Is Barack Obama Arrogant? That's a Good Thing!

What is this thing about Barack Obama being arrogant, having a big ego, and so forth?

In lieu of Obama being a black man, it is good that he comes across as proud and large. In America, a black man is supposed to appear timid and ignorant, not knowing what he's doing. After all, the black man is supposed to look and act inferior to the white man. And when he does not fit the mold, he's attacked as if he's out of place.

What John McCain and some in the US media are describing as presumptuous and arrogant is rather seen by millions of us as confident and intelligent. And it's about time for us to see a black man cast himself as a natural leader.

Yes, a black guy that dares to know what he is doing! What a change! And the McCain camp just can't stand it, or may be they choose not to understand it.

Call Obama arrogant, because he dares to look presidential. But it is McCain who continues to be whinny and nick picky. You call him presumptuous; we call him presidential. You call him arrogant; we see him as confident and intelligent.

What am I missing? When a white presidential candidate does and sounds the same as Barack Obama, he is called presidential and confident. But when a black guy follows suit, he's attacked as presumptuous and arrogant.

I guess arrogance is in the eye of the beholder.

Cohabitation: How to Cut Down the Shack Up Craze

I pointed out in another blog that people choose to cohabit, shack up or live together without marriage for one of three big reasons: (1) They have an attitude that says "Marriage is only a piece of paper”; (2) they think that living together is a "test drive" for marriage; (3) they are afraid that marriage may reduce their welfare or social security check.

But there is a blunt reason for widespread cohabitation in our society: Boys and men love free sex; girls and women let them have it. That’s it.

If women want men to commit to marriage, then women must withhold sex from men until men marry women. Does it make any sense to you, dear lady, that the typical guy will want to reward you for something he can get for free?

As a certified male, I guarantee you that every man worth his manhood will do anything, short of taking his own life or going to jail, to obtain sex with the woman he loves. He will even pay a huge amount of money for sex. Hey, why do you think men pay female prostitutes, and not vice versa? It’s the same reason why men are the #1 subscribers to Play Boy magazine. Men love sex, and they’re willing to pay the cost.

The really awkward thing is that ever since women got “liberated”, more and more of them are putting the aggressive moves on men to have sex with them. What, you offer a guy sex so he can commit to marrying you? Are you kidding me? Yep, he may marry you, but you’ve given him a long rope, and the guy is more likely to play delay tactics after he’s seen your nakedness, or played you.

Here is the quickest way to get any serious guy to marry a serious woman. The woman should say something like this…

“You say you love me, right? You say I’m beautiful, right? And you say I’m special, right? And you say you’ll do anything for me, right? Well, my dear, if all that is true, then don’t I deserve something as simple and special as a marriage license. I consider sex and my body something very special, and I just can’t give it away to anyone. I must keep this treasure for that special someone who will respect me enough not to think of getting me free of charge. Are you that special person or not? If you really love me, you will wait until we are married before I can give you my body, sex and all.”

And, man, you think of it this way. To go into business, you need a business license. To enroll in school, you need an ID card, a registration, or some kind of paper work. To drive a car, you need a driver’s license. In the school my kids attend, to play sports you need to take a physical, with written results turned in to the coach.

Now, do you consider a woman or marriage less important than a business, than school, than driving a car, or playing sports? If you shouldn’t drive without a license, does it not make sense to you that you need a license to have sex with a woman? Hey, man, a marriage license is really your sex license.

On that point, when a police stops a driver, the cop walks over to the driver and says, “May I have your driver’s license, please?” Won’t it be really interesting if every time you were seen or cut having sex, the police came over and say, “Show me your sex license?” Can you imagine so many couples not able to produce the license? Can you see them in a hurry putting their pants back on and fleeing the sex scene?

Women, there is no sex police. Why not play that role to help the boys out some?

My point is this: when women stop giving men free sex outside of marriage, we will begin to see a greater number of men committing to marry their ladies. Then there will be more marriages with lots of responsible sex to follow.

But will that reduce the rate of divorce? Well, that’s a whole different can of worms.

Cohabitation: Shack Up to Break Up?

Cohabitation is just a big word for shacking up, which is two people living together before marriage or instead of marriage. It is like being husband and wife but without the wedding ceremony, without the marriage license. Shacking up is as close to a free ride as you can get in the arena of sexual relationships.

People who take the "shack up" path convince themselves that cohabitation is better to their relationship than marriage. Here are some reasons why people shack up:

1. The attitude that says "Marriage is only a piece of paper". This was the overriding attitude of Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. Those with this attitude seek to avoid marriage, because they somehow despise marriage, especially for the expectations that come with marriage.
   
2. Living together is a "test drive" for marriage. The cohabiting couple mistakenly believe that if they shack up before they get married, they will improve the chances of their marriage succeeding. That's what they think until they get hit with the facts that cohabiting will actually endanger their success in marriage. Research shows that five to seven years of shacking up point to the following reality: 39% chance that the couple will break up; 40% chance that you'll marry the person, with up to 80% chance that the marriage will end in divorce; 21% chance that you will continue to shack up with the person and keep delaying marriage. Shacking up becomes a game of chicken, a cop out from saying "I do".Fear of marriage. Why would a couple be afraid to marry? One reason may be that they saw their parents divorce and they want no part of such breakups. Cohabitation becomes the safer option to avoid the sense of failure that divorce brings.
3. Negative effect on income. I have spoken with cohabiting couples who said getting married would mean a pay cut. Say what? Yes, they actually say, "If we get married, the government will reduce the Social Security check." If that is true, then the tax laws of the United States need to change to favor marriage rather than discourage it. However, resisting marriage because your income may go down reveals a screwed up sense of priority that clearly rates money as more important than marriage or love. How can you say, "I love you enough to die for you", if you are not willing to pay the easier price of less money?
   

All in all, if you choose to shack up, you set yourself up to break up. And if you don't break up, you still pay the social price of less respect from people who know you are shacking up. And you know too that you deserve less respect for not doing "the right thing", the responsible thing ~ get married!

Grandpa Mows Lawn, Grandkid Plays Golf on Lawn

Just the other day, I was driving by a home near ours when I saw a troubling sight. Here was this elder man, a grandfather pushing a lawn mow in the summer sun. Some yards away from him was a stout young man, the man's grandson, hitting golf balls. Obviously, neither the granddad nor the grandson saw anything wrong with this picture.

Something tells me something is seriously wrong with a lawn-mowing grandfather and a golfing grandson on the same lawn at the same time. That boy should have been pushing that lawn mow, and that grandfather should have required him to.

It is this sort of child-rearing or child neglect that is eating away at the work ethic of the younger generation. In God's name, what sense does it make to feed, shelter, clothe, and provide every necessity for a teenage boy, and then let him play ball while you mow the lawn around him and his golf balls?

By the way, Grandpa bought the golf club and golf balls too. Later, that grandson of his will probably expect Grandpa, even ask Grandpa to buy him a golf cart, that little vehicle golfers ride around in.

