No matter how anyone else remembers 2010, I will always remember it as the year of the finger, or perhaps more accurately, the year of fingers.

In February, my older son (who was 13 at the time) was on the playground at school when someone threw a ball hard enough to break his left index finger. He was in a cast for about three weeks.

On August 5, the same boy got into a fight with his little brother, age 9. I tried to separate the two boys by sending each one of them to their bedrooms. The older boy did not want to go to his room, but I prevailed temporarily by pushing him into his room. As I left, he slammed his bedroom door, catching two fingers on my right hand. My middle finger was cut, but not too badly damaged.

However, he also cut the tip off of my right index finger. I had to go to an emergency room, where I received four shots into my throbbing finger, a tetnis shot and an antibiotics shot. After they x-rayed my finger, they said I would need emergency hand surgery in the morning.

The surgery was done on August 6, and I had a follow-up visit with the surgeon on August 16. He told me I would probably be in pain through the end of September. I'm not sure what's left of my finger will even feel well by Christmas.

I got a doctor's note to explain to my employer why I needed to miss a few days at work. Once they received the faxed note, they informed me that I cannot return to work without a doctor's release, which I will not receive until at least September 8, when my stitches are supposed to be taken out. Thank goodness and God himself for the 400+ hours of sick leave I have accrued in recent years, since I am now on an involuntary paid vacation.

My typing speed, which was never that great, has now slowed to a crawl, and I have taken more pills during the past month than during the rest of my life put together.

On August 28, my nine-year-old son was climbing a hill by the church we attend. He decided not to take the path this time. He fell and broke his thumb, which will probably be in a cast for some time. My wife is now the only member of our family who has not had a broken or partially amputated finger this year, but one of my kids told her there's still time.

On August 31, my older son was suspended from school due to his involvement in a fight the day before. After being punched, he retaliated by giving the other kid a bloody lip, the second time he drew blood in August.

So my advice to everyone is to be careful on playgrounds, stay on the path, avoid slamming doors, and in fact, avoid teenagers in general.

On Monday, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University, much to the dismay of many of us. I would not object to Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia, simply because he is doing great evil in the world. However, even though we are not at war with Iran, except possibly for some covert operations, they are clearly at war with us, as even the president of Columbia indicated when he introduced Ahmadinejad and mentioned that Iranians are very active in Iraq, directing their efforts toward killing as many Americans as possible, driving us from Iraq and attempting to cause the collapse of Iraq's elected government. In a time of peace, it might have been OK to allow a tyrant with genocidal views to speak at an American university. The fact is, however, that Ahmadinejad is actively working on his destructive vision, a vision which includes the murder of all Jews and Christians, and many Moslems as well.

Even though the president of Columbia University harshly condemned Ahmadinejad when he introduced him, it seems only to have been meant to deflect criticism toward Columbia, which opened its doors wide to Ahmadinejad, but keeps them tightly closed to Americans who have politically incorrect ideas, including Christians, minutemen and former defense secretary Donald Rumsfield. If Americans can't speak at Columbia, one wonders why those who are killing Americans can.

But those observations are not uniquely my own, and they have probably been expressed more eloquently by many in the alternative media, though certainly not by anyone in the mainstream media, which continues to flounder in its maze of deliberate ignorance, asking Al Gore and George Soros for direction.

What I found most disturbing on Monday was not Columbia's invitation to Ahmadinejad, nor Ahmadinejad's speech, which I only read portions of, but the reception Ahmadinejad received from Columbia's students. According to the sound bytes I've heard, they booed him loudly, not because he is killing Americans, not because he wants every Jew dead, not because he is spreading terrorism throughout the Middle East, not because he is pursuing nuclear weapons with which he wishes to kill Americans, but only because he is not promoting homosexuality in Iran. We are raising a generation of airheads if none of these other things matter as much to the students at our supposedly finest universities as Ahmadinejad's contention that Iran does not have a homosexual problem. I suspect that's not true. But if it were true that Iranians don't struggle with homosexuality, that would be a good thing.

