Happy Valentine’s Day

The big question for a blogger today: Do I acknowledge the day? or do I not?

Thing is, I’ve been meaning to write something concerning Whitney Houston. She was so gifted! A friend introduced me to her performance of The Star Spangled Banner at the 1991 Superbowl – sent chills down my spine; so seamlessly, artfully, executed: made me proud to be American! Wait a minute, I’m not American…That’s just how good it was – made me want to be American so I could be proud to be American haha. Nothing else does that to me!

There’s the fact that she started out singing gospel then gradually veered from that. The fact her Mom traveled with every tour. Her marriage to Bobby Brown. Her struggle with drug addiction. So many thinking points from her life…

But as I thought about thinking about Whitney Houston’s life, you know what really struck me? It was the question of what people would say of me when I die. Placed under the celebrity’s scrutiny, how would my life fare?

Then I was listening to a discussion, on npr, concerning the pentagon’s announcement of frontline positions opening up for women in the military. What do I think about that? I’m all for equal opportunity in the work force, but the frontline is no place for a woman. Hold on, the frontline is no place for anybody! What lies at the root of this gender discrimination in warfare? And is it ok?

And what about military intervention in Syria? Being from a small politically-troubled country in Africa, I have, in the past, found myself wishing America would do something to help the victimized people of my nation. It wouldn’t take much, I don’t think…

But I’ve come to realize that nations should have sovereignty, which means that they have the freedom and responsibility of solving their own problems.

It’s like a married couple, right. They’ve got to work through their own squabbles and disagreements by themselves. Something’s got to be terribly, terribly wrong for outside intervention to be made necessary. But where do you draw the lines? It’s tricky. Where would I, as a Christian, draw the line?

But before I could blog about these things, Valentines’ Day rolled around and it seems every status update on facebook has to do with it.

So do I ignore it, or do I blog it?

Well, this is my most earnest attempt to blog it…

Happy Valentines’ Day people 🙂