Walking With God in America ...

Anyone who doesn't believe God has blessed America just needs to take a long walk and witness her beauty posits Ken Duncan, a world renowned Australian photographer, who visited all 50 states with his camera and notepad.

In the intro to his book, Walking With God In America, Duncan writes:

It might seem funny that although I am Australian, God has given me a real burden for America. No nation in the world has been more naturally blessed than the United States, and I believe God has done that so people will understand how much He cares for the nation. America's faith in God is what had made it one of the greatest countries on earth, and faith is a beacon of hope for other struggling nations around the world.

From "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance (the phrase was upheld in 2004 by the Supreme Court 5-4 because Sandra Day O'Connor argued that the phrase is "meaningless" -- "any religious freight the words may have been meant to carry has long since been lost") to removing references to God in textbooks on American history, the place or name of God in America's public square -- literally -- is an ongoing political and legal powder keg.

I'll defer any attempts at an argument that maintaing liberty requires virtue -- and virtue requires true religion, to John Adams:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

For now, I'll leave debates on whether or Constitution intends for there to be freedom of religion or freedom from religion and follow Duncan's simple advice to look for America's spirit in her beauty!

Acknowledgments: Panographic photographs are (c) Ken Duncan and used by permission; all rights reserved. The quote from Sandra Day O'Connor and John Adams are from Rediscovering God In America by Newt Gingrich (Thomas Nelson).

Finding Your Voice

When Paul Potts, a mobile phone salesman from New South Wales, announced that he was "here to sing opera" on the television show, Britain's Got Talent - think American Idol with an English accent - it was all that Simon Cowell, his fellow judges, Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden, and the audience could do not to snicker out loud.

Poor guy. Rumpled suit. Gap in his front teeth large enough to drive a red double decker London tourist bus through. Slouched posture. A near-grimace of self doubt on his face that was truly painful to behold. An embarrassing moment just head. A car wreck you just couldn't take your eyes off. So I had to watch.

And then the miracle. A voice suited for the Royal Opera House in London or the Teatro alla Scala in Milan stunningly bursts forth on the opera classic, Nessun Dorma. The loquacious Cowell had no words - Amanda openly weeped. Audience members, including some who looked like they were on their way to a U2 or Linkin Park concert and might possibly have never heard of opera, gave Paul one standing ovation after another.

The timid phone salesman found his voice.

Many people seem to simply be going through the motions in life. Too many disappointments. Too many failures. Too little recognition and affirmation.

Of course, it's possible that some of us have given up dreaming and daring for the simple reason that we have held on to the wrong dreams for too long. We've been trying to sing someone else's song and haven't found our own calling, our own gifting, our own purpose that transcends gap teeth, rumpled suits, and any other shortcomings real or perceived.

Have you found your voice? When your moment arrives, will you be ready to sing?

Who Framed Roger Clemens?

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it. So they say. But are they right?

There's undoubtedly enough anecdotal evidence of those who have overcome hardships and tragedies with faith, optimism, and resilience -- and conversely, enough examples of those who squandered advantages, blessings, and favor through pessimism, lack of discipline, and feelings of entitlement -- to suggest yes, "they" are probably right. To some degree or another.

There's a parallel theorem that's back in the news.



Outside of murdering your wife while wearing a new pair of Aris Isotoner Light gloves (size extra-large), your opportunity to rehabilitate a damaged reputation is 10% what you've done in the first place and 90% how you own up to it.

Don't hold me to that exact ratio but if you don't believe there's at least some truth to it, just ask Richard Nixon how effective cover ups are when you've obviously broken the rules -- and got caught. Bill Clinton looked us right in the eyes, wagged a finger in our direction, and declared, "I did not have ..." in his attempt to follow in Nixon's presidential footsteps.

Maybe Roger Clemens never took steroids and was amazingly unaware that others around him, including his colleagues and wife, were doing so. But if he did, his legacy will be tarnished more by his theatrical declarations of innocence than anything he did in an era of baseball when it is estimated that at least two thirds of Major League Baseball was ingesting some kind of performance enhancer.

So who framed Roger Clemens? If he's found guilty ... just ask him!