March 21, 2008
Undefeated
On April 1st we will hold the City Council election, in which I’m a candidate. This last Sunday a friend was walking across the gym when she waved to me and said, “Oh, I see you’re running undefeated.” We both laughed as she quickly changed undefeated to unopposed. I know how Paul feels about running a race, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” (1 Cor 9:24 NIV), but I wonder what he would say about running in a race unopposed. Is it truly a race? Is the prize diminished? Must there be competition to qualify for the prize or is strict training enough? Of course in the case of a political race one might ask, ‘So, what’s the prize?’ As an aside, the fact that the election is being held on April Fool’s Day is not lost on me.
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6 comments:
Gail;
-----I think you are catching on. Surely considering the office to be the prize will be the April Fool's joke. Truly the prize is the integrity with which one might fill the office. Saddly, we have few prizes in political office these days.
Steve
As long as the goal is to serve those that have elected you (whether you were unopposed or not) and in consideration for their needs. That's what's important. Homeowners and business owners need an advocate in this town holding our developers accountable, in many instances for our personal safety that has been neglected for the sake of growth.
Anonymous;
-----Frankly, it gives me chills whenever I hear the concept of my need for government protection. Every day there is some new call to regulate this and prohibit that. And it sounds like a great idea to save ourselves from each other, but someone forgot to decide how we are all to be saved from overbearing government. When I made my home in 1992, I was required to get the county land use department involved in placing my leach field. I know the ground; I played there when I was ten. I told them it would not work where they wanted it placed. And of course, that is where it got placed. For five years we lived with the smell of raw sewage pooled on the ground. Of course, I dealt with it. My neighbor across the draw had to move his leach field from where the land use department placed it, because, well, water doesn’t really flow uphill. Then again, when I moved my hot water heater, I was required to get a state plumbing inspection of my work. I had wrapped the heater in fiberglass insulation, and because of that, they would not sign off on my work. “Not allowed to have any flammables within six inches of the water heater,” I was told. I am not sure how familiar you are with fiberglass, Anonymous, but it just doesn’t burn. I can’t even get it to melt in a strong bon-fire. In fact, I followed a suggestion in the code book and stuffed my interior walls with it for fire protection! But this state plumbing inspector actually had to go back to my house and try lighting up that fiberglass before he would be convinced it wasn‘t flammable! For one quarter of the year I drive to work before three AM. I might see three vehicles, total, in the six miles to my office. Yet still, the government has to protect us the entire length of Main Street and Townsend with their busy-body traffic signals. It is as if my skill in negotiating the lonely, non-posted intersection vanishes immediately when I encounter the empty intersection having a traffic light. A few years ago all those lights used to go to flashing at midnight. But today, we are such idiots that we have to be stopped every third block for two minutes just to watch God’s clean air blow by!
-----I understand the need for building codes and regulations, but the need to restrain their excess has not even been discussed. I think that consideration would only be respectful towards the public.
I feel that you missed the fact that I said accountability. We have roadways and entire subdivisions that are falling apart and the builder and developer have moved on to the next subdivision with no consequences while the taxpayers are cleaning up their messes. The current codes are meaningless as they are not really enforced and there are really no consequences when they are not followed.
Anonymous,
Since I’ve been attending City Council meetings I’m seeing things going on that haven’t been reported in the media, such as holding developers accountable. I do appreciate hearing your perspective that the codes are meaningless, etc. I think part of society’s perception is that problems are, or should be, solved like they are in reality TV…quick, fast and packaged up in an hour. I think the same about issues in the church! How come it’s taking so long to fill the pot holes and is anyone going back to the Code Book (Scripture), or is it just being ignored? Obviously there is room for improvement in communication in both the city and the church.
Gail
Anonymous;
-----I didn’t miss your reference to accountability. In fact, accountability is exactly the issue. The placement of my leach field required accountability. It was my accountability that got it right. It was my neighbor’s accountability that got his right. It was my accountability that got the insulation around my water heater right. It is my accountability that gets me across any intersection safely, matter not what time of day or manner of traffic control. It is the homeowner’s accountability to upkeep his home. Once purchased from the developer, you know it does become his. I believe the streets become the property of the local government, if not, they become the property of the homeowner’s association. The developer’s accountability ended at the meeting of the code and the sale of the property.
-----It is no wonder our ability to live a relatively regulation free life is dissipating like a mist in a firestorm. Nobody wants to be accountable for themselves and their own property. We all hate risk, but we all take it on big-time when buying property. The big news of the day should be that that risk is actually real! Things can go wrong. News flash! News flash! The second law of thermodynamics has not ended! Things still deteriorate! Weeds still grow! Property owners feel previous owner should be responsible! -- Bologna! You bought it! You are the one holding the bag while nature is doing its number on it. Get your hammer, get your nails, get your paintbrush and be accountable for your own stuff. Do your own repairs and maintenance. The developer has moved on because he sold it to you!
-----How perceptive you are, Gail. The same lack of personal accountability has fermented the church into a country-club. Too many want the organization to do spirituality for them. I suspect this is why all the change in church format over the last ten years. The old stuff didn’t make us feel spiritual anymore, maybe new stuff will. But the code book for the new life lays out the most fundamental rules and regulations of spirituality, then it looks to the reader to take up his individual accountability and get his own act in line. But too many people must stuff themselves into the church building and beg the preacher to tell them how things are and the elders to take their money and make holiness with it. Even if they have the courage to read the Word they are afraid to think upon it further than the clerically drawn lines. For it takes much accountability to seek answers from the Bible. So, in as much as churches are becoming bigger and more impersonalized, like walk-through snack bars more than sit down dining rooms, our government is becoming bigger and more impersonalized, like a know-it-all tyrant more than a freedom-conscious public.
-----But, alas, nothing is perfect. Since the homeowner cannot muster accountability, then we will all sing of the developer, “In the year 2525, will you still be there…”
Steve Corey
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