What's the underlined social problem here? It's the lack of authentic manhood, gold ole masculinity. I wager that this grandfather was a spoiler of his own kids before he became the same to his grandson. He may well think he's loving that young man the best he can, but Grandpa forgets that he won't always be around to pamper that young brat. And when life later begins to kick the little guy's soft butt and callous-free hands in the real, he'll have no clue what hit him in the rear end, what he missed out on while growing up.

Seemingly, that teenager has no father to teach him work ethic, which means getting him to work as an ethical way to live. Now, his one and only hope, Grandpa, is failing to show him how to work like a man.

There goes another masculine disaster just waiting to happen! Before you know it, the boy may flung school, drop out of the school or quit after high school, get into crime or drugs. And you know where that road leads: straight to jail.

Global Cancer: End of the World Takes One Big Wrong Thing

Recently, America lost two leading journalists. The first was Tim Russert of NBC's "Meet The Press"; he died of heart attack. Tony Snow was the other famous journalist; his life was snuffed out by cancer.

Cancer. "Approximately 1500 people die each day in the United States due to cancer. About 3,400 people are diagnosed with cancer each day in the U.S.", this according to about.com.
The thing about cancer is that other parts of the victim's body can look great. Mr. Snow really looked strong, and he remained intelligent and articulate. Yet he's gone.

Let's say a patient has lung cancer. Other organs, systems and parts of the patient's body like his heart, brain, pancreas, kidneys, liver, arms and legs can look good and remain functional. Yet if the cancer keeps eating away at those lungs, they will eventually shut down, and the whole person, still equipped with all those other good body parts, will drop dead. So the person dies with just one important body organ failing and falling to cancer in a comparatively minute part of the human body.

Now, compare humankind to that human body with cancer in one important part. Just one malfunction in our system has the potential to shut down life on earth as we know it. The malfunction could occur in our ecosystem, in the climate, in science and technology, in medicine, in weaponry, or it could be set off by the volatile world of extremist religionists.

The cancer analogy means that no situation needs to take over the whole of Planet Earth in order to shut down humanity's homeland. The harm has only to attack and take down just one important function of Earth's life support system... And down we'll go, like a seemingly strong person killed by cancer in just one sector of her body.

No one can predict what this global cancer will be or where it will come from. But the fact that we admit to being an imperfect species in an imperfect world may hint at the possibility that one of our many flaws or a flaw within our environment may someday do us in. Or it could just be a manufactured imperfection or flaw that may bring human civilization to its knees and to an irreversible halt.Is this a doom and gloom view of our collective future? Perhaps. But to dismiss it and live oblivious to this possibility may be wishful thinking, if not an ostrich-like existence on our part.

End of the World Sure to Come: List of World Enders

The idea that our world will end is neither new nor weird. It is quite logical indeed.

In fact, the current debate over climate change is really about whether or not this world will end, and what we can do about it. But could the end of the world be an inevitable part of the process of life on Planet Earth? Who is to say that we humans possess the power to prevent or delay the end of ourselves?

There are many ways our world could either because of us or in spite of us. Here is a list of world enders, some ways to pull the curtains on human civilization:

1. Weapon: atomic bomb; hydrogen bomb; biological or chemical weapon.
2. Unintended result of scientific research.
3. A post-human species that is a hybrid of humans and robots, or some other form of hybrid.
4. The sun goes out. We think sunburn is something; wait till you see sunout.
5. Global warming that turns our planet into a global oven
6. Global cooling that ushers in the next ice age
7. Pestilence ~ outbreak of an incurable disease that may be total new or an untreatable strand of a past or current disease
8. A massive and global natural disaster; a combination or series of natural disasters
9. War that spins ouf of control. There is no reason to doubt that the current "war on terror" may lead in that direction.
10. Technology with a fatal flaw ~ speaking of a technological flaw that is fatal to the human race.

Why does it make sense to think that human civilization has an end? Because humans are not perfect, and whatever is imperfect cannot last forever.

The Farsighted Coach Lost the Game

An estimated 30% of Americans are nearsighted, while about 60% of Americans are farsighted.

Here is the basic difference between a nearsighted person as compared to a farsighted person: The nearsighted person cannot clearly focus on an object that is far away in the distance; the farsighted person cannot clearly focus on an image that is near.

Now, if you were a coach, and had to choose between being nearsighted or being farsighted, which would you choose? To answer this question, let me share a true story.

In our church, we have two coaches that know our family very well. Let's call them Coach #1 and Coach #2. In fact, we see both coaches at least once every week. Both coaches know that Tojyea (T), our son, loves to play basketball and is very skillful at the game. In fact, T plays on his school team. T, who is 12 years of age is also the drummer for our church ~ not that his drumming has anything to do with his athletic skills, or does it?

Recently, Coach #1 took time to put a basketball team together for the annual Black Expo league in Owensboro, Kentucky. Focused on talents that he's aware of throughout the community, Coach #1 completely forgot to put T on his team; he didn't even talk to the boy about it.

Just one day before the games began, Coach #2 found out that T was not yet on a team, though this young man really wanted to play in the Black Expo. So Coach #2 urgently contacted another coach (Coach #3) who had a team in the league, and asked him if he could use one fine little player. Coach #3 jumped at the opportunity, hoping he might stumble upon a leader for his team of 7th & 8th grade boys.

Well, it so happened that Coach #1's team was matched against Coach #3's team in both teams' first game of the league. When the final whistle sounded 24 minutes later, the scoreboard showed that Coach #3's team had won Coach #1's team by 3 points.

Little T happened to have been the unofficial MVP of the game, with the most number of points and assists. He proved to be an excellent point guard.

Shortly after the game, Coach #2 walked over to Coach #1 and kinda robbed it in: "You should have put T on your team. He's right there in church with us, and he's the one that beat your team tonight."

So what happened here? Well, you could say that Coach #1 was farsighted. He was able to see the "talented" players that were in the distance, but missed the real talent that was close up.

Often in life, we are like Coach #1. We go out looking for opportunity, searching for greener grass over yonder, when the game winner could be right in front of us, just right there under the nose.

You know, being visionary does not always have to mean the ability to see things far away. Sometimes the most visionary thing to do is to see the opportunity that is staring at us.

When it comes to opportunity, it is OK to be nearsighted every now and then. Take from a farsighted coach who lost the game.

A Race Divided Against Itself

It seems that every time human beings seek to unite, we end up more divided than before. With unity in minds, we have founded political parties that serve to splinter countries. We have foundations and organized governments in the sweet name of unity, but we keep ending up with divided nations.

For example, the United States of America has become a fragmented country of political factions that rarely see eye-to-eye. The nation is so divided that the USA can hardly find a way to speak with one voice, even on matters as important as its national energy crisis and staggered economy. Deadlock is the rule of the day in the United States in both houses of the Legislative Branch ~ the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Like the USA, regardless of our many efforts for one world, the human race is as divided today as we've ever been. The West versus East schism seems to be deepening, and few seem to have a clue as to how to stop the ever-enlarging gap. The abiding rift between the Palestinians and the nation of Israel continues to nag the helpless efforts of the world's most hopeful and ambitious politicians.

"Whoever solves the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma deserves to rule the world," some must be thinking.

