wild west and Billy the Kid was one of the main characters.
Started raining about then, and i was getting pretty tired. My sweet wife had to read every single sign there was, so i kept going.
Finally got to a hotel and ate around 9 p.m.
Found a good real authentic mexican joint.
Lots of those around here.
There are lots of interesting things to see here in the desert, but they are all pretty far apart.
We are doing some scenic drives tomorrow.