Coach Roy's Other Random Thoughts

Messiah Gallery Choir - If Ye Love Me

2012-05-14T00:14:16Z

Thomas Tallis' classic anthem performed by the Gallery Choir at Messiah Lutheran Church May 13, 2012. Lyrics modernized by William Parsons.

Messiah Gallery Choir - Thou Art the Vine

2012-05-10T13:03:39Z

The old hymn with a unison/descant setting by Andrew Carter.

Who's Fault is it Really?

2012-05-01T13:57:41Z

Unfortunately, Obama and his minions were raised in a culture that always blamed the other guy.

While some in the present culture talks about personal responsibility, the concept of self esteem and “it is always someone else’s fault” trumps personal responsibility because it no longer matters whether you succeed, it’s only required that you “tried.”

Maybe why that is why American's are losing their edge in math and science. Math is either right or wrong, and it doesn't matter how hard you tried, if its not right, it is wrong.

Look at any youth sports team, the successful coaches are the ones who demand personal excellence and responsibility for others as the central theme of their play. The skill players are expected to recognize the contributions of the others on the team, but they also are expected to go 100% all the time.

We now live in a society where appearing to work hard is more important than getting anything actually done. Remember the programs for your computer that would flash a spreadsheet up on the screen with a keystroke, so you could goof off whenever the boss wasn’t around? We’ve developed a society where appearing to work is the goal, and outside of sports, the more you appear to work, the more you are rewarded, regardless of what you actually do.

Some of us are able to work outside the box, we don't have to sit at a desk and bang away at a keyboard. We figure out how to get something done, and do it, and really don't worry about the "work rules," or controlling the process.

On the other hand, watch the typical union controlled assembly line. The jobs are tightly defined, and nothing, even a better idea, will not allow change. This system has moved into government, which is why government is becoming more and more unresponsive to the “normal” people.

The large media organizations, the guys who are setting the agenda, are tightly unionized, with work rules that restrict one craft’s ability to fix things that are wrong when it involves another’s craft. Watch the credit crawl at the end of the nightly news – the reason there are so many “associate producers” is that they are the ones who are NOT unionized, and therefore can actually do things to make the broadcast better.

So it is now more important to talk about changing things, than it is to make things work. We have to now appear to work long hours, not understanding that the strength of the American system has been an improvement in productivity. With the long hours comes the requirement for no evaluations of actual performance because those who don’t perform don’t think critical evaluation is “fair.”

Unfortunately, productivity increases lead to fewer workers needed to do a job – and that leads to “the worse economy in history” because the workers and their union are unwilling to change and that, by extension, is “not fair,” and “not their fault.”

The Bush administration’s biggest fault was to cut taxes on the lower end of the income spectrum, removing 50% of the country from the need to succeed instead of just work. You don’t want to work harder or better because then you might advance and then have to pay taxes, so you sit on the couch and admire the government workers who get paid lots of money to run around and hang out with the rich and famous.

Getting back to the old concept of working for a living would be a “change that I could believe in,” but I won’t hold my breath.

At this point, I don't care who's fault it is, I just don't think the present gang knows or wants to fix it.

Pastor Hill: Refreshing, Restoring, Responding in Righteousness

2012-04-23T13:13:30Z

Last Sunday's Sermon on Luke 24

Pastor Hill: St. Thomas of Missouri

2012-04-16T11:50:32Z

Pastor Hill's sermon from Sunday 4-15: Based on the Gospel of John, 20, 19-31. Another way to look at "doubting Thomas."

Pastor Hill: Preaching and Believing (Easter 2012)

2012-04-09T00:12:45Z

Pastor R. Birk Hill's sermon for Easter Sunday...

Easter Music: Now the Green Blade Rises

2012-04-08T19:35:39Z

Easter lyrics to a French Carol "Noel Nouvelet" - Performed by the Messiah Lutheran Church Gallery Choir, Easter Sunday 2012

Easter 2012: "Make Songs of Joy"

2012-04-08T19:31:39Z

Performance Easter Sunday at Messiah Lutheran Church, Germantown, MD
Anna Morey, Kim MOrey and Gifta Faustin - Violins
Kyle Pett - Cello, Edward Lamberton - Mandolin

Christianity, Islam and the American Republic

2012-04-06T17:38:06Z

There is an article from the journal Humanities (Vol 2/Number 6) from 2001 about the book Islam and Democracy floating around. The original book was published in 1966. In it writers John L. Esposito and John O. Voll took an extensive look at the relationship between Islam, the religion and Democracy, the form of government.

