This year was too full.

Squeezed a whole decade of major ups and downs into one 12-month period.

Very grateful about the good things:

My wife Wendy’s mom, over in the Netherlands, is doing much better for the first time in a long time. For much of the first part of this year she was headed downhill fast. With some diagnosis shifts, she made a major corner turn. She even answered (in Dutch) “PRIMA!” to Wendy’s asking how she was doing.

Son Lars (22) is doing better than ever. Has trimmed down significantly. Works at Albertson’s right up the street, where he has been for a long time. Taking classes at Orange Coast College. Getting very interested in Philosophy. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree…

2011 saw a huge vocational breakthrough with my landing a whole new career, along with Roger Marsh, as co-host of The Bottom Line on KBRT radio 740 AM here in Los Angeles. Monday thru Friday from 3 to 5pm. Listen in on global streaming from anywhere. It’s a Current Events and Christian Lifestyle show.

While doing (extensive) research for the show, I have decided to say goodbye to the two big traditional political parties. I have become a convinced Libertarian. I see a need to help end the welfare/warfare state. Almost everything could be privatized. Another thing that pushed me over the edge was getting audited by the IRS (which I sailed thru but cost me weeks of my time). A Libertarian is just a conservative who has been audited . The Founding Fathers never intended for the federal government to control our education, health care, marketplace, agriculture, and energy policy. Nor did they intend for us to rule a global empire with 600-1,100 major military bases abroad.

After a rough 2010/2011 Winter respiratory infection, I took my health in my own hands and lost a lot of weight. Have been hovering around 25 BMI for months now. Am also working on flexibility, range of motion, and breathing, very proactively, with almost-daily gym workouts targeting these problem areas. Pilates is the nastiest workout ever invented. Only Germans could come up with anything so lacking in fun. But it works.

After a lean 2011 financial year through the Fall (after quitting many things to focus on three vocations–see below), our finances have taken a major turn for the better. We made it thru the Great Recession, which has been brutal in California. Praise God.

June saw the most pivotal spiritual time in my life, to date. I was in London at a board meeting for Alpha, staying with good friends Kim and Penelope Swithinbank. Volunteered to help out putting on a huge event for Pentecost at the O2 Center in Greenwich. To make a long story short, I got worked over by a Nigerian prayer team. I am still processing what happened there. Let’s just say I cannot account for 90 minutes of that evening. At all.

A couple of days later, I flew to Israel, landing at Ben Gurion Airport at 3:30am realizing that I had made no plans for my 72-hour stay. So I rented a car and took off…

Ended up at the Western Wall of the Jerusalem temple mount at dawn. Got drawn into a small group of super-serious Orthodox Jews who threw a cap on me, brought me up to the wall, prayed over me and left me to encounter the Sacred on my own.

Had another huge transcendental experience where time disappeared. Received a message to focus on three things: Robinwood, Radio, and Writing. And to let everything else go. Revolutionary for me and hard to process. So, in frustration, I left the city and had my third, and most profound spiritual experience in a week, in Tsfat of Galilee. See my essay on that third experience here.

Published my first novel in June. The Blackberry Bush continues to sell well. It’s a short-list finalist for the Inspy awards for fiction and still in the running for a (long shot) Pulitzer. Do you have your copy yet? Amazon or Barnes and Noble…

Enjoyed our young adults group from church–a real bright spot in ministry. Wendy and I have especially appreciated Lindsey Trego’s “adoptive daughter” status in our family.

Hard things that happened this year, in the midst of which I found things for which to be thankful:

After years of contention, I finally got voted off the island by the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). Fought to stay in, but the organization is becoming organizationally legalistic, ueber-PC, and not very tolerant of outspoken theological conservatives like me. SILVER LINING: Thankful that I am now totally free to craft my teaching and build community around it. Didn’t realize how constricting it had been.

Wendy had a hospitalization a few months ago with a super-blocked carotid artery. Quite a scare. We are working on ways to maximize the situation going forward. SILVER LINING: We are so thankful to the chiropractor who discovered the problem.