How can division be our lot since we've chartered organizations like the League of Nations and the United Nations in our dream for one world? Have we not done enough to set up harmony-intended organizations seek to bring to the "table of brotherhood" people from the continents, subcontinents and regions of the world?

Could it be that we are trying too hard to unite? What if the unifiers of the human race are really some simple things that we all have in common, regardless of our politics, religion, education or ethnicity?

Could the unifiers be found in the simple bonds that link individuals every day in every corner of the world? How about a smile or laughter? Could it be music? What about sports? Is the secret found in giving and service? Or could it be prayer, as in "the family that prays together stays together"?

Perhaps, but who really knows for sure?

Unifiers: The Little Things That Unify the Human Race

The true unifiers of the human race may not be politicians or world leaders. The unifiers may well be those little time-honored goodwill gestures that humanity displays at its best. The really neat thing about these unifiers is that do not require us to belong to the same country, religion, team, or ethnic group.

At the risk of sounding simplistic, here are the simple things that have proven to connect different people and bring them together every day around the world. We only need to widen the circle of the people with whom we share these unifiers:

1. Giving & Service: Taking the time to give and serve, making time to help meet a need in the spirit of charity, that always unifies the hearts of our common humanity. Whenever you volunteer to serve another needy person out of your heart of charity, you become a part of the unifying power that is service to humanity.
2. Smile or laughter: Keep a smile on your face, and you'll see how many smilers you'll meet today. Smiling will connect you with people, even with total strangers that you may not want to say "Hi" to. So keep your smilers on.
3. Music: The purest form of music unifier is music without lyrics. Thus, singing does not unify as strongly as music minus words. The words of a song might offend, but rarely is one offended by the sound of a violin or saxophone.
4. Sports: It is strange that something as competitive as sports have proven to unify humans. While fights do break out at sporting events (as in a recent WNBA game between Los Angelos and Detroit), we still consider sports a unifier, because at a sporting event brings people and nations together to compete as opponents, not as enemies. The Olympics and World Cut are good examples of the unifying power of sports. We will soon behold human unity at the Olympics games in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. Doesn’t the slogan of the Beijing Olympics confirm the abiding yearning of humankind? The slogan, which calls on the world to unite in the Olympic spirit, is “one world, one dream”! May that dream come true someday in all its fullness and glory.

Six Barebone Basics of Nutrition and Health

From all that I’ve read on healthy living, and based on my own experience over the last 9 years or so, here are the basic building blocks to healing and health:

1. Healthy Soul & Spirit: Your body cannot be healthy unless and until your mind becomes healthy. One way to develop mental and spiritual health, is to read healing Scriptures that can build your faith and produce inner peace and joy. This lays the foundation and sets the stage for you to believe and expect health and healing. (If you want a list of healing Scriptures from the Bible, leave your request with your comments on this blog.)

2. Detoxification: Detoxify your body. Toxins (poisons) enter our bodies everyday via many avenues ~ from foods, drinks, bath water, the air we breathe, some of the places we go. The first practical step towards great health is to cleanse your body and get the poisons out of your system with a good natural cleanse. Talk to your local health food store for a natural detox product, or get a product called Chelation Therapy from Dr. Ted Broer, 1-800-592-4325 healthmasters.com.

3. Water Intake: It is not by mistake that our bodies are 75% water (or should be water). Drink purified water for total hydration. My wife and I drink water purified by reverse osmosis, a process that takes out the greatest amount of impurities from tap water. Rather than wasting money on expensive bottled water, which may not be that "purified" after all, just buy your water by the galloon from your local health food store, or from a grocery store.

4. Healthy Eating: Begin to think of healthy food as good medicine. That means, you don't eat just for taste or to get rid of hunger with a full stomach, but you eat for health. Your primary foods should be fruits, vegetables, grains & nuts, and whole-food products derived from these. Real fruit drinks are great, as you alternate between fruit beverages and water.

5. Multivitamin: Take a multivitamin daily. The one we’ve used for years is “Nature’s Optimal Nutrition” from Health Direct, 1-800-989-9531, or www.healthdirectusa.com. In addition to a daily multivitamin, Dr. Don Colbert recommends taking “a phytonutrient powder” and “Omega 3 fatty acids”. To get your Omega 3, you may take a fish oil supplement; the one we take is Rx Omega 3 Factors by Natural Factors (http://us.naturalfactors.com/index.asp)

6. Exercise: Never get too busy or too lazy to exercise daily. Your exercise regiment or "program" doesn’t have to be fancy or tedious. You can start with stretching and brisk walking. My primary exercise is brisk walking mixed with some jogging.

These days when it comes to nutritional health, there is a tendency to go fanatic and overspend, and you may do that if you can afford it. But if all you really want is just excellent health, without the "alternative health" religion, then the 6 building blocks mentioned above are really all that you need live healthy and heal fast.

Here are some websites where you can find lots of info from a nutritional health perspective. Warning: be careful not to overspend, as these websites are loaded with tons of products that could leave you broke. Just get the essentials, and leave the extras to the health fanatics or religionists.

• Cancer Diet? http://www.healthcastle.com/cancerdiet.shtml
• Dr. Jordan Rubin, http://jordanrubin.com
• Angela de Joseph, http://divine-health.com
• Dr. Valerie Saxion, http://www.valeriesaxion.com
• Dr. Don Colbert, http://www.drcolbert.com
• Bible Cure for Cancer:
• http://www.drcolbert.com/product_info.php?products_id=19
• Dr. Ted Broer, http://www.healthmasters.com

Dr. Ted Broer’s Ten Health Tips Against Colds and Flu

Dr. Ted Broer is the founder of Health Masters. In his July 2008 newsletter, he included these 10 health tips to lessen your chances of catching the cold and flu:

1. Take HGH Stimulate daily. (HGH stands for human growth hormone. Visit the Health Masters website to get the HGH Stimulate, with the formula that is balanced with vitamin C and E and Quercetin and Polyphenols, which are the most potent anti-oxidants known.)

2. Do some type of cardio exercise combined with resistance training 3-6 days weekly.

3. Don't eat my Top Ten Foods Not to Eat. (To get the list of 10 forbidden foods, click here to sign up for Dr. Ted Broer’s free monthly newsletter.)

4. Wash your hands throughout the day.

5. Every time you shake someone's hand, wash yours. You don't know where their hands have been.

6. Do not use hand disinfectants with isopropyl alcohol; use running water and soap.

7. When you use the bathroom, flush the toilet before you use it, don't touch anything with your hands. 80% of the people who use public restrooms don't wash their hands. That means there is probably urine and fecal materials on all public surfaces including toilet seats, stall handles, toilet handles, sink knobs and exit handles. Use a towel to touch these objects.

8. Avoid touching your face with your hands. A cold or flu virus can easily be transmitted through your eyes or nose.

9. Dip your toothbrush in hydrogen peroxide regularly. This will kill potential germs plus if you have a cold or flu, it will help you not to re-infect yourself. Remember to rinse your toothbrush in water before touching any fabric. The hydrogen peroxide will bleach out your towels.

10. Increase your vitamin C to 2000 mg daily for adults and 500 mg a day for children. (Dr. Ted Broer uses Vitamin C Ascorbate, which you can order from his website).

