Nathan Key

Husband, Father, Thinker.

 

 
 
I’ve decided that I’m going to enjoy movies a lot more if I only grade them on the way they draw me into the story.

· If I feel a part of the story and at the end I’m glad I made the journey- it gets an A.
· If I don’t care about what happens to the characters and feel that I can stop watching in the middle without regret- it gets an F.
· If it’s somewhere in between- it gets a B, C, or D.

“Inception” gets an A. I saw it last night with Brad and I was really sucked into the story from beginning to end. I don’t have any idea what happened. I was lost for most of the movie. I don’t feel anymore “unlost” by the end. But I was riveted from beginning to end.

Could I find problems, loopholes, directing errors, poor acting choices, etc.? I’m sure.
But getting sucked in for the ride is what makes good entertainment.
So I’m going to leave it at that.
 
 
I was humbled to discover that I'm featured on Weebly today!

Humbled, because I haven't blogged enough lately to make me feel like I live up to my old slogan: "your daily dose of philosophy, politics, and religion." (so I changed it)

About a year ago I took a job where I was training every day- giving thoughts, feedback, and coaching to new sales and service reps with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and it drained my ability to do the sort of research and planning it takes to actually articulate thoughtful posts each day. I wasn't able to put the time and dedication into it as I had in the past without regurgitating things that no one really wanted to hear about again. Then, last November our second son was born and it became even more difficult. I realized that the most important thing outside of working wasn't coming up with new thoughts and ideas, it was spending time with the two most terrific kids a man could hope for.

Thus, my posts have become very few and far between.

And while it makes me sad that an area of my life that I'm VERY proud of and excited about has had to take a back seat for a while, I think it's actually proof that I've been growing. You see, my wife told me a few months back that she thought I was a much more selfless person than the man she married, and I honestly wasn't really sure that I could put my finger on what she meant. Today, I figured it out. If this site- which is my pride and joy- can be placed aside in favor of my wife and my two kids, then I feel very good about my priorities.

In fact, the place in life that I find myself a part of right now is in some ways the end game of this entire blog anyway! For what else are Philosophy, Politics, and Religion good for if not to point us toward a life worth living.

I think I've found that. My life is very worth living.

If I to spend too much time here, crafting my ideas on what the good life means and why it's so great would actually diminish the enjoyment that I'm having right now. So while I've enjoyed that many of you have stopped by today to view my blog and figure out what's happening in my neck of the woods- I need to make it clear (mostly to myself) that this site is going to be somewhat bland for the next couple of months/years. There are two little boys and an amazing woman who have captured my affections and chronicling my own ideas on God or Life cannot come close to the thrill of loving them.

Have fun on your journey!
I hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers,
Nathan
 
 
When you murder a man and he comes back to life a few days later and interposes the following:

"I still love you and I'll be patiently waiting for you to open yourself up to a relationship with me."

I believe that's a God worth having.
 
 
Two days ago, I wrote a post that became more thought provoking than I had originally considered. It got me thinking about the "Consent of the Governed" and what that really means. Here are some thoughts from Thomas Jefferson (I posted these in the comments section of my previous post):

"Government exists for the interests of the governed, .... There is an error into which most of the speculators on government have fallen, ... Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. ... A court has no affections; but those of the people whom they govern ..."

From a libertarian perspective, this has always been used to argue for limitations on government- since powerful governments are often oppresive governments. But what if the governed ACTUALLY want intervention, regulation, and control? What if the governed don't consider these things oppressive, but liberating?

If consent is given to totalitarianism or facism, does the government have an directive to respond accordingly?
 
 
As you may or may not know, Rob McKenna, Attorney General in Washington State is joining his friends in the GOP to file a lawsuit against the healthcare bill that was passed in the House this week. While I praise McKenna's bravery in standing up against the majority of the voters and politicians in Washington (for what he believes in), I must agree with Washington Democrats that using the state's money to do so is a misappropriation of taxpayer funds considering that he doesn't have legitimate consent of the public.

Get that first McKenna, and then you can sue away if you want.
 
 
Peter Schiff on the decadence of the 2000's:

"Yes, we had spectacular problems like September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 - which were horrific for those who were directly affected - but for most Americans, it was a time of unexpected wealth and unearned prosperity. Up to the days of the stock market crash, the economics of the decade will be remembered for cash-out refinancing for millions of homeowners, no-doc liar loans, no-money-down car purchases, eight-figure Wall Street bonuses, cheap Chinese imports, and trample-to-death holiday sales. In other words, the decade now closing gave us the biggest and most irresponsible spending orgy in US history. The past decade was the party; the one ahead will be the hangover."

