Week One - P90X

OK I am officially one week into the P90X fitness programme. It is indeed intense. All the standard workouts are fine - I'm using bands to simulate pull ups. Even the squats and lunges, which I'm not so good at, are fine. I didn't do YogaX, simply because I needed a recovery day and wanted to do some restorative yoga that day - so I did an hour of yoga with lots of breathing. Plus it is hard for me to think of yoga as just a fitness practice - I like the spiritual aspect and it was often incorporated into my own personal devotions. I did like StretchX today - which is more like my own practice. Just missed the shavasana and praying at the end. I wasn't too fussy about Plyometrics - my heart rate spiked at 216 in that one, had to sit down! And it was the only one that got my heart rate to go too high. Even KenpoX only had me hovering around 145.

Speaking of KenpoX, that was my least favourite workout. I think I would be more comfortable doing that in a class where I can get some guidance on technique. Yoga was better after practicing in a studio for about a year. Those little adjustments start to build muscle memory so you can just feel when something is not quite right. All through KenpoX I was second guessing my moves, and not getting how they were combining all the movements through the body. I need the moves done in slow motion until I know what is going on - then put them into a practice. It isn't martial arts - I used to do Karate as a youth and loved learning kata. But this isn't kata, it is aerobics with intricate (and I bet helpful) moves.

I've lost 4 pounds this week - 4 good pounds because I'm 4 lower than the low end of my usual weight fluctuations. And the pain of the first couple sessions has subsided - I can really feel the work outs but they aren't killing me anymore. In fact my body is starting to feel good! I need to work on sleep and I also need to adjust diet this week. I was hoping to be further into this before school started back up, but better late than never.

Note: this is my before picture, I'll post another at the next fitness test.

I Must Be Insane

I started the P90X programme today. Yeah, I still feel the shoulder work out. It actually feels good. I wanted to start this at the first of the month, but Sharon wasn't ready. Seems that after today she still isn't ready but I'm waiting no longer. Tomorrow I do plyometrics - apparently it is pure evil. I'll be doing it on my own too. I'll let you know how it goes, if I just get rid of my belly and am able to resume my regular yoga practice then I'll be happy.

Course Prep Continues

I finally have ordered both courses and have begun putting the actual lectures together. I'm hoping to keep two lectures ahead of the class. I have an idea for the Intro to theology class that might be a bit tricky to pull off. I want them to read a short snippet from a theologian doing theology from the framework we will be discussing that day. But I do not want them to know who they are reading until we take the article up in class. I'm probably messing with copyright laws to do that - but we'll see what I can pull off. Perhaps I can find stuff that is useful and I can obtain permission to withhold the credit for a week.

I will want an article for each of the following: Historical (descriptive), Political, Liberationist, Feminist, Hermeneutics, Dogmatics, and Biblical. I've laid out the texts I'm drawing the lectures from, but I would think working with actual theological writing will be very helpful for students. I'm determined to make this course something that will serve these students for their whole academic careers - their first methodology course. Should be fun.

I'm getting excited about this coming semester.

Free Will and the Adjustment Bureau

Not the best film in the world but I felt it was trying to answer a serious question - theodicy. It is trying to explain why so many bad things happen in this world that is supposed to be created by a benevolent and loving God. Or put another way, it is trying to determine the relationship between an interventionist God and human free will. That said it would have been great if they had a theologian help out (if there was one they did a bad job) with the story. What it ends up doing is something I hear a lot from folks when they face trouble or set-backs in life: shouldn't God fix this?

The short answer is always no, and the film does try to go there. But the harder answer is what kind of God are you appealing to? It is a serious and tough question because how you answer it has far reaching implications on our lives of faith. For instance, if you believe that God is never interventionist then what is the purpose of praying? But if you believe God is interventionist (meaning God steps in at will and alters reality) then why does it seem that God only intervenes for rich white Westerners and is oblivious to the poorest of the poor? Conundrums like this are why theologians spend their whole lives on just this problem.

Spoiler Alert: If you want to enjoy the movie you should watch it before reading further - you have been warned.

What kind of God does this movie portray?