Is an HYIP as a Loan Program?

If you one who see a high yield investment program as a loan program, then here is what your main concern should be:

1. That HYIP, the borrower, pays you an interest on the principal amount you loaned him, and
2. The the HYIP returns your principal amount at the end of the term of the loan.

In the lending industry, the likelihood of a borrower repaying your money depends largely on two important factors: (a) the integrity, and (b) the financial situation of the borrower.

When you lend someone money, there can be no guarantee that you will get repaid. In effect, your deposit to an HYIP is not just a loan, it is an unsecured loan. The borrower (HYIP) puts up no collateral that you can claim and sell if the program defaults on the loan.

Compared to other lenders, you have another disadvantage in the HYIP loan business: there are no collections department; you have no collections company, and there is no credit reporting agencies for you to report the deadbeat borrower to! In fact, most often there is no loan contract between lender (you) and borrower (the HYIP).

Therefore, if you decide to be a HYIP lender, you must, like your fellow creditors (banks, etc), learn how to write off bad debts (HYIPs that don't return your funds). Otherwise, you will find yourself 'closing store' or calling lawyers, which can result in more even more frustrations, stress and loss.

Actually going to court against HYIPs will only cost you more in time, emotional currency, and money than the HYIP game itself. Imagine a bank taking every bad borrower to court! That's what you'll be doing if you choose to take legal action against every HYIP that goes out of business before you've made your money back.

That's why it is absolutely crucial for you to find a way to screen each potential borrower (HYIP) as much as a bank, Master Card, Visa, or a store will screen someone who applies for a loan, credit card, or line of credit. There are few tools available online for screening and grading HYIPs to find those honest borrowers.

Click here for an ebook that features the HYIP Grade Sheet.

What is an HYIP?

"What really is an HYIP?", or "What is an HYIP really like?" How you answer that question can determine how successful or how frustrated you will be in the online world of high yield investing. There are at least six different answers to the question about the true nature of a high yield investment program (HYIP).

1. Investment. After all, HYIP stands for High Yield Investment Program. Yes, but an HYIP is not a real investment, because unlike a true investor, the hyiper rarely knows in what wealth-building instrument his money is.

2. Scam. This is certainly true of some HYIPs, but not all HYIPs are run by geek thieves.

3. Ponzi Scheme. It is estimated that at least 90% of HYIPs are ponzis. In an HYIP ponzi, the operator uses money from previous depositors to pay current or later depositors.

4. Gambling. This is the opinion of those who either despise HYIPs or have lost money to HYIPs. There is some truth to this, but in that sense, hyipers are as much gamblers as day traders.

5. A Money Game. An HYIP is a game in that there are certain rules of the game that can give an informed player the edge, if she will first invest the time to learn before she can earn. But once you learn the basic rules, this money game can be as much fun as it can be lucrative.

6. A Loan Program. When you deposit funds into an HYIP, you are in effect lending money to someone, who is promising to pay you interest on your loan. You are the lender or creditor, and the operator of the HYIP is the borrower. This borrower can do whatever he wants with your money. The borrower (HYIP operator) may use your money to trade the stock market, penny stocks, the foreign exchange (forex) market, or even e-currency.

Why Hillary Clinton Should Divorce Bill Clinton: Reason #1

I'm not one to condone or encourage divorce for any typical couple. But then, is there anything typical of that celebrity couple known as Bill and Hillary Clinton?

The pair met at Yale Law School in 1970 in a civil liberties class. Bill later proposed to Hillary with the words, "I bought that house you like, so you better marry me because I can't live in it by myself" (About.com). The couple tied the knot on October 11, 1975 in that brick house Bill had purchased. The couple's only child and daughter, Chelsea Clinton, was born on February 27, 1980. That makes her 28 years of age as of 2008.

Much has happened since then, as the Clinton's marriage has been tried by fire in the public square, much of that trial due to the womanizing ways of Mr. Bill Clinton, who some diagnose with sexual addiction. And it is for that very same reason that some Americans savor the thought of Hillary divorcing Bill, if for no other reason, that he would bear some consequences, in this lifetime, for his numerous adulteries, despite Hillary's seeming faithfulness to him.

For the entertainment value of that thought, I say if there ever was an opportune time, the perfect time for Hillary to dump Bill, all indicators point to the present moment. Who is to say that through recent years, dating back to Mr. Clinton's eight years on Pennsylvania Avenue, that Mrs. Clinton has not been contemplating, if not outright seeking, an occasion to dump Bill? This is your moment, Hillary. Go for it.

You may ask, but why? Here is the first and most obvious reason why Hillary Clinton should walk away from Bill Clinton now: Hillary Rodham has put up with too many affairs by her floundering husband.

How many incidents of infidelity can the female soul take and stay sane within the bonds of matrimony? Doing nothing drastic about Bill's many cheatings belies Hillary's strong-woman image, especially her image as a feminist icon. What good feminist, liberated woman gets hit affairs after affairs, and just sits there and sucks it up?

Why Hillary Clinton Should Divorce Bill Clinton: Reason #2

At long last, Chelsea Clinton is now a true adult. She more than proved her maturity by her brilliant and relentless campaigning for Mama Clinton during the primary elections.

Since Chelsea is now a grownup, and there is no longer a need for Hillary and Bill to stay together for Chelsea's sake, why not call it quits?

This long overdue divorce may even give Chelsea the opportunity to finally stop making excuses for Dad, while at the same time, giving the nod to Mom for taking action.

Who knows? After what may yet be America's most famous divorce, Chelsea may just pat Mommy on the back and whisper, "I wouldn't take it from any man either, Mom. I don't blame you one bit. You did the right thing."

As for what Chelsea may tell Daddy Clinton... I have no idea.

Why Hillary Clinton Should Divorce Bill Clinton: Reason #3

This is the big one: When the moment finally came for Bill Clinton to deliver the largest alimony payment for all that he has put poor Hillary through these 33 years of marriage, he failed to deliver the goods.

You see, it is quite possible that Hillary has held her nose all this time in the face of numerous adulteries, knowing that one day Bill would catapult her to the racks and reins of power. Yes, he sort of helped her to some extent, because, thanks to him, Hillary became the First Lady of the state of Arkansas, then First Lady of the United States, followed by becoming a Senator from New York.

However, those accolades were supposed to only pave the way for the Big One: Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic Party's nomination in the race for president of the United States of America.

And how did Mr. Clinton perform when the the Big Mo finally came? He flat out failed his faithful wife. He flat out failed to deliver this long-awaited alimony check that would finally cause Hillary to wipe the slate clean for Bill's many concubines and side-squeezes.

So if the man could not bring home the bacon, of what real use is he to Hillary now, as this political giantess sets her longing eyes on nothing less than President Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Why Hillary Clinton Should Divorce Bill Clinton: Reason #4

Mr. Bill Clinton might have actually caused Hillary the Democratic nomination for the 2008 primary elections, after all.

How can we fully explain this? Hillary Clinton went from presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party to runners up. How did she go from "It's her turn, she's got the nomination all but wrapped up" to losing to Barack Obama, the rookie Senator from Illinois, a guy loaded with much baggage, a guy who has never held one executive office, and perhaps the most liberal person who ever ran for America's highest office?

