President Obama called for a 'we' nation in his Inauguration Address. Art convenes. It is not just inspirational. It is aspirational. It pricks the walls of our compartmentalized minds, opens our hearts and makes us brave. And that's what we need most in our country today.
I want our leaders to lead our country to greatness, but President Obama and his misguided policies and ideology have really fundamentally changed our country in the wrong way, more so than any president in our history.
Part of what makes America strong is our resilience, tenacity, innovation and our willingness to be optimistic about our future. I know that President Obama is absolutely the best president to lead our country in the right direction.
This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores. Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.
On foreign policy, President Obama has kept our nation safe from terrorism and restored our standing in the world. When it comes to one of our closest allies - Israel - President Obama has been resolute.
Our aim - our only aim - is to be at home in Christ. He's not a roadside park or hotel room. He's our permanent mailing address. Christ is our home. He's our place of refuge and security. We're comfortable in his presence, free to be our authentic selves. We know our way around in him. We know his heart and his ways. We rest in him, find our nourishment in him. His roof of grace protects us from storms of guilt. His walls of providence secure us from destructive winds. His fireplace warms us during the lonely winters of life. We linger in the abode of Christ and never leave.
When I look at President Obama, I see a leader with a cool head, a caring heart and an open mind, a president who has demonstrated through his demeanor and through his deeds that he is uniquely qualified to heal our divisions, rebuild our nation and lead us to a brighter future together.
President Obama has been a disaster for America. He's wrecked our economy, saddled our children with more debt than America managed to rack up in 225 years, and gone around the world apologizing for our country - as if the greatest nation in the world needs to apologize for being a land of opportunity and freedom, which we were before Obama became president.
We must keep in mind that where the road is crooked, God makes it straight, and where our hearts are wounded, God makes us whole. As we open our hearts in purity and simplicity, admitting to God that we are completely powerless in the area of our problem, His illumination redeems us.
I have been very encouraged by President Obama's call to action on climate change both at his Inauguration and in the State of the Union Address. This is a global imperative. I also welcome President Obama's intention to pursue reductions in nuclear arsenals.
Positivity opens us. The first core truth about positive emotions is that they open our hearts and our minds, making us more receptive and more creative.
Both parties recognize the fundamental danger the country's debt poses to our nation's future, but President Obama's policies have not reflected that reality. By the end of his first term, his administration will have nearly doubled our public debt.
Meditation clarifies our minds and opens our hearts, and brings us to unusual depth and stability of happiness, whatever life brings.
Everything that's really worthwhile in life came to us free - our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our intelligence, our love of family and children and friends and country.
Overall, you know, no state in our country has been hurt more by the eight years of Barack Obama than Wyoming has been, and whether it's the absolutely unconstitutional role that the EPA is playing and the president trying to kill our coal industry - Wyoming is the nation's largest coal-producing state. So when President Obama and Hillary Clinton say they're gonna put coal out of business, it hits us harder than just about anyplace else.
Rather, it is the opening or the interruption that allows us to experience what is hidden, and to accept with our hearts our given situation. When film does this, when it subverts our absorption in the temporal and reveals the depths of our own reality, it opens us to a fuller sense of ourselves and our world. It is alive as a devotional form.
God gave us minds to think with and hearts to thank with. Instead we use our hearts to think about the world as we would like it to have been, and we use our minds to come up with rationalizations for our ingratitude. We are a murmuring, discontented, unhappy, ungrateful people. And because we think we want salvation from our discontents.