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Beautiful Song

This is a very beautiful song that I heard on the radio a few weeks ago. It is "Untitled Hymn" by Chris Rice. He released it back in 2003 as part of his Run the Earth Watch the Sky album but I had not heard it until just recently.

For those of you who, like my mom, have difficulty understanding the words of almost any song the first time (or sixth) that you hear it, I have included the lyrics below for you to follow along with.

chris rice mp3 | chris rice lyrics

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Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head, for love is passing by
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden's lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain, so
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live!

And like a newborn baby
Don't be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk
Sometimes we fall, so
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus and live!

Sometimes the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, then
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus and live!

O, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night
And when you can't contain your joy inside, then
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus and live!

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side, and
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!

Glazed Meatloaf Recipe

My sister Sally gave Anna and I a fantastic meatloaf recipe as part of a collection of recipes she gave us for a wedding gift. I have since "tweaked" it to make it easier to prepare and to add a few more flavors to it. The result is something that Anna and I really enjoy and that our guests for Easter this year simply raved over. What really sets this meatloaf apart from so many others is the glaze. It's amazing!


















Ingredients:

Glaze

• 1 cup ketchup


• ⅔ cup brown sugar


• 1 tablespoon lemon juice


• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar


• 2 teaspoons dry mustard

Meatloaf

• 1 pound lean ground beef


• 1 pound ground Italian sausage


• 1 cup Italian bread crumbs


• 1 envelope Lipton's Beefy Onion soup mix


• 1 tablespoon minced garlic


• 1 egg, beaten


• 3 tablespoons lemon juice


• ¼ cup of the above glaze mixture

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).


2. In a medium bowl, combine ketchup, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, dry mustard, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice until smooth.


3. In a large bowl, combine ground beef, ground Italian sausage, bread crumbs, beefy onion soup mix, egg, minced garlic, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, and ¼ cup of the glaze mixture until well mixed. Form into a loaf and place in a 9x5 inch loaf pan.


4. Bake 1 hour. Pour off fat. Pour half of the remaining glaze mixture over loaf. Bake 10 minutes more.


5. Slice loaf into eighths, and serve. Use remaining glaze mixture to drizzle on meatloaf slices or to dip slices into while eating.

Tips:

• Draining the fat from the hot pan can be difficult. An alternative that I frequently use is to line the bottom of the loaf pan with four slices of sandwich bread in two layers (two slices side by side, topped with another two slices side by side) before placing the raw meatloaf in it. These bread slices then absorb the fat that normally has to be drained. The fat-soaked bread can then be removed and discarded from each slice of meatloaf as you take it out of the pan.


• For a healthier meatloaf, substitute lean ground turkey for the ground beef and lean ground Italian turkey sausage for the sausage. Anna and I can't even tell any difference in taste and it cuts out a ton of the fat.


• Anna and I usually serve this with mashed sweet potatoes (we use Ore-Ida Steam n' Mash) along with either a green salad or steamed asparagus. They all go great together.

Latter-day Saint Libertarianism: Part 2

One of the core principles of Libertarianism, is the idea that having freedom of choice is more important than avoiding the negative consequences that come when anyone makes a bad choice. In other words, freedom of choice is one of the prime directives of Libertarianism.

The restored gospel teaches us that the same is true for our Heavenly Father's Plan of Salvation. Having the agency to choose was so vital to God's plan that He was willing to lose a third of all His children in the pre-mortal war in heaven rather than take away the agency of man. Even now, in mortality, Heavenly Father almost never intervenes in a dramatic or spectacular way in the lives of His children. And He never takes our freedom to choose from us. He may take anything else away from us, including our very lives, but He will not take our free agency away. This is the case even when it means that the outcome is something He is not pleased with. He allows innocent lives to be taken, souls to be destroyed, and families torn apart by all manner of horrible, unjust, and evil acts every moment of every hour rather than intervene and strip even one person of their freedom to choose. Heavenly Father doesn't just give us the freedom to choose good. If He did it wouldn't really be freedom, now would it? In order for us to truly be free we must also have the freedom to choose wickedness. Now this doesn't mean that there aren't consequences for these acts of evil. There are. There are also consequences for acts of righteousness. We reap what we sow. Just as Heavenly Father doesn't intervene to stop us from making certain choices, He won't intervene to keep us from experiencing the consequences of those choices either.