No loops around it, one reason Hillary lost to Barack was Bill Clinton. His careless remarks and insinuations about Obama being another Jesse Jackson. His injecting race into the campaign. His childish tirades and temper tantrums on the campaign trail. His giving the impression that a Hillary Clinton presidency could be a third term for President Clinton.

The political reality is simply this: Bill has become too costly to Hillary's political future. For that reason, Mrs. Clinton must distance herself from the former president. But how can she do this when they are married? By by making Mr. Clinton her former husband.

Well, sort of ~ Hillary may sweeten the deal by keeping the Clinton last name, since that name recognition still sounds like a winner. Or is there any legal way for Bill to force Hillary to drop his last name after the divorce? I don't know of one. Do you?

Why Hillary Clinton Should Divorce Bill Clinton: Reason #5

As the present-day default feminist queen, evidenced by her recent political acumen, Hillary Clinton no longer needs Bill to forge ahead to higher office.

In years past, Hillary needed to ride Bill's charismatic coat tail into the the brightest spot of public limelight. She has some credentials of her own. She has earned what it takes to position herself in the cockpit and take off to her own destiny on Planet Politics. Bill need not be a passenger on that trip, if she does not want him to come along for the ride.

Hillary is currently the most famous and most influential Senator from New York. Also, Hillary is the first female to ever get this close to winning the nomination of a major political party in the history of the United States.

To add stars to her crown, with nearly 18 million votes cast for her, Hillary rightly claims the record as the candidate who won more votes than any other candidate, male or female, in a primary election.

All this means one thing: the woman can now stand on her two feet in the political arena. She no longer needs to lean on Bill's everlasting arms.

Why Hillary Clinton Should Divorce Bill Clinton: Reason #6

Bill Clinton has become a political liability to his wife. In other words, Bill has become Hillary's bill, a bill she may keep paying and paying to her political demise...again and again, for the highest office on American soil.

Worse than contributing to Hillary's loss for the 2008 primary, Bill may cause her to lose in the next national race, whether that come early in 2012 or later in 2016. Hillary cannot afford to allow Bill a center-stage role again in her next national campaign.

All across America, as there are millions who are Clinton fanatics, there are greater numbers of voters just as devoted to standing in the way of Mr. Clinton's return to the White House. As long as he remains visible in her campaign, the Clinton haters will continue to interpret a Hillary presidency as a co-presidency with Bill Clinton, as a return of Mr. Clinton to the White House.

Hillary can't afford to wait for the radio and TV commercials to start painting that picture. She must ditch Bill before the Republicans can take to the airwaves with ads about "Bill Clinton's Third Term".

Thus the most brilliant political move Mrs. Clinton can make at this point on her power trail is to divorce Bill, plain and simple. She must do so while she is awash in a vast chest of political capital, though she may still be lagging her 2008 campaign bills. Besides, dumping Bill will add to Hillary's persona as a feminist icon.

When Hillary dumps Bill, feminists will grade her, no, they will adore her as a strong and smart woman even the more. Simply put, her divorce of Bill, if she initiates the breakup, will be cause for celebration throughout Feminist Nirvana. And that can mean nothing but more votes in 2012 or 2016. And who is to say votes aren't worth more to Hillary than her husband is?

The Death of Friendship - When a Friendship Dies

When friendship ends, former friends often become disappointed, or worse. But this need not be the case. You can experience a better closure to the death of friendship, so that a little piece of your life does not die with every deceased friendship of your past. For this to happen, you need to look at the "failure" or downfall of every friendship differently. As serious as the death of a friendship is, it can be a time to refresh and regroup, without taking yourself off the shelf at Friendship Mall.

For a redemptive end to your relationship with a one-time friend, do this:

1. Reject resentment: Say, "I refuse to be bitter or resentful towards my ex-friend."

2. Regret nothing: Instead of regretting the end to your friendship, say, "I choose to savor all the good times we spent together and the good things that came from our friendship when it was alive and well." Do the same thing that bereaved people do at funerals; moan the loss but cherish and treasure the precious memories associated with the deceased.

3. Express gratitude: Say, "I am grateful and thankful that our paths crossed and our lives connected. Somehow I believe this world is a better place, because we met and shared our lives."

4. Don't feel abandoned: Tell yourself, "Just because our friendship has ended does not mean my ex-friend betrayed or abandoned me. It doesn't mean he did not appreciate all I did for him, or what we meant to each other. There may be things going on in her life that I can't or don't understand for now, but that doesn't make her a traitor."

5. Identify a purpose that the friendship served: Say, "Our friendship has served a purpose. Perhaps it was meant to be only a seasonal or temporary friendship, which is no less valuable than a permanent friendship."

6. Believe that you remain a potential friend: Speak these words to yourself, "For my part, I refuse to consider my one-time friend an enemy. My ex-friend remains a potential friend, but I will leave that to the twists and turns of life. If he comes back, I'll be here, but I won't bank on that, and I won't put my life on hold until that happens. If our friendship never makes a come back, I'm fine with that too."

7. Work on "a better me": Say, "I will work on myself, so that the next person who is fortunate to have me as a friend will have one of the best friends they ever had. Yes, I'll remain friendly and keep the entrance to friendship a double door, ready to fling wide open again if life would have it so. To the next friend, I will be a far better friend than I was to this former friend."

Being a great friend means that you understand the value of friendship. But it also means that you've learned how to bring positive closure to a fallen friendship, so that your life is not shattered or set back every time a friendship dies.

Purpose-Driven Friendship

Why do humans become friends? Unlike animals that may flock or form packs, humans choose their friends deliberately, for better or for worse.

Every real friendship has a purpose. A friendship should be active and mutual in order to fulfill its purpose. There are at least six reasons why humans choose to befriend one another.

1. Mutual assistance: friends are to help each other. A relationship in which one person serves to enable the other falls short of the meaning of friendship. Enabling someone is an abuse of friendship.

2. Motivation: friends encourage each other. They edify or build up each other. Friends inspire each other to succeed and excel beyond mediocrity, beyond average.

3. Improvement: friends make each other better; friends sharpen each other; King Solomon described it as iron sharpening iron; friends improve each other's personhood, self-esteem, confidence or performance as iron sharpens iron.

4. Advancement or Progress: friends help each other move from one point to the other

5. Maturity: friends nurture each other to grow up, become mature, a more complete person.

6. Endurance: friendship is a coping mechanism; a true friend gives you the edge in difficult times, because she will strengthen and empower you to cope with some of life's toughest challenges; friends see each other through hardship, without being mere bystanders. Friendship can make the difference between surviving war, as prisoner of war, or life in a refugee camp.

Friendship that fails to somehow in some way make one or both friends better cannot be called genuine friendship. It may be a leech-connection, a sponge-bond, or codependency, but not friendship in the true sense of the concept. Any friendship that ceases to make one better no longer has any purpose for being kept alive.

What is Your Friendship Based On?

Every friendship has a basis on which it sits and rests. It is important to know what a friendship is based on. Friendship can be based on one of five things: affinity, personality, common bond, need or interest.

