You all probably know that Obama’s grandmother is ill so he’ll be leaving the campaign trail for a few days this week to spend some time with her.  Please keep him and her in your prayers.

I found this picture of his grandparents online along with a great post.  Here’s the photo and an excerpt from the post.  Now we know where he gets the ears!

From the post:

Likewise, I was looking at this picture of Obama’s grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I’d bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn’t give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man. There is a reason why we have a long history of publicly biracial black people, but not so much of publicly biracial white people.

We often give a pass to racists by noting that they were “of their times.” Fair enough, and I know Hawaii was a different beast, but still, today, let us speak of people who were ahead of their times, who were outside of their times. Let us remember that Barack Obama learned the great lessons of life from courageous white people. Let us speak of those who do what  normal, right people should always do when faced with a child–commit an act love. Here’s to doing the right thing.

You’ve got to read it.

NOTE: I wrote this post on 10/21 but I’ve been having problems posting to my blog. Sorry I’ve been out of touch.

I have two conferences on my calendar as of today.

Faith and Fiction 2009

SORMAG Online Conference 2009

Romance Slam Jam 2010

Now this is the kind of heading I expect from a Christian news organization.  Check it out!

Faith Group Implores McCain, Obama to not bear “False Witness”

You should also check out the group, Faithful America.  Does anyone know anything about this group?

Okay, I’ve waited a couple of days to give the conference attendees time to get back and re-claim their lives.  Now I want to hear about it — and I want details! So if you attended, share your experience with us.  If you’ve visited a blog with a conference report, let us know the URL so we can visit, too.

I especially want to know the Award winners!

I must say that when it comes to making fun of Christians it’s open season. It has been that way for a long time. Why are people allowed to get away with making fun of the Christian faith?

I found this quote on another blog. I won’t bother to link to it because it has to do with politics and I don’t want this to be a political discussion. Can you answer the question?

I think the answer is that people aren’t really making fun of the Christian faith. They’re making fun of folks who call themselves Christians. Unfortunately, all some folks know of the Christian faith is what they see in our lives, and let’s be frank here, sometimes it ain’t pretty.

I also think outsiders like to pounce on us because we pounce on them. It’s like we’ve drawn this line that makes sin among sinners REALLY bad while sin among saints is “well, nobody’s perfect.” Then we want to come back at folks with “sin ain’t what you do, it’s about the relationship.” Yeah, right. I’m sure they get that and the word they use to describe it is “hypocrite.”

At the core of the issue, I think, is the way Christians dole out compassion. I sometimes feel that our compassion is reserved for other Christians, usually Christians we know personally, and we have very little for the world-at-large.

So I don’t really get bummed out when people mock Christians because sometimes we deserve to be mocked. Many times it’s not them defaming the name of Christ, it’s them calling us out because we’re defaming His name.

I think this relates to our writing as well. How we draw our characters, the situations we put them in, and the way they resolve their issues all speak to how perceive Christian life. I think that’s why there’s such a diversity is what folks call “Christian fiction.” If I call myself a Christian and a book speaks to me where I am in my faith, then to me it’s Christian fiction. You’ll notice the definition is built around the person, not the book.

Anyway. That’s my nickel. What’s yours?

You know, I asked this question a while back in reference to Christian fiction.  Today, I’m asking it about a post I read over on CBNNews. For those of you who don’t know, CBN is Christian Broadcasting Network.

I read David Brody’s blog, The Brody File, fairly often.  While David and I support different candidates, I read him because he gives me insight into the perspectives of evangelical Christians who identify as social conservatives when it comes to politics.

I recently found a post on his blog that disturbed me a bit. Here’s an excerpt:

Call it half truths, misleading, downright lies, or even mostly true, whatever. John McCain has gotten inside Obama’s head. It’s not pretty but it’s true. Look, let’s talk political strategy here ok? If your opponent’s campaign is great at organizing and is tapping into a new political enthusiasm not seen for quite some time then you need to figure out how to bring him down a peg or two.

You can read the full post HERE.

This post bothered me.  I’m an Obama supporter so it’s possible that I’m being overly sensitive.  That’s why I want your feedback.  Does it bother you that this post is on a Christian news site?  If so, why?  If not, why not? Would you feel differently if it weren’t a Christian site? 

A broader question would be, Should reporting by a Christian organization be different from reporting by the mainstream media?  If so, how?  If not, why not?

Please read David Brody’s full post before you comment. I don’t want to take him out of context. And I want to keep the comments made here to the post.  I don’t want want this discussion to turn into a bashing of any person or party.  Let’s keep it Christian.  I’ll have to shut off the comments off if we can’t.

I’m not sure how I feel about this Bible. Have any of you read it?  What do you think of it?  Do you recommend it?

I was leery of The Living Bible so I’m really leery of a book that condenses the Bible to a 100-minute read.

If you haven’t heard of this Bible, you can read about it HERE.

After thinking about it, I think my problem is that the book is referred to as a Bible.  I’d probably be more open to it if it had another title.  Unfortunately, I can’t think of one.

What do you think?

Today is the 12th so I’m blogging at Blogging in Black, now ReadersRooms.com. You can probably guess what my post is about given the title of this one.  Come on over and see if you’re right.

There was a post by a New Orleans resident (Farrah Rochon) at BIB earlier this week about Gustav. You can check it out HERE.  Baton Rouge resident Lynn Emery talks about her experience HERE.

Romance Pioneers will resume on Monday.

What’s a community organizer? 

The answer, according to community organizers: HERE

Organizers again (two minutes, forty seconds):

These descriptions lead me to an idea for a new book.  Not my next one since it’s due in a month but maybe the one after that.

We have a female community organizer of the Democratic persuasion and a male city official of the Republican persuasion, both Christians. I’ll give each one of them an Independent friend, not sure if the friends will be Christians. The goal of the story will be to put on display the tensions between faith and party allegiance, regardless of your party affiliation. 

The challenge with this story would be to resist the urge to turn it into an issue book.  Issue books are preachy and boring.  In this book, I’d have to trust my characters and give them the freedom to develop naturally.  Doing that means the book could take me somewhere I didn’t plan to go.

I wonder if such a book would be too heavy or too controversial for readers.  I’d really focus on the romance angle and show the two folks coming together to address some community problem and in the process having to reconsider some of their political and religious positions.

This is how my ideas start.  Who knows where this one is going to end.  I’ll keep you posted.

Where would you take the idea or would you drop it?  Do you know of other books that have tried to do this? Let me know your thoughts.

UPDATE: You know, I think the story will be more interesesting if the woman is the Republican city official and the man is the Democratic organizer.  What do you think?

Gustav hit, it just didn’t hit New Orleans.  This time Baton Rouge got most of the damage.  People evacuated New Orleans this time, but it doesn’t mean that they aren’t in trouble.  Ponder these questions:

Where would you go if you had to evacuate, pack up and leave your home?

Would you be able to afford the travel, housing and food costs associated with having to leave home for more than a week?

To be honest, I never really thought about these questions until I spoke with someone from Baton Rouge (hopefully she’ll be blogging about Gustav this week; her Internet service hasn’t been that reliable) and later got an update from someone in New Orleans who pointed me to this article (hopefully she’ll be blogging when she returns home)  – HERE

Just because Gustav wasn’t as devastating to as many people as Katrina was doesn’t mean it wasn’t devastating to those it did affect, including those in the Caribbean.  Let’s do what we can to help.

NOTE: Romance Pioneers will continue on Friday.