Recently, I was asked by an old Navy buddy to comment on the article which is what I did....first a few points:

1 - Islam, like Judaism, is set up to be a Theocracy.
Read the Old Testament – God was the guy in charge, and every time the Jews abandoned their God and strayed, they were defeated by some outside people. Prior to the selection of Saul as the King of Israel, the Jews of Israel were led by tribal chiefs, and religious men and women known as Judges who passed on the word of God. Starting with Abraham, through Moses and all the way to Saul, there was never a “king” over the 12 tribes.
God finally gave in to his people's pleas, and allowed a monarch, who was anointed by one of the prophets, Samuel. The Children of Israel eventually regretted the choice, and clamored for another king, resulting in David, and so it went on until the Romans took over
2 – Christianity long co-existed with the temporal authorities.
Remember that Christ himself told his followers to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render unto God the things that are God’s.”
Christians are to be IN the world, but not necessarily OF the world. Christianity lost its way when it became the state religion of Rome and the rest of us are still paying for that issue.
On all this, I'll refer you to the German Theologian, Martin Luther for ideas about the Kingdom of Heaven and Kingdom of Earth. (Hint: He doesn't think you can have "heaven on earth."
3 – The founding fathers, led by Jefferson (and probably Adams too), fought the idea of a state religion for the U.S.
Jefferson was really perturbed by the “church tax” everyone had to pay to support the Church of England in the colonies. If you travel around the rural east coast, you will be amazed at the solid brick and mortar Episcopal (former Church of England) church buildings – all built with that tax money. Jefferson was on record that he didn't think that was the way to build churches.
The lessons of the early colonies also factored into the writing of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights as Jefferson included freedom of religion in the base document. There are later writings from Jefferson that further clarify what he wanted; Everyone could practice what he wanted (Jefferson had a very different idea about Christianity) but religion and a belief in a higher power was not eliminated from the United States, despite what the so called Atheists believe.
And the colonies really didn't start to grow until they removed their rules against other religions.
4 – I sincerely doubt that our kind of Republic with democratically elected officials could stand the test of an Islamic system.
Leaders of Islam are almost always self appointed just like the originator of the belief – imagine if someone, like Jerry Falwell, would have appointed himself the leader of Virginia and chose to rewrite all the laws to match his idea of the Law and Gospel.
The first public execution by stoning for masturbation would bring that to question, but in Islam today, you cannot even portray “the Prophet” without offending someone who can then go out and kill you.

Back in 1966, you could point to Muslims who had run in democratic elections and when elected didn't try to force all the laws of Islam on their countries. There were a lot of pragmatic politicians who ran as practicing Muslims, but who had little intention of imposing full Sharia Law on their populations because they knew it would stifle economic growth. In 2012, I'm not sure that policy is still in effect.

I certainly wouldn't want to live in a Christian Theocracy, or a Muslim one. Anything you might do could be interpreted as not only wrong, but blasphemous and deserving of death including disagreeing on the interpretation of dissent. There are lots of rules in both the Old Testament and the Koran, and I'm pretty sure everyone breaks one or two ever few minutes.

Being held accountable by the civil authorities for those violations would scary stuff. I'm too outspoken on my beliefs to survive.

Pastor Hill: On the NIght When He was Betrayed

2012-04-06T14:08:41Z

Pastor Hill's Maundy Thursday Sermon - based on John 13: 1-17.

Endless War in the Middle East

2012-03-31T14:08:52Z

George Friedman, writing for Stratfor's Geopolitical Weekly, has written a fairly long analysis of the present war in Afghanistan, pointing out that we've now been involved there for over 10 years as part of the ever expanding, ever more bloody "War on Terror (ism)"

Disturbing in the article is the idea that even after 10 years, we are still not finished, and the lack of a clear ending point is possibly causing events such as Sgt. Robert Bales' March 11 attack on Afghan civilians.

Sgt. Bates had been on many war zone deployments, fighting under difficult, politically restricted conditions. I won't try to compare his experiences to those of earlier American fighting men, performing your job under constant threat of attack is something shared by almost every person who has worn the American Uniform where ever they served.

In earlier times and wars, soldiers left "for the duration." They packed up and trained and were deployed until the war was over unless they were seriously wounded or died. That meant that you couldn't fight an endless war. Eventually, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen would just "shut down" and stop fighting.

American History also does not support the idea of long, endless wars.