As I listened to excerpts from Monday's speech, what caught my attention is that this was a confrontation of two forms of evil. There were no heroes at Columbia on Monday, when the apostle of terrorism, who wants everyone dead except for his personal Islamic sect, met our homegrown American sodomites and their supporters. Unless Ahmadinejad and/or the students at Columbia come to repentance and a personal faith in Christ, all I can cheer for is mutual destruction. It goes without saying that it is not my job, as a human being, to persecute homosexuals, or to judge anyone for their sins, unless I've been given judicial or political authority, which I haven't been, since I have my own sins to deal with. However, I am obligated, as a Christian, not only to believe the account in Genesis 19 of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but also to support God's judgment about it. I don't think God is sorry, and I don't think he made a mistake. That leaves me with no one to cheer for at Columbia this week.

On Wednesday, the retiring head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, again stated before the senate that he believes homosexual acts are immoral. He was booed by protesters in the gallery, who called him a biggot, and the senate had to be closed temporarily.

The notion that it is just as good and appropriate for men and women to have sex with members of their own gender, rather than the opposite sex, is intuitively false, even if one only considers the nature of human genitals and the complimentary forms of male and female sexual organs. If one thinks from there to the essential nature of maleness and femaleness, things boys and girls tend to do differently even before society teaches them anything about gender identity, and the different preferences and complimentary nature and personality of men and women, the preference for homosexual sex becomes even more absurd. When I was a teenager, I discovered that I particularly liked women, not because of their bodies, but because of their emotional, psychological and spiritual makeup. If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, why would I, as a Martian, want to be intimate with another Martian? I've been to Mars. I've been on Mars all my life, and I can't get off Mars by myself. I can only get to Venus with a woman's help.

Then there's the issue of producing and nurturing children. Anyone who has been loved and disciplined, even for a short period of time, by both a mother and a father, is better off than a child with one parent of either gender, two fathers, two mothers, or three or more competing parents of various genders. I once knew a woman who was raised by her mother and a succession of six stepfathers, and she felt her situation was quite unfortunate. That's a heterosexual problem, which won't be improved if the courts decide the number and gender of a child's parents doesn't matter. Two homosexuals cannot raise a child together unless the parental rights of a genetic parent are terminated, or the other genetic partner becomes a third parent, presumably a part-time parent.

The agenda of homosexual activists is to destroy the family and replace it with complete social, moral and legal chaos. Social, moral and legal chaos has also become the primary mission of our supposedly great universities. If the powers that be in academia have their way, most college graduates will live out their lives in a complete moral vacuum, with no knowledge of their Creator and no idea what sort of lifestyle really benefits people they know personally or society in general.

Yes, there was much worth booing at Columbia on Monday, but it wasn't just the guest speaker.

I usually don't write about sports. But from time to time, something which is happening in sports has broader implications for society in general than it does in the sports world.

Like many people, I have been following the unfolding disaster of Notre Dame's 2007 football season, if anything that produces a final score can really be called a disaster. Notre Dame has lost their first four games, and I believe there is a real possibility they may not win a football game this fall, not even in November, when their schedule is less demanding than it is in September and October.

Just for perspective, it's worth noting that Ara Parseghian, who coached at Notre Dame from 1964 through 1974 only lost three games during his first three seasons. Notre Dame's 1966 team gave up 38 points all season, the same number Michigan scored against them in this year's September 15 game. The 1966 team shut out six of their ten opponents, including a 51-0 win against USC and a 38-0 win against Oklahoma. Parseghian wasn't just a good coach, he was terrific. Knute Rockne himself probably couldn't have done any better.

Yet, near the end of his coaching career, Ara Parseghian's star began to fade. The 1974 game at USC, in which the Trojans scored 7 touchdowns in the second half, wasn't just a game; it was a statement that USC's recruiting base was now better than Notre Dame's, and it was an indication of Irish miseries yet to come. Ara Parseghian was still a great coach and Notre Dame was still really good in those days, but things were beginning to unravel.

Lots of people hate Notre Dame and love to see them struggle. But for me, Notre Dame athletics, and football in particular, is part of the tapestry of America. It's supposed to be successful most of the time.

We're very far away from 1966 now, and what's happening this fall shouldn't be a big surprise to us. Notre Dame has been going to bowl games in recent years, but they've been soundly and consistently thrashed in them. The current state of affairs has been gradually developing for a long time. There hasn't actually been a decade in which Notre Dame was the dominant national team since the 1940s, yet somehow people seemed not to notice until this fall. There isn't going to be a new batch of national championships and Heisman trophy winners in South Bend for the foreseeable future, if ever.