A freak rainstorm hit while we were replacing the roof at Robinwood Church here in Huntington Beach. We lost almost everything.  Set us back for weeks and took our focus off of ministry. SILVER LINING: We are back in business with new carpet. Looks sharp. And we pulled together as a church to clean up and repair.

We had an especially rough personal time this year, when a young pregnant woman asked us to adopt her baby. We being 50 years old, this was a huge deal and we struggled with the decision. She changed her mind right before the birth. We had one day that was the biggest roller coaster of our lives. SILVER LINING: Our marriage came out more loyal and stronger than ever.

Thus we give thanks for some great things, but also “in” all things, whether they are great or not…

These colors don’t torture. Ever.

Waterboarding is sub-human.

Invented in the Spanish Inquisition. Fun times.

The average person lasts 14 seconds before cracking.

Many survivors suffer from lifetime suffocation anxiety.

And what if you get the wrong guy? And he has nothing to share? Most likely permanent mental damage.

We cannot give the green light to Abu Ghraib behavior.

I am so embarrassed for our presidential candidates that they had a debate on this last night.

For the record, Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain came out last night in favor of waterboarding. As was Rick Perry.

Huntsman and Paul said no. Paul was vehement.

Where does Romney Stand? Gingrich?

A debate.

On torture.

“Enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Good Lord, how Orwellian a phrase can you craft (comment via Brian Zahnd)?

I’m planting a flag on this issue.

Where do you stand?

Can Americans bomb neighborhoods (Germany 300k civilian bombing deaths, Japan 700k, in World War 2)?

Can we send drones into compounds, regretting the “collateral damage” (another Orwellian term)?

Please hear me; I am not a dove. Still regret not doing special forces when I was young. I am against all forms of gun control.

But either we stand for higher ideals, or our fighting is no longer worth bleeding and dying for.

Fun to hear via Twitter yesterday that my Novel, The Blackberry Bush, has made the INSPY awards shortlist for 2011 General Fiction.

Also still in the running for a Pulitzer Prize, although that’s a bit of a long shot .

I “wordled” the entire text of the novel and came up with this fascinating mosaic:

The website for the novel continues to get good traffic: BlackberryNovel.com Please click on for in-depth information.

The book is available on the shelves at Barnes and Noble and Walmart. Order it right now on Amazon or Kindle.

It includes a study guide in the back for book clubs, classes, and groups.

Click here for the Wikipedia article on the novel.

I have made two trailer videos, one for the North American/European market…

…and one for the Middle Eastern/South Asian market.

Follow me on Twitter @RobinwoodChurch

My apologies for not posting recently. Still getting 150 page views a day, so thanks so much for continuing to read and comment.

The reason is that I have started a new radio show, called The Bottom Line with co-host Roger Marsh.

It’s a current events drive-home show with a free-market and family-values Christian point of view.

It’s on KBRT AM 740 from 3pm to 5pm Pacific Time.

KBRT reaches all of coastal Southern California and has a very strong signal.

You also can listen live worldwide at http://KBRT740.com on any computer, laptop, or smartphone.

Its is NOT podcast; the shows are not recorded. But you can use the TuneIn app to record the show for later listening. Currently (October 2011) it is still listed under the previous show’s name “Talk from the Heart.” That will be updated soon.

Follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/KBRT740

You can listen in on your smartphone thru FlyCast at http://www.flycast.fm/FlyCastHOME.aspx.

Advertisers for the show have experienced dramatic increases in sales/customers. Contact Pam Christian at PLChristian@CrawfordBroadcasting.com or call her at 714-754-4450.

Thanks for listening in!

California Governor Jerry Brown signed a paper that gives all of California’s “bazillion” electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

This is not a misprint. To the winner of the NATIONAL popular vote. Here is the LINK.

In other words, the votes of someone in Indiana will have as much effect on California’s electoral votes as mine, a taxpaying resident of the state of California.

Why did he do this?

Simple!

Liberals are afraid of a repeat of the Bush/Gore election where Al won the popular vote (by a hair) and George won the electoral vote (by a dimpled chad in Florida.)

Abolish the electoral college! (shouts everyone)

How silly! (shout I)

The older I get, the more I appreciate the wisdom of the founding fathers. 