Rather than interfere with the agency of man, God provides each person with a conscience, He appoints prophets and apostles to teach us His word and He hopes that we will each freely choose to listen and obey, reaping the blessings that naturally flow from doing so. It is "only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge, reproving betimes with sharpness, and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love" (D&C 121:41-43) that He makes His case, not force or the restriction of our freedom.

We are each born with an innate sense of what is just and good, unjust and evil. And we are also born with an innate desire to be free. The gospel calls this the light of Christ and the world almost universally recognizes this as our conscience. Prophets have taught us that we should use this gift to help us judge what is of God and what comes from Satan (Moroni 7:12-19). Remember that Satan is he who desired most that the agency of man be taken away and he has not ceased striving for that to this very day (Moses 4:3-4).

If you were to witness a person voluntarily and willingly giving of his own time and money to provide a homeless man with a meal, the Light of Christ within tells us that what he did was good and right. However, were a third person to point a gun at him and say, "Feed that homeless man or I shoot," the light of Christ cries out that this is unjust and wrong. But why is that? The homeless man gets fed in both situations, the end result is the same. The difference, of course, is that in the first example the free exercise of agency was in play and in the second example coercion and the lack of choice distorted the good into evil.

Now suppose that we were to witness instead that same person voluntarily and willingly robbing a homeless man of what little he does have, our conscience rightfully tells us that what he did is unjust and wrong. On the other hand, insert a third person pointing a gun at him and threatening to use it if he does not rob the homeless man and our conscience holds the threatened man blameless for the evil even though it was he who physically took from the homeless. Again, the end result is the same: in both cases the homeless man is robbed. Why then the difference in our feeling towards the man who did it? Once more, it comes down to the difference between freedom of choice and compulsion.

Libertarianism seeks to apply this principle of freedom consistently and uniformly to every level of society. This means that it should also be applied toward the government as well. To understand what the application of this principle towards the state means, we have to understand how the state works. Take any law, regulation, procedure, process, or policy of the government and ask yourself, "How is it enforced?" In other words, if I choose not to comply, for any reason or no reason at all, what will happen?

Inevitably, the state will threaten and use force to ensure compliance. Some say that paying taxes is "voluntary." If you honestly believe that, go ahead and stop paying them and see how much of a "choice" you have in the matter. First you will be given fines and other financial penalties. If you continue to refuse to pay your taxes and/or the fines and penalties, eventually a warrant for your arrest will be issued. If you resist arrest, force will be threatened, if you continue not to surrender and to physically resist despite the threat of force, actual force will be used. Agents of the government will physically assault you in order to subdue you and you may even be shot at and possibly lose your life. This is the inevitable result of "choosing" not to comply with the government in every case, small or large, be it paying taxes, wearing your seat belt, keeping your lawn's grass from growing over 12 inches tall, and everything else. The only way to avoid the use of violent force by the government is to comply. In essence, every law passed, every regulation issued, every policy decided, points a gun at us and says "Do this or we shoot."

Remember the examples of feeding or robbing the homeless man? When someone points a gun at you, you are no longer free. The choice is no longer yours. This is what government is constantly doing. For example, when laws are passed to provide welfare checks for the poor, no one denies that helping the poor is good. But the libertarian sees that it's not just the end result that matters, it is the means by which that end is reached that matters most. Our very consciences tell us when an individual points a gun to force charity it is unjust and wrong. It is the libertarian that sees the inconsistency and illogic in granting to the government some grand exception to this rule.