This is a God that writes and re-writes "the plan" at will.
This is a God who has angels micro-manage the execution of "the plan".
This is a God who seems to want human free will, but, if Thompson is to be believed, cannot really trust humanity with free will. At least not yet.
This is a God who values reason above emotion.
This is a God who buys into the Enlightenment error that reason alone can give us a perfect society (world).
This is a God swayed by enacted emotion.
This is a God who blames all the evil in the world on free will and all the (so-called) good on God's direct intervention via "the plan".
This is a God who is absent.
This is a God who is male (male angels and God referred to as the Chairman).

I'm not trying to wade through what of this is conflicting, rather what is presented through the film. There may be more you could add, but this gives us a place to start.

Does this sound like the Judeo-Christian God? What is scary is that it sounds a lot like the God that many of my Christian friends understand God to be. They want a God they can blame when things go bad and ignore when things go right. Such a God is about as useless as the Chairman in this film - Matt Damon was right to not respect this God or "his" plan. But in the film the main character is aided and praised for going against God's plan? Worse, to go against this plan for emotional reasons!

So where is God when it hurts? Do we have to fall back on the polarity of interventionist/non-interventionist? supernatural/non-supernatural? I don't think so. But I must admit that sometimes the only answer we get is the one God gives Job - "do you think you could do better?" If the writers of Job were writing this movie they'd be convinced that God wants us to say yes and do it. But that isn't the answer a righteous Job gives. In fact it is not the answer to theodicy any more than to make God some sort of bi-polar cosmic monster.

Personally, I prefer the approach of theologians like Moltmann who find God entering into our pain with us. That approach doesn't mean altering God to fit our expectations - rather it means we meet God as who God is and find the God who not only names our pain but works with us to right the wrongs (Job's tragic tale ends with a righteous Job making right his view of humanity, especially of women.) But that is not the God of the Adjustment Bureau.

Odd Blog Traffic

I just noticed that the top three referring sites this week have names that lead me to think they are pornographic (and spammy) in nature. I'll resist following up on these links, but for all of you who came here looking for penis extensions and naked people - I think you will be disappointed. On the up side you might find something to better occupy your time.

In the meanwhile I leave you with a comic my friend David aka the Naked Pastor did. Feel free to get up and do a little dance to the song in your head. Oh and David is metaphorically naked, in case you think I'm just trying to redirect you to what you came here looking for.

Thanks for dropping by.

Why I'm a Lucky Guy

Blessed is probably a better word for it. However you put it, I have a lot to be thankful for. This shot is of my beautiful wife, taken at the cottage of some amazing friends on a vacation that was so good.

Ok enough boasting. I'm home from holidays now, time to buckle down and finish up some loose ends in terms of writing. Grabbed my missing Spirituality books from Matte in Montreal so I'm all set to tackle course prep. Sharon is taking our kids camping for a few days so I will have a few days to get my bearings.

What is Free about the Gospel?

Driving around I saw a church sign that said: "The gospel is free, you just need to receive it." Clearly free is not a good descriptor here. If it was free then you end up with a universalism which I'm sure is not the intent of the little Baptist church with that sign. So what is free about the gospel?

I actually think the opposite - the gospel is costly.

Not only does it cost receiving it - hardly a passive action. It involves investing your whole life into. Perhaps what bugs me about the free statement is that it promises something it cannot really deliver. What does it mean to receive the gospel? Does it mean some intellectual nod of the head at what God did with little following implications? That hardly fits with any evangelical doctrines of salvation I know about. I'm not advocating a works here - but rather a responsibility. The gospel isn't free, it will demand our whole lives. It is costly.

There is a cost that is paid for - at least in terms of substitutionary atonement - but that is not the part of the gospel that I think we are trying to get at. We are not trying to compare God's cost against ours and say that in comparison what we have to do is pretty much free. I doubt that. In fact if anything the command to take up our own crosses implies that the gospel has the same potential (cost-wise) as it did for Jesus. It could very well demand out lives.

Why do we want it to be stripped of this cost? Do we think that a costly gospel is less appealing? Maybe we sugar coat the gospel and tell people lies like "God has a wonderful plan for your life" in order to con them into the Kingdom. It doesn't work. A costless gospel is not a gospel at all. It is a fatalism, an easy believism, that is not good news at all. What I mean by this is that it is not good news because it has no ability to do anything in the world except lull individuals into a false sense of security. If the gospel is really good news it has to be good news for the whole of creation, anything less undersells God and turns the gospel into a farce.

I think we should drop the lame slogans and return to a costly gospel. That pearl of great price that once you find you are willing to give up everything for. A free gospel is really only worth the price you paid for it - nothing. I have a hard time believing that Jesus would be willing to lay down his life for something so meaningless as a so-called free gospel.

