Inspired by the President

Charismatic:

Most of the time when we say people are charasmatic, we mean simply that they have presence. Bill Cosby, Charles Manson, the Princess of Wales, Dr. Ruth Westheimer all have it in varying degrees and forms. So did Benito Mussolini and Mae West. You don't have to be famous to have it either. You come across it in children and nobodies. Even if you don't see such people enter a room, you can feel them enter. They shimmer the air like a hot ashphalt road. Without so much as raising a finger, they make you sit up and take notice.

On the other hand, if you took Mother Teresa, or Francis of Assisi, or Mahatma Gandhi, or the man who risked his neck smuggling Jews out of Nazi Germany, and dressed them up to look like everybody else, nobody would probably notice them any more than they would the woman who can make your day just by dropping by to borrow your steam iron, or the high school commencement speaker who without any eloquence or special intelligence can bring tears to your eyes, or the people who can quiet an hysterical child or stop somebody's cracking headache just by touching them with their hands. These are the true charismatics, from the Greek word charis meaning "grace". According to Saint Paul, out of sheer graciousness God gives certain men and women extraordinary gifts or charismata such as the ability to heal, to teach, to perform acts of mercy, to work miracles.

These people are not apt to have presence, and you don't feel any special vibrations when they enter a room. But they are in their own ways miracle-workers, and even if you don't believe in the God who made them that way, you believe in them."

Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

Where the Title Comes From

Everyone seems to have jumped here from Yahoo - guess I'm late. I haven't signed onto Yahoo in forever so I might as well jump too.

Where does the name come from? One of my favourite artists: Sara Groves:

Tuxedo in the closet
Gold band in a box
Two days from the altar
She went and called the whole thing off

What he thought he wanted
What he got instead
Leaves him broken yet grateful

What's a bit weird is that I actually know a real-life situation that this song fits... and it seems to have worked out for all involved. Just goes to prove that sometimes you need to wait to see the big picture.

I wish

I wish happiness for all

Peace in the world

Good government

Full stomachs

Prosperity in Africa

Freedom to worship

The right to education

"I know you're there. I can hear you caring!"

House to Wilson's office door.

Memories

"There's a place in the darkness that I used to cling to
It presses harsh hope against time
In the absence of martyrs there's the presence of thiefs
Who only want to rob you blind

They steal away innocence and peace
Oh, I'm a king, I'm a king on my knees
And I know they are wrong when they say I am strong
As the darkness covers me"

Jennifer Knapp - Martyrs

Contradictions

"For a while, I tried not believing in God. I wasn't any good at it. I found that if I tried not to, I only ended up telling Him, "I don't believe in You," a statement which, directed at the very Thing I'd declared non-existent, seemed to negate itself."

Bethany Pierce - "Feeling for Bones"

Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly , you are doing the impossible.

-St Francis of Assisi