1. In an affinity-based friendship, two friends just take a natural liking or attraction to each other. They just seem to click. It's a chemistry thing. This form of friendship tends to lean towards romantic involvement, though it may develop between two people who may never drag romance into it. Affinity friends do not have to be alike. In fact, they may actually be opposites, but as we know from magnetic poles, opposites can and do attract.

2. In a personality-based friendship, two individuals become friends because they are similar. They may both be reserved (introvert), outgoing (extrovert), or mediocre (average) for that matter. Or politically, they may be conservative, liberal or moderate in their views. They may both be secular, progressive, religious or traditional.

3. Common-bond friendship is one between persons of similar ethnicity (two Hispanics), religion (two Muslims), church (two Baptists), nationality (two Chinese), team (two Celtics fans) or life experience (two refugees). Yes, when it comes to friendship, birds of like feather do flock together.

4. In a need-based friendship, two persons came together because one of them had a need that the other helped meet. For example, you become friends with the person who paid for your stay at a motel when you lost your job or when you just got of jail.

Need-based friendship can be an uncomfortable union of unequals, unless something happens for the two friends to switch roles, whereby the one who had received help before becomes the helper in a situation that puts the original helper at a point of need. For example, the guy who paid his friend's motel bill gets evicted by his landlord and has to lodge with his friend who now owns an apartment.

Because of the usually one-sided nature of need-based friendship, it is often not a simultaneously enjoyable experience for both friends equally. Therefore, this form of friendship is often short-lived, if the "beneficiary" (needy person) and the "benefactor" do not switch hats every now and then throughout the relationship.

5. Interest-based friendship is one in which two friends share a common interest, which may be sports, music, career path, books, movies, travel, etc. This form of friendship is likely to terminate if one person replaces the interest that formed the basis of the relationship.

For example, if you and I became friends primarily because we were members of the same band, our friendship may bite the dust if our band disbands.

Interest-based friendship runs the risk of being very superficial, though it can become deep and meaningful if the parties put in the effort needed to keep their relationship interesting.

Three Types of Friendship

There are various types of friendship with reference to time or timing. Every genuine friendship is a timely relationship. As such, a friendship can be seasonal, temporary, or permanent.

1. Seasonal friendship is one that is on and off, based on the season in either friend's life. Seasonal friendship is only useful and rewarding when the season is right, or else, one person or both become a bother to the other.

An example of a seasonal friend is a person who becomes your friend because your loved one died. This friendship was created by the season of bereavement, and its only reason may have been to help you get through the period of loss. By the way, the season that creates a friendship doesn't have to be a bad season; it can be a good one, as when two persons who get hired by a company at the same time become buddies.

2. Temporary friendship comes to an end after it has served its purpose. What is the difference between seasonal friendship and temporary friendship? Temporary friendship can begin at any ordinary time of your life; it is not connected to a season of loss or any other season of life.

Attempts to prolong a temporary friendship may create disrespect for a friend, resentment or even enmity towards an ex-friend. It is often better to let a temporary friendship die, or you may find yourself playing the undertaker, regretting why you revived the corpse, the dead body, in this case a dead friendship, in the first place. Friendship can never be a forced relationship; so, when it's over, let it go; when a friendship dies, lay it to rest.

3. Permanent friendship is the yearning of everyone who values friendship. Yet a lifelong friend is a treasure too few and far between.

After more than 40 years on Planet Earth, I can claim about 3 permanent friends so far, and one of them is my wife.

The average person so desires each and every friendship to be lifelong that she tries to force the issue and keep a friendship on life support, when it would be far better to eulogize the thing and just let it go to the trash bin of human relationships.

When you find a truly permanent friendship, the circumstances and dynamics of that relationship will serve to sustain it over the years. No need to repair a temp friend to make him or her perm.

If you are a typical person, over your lifetime, you will meet and make many seasonal friends, many temporary friends, but very few permanent friends.

Friendship - Life's Best Part

Every family member. Every neighbor. Every coworker. Every stranger. Every person is a potential friend.

Isn't it strange how the word "friend" conjures closer ties than words like relative, sibling, or even spouse? Yet it is even a double blessing when one's friend happens to also be a husband, wife or family member.

Friend. One of the sweetest words in any language, whatever it is called in that language. Friend. A person with whom you are in harmony, one accord. Someone that understands you, someone that you understand. One you are in rapport with. A friend is a human being who has become more human to you than anyone else. To become a friend is to become a person in a greater sense, at a deeper level, than merely being another human.

Friendship. Why don't we define or describe friendship as a "ship" with just friends on board? A ship that carries no other cargo but friends. Really, in true friendship, the two of you do feel like you have climbed into some kind of vessel that floats above and beyond the ordinary. Friendship. A simple network of two persons who have discovered a special chemistry for a relationship in which each person says things and acts in ways that benefit the other. The epitome and glory of a life aglow with unselfishness. Life at its peak and very best is friendship.

Yet there is an irony to friendship: the benefits of the birth of friendship can match the blight of the death of friendship. Just as many lives have been transformed by the discovery of true friendship, so many lives have been torn down by the destruction of the same. Therefore, to ease or lighten the blow of friendship's demise, it really behooves us to understand friendship in its many complex aspects and facets. Though friendship itself is a very simple human relationship, there is not much that is simplistic about the ingredients and tenets that go into making a great friendship.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ministers Quit: #1

Based on my conversations with ministers and my own experience of more than 22 years in the ministry, here are top ten reasons why ministers quit, and why I could do the same.

Here is the #1 reason why ministers quit the ministry:

Forced Resignation

When the typical minister resigns, it may not be a voluntary move. More often than not, ministers are forced or pressured to resign. This pressure may come from the deacons, elders, or other powerful influencers within the church. But when the story is told, it is presented as the work of the minister's own choosing.

The spiritual environment of a church often makes it the breeding ground for saying one thing and meaning another. So, instead of just saying, “You’re fired,” the church, through its power brokers, will use crude diplomacy that leaves little wiggle room for the pastor but to resign.

Sometimes, church members or leaders simply turn up the heat. The fume may even be felt in the atmosphere of the Sunday morning church service, where the minister is made to feel like he's surrounded by nothing but adversaries. He feels like Daniel in the Lions' Den, and this was supposed to have been a worship service, with the minister breaking the bread of life.

When the heat reaches that level of intensity, the minister sees the smoke and finds the exit, while he can.

You see, the Christian way is to do everything "in love". That means it is normally out of the question or game plan to use overt power plays to demand that the minister resign, unless there is proof of some moral lapse, as in the case of the minister being caught in a affair. Without any obvious moral crime in play, church folk must resort to sneakier methods to bring pressure to bear on the minister, while making it appear it was the minister's choice to resign.

In the end, the power players of the church can say with a straight face that since the minister resigned, it was not the church or the deacons who fired him. It was the pastor’s choice and decision to step down. The minister chose to resign, and as such, the church has no blood on its hands for rendering a servant of God unemployed or making him and his family homeless just like that.