I think the only sense in which we might be able to talk about a free gospel is in terms of money - but even there the gospel makes huge demands on us. Sure I can offer it to you without charging you money. But what I'm offering, when I present the gospel, really demands your everything. And you can bet that will impact your pocketbook at some point. The gospel is costly. I'm actually quite ok with that. Only a costly gospel is worthy of the God who is willing to risk everything for us.

Wedding Prep

I'm not doing this one, but I am playing at it. My license does not extend beyond Ontario, but my half-aunt Sharon is a Lutheran minister down there. My niece Alex is getting married. I am going to be playing a couple songs in the service though. They wanted something to come down the aisle to and something to go back on. I chose two songs: I'm Yours (Jason Mraz) which is a great song with odd lyrics and Dancing through the Minefields (Andrew Peterson) which was suggested by my buddy Poulsen. I'm actually thinking of doing Dancing for them coming up - but I'll have to work out the timings for how long the walk is. I'm Yours is easy to vamp over so I'll just wing it as they leave. Probably do the two straighter verses and the chorus a few times (extended and simple). Should work fine.

When I started putting this together it made me realize how little I've been playing guitar. But the fingers are hardening up again.

Always busy. Kids are out of school now so it is catch as catch can to get my thesis work done. I need to start prepping classes too. I had loaned out a pile of spirituality books to my buddy Matte in Montreal, I'll have those back soon. Those are mostly the masters level books. I plan on doing quite a bit of reading over the next little while. I'll try to post as I go along though.

Course Prep

Slow start today, but time for a quick post. I just submitted my required and recommended texts for both Fall courses.

For Introduction to Theology I chose:

• Stone, Howard & Duke, James, How to Think Theologically (Fortress, 1996)
  
• Ormerod, Neil, Introducing Contemporary Theologies (Orbis, 1997)
  
• Recommended: Moltmann, Jürgen, Experiences in Theology (Fortress, 2000)
  

My focus in this course will be methodology. I'm also starting to line up speakers who will come in for up to 30 minutes and share how they do theology within their area of specialty.

For Christian Spirituality I chose:

• David Perrin, Studying Christian Spirituality (Routledge, 2007)
  
• Jean Vanier, Becoming Human (Anansi, 1998)
  
• Recommended: Ramón Matínez de Pison, God: From Knowing to Experiencing (Novalis, 2009)
  

This course is really easy to put together. Perrin's book is a great guide for the first part of the course, but for the reconstructive bit I'm turning to Vanier.

I've gathered all the books I need to prep for these courses. August I'll put together the first 4-5 sessions as outlines with PowerPoint slide decks.

Introduction to Theology (THO 2189)

This is a dream come true. I was just asked if I could teach this course in the Fall. Literally a dream because when I was in my second year I took this course from one of my favourite profs, and in a dream one night he gave me his course. Freaky eh. I hope I do justice to the excellent course this was when I took it.

Basically this is a course on how to think theologically. I'm looking into textbooks now, I'm thinking of Stone and Duke (How to Think Theologically) and maybe Soelle's Thinking about God. I have eliminated McGrath's text simply because I need something ecumenical.

This was the course where I discovered Moltmann. Trinity and the Kingdom of God was my first introduction and the start of a deep respect for German political theology that influences almost everything I do theologically. I hope I can use it to introduce others to the amazing theologians that will shape their future work. This is the course where it all begins.

Can you tell I'm stoked?

Congress - Where Were You?

I am becoming increasingly concerned with the lack of new evangelical scholarship at Congress. Congress is a wonderful environment for students and other scholars to share their projects with a wider academic community. It is a place where we can discover new resources, establish key connections and get valuable feedback on our projects. What concerns me is that it seems like such events are no longer a priority for students and professors.

On the student side, there is a need for doing our work amongst our peers. Young scholars can benefit not only from the pool of wisdom at Congress, but from the mere fact of presenting their work to academics outside of their own, sometimes isolated, school experience. In fact sometimes such presentations are the only way we can get the critical distance we need to do our work with academic integrity. Students need to be here.

On the professor side, there is an onus to encourage our students to do the things that will help them develop a career. Attending events like Congress is critically important for developing an academic career. In fact as professors we owe it to our students to suggest excellent papers be submitted to student essay contests. We owe it to them to connect them to research partners and acclimatise them to the academic culture in which they aspire to work. Graduate education is not just about thinking skills - it is about preparing the next generation to encourage the development of our disciplines.