Because everything that government does, it does backed up by the threat and use of force, it is our responsibility to limit government and increase freedom. This may mean that some will make poor choices and the natural and eternal consequences of those choices will befall them, but it also means that we will be more free to make good choices as well. For if I freely choose to give of my means to those in need, I reap the blessings of that action. But if I give to the needy because I have no real choice in the matter, then the blessings are not mine to claim. Freedom and agency is the key. Let us do all we can to increase the personal and economic freedom of all of our Heavenly Father's children and in doing so further carry out our Heavenly Father's great plan of happiness.

Next week, I will be on vacation, so it may be a few weeks before I continue this series. Part three will cover some of the differences between Eternal Law and man's law.

Latter-day Saint Libertarianism: Part 1

After reading the title of this post, you may be asking yourself "Latter-day Saint Libertarianism? What the heck is that anyway?" Well, that's a good question and one to which I don't have a complete answer yet. But it is one of the things I would like to explore on this blog. Libertarianism is, admittedly, an imperfect philosophy of men (I know, I know, that's repetitively redundant). But the further I study libertarianism, the more I feel that it is one of, if not the best philosophies mankind has come up with. One of the major reasons I feel this way are the striking number of concepts and principles it seems to share with the restored gospel. However, I have also come up against a few libertarian positions that conflict with gospel teachings. With this in mind, I hope to show to my Latter-day Saint family and friends that libertarianism, though imperfect, is so overwhelmingly on the side of Truth that it is deserving of our support. And to my libertarian friends who do not share my faith, I hope to demonstrate where libertarianism errs by using the truths of the gospel to show a better way. I will always take the position that if and when in conflict, the Gospel is always correct and libertarianism is not. But it is in grappling with why the conflict exists and in seeking ways in which libertarianism can be made even more to reflect eternal truth that we hopefully can "reason together that [we] may understand...one another, and both [be] edified and rejoice together" (D&C 50:10-22). For those of you who are neither of the LDS faith, nor libertarian in your political philosophy, you may find this discussion particularly intriguing as you get a glimpse of two unique but very complementary perspectives that you may not have come across before or truly understood.

I plan on this being a multi-part series of posts that will explore the similarities as well as the conflicts between the Gospel and libertarianism. My next post in this series will tackle the core principle of libertarianism: Having the Freedom to Choose is virtually always preferable to any other alternative. Sounds a lot like Free Agency, eh?

Regulation vs. Freedom

Just a little over a month ago, Anna and I closed on our very first home. We still had a month before we had to vacate the apartment, giving us the luxury of being able to take our time getting the new house ready by making some repairs (fixing a leaking toilet, replacing the kitchen sink faucet, etc.) and getting the utilities turned on before we actually moved in.

In 1998, the state of Georgia deregulated the natural gas utility service. Before that, the government had decreed that Atlanta Gas Light was the one and only provider of natural gas service for the state. It was illegal to compete with them and the government had extensive control of the service as well. Atlanta Gas Light could not change it's prices without approval from the state and even many of the day-to-day operations of the company were controlled by the government. When deregulation went into effect, however, the principles of free market economics came into play.

Initially there were 28 applications to become natural gas marketers, 19 of which met the basic criteria set by the state. Twelve of these certified marketers actually ended up providing natural gas to customers. Seven of these grabbed a large enough of the market share to be considered top contenders. Just one year later, the free market force of competition meant there were only five marketers left standing. In order to increase their market share and beat out the competition, these five companies had put money, time, and effort into figuring out ways they could decrease their costs of providing the service while also increasing the quality of that service so that they could lower their prices, keep their current customers more than happy with the quality of service and successfully market themselves to new customers, all while still remaining profitable. As a result, natural gas prices in Georgia plummeted, the quality of service skyrocketed, and the overall number of interruptions in service dropped as well. The marketers knew that since the customer could freely choose between them, they had to become more and more efficient to stay competitive. When Atlanta Gas Light held the government sanctioned monopoly for this service, there was no incentive to become more efficient, no need to market themselves, no reason to increase the quality of service--after all, why should they? If you wanted natural gas service you had no other choice but to use them.

