Here in my town, 100 km east of São Paulo, the celebration over Brazil's fifth World Cup championship has been happy but not dramatic. Nobody else has won so many. Is it old hat for the country?

U.S. liberal judges have again shown their colors pronouncing the Pledge of Allegiance un-American. For two words added in 1954, "under God," they would scuttle the ritual in the schools.

The saying of this pledge will not make Americans a more holy people. The U.S. was not chosen by God as a new Israel. The church of Jesus Christ holds that privilege and responsibility. But historically, the nation was founded on general Christian principles. Probably that explains much of its success among its sister nations. And the further it drifts from those principles, the weaker it will become and the more its citizens and government will displease the Creator.

If some child, teacher, or school administrator somewhere in the fifty states is reminded, during the repetition of the Pledge of Allegiance, that there is a God who not only exists but rewards those who seek him, it will be well worth dressing down some godless judges too big for the britches.

I thought I was going to learn something about web sites on Paul and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing. It sounds like the language Alice heard in Wonderland; appears to be English, but just can't quite catch the meaning.

One thing did make sense. This quote:

". . . sometimes you just have to get something done while waiting for the experts to show up." --Paul Calvi, November 27, 1998

is getting on the plane. I leave out of the Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, not the biggie in Guarulhos. (No flight to Porto Alegre from SJCampos.) That means I have to catch a bus from here to the latter and another to get to the former. Will take me longer getting to the airport than to Porto Alegre.

But that's often par for the course, isn't it?

As is that preparation often takes longer than the Event, whatever it may be. Ask Mom (Happy Mother's Day!). She takes hours to prepare a meal, and the wolves gulp it down in 10 minutes flat. Seems something is wrong somewhere. But getting ready for something is often the longer process.

So, are you doing your preparation to get there?

You know the right thing to do. You want to do it. But when it comes right down to it, you do something different, inferior, unsavory, unsatisfying. Paul recognized the same problem. "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7.15, NRSV).

Why?

There is, of course, that old problem of sin.

But even for the Christian, of whom Paul also says that God is at work in him, enabling him "both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2.13), the difficulty still arises.

Seems I keep coming back to one thing: the will. Deciding to do it and sticking by my decision.

When the will bumps into the "wanter," it often crumbles in a sniveling heap.

The key, then, is to weaken the wanter (starve it!) and strengthen the will (feed it!).

Then we may find that, where there's a will, there indeed is a way. The way.