On their better days, I believe they were truly inspired by God. And, like Martin Luther King, I don’t believe you can separate faith convictions from politics.

They founded the Electoral College for a reason.

A very good reason.

The envisioned each state sending its best and brightest (college presidents, business leaders, agriculturalists, journalists, clergy, intellectuals, historians, etc.) to a real meeting in Washington DC every four years. Kind of like the group that wrote the constitution in the first place….

They would choose one person to manage the country for four years. Keep it in the black. Keep it efficient.

Politicking was seen as bad form. The decision was NOT to be made ahead of time. The idea of a sitting president raising a billion (!) dollars for re-election would have resulted in deportation.

There was to be no popular vote for the president. The leaders of the country were to confer and choose one.

Why?

Because the founding fathers were afraid of two things:

1) America becoming a high-overhead imperial power (like England).

2) A spike in popular opinion putting a charismatic nut in the office of the presidency through a direct popular vote.

Thus the constitution was built with lotsa shock absorbers to cushion against instability, extremism, and hysteria.

Only the House of Representatives would fully mirror the current mood of the people. Every two years everyone is back up for election. New “movements” would get representation here (tea party, contract with America, new deal, reaganomics, great society, etc.) and a chance to gain a foothold. New ideas would be given a test drive.

The Senate was staggered so that only a third of the seats would come open at any given time. The terms were longer than the president’s; denoting higher status. They were to be chosen by state legislatures, to provide yet one more filter against extreme mood swings. The Senate was thus to be more conservative and less prone to sharp turns. They would be the ones approving foreign treaties (or basically just staying out of them).

The presidency was not an elected King/Queen. The president was to be an efficient, proven leader who could keep things on track. Not a charismatic survivor of a brutal campaign trail. Not the winner of endless debates.

George Washington was thus elected president (by a real electoral college) more or less against his will. He begged the country not to put is picture on the money and thus elevate the presidency. He insisted on “Mr. President” rather than “Your highness” or even “Your honor.” The president was to be like a city manager of a large country. Not in the news all the time.

Time to bring this great idea back. No more imperial presidency. No more sending our troops abroad without a declaration of war. No more elected emperors.

Have each state send its brightest and best; non-partisan if possible, and choose a good manager for the next four years. Peter Ueberroth would have been chosen in the 80′s after organizing the L.A. Olympics and making a profit.

Leave the electioneering to the House of Representatives, where it belongs. A popular house. Where fresh ideas are given a chance.

But the real power should be in the Senate. Longer terms than the president (six years). A compounding society of wisdom. Not susceptible to the whims of the season.

The electoral college.

A great idea.

About time we get it right.

And put the presidency in its place.

+++++++++++++++++

Please pass the link for this on to everyone else. Thanks!

Twitter: @RobinwoodChurch

This picture was just to get your attention. I assume it worked…

Let’s see if we can have a civil discussion on this.

I have strong opinions on abortion, and not, perhaps, for the reasons you think.

For me, it’s a natalism and justice issue, not a conservative or liberal issue.

Truth is, the word abortion is not directly mentioned in the Bible. Even the concept is not there. So arguing on biblical grounds is possible, but challenging. You have to build implicit (not explicit) biblical arguments.

Being against abortion, as I am, is also counter-intuitive for me. As a Libertarian, I don’t like government interference in anything.

But Libertarianism can only exist given the total security of each person. Only when we decide not to bully or kill one another can a Libertarian society emerge. There needs to be a bedrock sense of civility and respect for it to work. In my mind, this must include the unborn.

Some random thoughts:

1) No one, in a free society, should be coerced into paying for something deeply against his or her conscience and morals. My tax money pays for abortions. This is not OK with me. It’s like forcing abolitionists to pay for slave shackles…

2) Insurance plans also pay for abortions–virtually all of them, because of the medical coding system which protects a woman’s privacy. Oversimplistically put, a miscarriage is coded the same as an abortion. Most all Americans, thus, fund abortions. That’s a problem.