Fast forward to today. Knowing that Georgia deregulated natural gas oh those many years ago, I went online looking for the best price and level of service I could find from the many marketers and I found one: Fireside Natural Gas. They not only had the best price available, $0.77 per therm, but they have consistently beat out the competition month-in and month-out for about 18 months now. They don't require a deposit if your credit is decent and even if it's not the deposit is not overly burdensome (less than $100). They also have quite the reputation for great service and I was sold! Only one problem. When I called them to start service with them they informed me that they would love to have me as a customer but that I lived in an area that was still regulated.

I couldn't believe it. I wondered how this was possible. They went on to explain that when the state decided to deregulate, there were a few local municipalities that decided that they would pass laws putting back into place the regulation that the state had done away with. In our case this meant that the neighboring city of Buford had setup its own natural gas utility and that my city of Dacula had worked out a deal with them to be the sole provider of natural gas for us. This means that our price is now $0.96 per therm and all customers (even those with perfect credit) are required to pay a $300.00 deposit upfront. If you live in the city of Dacula, you have no choice. It doesn't matter if Fireside, SCANA, Gas South, Gas Key, and Stream Energy all have much lower prices and do not require such a burdensome (if any at all) deposit. I am forced, by law, to use the city of Buford's gas if i want hot water year round and a heated home in the winter.

Regulation is the opposite of Freedom. Anytime the government attempts to provide what the free market should, freedom is restricted. And inevitably it does so at gun-point. Think I'm exaggerating? Ask yourself this, if someone wanted to provide natural gas service to me other than the city of Buford in defiance of the law and attempted to do so, what would happen? The company would be taken to court and fined. What would happen if the company then refused to pay that fine? The owners or the CEO, etc, would be arrested and taken to jail. But what if the owners resisted arrest? Guns would eventually be drawn and shots fired. You may say, "But that's because they resisted arrest, not because they provided natural gas to me." The answer to that is simple: Had they not been restricted from providing natural gas in the first place, they would have never been in a position to resist arrest. Anything the government does is always implicitly backed up by the threat and use of force. It's no wonder that government does nothing efficiently, they don't have to when everything they do is backed up by guns.

Our country is one of the freest in the world. But it is far from being as free as it should be. Government touches every aspect of our lives. Yet most Americans can more easily name the finalists on American Idol than can name their Congressman and Senators. If you are not aware who your elected officials are, check out this link and become informed. Make sure you think carefully about who you vote for and put into office those who champion freedom over government and regulation.

Baked Beans Recipe

Because this is my umpteenth attempt at blogging, I decided I would start out slow and easy by simply posting a recipe I've developed that's been a huge hit at several BBQ and potluck events. It's taken lots of trial and error but the final recipe is fantastic!



Ingredients:

• 1 can (28 oz.) Bush's Best Original Baked Beans


• ½ lb. bacon


• 3 tbsp. light brown sugar


• 2 tbsp. molasses
  
• 2 tsp. ground (dry) mustard


• cayenne pepper, to taste (see below)

Directions:

1. Fry or bake bacon to desired crispiness, drain grease, and pat dry with paper towels. Then break into ¼ in. to ½ in. pieces and set aside.


2. Place a bowl under a colander and dump the can of beans into it, making sure to catch all the liquid from the can in the bowl.


3. Place the drained beans into a slow cooker (crock-pot) and add back in half the liquid from the bowl. Discard the other half of the liquid.


4. Add the bacon pieces, molasses, brown sugar, and mustard into the bean mixture, stirring gently (be careful not to smash the beans).


5. If you ...
   
   • don't mind a little spice but aren't a big fan either, add a pinch (less than ⅛ tsp.) of cayenne pepper
   
   
   • enjoy a fair amount of spice, add a dash (between ⅛ and ¼ tsp.) of cayenne pepper
   
   
   • are a spice whore (like me!), add as much cayenne as you dare (minimum ½ tsp.)
   
   
   • cannot even tolerate the least bit of spicy heat, omit cayenne pepper altogether (wuss!).


6. Set the slow-cooker to high for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. When fully heated through, set the slow cooker to warm or low and serve.