One of the biggest challenges in the War for Independence was that soldiers were on short enlistments. The same was true in the early days of the Civil War. The soldiers who stayed suffered a kind of attrition - they either fought and survived or were casualties.

During WW II, both Marshall and Eisenhower were convinced that the American people would not support a war longer than 4 years.

They pushed to end WW II in under that time, and Ike worked to stop the fighting in Korea under 4 years because he knew that you have unwavering support for 2 House election cycles and then the anti-war, anti-incumbent drum beat starts and fighting and winning becomes close to impossible.

What nobody remembers is that America’s enemies also understand this quirky makeup in the American psyche. In 1939, the left (and a good part of the State Department) were taking marching orders from Moscow, with the America Firsters following Berlin. It almost caused FDR to abandon the English. (Read the books, A Man Called Intrepid, and The Venona Papers if you disagree).

During Viet Nam, the NVA used American college students and the media to make the regular folks think that we were losing, and that we never could have won. Fortunately, there are historians who have successfully refuted that lefty thinking of the 60’s and 70’s although it colored American military thinking for 20 years.

But the "useful idiots" remain, and are back, in force.

The founding fathers made it very hard for the US to declare war. They never accounted for the aircraft carrier, or ballistic missiles as a way to start a war and they also didn’t have enemies who strapped bombs to kids to achieve terror amongst the populous (although they did have terrorists who attacked civilians without warning).

They put forth a process that required the consent of the representatives of the people, even if some of them seem to be playing for the other side.

30 years from now, there will be a flurry of books about the Middle East wars and then we’ll find out who was taking what from whom, just like we found out how much Soviet influence there was in the State Department in the 20's and 30's.

Until then, I can only speculate who is trying to drive the buss from the back seat, because “if nothing makes sense, follow the money.”

Too Many "Veteran" Holidays?

2012-03-31T14:02:22Z

As a Viet Nam era veteran who stayed in the Navy Reserve through Desert Storm, I just want to remind everyone that the best way to marginalize a group is to break them into smaller factions that can be ignored.

When you split the large universe of Veterans up into smaller groups based on their conflict, you dilute the voice of those who are fighting for all veterans regardless of which war.

Groups like the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and the Veterans of Foreign Wars can loudly speak for all veterans. They are the ones out front on the proposed Tricare cuts, and, based on their records, they truly "have the back" of every veteran of every war.

Yes, there were times when there was internal conflict between the older and younger vets in these groups, but if you track the backgrounds of the recent national commanders, you find everything from Korea to Afghanistan represented.

Guys who served and who need help with the VA can call on the various group's State Service Officers and they won't ask which group you belong to before they start work.

Recently there have been very slick TV commercials running pushing some kind of Iraq-Afghanistan Vets group, one that is a PO box and a web site that claims to "have your back." I don't know how good or bad they are, but I know that I can call either the Legion or VFW in my town and get help fast, all I have to do is ask!

So, my "holiday" as a Veteran is still November 11th - Veteran's Day and the sure way to reap all the cuts planned for veteran's programs is to splinter into small groups and "fight for your own particular issue." All the while, the big, mainline VSO's are the ones who can, and do, get the ear of congress.

Remember the old rule of warfare, "If we let them chop us up into small pieces, we'll wind up as just so much hamburger...."

Pastor Hill: God Loves Me Dearly

2012-03-26T12:22:38Z

Pastor Hill's Sermon from Sunday 3-25 - "God Loves Me Dearly"

Pastor Hill: Fiery Serpents or The Bronze One

2012-03-19T00:05:17Z

Based on John 3: 14-21, Pastor Hill compares the fate of those bitten by sin - look up to the Cross of Christ and live. Don't look up and you die forever. It's your choice. Recorded 3/18/2012 at Messiah Lutheran Church, Germantown, MD

Won't Advertise on Rush? Your Loss...

2012-03-16T21:07:22Z

In a former life, I sold Radio Time on both a local and national basis. I was even a Certified Radio Marketing Consultant so I kinda know a little about national advertising and Ad Agencies

There were always advertisers who didn't like certain formats, shows, or disk jockeys because of their sense of humor, etc. That list of "no Rush" sponsors probably also has a ban against the shock jocks - Howard Stern, Imus, various "morning Zoo" shows, and (sad to say) many minority oriented formats, including "HipHop"

And the list of advertisers who are against using those formats is as long as the one against conservative talk radio.