3) I truly am striving to understand the pro-choice position. I would invite you pro-choicers to do the same with our views. Seriously. We are working with a woman who is seven months pregnant right now. She will give birth to a third child from a third “father.” He is a felon and intends to hurt her when he gets out this fall. No wonder she wants an abortion. She is a second generation welfare mom, with no stable families that I can find anywhere in her extended clan. I’m not excusing her thoughts; just trying to explain them. Many women seeking abortions see no way out, and their circumstances are hard for us in Middle America to understand.

4) The justice issue. We are to protect those who have no voice. That must include the unborn babies. Someone has to speak for them.

5) Finding families to adopt babies is not a problem. I and every pastor I know has a list of hundreds of couples starving to adopt a child. Most of them make six figures and are solid as the day is long.

6) Abortion is profitable. Profit skews the ethics of those providing abortions. Everyone they convince to abort adds to their profit. If I told you some things I know about these profits, you wouldn’t believe me.

Not just profitable. Predatory. Wanna find an abortion clinic? Go to the same poor neighborhoods that get targeted for lottery tickets and 40-oz malt liquors.

The once-vibrant African-American community here in L.A. is disappearing. At one time they even elected a black mayor, Tom Bradley. Now they are sidelined, swallowed up in a sea of Anglos, Asians, and Latinos. Remember, Planned Parenthood was started by a eugenics fan who doubted the viability of “inferior races.” Disgusting…

7) “What about rape?” is a copout. Does that automatically make it the baby’s fault? Instant death penalty? One of our worship leaders at Robinwood Church was conceived in rape. I cannot imagine a world without her. Using an extreme (but very real) example to push for abortion on demand in all cases is not helpful.

8.  Late term abortions are repulsive. No matter how you look at it. And yet they are legal. How does this happen in a democracy where an overwhelming majority of Americans find late term abortions an outrage?

9) I go to the Long Beach abortion clinic and stand on the sidewalk. Totally legal. Not protesting. Not hindering. I ask women approaching the building “If we gave you another option, would you take it?” About 1/3 say yes, immediately. We take care of them at http://hisnestingplace.org for months on end.

10) Are human beings an asset or a liability? If they are an asset, we need to keep them. If they are a liability….

11) I’m not a full-blown natalist, but I have some natalist tendencies. I believe in big families. I don’t believe in over-population. I fly all over America. Trust me, most of it is totally empty.

12) I don’t like the phrase “You can’t legislate morality.” Our entire legal system is legislated morality. Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Etc. etc.

13) I don’t like the idea that we can’t use our faith in political arguments. Tell that to Martin Luther King. Tell that to those who ran the Underground Railroad. Tell that to the committed Christians who fought for the right for women to be able to vote. Tell that to our strident borderline-scary faith-filled women (and a few men) who founded our hospitals and universities (usually in a black and white picture, standing in mud with a shovel, next to the pictures of today’s board members in hospital hallways).

14) Feminism shows us some truth in this issue. It’s the woman who often suffers most from an unwanted pregnancy. Pro-lifers would do better to try to understand this and not just de-value this argument in favor of the baby. “You should have known better” is not a real helpful thing to say to a scared, pregnant woman.

15) Think how much a baby develops in his or her first year of life. The 9 months of pregnancy show even much more dramatic, miraculous development. Is it just me, or does stopping that seem deeply wrong at some level?

That should get us going.

Keep it civil, or I WILL delete you.

Let’s strive to understand each other.

I want to end abortion. Others disagree.

What do you think?

I just crafted another 90-second movie trailer on iMovie. This particular movie version targets South Asia and the Middle East (but the book is for everyone). Have a look:

The novel, The Blackberry Bush, is ideal for small groups, classes (high school, college, and adult), and book clubs, because it has a built in study-guide in the back. Please consider ordering a stack for your next study.

How to get the book:

• Order it on AMAZON
• Get it on KINDLE (in less than a minute)
• Download it to your NOOK
• Buy it in person at BARNES & NOBLE stores (extra copies at Edina, MN, and West Des Moines, IA stores)
• Worldwide free shipping at BOOK DEPOSITORY.
• Available on the shelves at WALMART (if it’s sold out, ask for a manager!)
• For those of you in Minnesota, pick up a copy at HOSANNA! church in Lakeville.
• For those of you in Kensington (London), pick up a copy at HTB.
• For those of you in Muswell Hill (London), pick up a copy at ST JAMES CHURCH.
• Coming soon to C.U.M. bookstores in South Africa
• Coming soon to Koorong  in Australia

Here I stand, bare feet on ancient stone. Looking down at the water…

How did I get here?