How many of you students ever had a prof tell you how important academic societies are?. How many of you didn't even know Congress was on? How many professors encouraged a student to submit an essay to the contest?

Preparing for Congress

I fly out Saturday for Fredericton. Congress 2011 is on and I'm attending meetings for the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association and the Canadian Theological Society (of which I'm no the exec). I'm not presenting this year so it will be a different experience, usually when I'm presenting I don't really get to enjoy anything until my moment in the sun is over. I hope to run into some old friends (Kenny you coming?) and make a lot of new ones as well. The highlight though will be hanging with fellow Saint Paul grad student Mike Tapper. Mike has arranged for us to stay with friends of his from when he pastored in that area. It will be a real good chance for me to get to know Mike and encourage him in his academic work. I love that Saint Paul is growing in diversity and having solid Methodist scholars like Mike in the mix is exciting.

If you are coming to Congress drop me a note and we can grab a coffee. I fly in Saturday and leave Thursday. That's me on the left - say hi if you see me.

An Open Letter to Family Radio Worldwide

I felt I wanted to write and open letter to Family Radio Worldwide in light of this weekend's events. I was prompted by visiting their website and seeing the fruit of this fear campaign - the false declaration that the Bible somehow guarantees a May 21st rapture. You don't have to read far into my blog to know what I think of such proclamations, but it struck me that this just might be a redemptive moment for this ministry. Perhaps they will turn their faces to God and leave behind their fears and join with God's redemptive work in this world. I can hope can I not?

=====

Family Radio,

So sorry that you had to experience the pain of failed expectations this past weekend. I can’t imagine how disturbing that could be. Unfortunately the rest of us Christians have had to put up with your scare mongering for a while now, so in a sense there is a sigh of relief that this is finally over and maybe we can get on with what is really important about the life God has given us. Maybe this could be a moment when you not only re-think your website but your whole ministry. It will be a time when I will lend my prayers to seeing your ministry return to the heart of the gospel – which has nothing to do with escaping the world God so loved. Maybe with this behind you God will inspire you to put your hands to the plough and participate in God’s redemptive work amongst the nations – starting with your own communities. This could be just such a redemptive moment for family radio. I would encourage you to take your considerable passion and turn it to praying, reaching out, feeding the poor, loving your enemies, healing the sick and even binding up the broken hearted. Wouldn’t that be awesome? I find that focusing on those things means I don’t have time to get carried away by speculative scenarios and that I’m sure that whenever Jesus does return I will be found labouring in God’s Kingdom work. Isn’t that what you really wanted in the first place?

I would also encourage you to hire Biblical scholars who actually know how to work with the original languages and are not prone to Gnosticism. That might have saved you from this tragedy. It is obvious that your organization has the ear of a decent and readily motivated group of Christians. How about treating them like the worthy daughters and sons of the Kingdom they are and giving them the best you can? How about bringing in a balance of voices into the conversation as well? Let them challenge you from the Word of God so that you might put your hands to tasks that are worthy and not programmes of fear or hate.

I pray that God will surround you as you decide the next steps for your ministry. Much as I was disturbed by the events of this weekend, I wish no ill for any of you. I hope you will find the courage to use the discovery that you were wrong to craft a humble, God-focused new path for your ministry. I pray that God will be glorified as you embrace the plan of redemption that even rescues ministries from the mire and clay.

in Christ,
Frank Emanuel

American Lust for Certainty

Apparently Harold Camping's doomsday cult has become convinced that tomorrow is the date of the supposed rapture. I've already declined the facebook invite to join them, so I guess I'll just remain grounded in reality. Aside from the real sadness that I feel over those foolish enough to believe such drivel - this is not entirely unexpected nor is it without precedent in American history. Camping is part of a long line proclaiming the end is near with specific dates. Always calculated by arcane methods that distort the Bible into something that supposedly can give them absolute unassailable certainty. But really this should only serve to highlight the horrible way many of us evangelicals treat scripture. Sure we might thumb our noses at the arrogance of date predictions, but is that really any different than any of the other ways we fashion Scripture into a weapon to beat back and down the very ones Jesus died for? I for one hate it when we do that.