Some churches have no idea what divine judgments they might have earned for their cruel and gross mistreatments of many humble servants of God, whom they forced out of the ministry or pastorate.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ministers Quit: #2

Here is the 2nd top reason why ministers leave the ministry:

Their Anxiety over the Lord’s work

There is a certain burden that comes with being a spiritual leader. The burden ministers carry about the church or ministry often gets too heavy to bear.

Unlike the average church member or deacon, the minister worries over the spiritual wellbeing of others. He is expected to suffer with those who weep. When someone backslides or slacks off, the preacher’s heart is weighed down. He lives in that tension zone where he must learn to balance his love for the backsliding member with God’s holy standard for Christian living.

The minister bears the concern of church finance, whether the offerings will be enough to cover the expenses. When the offerings are down, the minister is often down emotionally. Yes, a preacher almost always thinks about whether there will be enough in the collection plate or church treasury to cover the basis.

If the church pays him, he may feel guilty that his salary makes it difficult for the church to meet its other financial obligations.

If the church has debt, that concerns the minister too. How long will it be before the church can retire the debt, so they can have more financial resources to do more with the Lord's money?

Top 10 Reasons Why Ministers Quit: #3

Here is the 3rd reason why ministers quit:

They are Overworked and Underpaid.

Like other professionals, trained ministers must spend four years in college (seminary) for a bachelor’s degree, three years for a master’s degree, and another two years for a doctorate degree.

Yet ministers rank near the bottom of the pay scale among professionals. In fact, in most instances in under developed countries, ministers are not paid at all for their services to the church.

In the developed societies, where a minister may receive a regular salary, it is still rare for the minister's compensation package to include benefits like health insurance, dental insurance, life insurance and retirement. Usually the minister must depend on his wife’s employer for these benefits, or simply live without health care and other benefits.

A congregation may make up for a minister's low pay by organizing a yearly Pastor's Anniversary or Pastor's Appreciation Sunday. On this special day, the congregation honors the minister and his family. Part of this honor may be a special offering just for the minister.

While such observance is honorable, it would be far better to just increase the minister's pay, so he can better provide for his family throughout the year.

Due to their lowly salaries, many pastors choose to be bi-vocational; they take on a second job. Some may be lucky to pastor two separate churches.

But others opt out of the ministry for a field that will value their skill enough to compensate them enough for it.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ministers Quit: #4

Here is the 4th reason why ministers quit the good work:

They become the Blame Target.

Like a bull’s eye, the minister, along with his family, is often the biggest target for members’ criticism, gossip, slander or outright attacks.

“I was sick, and he didn’t even call!" one member may complain.

Another echoes, "I was in the hospital for a whole week, and he never visited me one time."

"My sister passed away, and I never got a card from the church,” says another in the chorus of blame.

There is no end to the rants of blame targeted at the ministers like fiery darts at fair game.

Sometimes a sneaky or smart minister may weave into his sermons and teachings some of his feedback to member's complaints and criticisms. But often this comes across as defensive and proves to be a losing game, as members are quick to pick up on such maneuvers from the pulpit.

Soon the minister who becomes the target of repeated blames may feel like he has no effective way of getting his case heard. Even the great the prophet Moses had his limits when it came to the people's murmuring against him.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ministers Quit: #5

Here is the 5th top reason why ministers quit the Lord's work:

Backstabbing and betrayal

Jesus Christ was neither the first nor the last preacher to be betrayed, deserted and denied. Fewer humans get betrayed more often than a preacher.

You see, a minister is quick to get excited about a member or church guest who has begun to show signs of commitment or spiritual growth. So he reaches out to that person and begins to pour his soul into the person. He puts his neck on the line for that person, standing with the person when others are determined to reject or oppose the person for whatever reason.

Sadly ~ and this happens a lot ~ it won’t be long before that same person turns on the minister, turns his back on the minister, and says some of the nastiest, cruelest things about him or about his church. It is amazing how easily people can make up stuff and stories to justify their dumping the minister they once respected and called their God-sent angel or hero.

At least Jesus Christ had one Judas who betrayed Him, one Peter who denied Him, and ten other disciples who deserted Him. But sometimes, it seems like a typical minister may run into several Judahs and numerous Peters, not to mention myriads of deserters.

At last, it is the minister who finally cuts and runs, because he just can't endure one more betrayal.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ministers Quit: #6

Here is the 6th reason why ministers drop out of the Lord's work:

Loneliness

The typical minister is one of the loneliest souls in town. Outside of the church assembly, church groups, and church meetings, the minister is a loner. Not because he wants to be, but usually because very few people feel qualify to become friends with "the man of God" or "the woman of God".

Yes, there are ministers who do ooze the air of being above the friendship circle of their members, or the lay people of the community.

Of course, the minister has the Lord for his/her best friend. But in terms of human connection outside the church setting, the minister remains friendless.

He may have minister friends, but that is often a professional relationship, not a real friendship. And having fellow ministers as friends can be a shaky, tricky thing, because he could soon lose one or more of his members to one of those so-called friends. And suddenly the minister who "stole" the member may begin to avoid the minister whose member has been "stolen".

Often the minister is pastor to everyone else but he has no one to give him pastoral ministry when he really needs it. Church members just don’t know how to befriend their minister, so they keep their distance from him, except to talk with him about “church business”.

Yet, like any other human being the minister needs company. He needs friends besides his spouse and nucleus family, but no one seems to understand or care that he really does need a friend.

“After all, he has a special relationship Jesus, the best friend anyone can have! So whybother him with flesh-and-blood friendship?”

That seems to be the unspoken thought of the preacher’s church members. They just don’t get it. The man is lonely, and it’s eating him up that no one seems to want his company outside of church halls and walls.

Every now and then the minister hears few of his members talk about their latest recreation ~ golf, bowling, basketball, etc ~ but do they ever invite him to any of the fun stuff?

Furthermore, the minister is expected to call, write or visit members who are bereaved or sick. But when it is the minister who is bereaved or sick, he sees no one come by to visit; he hears from no one; no one sends a Get Well card. Very rarely does a member contact the minister just to find out how he’s doing.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ministers Quit: #7

Here is the 7th top reason why ministers break down:

Church Politics

The minister gets caught in the crossfire of power plays among church leaders and members who joggle for attention or positions of influence.

Before the preacher’s eyes, church meetings break down into argument zones where the lines in the sand are drawn in concrete and defended by factions within the congregation. Many times loyalties among these competing sides will override what the pastor, deacons and other church officers had agreed to in a previous meeting, like a church council.

The stand-alone minister often watches as his once-trusted allies flip flop on him right before his eyes. He is left to ponder and wonder if any of his great preaching or teaching is making any noticeable difference in anybody at all.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ministers Quit: #8

Here is the 8th reason why ministers quit the ministry:

The Demands of Moral Excellence

Better believe it ~ the preacher faces and struggles with temptations of lust, sex, porn, alcohol, drugs, gambling, anger, greed, and other breeds of sensual pleasure.

But though some church members are quick to jump to the privilege of setting the preacher straight on just about any issue, they really have no clue just how much the minister struggles to cling to his status as the moral strong man of the flock.