It’s 3am in Tsfat, Israel. Dark outside. Full moon over the 4,000 year-old graveyard behind me…

I was on the way home to California from a business trip in London.

As if by an unseen hand, I was led out of my well-worn hotel room and down the switchbacks to this holiest of places in this holiest of cities. Yitzak Luria‘s Mikveh.

I feel like Indiana Jones, except there is no khaki or wide-brimmed hat…I am as naked as the day I was born, no barrier, coram Deo. Even my watch and wedding ring have been taken off.

Just me. Just God. Just now.

My name, David, which never made much sense to me, seems oddly right for, perhaps, the first time ever. I have cultivated nicknames all my life. I think of the double delta of David’s monogram…

I think back over the last 48 hours here in Galilee.

Invited into the back rooms of synagogues…

Rabbis pointing through the texts of “secret books” in Hebrew and asking questions….

• How did you learn Hebrew?
• Your name is David, are you sure you aren’t Jewish? You look Russian…
• Where do you sense the presence of God here in Tsfat? Where is that feeling the strongest?
• What are you doing here?

I did not choose to stand here. I’m not even sure what a mikveh is…I was led here…

I need answers to three questions. Just two days ago, I wrote those questions on a tiny slip of paper, rolled it up, and placed it in the Western Wall of the temple mount in Jerusalem at sunrise. My forehead against the cool ancient stone, my palms up high, time collapsed…the better part of an hour evaporated like the morning fog…

It is dark outside. Not even the roosters have begun to crow…

I slide into the biting cold of the fresh spring water, holding the pole and stepping down the ancient steps. I breathe deeply and submerge….

The world disappears.

I pull my knees up against my chest, going fetal in this womb-tomb.

An avid surfer, I am used to being underwater and I gently roll backwards….

A glow emanates from nowhere and everywhere. I open my eyes underwater to confirm the experience and the light vanishes…

I come up for air twice and submerge again. The glow returns, and I feel enveloped in the Khesed-love of the Creator. Answers come to me faster than I can receive them.

I generate a will to receive.

Something shifts around me. The third time under turns into a dream. I feel as if I am breathing underwater. The glow gets warm.

All of my theological legalisms about baptism vanish and dissolve into an ocean of God’s presence.

As I climb out and dry off, my soul comes to total rest. I will walk for hours until the hilltop town awakens. Like an old snakeskin, I have shed something. A new season is starting…

Where is your “mikveh” where you take off everything in the presence of God?

When’s the last time you were there….?

Come home, America.

Now would be the time.

Al Qaeda has been decapitated. The seven dwarves of wannabe Bin Ladens are hopeless.

The Cold War is over in Europe. As over as leisure suits.

We get most of our oil from the Western Hemisphere. No real reason to import it from the psycho-political Middle East.

Libya is not our problem. The chaos in Mexico is.

Time to come home, America.

We are a New World nation.

We started dabbling in Old World politics in McKinley’s administration with the “White Man’s Burden” and the Philippines. It was a slippery slope. 110 years of adventure with a ton of heartache.

Now is the time to realize the great promise of the New World.

The founding fathers warned us against “entangling alliances” in the Old World.

We ignored them.

And we have paid.

And paid.

And paid.

In gold and blood.

We had no business in World War One. None. No one is even sure what the war was about, almost a century later. Why send our young men into that meat grinder?

And had we never messed around in the Philippines and taken over Hawaii in a sleazy way there would have been no Pearl Harbor. Russia would have eventually defeated the Nazis without us (do the math). There may not have ever been Nazis in the first place if we had not tipped the scales of WW1 so that Germany was crushed.

It is time for America to come home.

If Europe cannot defend itself without our help, then that’s their problem. Why did they need us to straighten out Kosovo?

If Korea is hopeless without us, then Asia has to band together to subdue the nut case pariah nation of North Korea.