I plan on being here tomorrow, and the next day, in fact as long as the Lord lets me. As long as the Lord gives me breath I plan on challenging the very idolatry of certainty that creates this madness. I hope that when the disappointed followers of Camping realize that he has once again led them astray with false promises - they might see wake up and decide to really serve God. What I mean is that they would give up serving their idol certainty and let God really be God - the only one who actually knows the day and hour.

Lord have mercy.

Value of Family

Monday we were off to the Ontario Regional Vineyard Leader's Retreat. We do this every year and it is often a high point. This year was no exception. But something was quite different. In years past we've had Gary Best and/or another speaker come and share with us. But this year we shared stories from our communities and prayed intensely over each other. I think it was Ed Kolar who said it was like all the after meeting stuff (that is soooo good) done as the main thing. He was right. We loved on each other, encouraged each other, shared each other's pain and struggles, laughed and hugged, prophesied and prayed. It was so refreshing. Our Andrew's comment was that every conversation led to prayer. What an awesome way to spend three days.

To me this underscores the value of denominational families. When they work well, and to me the Vineyard works very well, they are such a great blessing. I always end up leaving denominational meetings feeling more connected to something much bigger and better than what we are doing on our own. And I've never felt anything but encouragement from this family - even when I've taken risks they would not have. I really love my Vineyard family.

We also really felt supported in the decisions we've made recently to put kinships on hold until September. For now I am going to focus on getting my thesis written. I am even hoping to go up to Brad and Mary Culver's homestead to use one of their retreat huts to be alone and write, write, write. Should be awesome to not have any distractions. Not sure how much time I'll be able to pull off, but it is the plan for this summer. Well, one of the plans.

I feel a lot of hope for the future of Freedom. I think that September will have a lot of new avenues open up for us. We needed a good dose of hope like that. Hope grounded in both a prophetic sense of where God is leading us and also in what God has built into us as a leadership team. It feels a lot like we've shaken off some dust and are able to see where we need to go next. (And finishing my thesis is actually a priority to God's plan as well as our church.) In a real sense I can't wait to see what God does in the fall.

Blogger Ate My Post???

Hopefully Blogger will restore my post on Pentecostal myths sometime soon.

I am preparing for a retreat next week - Vineyard pastors from all over Ontario. We do this every year and I'm really happy to be going this year. I wasn't going to be able to with my teaching, but that is the one perk about my course being cancelled. Sharon had decided already she was going to go in my place - so this will be the first time in ages we've gone together. I am hoping that through the prayer we will get a renewed sense of adventure to bring with us into whatever the future has for us and our congregation. My youngest daughter is also coming with us - I think she'll have fun. Her older sister is staying with some amazing friends of ours who have a son in her class. We are also taking our leaders Andrew and Lori. I am hoping that God will re-energize them as well. I am also hoping that God will heal them up so that they can minister in the way they want to (both of them have considerable health challenges).

Pray for us. I'll post something when I get back.

Myths About Pentecostals

Although my course was cancelled (not enough numbers) I thought I'd share a few fun things I learned while prepping it. I'll start with three fun misconceptions about Pentecostalism.

1) Pentecostals are Fundamentalists. I've probably made this generalization myself. But it is completely untrue. Not only did Fundamentalists have a hate on for Pentecostals, their operative eschatology is completely different. At least in terms of Classic Pentecostals, they did adopt a dispensationalist form of premillennialism. But the paradigm was one of restoration and it has a socially optimistic (read revivalistic) orientation. Fundamentalists gravitated to a more pessimistic, Darbyesque version. Fundamentalists were adamant cessationists simply because their view is always one of the world getting worse and worse and threatening the church more and more until the end. Pentecostals saw a church being restored to its place of power and evangelism. They anticipated that this would culminate in a massive revival that would likely be global in dimensions.

Pentecostals also would never take up literalism in the same way as Fundamentalists. Their driving hermeneutic is completely different and their expectation is that the church relies on both Scripture and the Spirit. Contrast this with the Fundamentalists who are holding very modernist claims and relying on the veracity of Scripture as their only proof. Fundamentalist certainty is based on how they construct their argument - evidences that they think demand a verdict. Pentecostals expect more than that - they convince with experience and radical acts of faith. It is wrong to assume Pentecostals are Fundamentalists.