Read the entire Peter Schiff article at here: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/LA05Dj05.html
 
 
I was reading a book called "Super Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner last week. There is a passage in the chapter called "Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance" where the authors come out and admit that one of the unfortunate things about terrorism is that they win even when they lose.

So the other day, when some guy tried to blow up a plane- I was primed to be looking and thinking about what this guy's actions would cost the American People. What would the event mean for the rest of us?

You see, terrorists are able to put us into a position of irrational fear. Irrational fear is the sort of thing that makes people willing to give up rights in order to secure freedom.

Try to board a plane this holiday season and watch out- you'll be searched and frisked and scrutinized up and down all because some Nigerian man who claimed to be working on behalf of Al Qaeda FAILED to blow up the plane he was on. FAILED. Yes, we have to put up with a loss of freedom simply because he attempted the attack.

Don't get me wrong, I want to be safe and I'm willing to give up some of my rights in order to ensure that people aren't blowing each other up. But I'm wondering if a better way to stick it to these hoodlum terrorists would be to bask in the glory of Freedom rather than allow even their failed attempts to transform us into a Police State where everyone is safe but no one is free.
 
iMac on its way 11/13/2009
 
This is good news. In a few moments, we'll have a computer at home again. Lugging this work laptop back and forth isn't as fun as it sounds. And on top of that, I won't have to deal with PC problems anymore!
Picture
 
 
OK, I haven’t been keeping up with my promise to blog about this every day, but I am reading through this every day and talking about it with my good friend Brad on a weekly basis. Last night, we talked through day nine in Piper’s book which talks about how Christ’s Death allows for our forgiveness.
 
Usually one defines forgiveness as something that’s all about grace from the perspective of the one recieving it rather than the one giving it- if my mortgage were forgiven it would mean that I wasn’t required to pay any longer (self-centered). In the case of Christ’s Death, we’re talking about ultimate forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness means that we don’t have to worry about the eternal consequences of sin (self-centered).

But we rarely think about what forgiveness COSTS the person giving it.

When we teach our children to forgive others, we tend to leave out the part about how much it costs the person doing the forgiving. We focus on letting the other person off the hook instead of on the person forgiving and on the incrimental costs associated with when a real debt is forgiven.

If my mortgage were forgiven it means that I don’t have to pay it back, sure, but it also means that the bank has to give up the right to collect money from me. Money that they shelled out in the first place. They lose out. It costs something.

It costs something when God forgives sin, too. He’s got to figure out a way to punish sin because that’s the cost that sin requires. Pouring out that cost on His son was the only way for Him to truly enact grace to us.

On a more personal note, I’m beginning to realize that if I tell someone that I forgive them, it’s gotta cost me something. I can’t just blow it off when someone truly lets me down. In order to forgive, I have to truly give up the right to feel angry at them or stew about it. Otherwise, it’s not actually true forgiveness, is it?
 
 
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” Galatians 3:13

God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. Romans 3:25

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10
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I’ve often noted that there seems to be a lot of “God’s Wrath” in the Old Testament and then this seemingly different God who wants to be friends with us in the New Testament. It’s a contradiction that doesn’t go unnoticed and is often debated among my friends- even if it’s not something that’s debated in the upper echelons of theology buffs.

What I’ve decided recently is that the writers of the Old Testament knew that they were under the law. They knew that there was a set of rules or a moral code that must be followed in order to be considered righteous before God. They also knew how incredibly impossible it was to adhere to the standard set before them. Even the best of them was required to provide blood offerings yearly to atone for their shortcomings. They knew that once the rules were broken, someone had to pay.

But the writers of the New Testament lived in a different reality. They were writing their epistles with a different view of the law and the payment for breaking it.

They had the Cross.

They had a visual picture of the Wrath of God poured out on the Son of Man and so they knew that the price had been paid. So although they understood the importance of the law, they also knew that it was a law that would bring freedom rather than guilt for the price of breaking that law had already been paid.
* * *
I'm spending 50 days thinking about The Cross in Preparation for Christmas. If you want to join me you can head hear each day for discussions. If you really want to dig in, you can read John Piper's book The Passion of Christ at the following link:

http://www.desiringgod.org/media/pdf/books_pojc/bpojc_all.pdf

I’m looking forward to the conversations!