We are obsessed with the Middle East. As Dr. Phil would say: How’s it workin’ for you now? Israel is plenty able to kick the pooey out of anyone who messes with them. And last time someone fired scuds at them it was because our soldiers were shooting up Mesopotamia. We get the Israelis in more trouble than anything else.

These fights are not our fight.

Our natural GNP level is 20% of the global total (with 4% of the population), this has held steady for a century. We had a short percentage spike in the 1950′s while the rest of the world rebuilt after the disaster of WW2. It’s time to go back to our “natural” sphere of influence of 1/5 of the globe. Right now, we are acting like we own the whole enchilada. Imperial over-reach has killed more empires than anything else.

It is time to:

1. Pull our troops out of Europe.
2. Pull our troops out of Korea.
3. Leave the Eastern Hemisphere, militarily. 100% withdrawal.
4. Help Mexico fix Mexico.
5. Establish a free trade zone in the Western Hemisphere, the New World.
6. Stop worrying about trade with India and China. If they won’t play nice (which they will), then transfer those jobs to North and Latin America.
7. We won’t even start with the schizophrenic nation of Pakistan, our worst ally…ever.
8. Build a world-class freight railroad system from Alaska to the tip of Chile.
9. Re-align the military to protect the Western Hemisphere. Seamlessly. With big oceans on both sides and no natural enemies, we are easy, and cheap, to defend.
10. Develop a joint Western Hemisphere Navy (like NATO was) to which we would supply 3, not 12, carrier groups.
11. Thus save trillions in military expenditures and foreign aid, all the while  enhancing our security. Oh, by the way, this would balance the budget.
12. Be on good terms with the Old World, but stay out of their un-solvable feuds.
13. Have every student in our hemisphere learn English and Spanish in addition to his/her native tongue. No exceptions.
14. Create a national volunteer service throughout the hemisphere to build the infrastructure. Mandatory two years after high school. Get our young people out from in front of screens with video games and Simpsons reruns and out doing some good.
15. Eliminate drug cartels.

To resurrect a term, it is our manifest destiny to be the leading nation (with great partners) in the New World.

Come home, America.

This vision made it into the epilogue of The Blackberry Bush, my 2011 novel.

Please pass a link to this article to everyone you know. Thanks.

PS: Just was reminded by a friend that McGovern’s acceptance speech in 1972 was entitled, “Come home, America.” 8-track, flashback! Here are the closing lines:

So join with me in this campaign. Lend me your strength and your support, and together we will call America home to the ideals that nourished us from the beginning.

From secrecy and deception in high places; come home, America

From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation; come home, America.

From the entrenchment of special privileges in tax favoritism; from the waste of idle lands to the joy of useful labor; from the prejudice based on race and sex; from the loneliness of the aging poor and the despair of  the neglected sick — come home, America.

Come home to the affirmation that we have a dream. Come home to the conviction that we can move our country forward.

Come home to the belief that we can seek a newer world, and let us be joyful in that homecoming, for this “is your land, this land is my land — from California to New York island, from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters — this land was made for you and me.”

So let us close on this note: May God grant each one of us the wisdom to cherish this good land and to meet the great challenge that beckons us home.

And now is the time to meet that challenge.

Good night, and Godspeed to you all.

-George McGovern, 1972, who lost to Nixon, who resigned in disgrace shortly thereafter…

]]> http://robinwoodchurch.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/come-home-america/feed/ 25 33.662505 -117.998860 33.662505 -117.998860 robinwoodchurch American Soldier Returns Home come home http://robinwoodchurch.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/debut-blackberry-bush-trailer-movie/ http://robinwoodchurch.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/debut-blackberry-bush-trailer-movie/#comments Thu, 12 May 2011 03:48:27 +0000 David Housholder http://robinwoodchurch.wordpress.com/?p=959 ]]> The final copies of my first novel just arrived!

Have a look at the 90-second intro-to-the-novel video movie:

Please pass it on to others, thanks!

The book comes with a built-in study guide for groups, book clubs, and classes.

For…

• purchase information (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Depository, etc)
• reviews (via Powell’s in Portland)
• interview
• study guide
• more videos
• synopsis