2) Pentecostalism just appears out of nowhere with Azusa. This myth seems to live strongest amongst Pentecostals themselves. The reality is that Pentecostalism is really just the logical progression of the Methodist Holiness theologies that were so popular at that time. Pentecostals articulate their cluster of theologies a bit differently than these Methodist forerunners, for instance tongues was not an evidential aspect of Spirit Baptism for the Holiness groups - but it was a fairly common practice. Pentecostalism is really just a re-configuration of the Holiness movement - and one that has incredible appeal around the world.

3) Pentecostalism is all about ecstatic experiences. This is the thinking behind judgments that Pentecostals are 'holy rollers' or 'Noizerenes'. While ecstatics are definitely a strong part of Pentecostal culture and liturgy - Pentecostalism is actually a readily defined cluster of ideas. This is why, I believe, Pentecostalism has been so adaptive and persuasive. Tongues is not unique enough to define a movement - but theological positions are.

Glaringly Obvious - Once Pointed Out

Just returned from a visit to my academic director. She has read my first chapter. Probably the least painful visit over a piece of my writing yet. That is encouraging. My issues are not with content or overall logic - but rather with the internal logic of paragraphs. Stuff that I was watching for, but as soon as she points out it is painfully obvious that I missed them. I've talked in the past about being an expansive thinker and the problems this has caused for my writing. Seems I have a real knack for introducing new concepts without explaining them - most of them really interesting concepts. The funny thing is that I am quite a bit more coherent in my lecturing style. But some what makes this difference is that I have learned how to bring a lecture back from a tangent (and recognize that I've departed on a tangent). I am not always the most linear of thinkers. Doctoral dissertations are painfully linear.

I am in good shape to fix up these problems next week, my course was cancelled due to low enrollment. That sucks in a way, but it allows me to accomplish more work on my thesis.

Election 2011

What a crazy night. People seem to be glad that we will not have another election for four years, but I can't help thinking that Harper has four years to really screw Canada over. Can you tell I'm less than thrilled at a Conservative majority. I actually worked the election as a Deputy Returning Officer (the only other person than you who can touch your ballot) for Elections Canada, so I was busy counting votes and closing down my ballot when the results were coming in (so I did not hear anything). By the time I got to my car to scoot the counted ballots back to Elections Canada they were already announcing a Conservative majority on the radio. But there were clues this would be a dramatic election. We had a lot of folks come in to register at the poll to vote, in fact the poll I ran had over 75% voter participation (even apart from the new registrants). The other indication was that the majority of the voters were older (lots of senior citizens) and the next largest group was young voters, many of whom were voting for the very first time. The poll I was at is in a fairly stable part of the riding (not a lot of transient voters) so I was hoping this youth vote was indicative of the rest of our polls.

Running the poll was exhausting, but a lot of fun. They gave us bottles of this awesome hand sanitizer (I usually hate this stuff) that smelled like Beecham's Black Cough Drops (I used to eat these like candy as a kid, sooooo yummy. Am I the only one who remembers these?) Well the bottles became the subject of endless jokes between our poll and the one across from us. Great group of people to work with. But a lot of work (especially as the DRO).

The one bright spot was the election of Elizabeth May, the first elected Green Party member of parliament. Give em hell May! Not only do I think May will do an excellent job in parliament, this is a new day for my party. I can't help feeling a tremendous amount of optimism for Greens in the future - when our children are old enough to vote things will change dramatically. And I think Greens will be poised to bring about a lot of those changes.

OK, so now it is back to the grind. I'll try my best to live peacefully with the dark blue shadow that has overtaken our land - at least long enough to do my work and hopefully sow the seeds of a brighter tomorrow.

How not to Campaign

This is the second time I've seen Baird's signs torn down. I was able to snap a picture. Much as I want to see Baird defeated in my riding (and ultimately Harper), I cannot approve of tearing down each others signs. It is almost as bad as the hateful attack ads that Harper's Conservatives have been using. Seriously, this is not the US people.

Now this is more like it - my buddy Richard made me a shirt with this logo on it. How long would I last at a Conservative rally with this bad boy on? Would I even get in? I am appreciating that this current election seems to have motivated folks to reflect and hopefully act! I am also encouraged that the Green party is doing well in several ridings - I really believe we need this important voice in the mix. Frankly I'd like to see even more options enter the fray. I'm hoping for another minority or even a coalition. I want to see politicians govern democratically, not dictatorially. That is what my country is made for (despite the lies Harper spins about our government structures).