Because the preacher is the one who stands as God’s mouthpiece to show and tell others how to live the godly life, he becomes a beacon of moral excellence to his people. As such, he dares not respond to people, things and situations as others are free to do. And if he does respond like any other person, there is a magnified reaction to him from those he leads.

Sometimes the minister must watch his spouse be mistreated, maligned or ostracized by church members, or the preacher's kids may be singled out and sidelined by their peers.

At some point, in fact, at many points, the preacher may feel incompetent or sinful, even if he is an excellent preacher, teacher, pastor, counselor or good moral template.

Next, he begins to doubt himself, second-guess himself, query himself. “Am I really called by God? Am I cut out for this? Did I receive adequate training? Should I be going back to school? Do I really know what I’m doing? Perhaps I should seek education in a different field just in case. May be I should get out of the way and let someone else do this, someone who can do a far better job.”

Now, because he is first and foremost a moral authority, every feeling of incompetence feels like moral failure in the minister’s mind. And moral failure is the one thing every minister dreads and no minister can survive.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ministers Quit: #9

Here is the 9th reason why preachers and other ministers give up:

Church Hoppers

Every time someone leaves the preacher’s church to join another church is a moment of crisis for the preacher.

It’s like when a company has spent money and resources to train a good employee, only for that employee to leave the company for greener grass somewhere else. In the same way, ministers pour their hearts, time, efforts and expertise into members only to watch them hop over to the next (better) church.

It was the little preacher who took the time to teach that person just everything the person now knows about the Bible, about prayer, about the Lord’s work, about finding his/her calling. Then the person feels too important to be in this little church and hops over to the big preacher’s church, the more prestigious church, the church with bigger and better facilities. And the church hopper doesn’t even realize the emotional damage that little preacher is left to sort out.

In the process of accepting this reality of being abandoned and left to dry, the preacher begins to soul-search and self-examine: “What did I do wrong? What’s wrong with me? What could I have done differently? What do I need to change? Why do I keep losing people?”

The minister begins to feel that the other minister who got his member must somehow be better than he. The preacher who loses the member feels inferior, and it will take a while before he recovers and gets his confidence back.

Of course, the typical church hopper may be blind to all this, or the church hopper may have secretly hoped that the hopped over minister would suffer this emotional pain.

Replay the church hopping drama several times, and a minister could become the casualty.

Church hoppers are often minister choppers.

Top 10 Reasons Why Ministers Quit: #10

Here is the 10th reason why ministers throw in the towel:

Overload and Burnout

It is very common for a preacher to combine several roles and functions besides preaching, teaching, counseling, weddings and funerals. He may also be the secretary, musician, technician, groundskeeper or janitor. Unlike the typical church leader or member, the preacher has to attend most meetings of the church, besides the two or more weekly church services.

Besides his own expected 100% attendance record, he must put up with the fluctuating attendance of not just regular members but people in leadership, like his deacons, directors, and associate ministers who are quick to skip Bible study, midweek service, or Sunday evening service for better things for their precious time.

Often the preacher will seek the support of his congregation in starting a new ministry or activity to make the church better, only to be left hanging out there all by himself, spinning his wheels to get the new activity going.

Remember, the pastor also has a family to minister to; a conflict with his spouse or problems at home can take things to the edge: there is nothing like toting a church and family on one man’s shoulders.

On top of all this, no one ever cares to show interest in the preacher taking a vacation; often he has no vacation days built into his package.

For some church members, if the preacher preaches at another church twice in one month, he is neglecting his responsibility. They don’t seem to understand his need to get away for a while, though the members themselves are usually going on vacations to see family, friends and places.

Soon the accumulated weight of the load overwhelms the preacher, his engine overheats, and he simply burns out, either moving to another church to begin this cycle all over again. Of course, he may just choose to leave the ministry altogether.

Yes, preachers do quit, too. In fact, more often than you want to know.

World Population Growth Explosion: A Scary Thing?

The numbers seem alarming. Currently, China has the most people on the planet, with 1.3 billion, followed by India with 1.1 billion people. The United States stands in third place with 304,567,664 people, as of July 10, 2008. At 5% per year, Liberia has the fastest rate of population growth in the world, and Italy has the slowest rate at 0.01% annually.

As I write this at 8:58 PM on Thursday, July 10, 2008, there are 6,709,195,825 on Planet Earth.

How many babies are born every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year? From various estimates, at the current rate of human population growth, on average…

• 5 babies are born every second
• 300 babies are born every minute
• 18,000 babies are born every hour
• 432,000 babies are born every day
• 3,024,000 babies are born every week
• 13,104,000 babies are born every month
• 157,248,000 babies are born every year

Do you find that alarming? Where are all these new arrivals going to live? Will there be enough food on earth for them? Will we have enough schools for them to attend? Enough hospitals?

Before you panic, here is the rest of the story: the death rate. How many people die every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year? On average…

• 2 persons die every second
• 120 persons die every minute
• 7,200 persons die every hour
• 172,800 persons die every day
• 1,209,600 persons die every week
• 5,241,600 persons die every month
• 62,899,200 persons die every year

The difference between the rate of birth and the rate of death is the real or net population increase of the world. Here’s the difference:

• Every second: 5 born – 2 dead = 3 gained
• Every minute: 300 born – 120 dead = 180 gained
• Every hour: 18,000 born – 7,200 dead = 10,800 gained
• Every day: 432,000 born – 172,800 dead = 259,200 gained
• Every week: 3,024,000 born – 1,209,600 dead = 1,814,400 gained
• Every month: 13,104,000 born – 5,241,600 dead = 7,862,400 gained
• Every year: 157,248,000 born – 62,899,200 dead = 94,348,800 gained

While this may still seem like a huge number, consider this question, since people live in countries: How many countries are in the world? The United Nations recognizes a list of 193 countries, including the Vatican City. Besides these, there are 8 others that meet the official definition of a country as set forth in 1933 by the Montevideo Convention. That’s a total of 201 countries, to serve as homeland to a net annual gain of 94,348,800 new humans every year.

Should we be scared? Should we step up funding for “family planning” ~ read “abortion” ~ in order to curb and control the number of new arrivals?

My answer is a resounding NO. We need not be scared of new babies, who are precious, lovely, little human beings. Babies are not monsters to be feared. Babies are not accidents or inconveniences to be avoided. Babies are gifts of life, and as such they are to be accepted, loved and enjoyed.

When it comes to the issue of population growth, “more people” is never the problem. Treating the births of babies as a problem – that is the problem.

Truth be told, our planet still has vast empty stretches of land, waiting to be settled by humans and turned into villages, towns, cities, clans and counties. Example: How much people-less territory does Canada still have?

Our willingness to spread all over available land more thinly is what leaders and activists should be promoting, not more abortion-centered birth controls. With bold leadership on the part of world leaders, we can resettle people on vacant lands to solve the problem with overcrowding. If we divert funds from abortion clinics to building brand new communities, we can deal with population growth, which is often overblown by activists who profit from the global abortion industry.

Something else: Besides the natural death rate, human experience has shown that there are many ways humans die: wars, pestilences, epidemics, and natural disasters. Every one of those ways has the effect of population control. Didn’t tens of thousands recently perish from a huge earthquake in China?