Whenever we got a request for rates from an Ad Agency, they would always tell us what they wouldn't buy if they had those restrictions, altho most didn't care at all except they wanted the best (lowest) Cost per Thousand for their target demographic.

The TV guys have many of the same restrictions, which is why the ads change later in the evening, even on cable, and why the Showtime and HBO stuff that eventually shows up on the other cable channels (lately, Sex and the City and The Tudors) is cleaned up with no naked women, etc.

If you look at all of the boycotts that have been tried, only the Gay assault on Dr. Laura worked, forcing her off the air because she refused to accept the "gay gene theory." Nobody said a word about what Sandusky was accused of at Penn State because of the same issue. Proctor and Gamble periodically has to refight the satanic symbol campaign, and actually took the moon and stars logo off most of their products.

Also countering the arguments against conservative talk radio is that the conservative talk radio audience is traditionally more affluent, and pays more attention to the commercials, and even better, will go out and buy the products advertised. Say what you want, but ads on the Rush Limbaugh show work!

The attack on Rush and the rest of the conservative talkers is right out of the old progressive (used to be marxist or socialist) playbook.

If you can't beat them, you have to get them banned because God forbid they make so much sense that the general public will see that the emperor still doesn't have any clothes on, and insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Rules to "Make It Right!" - Just do Something!

2012-03-15T12:22:26Z

There was an interesting column by John Stossel in Human Events recently titled, Complex societies need simple laws.

'"If you have 10,000 regulations," Winston Churchill said, "you destroy all respect for law."'

Stossel goes on to point out that every year, our Congress adds 10,000 more regulations to American Law, causing confusion, and a tendency by the general public to ignore all of the rules, including the new ones.

Unfortunately, the standard response to anything we disagree with today is to “do something, pass a law, 'make it right.' ”

(Sorry for tromping on Mike Holmes, but have you ever listened to his rants about how the government should protect homeowners from bad work? Are we all that ignorant of what looks right, or do we all just want to circumvent all of those building codes - you know, more laws)

The overwhelming desire to "do something" is why we had Prohibition (Abject failure), why we have the “war on drugs” (another failure), the “great society” (actually destroyed the middle class in certain areas) and on and on and on.

Even the business world has been hamstrung because a few criminals cooked the books for their businesses. The "progressive" congressmen who created the new mortgage rules (Dodd-Frank), or the new accounting rules (Sarbanes-Oxley), only made it possible for more money to be spent on political campaigns, while it destroyed the ability to run a business for the sake of the business' survival.

Richard Nixon proved the Wage and Price controls don’t work, the same way that earlier Presidents proved the same thing. Jimmy Carter thought you could micro-manage the United States and bring about world peace. Problem was the Soviets and the rest of the world only paid lip service to what Carter envisioned for all of American and mankind, proving you can't run the country like a submarine.

I really don’t live in daily fear of thugs and hoodlums, they are out there, and I know pretty much what they look like, but the guys who really scare me are Delaware’s two Senators, its Congressman, and the Governor.

What’s the line in the Godfather? A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more money in a shorter time that a man with Tommygun?

Welcome to America 1712, 1812, 1912, and 2012.

Pastor Hill: Who's Your Guru

2012-03-13T02:26:50Z

From Sunday March 11th - Pastor Hill preaches on John 2:13-22, and asks who do you listen to for advice? In short, Who Is YOUR Guru...

Regarding the Fluke Flap

2012-03-08T16:05:21Z

Much has been made over Rush Limbaugh's remarks about that activist, who was the star attraction of a so called "congressional hearing" over the present occupant of the White House's insisting that EVERY insurance carrier, even those owned by religious organizations with a doctrinal policy against such things, provide free contraceptives. Ms Fluke presented an argument why such things should be free, sort of a sexual "occupy type statement."

Anyway, as I remember, Rush’s comments were based on her remarks during that “hearing” about how much contraception she requires – apparently a number that is close to 2 or 3 times a day with different partners!

I know of newlyweds in their first week, workers in the Adult Film industry and professional women at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch who might be that active, but I can’t imagine how a student could keep those performance numbers and still remain enrolled in school!

Even Sailors during Viet Nam during trips to Hong Kong or Bancock would be hard pressed to be that active and they usually took leave!

If it quacks like a duck, it is a duck…. And now I guess I’m as guilty as Rush.

Pastor Hill: Lose YOUR Savings!

2012-03-05T22:41:17Z

Last Sunday's Sermon at Messiah Lutheran Church, Germantown.