Integration allowed black athletes to stay in the south, instead of going to the midwest. Ivy League schools lost their division one status 25 years ago. Many universities decided to compromise academics in order to become football and basketball factories, and Notre Dame thought they could have it both ways and be successful in both academics and athletics. It can't be done anymore. Generally, great universities are lousy football schools and great football schools are lousy universities.

Beyond that, there has been a demographic shift in the United States, toward the south and both coasts and away from the midwest. Part of what's happening at Notre Dame is also happening at Michigan, at Wisconsin and even at Ohio State, which is why the Buckeyes finished a distant second in last year's national championship game.

Notre Dame's glory days are as gone as the Studebaker. Furthermore, as the auto industry continues to flounder and more and more manufacturing jobs disappear, the midwest is becoming the new south. Big labor is now little labor, and the big ten is becoming the little ten, or perhaps the little eleven. South Bend is the capital of the new south, and its population has been declining since 1960. We may soon wake up in a nation where Michigan, Ohio and Illinois are as impoverished as Mississippi has been traditionally, and that's why this is not just a football story. The University of Michigan may not be as far down the path to desolation as Notre Dame, but they're on the same path.

The new reality is that Notre Dame is now the equivalent of Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern and Rice, and firing the coach won't fix the problem, just as firing his predecessors didn't fix the problem. Notre Dame will have many better seasons than this one, but the real glory days are over, probably forever. There will be a lot of pressure on the university to become another LSU, but I hope Notre Dame will choose instead to continue to be a great university, because they have a far better chance to be successful at that.

We should all be unhappy about Notre Dame's decline, because it's part of our nation's decline. Business isn't just moving south, it's moving offshore, and that affects every American. Notre Dame is trying to wake up the echoes of a fading past, and so are we all. Take a moment and wish them well.

Anyone who has never heard of a place called Laodicea can find out everything we know about it in Revelation chapter 3, the last book of the Bible. Verse 17, in particular, presents a contrast between what Jesus said about the church in Laodicea and what the Laodiceans believed about themselves. The Laodiceans believed "we are rich, we have prospered and grown wealthy and we lack nothing", but Jesus calls them "wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked". This contrast begs the question, how could they not have known their true condition? I can only guess the answer to that question, but I think my guess is reasonable. I believe the voice of warning was silenced in Laodicea. By the voice of warning, I mean the parental voice which says things like, "you could put your eye out with that" or "don't play with matches".

I was reminded of Revelation 3:17 two Sundays ago in church, though it was never mentioned. The pastor asked everyone to open their Bibles to the book of Jude, which is quite unusual, both because it's a small book and because it is very stern in its tone. To my astonishment, however, the pastor only spoke for half an hour about four of the 25 verses, verses 20, 21, 24 and 25. Those four verses are the only four encouraging verses of the book. The rest of the book, particularly verses 1-19, are a very stern warning about the consequences of sin. Those 19 verses are the primary reason the book was written, but they were excluded from the Sunday, August 26 sermon.

My wife listened to the sermon at face value and told me after church how good she thought it was. I said, "It was a very pleasant sermon, and I didn't disagree with a single word of it. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I were a pastor and I gave sermons like that. Some time this week I dare you to read the entire book and afterwords to ask yourself if what you heard this morning was the primary intent of the author." My wife's basic reaction was that I'm an idiot, which is usually her first reaction to anything I say. But then she read the book and she got my point. The fact that she listens to me eventually is probably why we're still married.

The voice of warning is on nearly every page of scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Contrary to common belief, it may be even more prevalent in the New Testament than in the Old Testament, yet it has virtually disappeared from our churches. My purpose here is not to criticize my pastor or the church we attend. I'm almost sure he agrees with me about what the book of Jude means, but he is apparently not interested in telling the congregation. Ignoring the voice of warning will take place in virtually every American church service throughout the country again this Sunday. As I told my wife, "For the most part, churches have stopped serving cake, they only serve frosting." I like frosting as much as anyone else, but it's not meant to be eaten by itself.

My point goes well beyond theology. I knew there would someday be a hurricane Katrina forty years before it happened. I didn't know when it would happen or what the storm would be named, but I knew it was coming. We all knew it was coming, yet no one in New Orleans was prepared for it. I know it's humanly impossible to be prepared for everything, but there are many things headed right at us, things far worse than Katrina, things we are not preparing for.

But none of society's ills worries me as much as the unprepared church. For example, several weeks ago, during another church service, our pastor asked if anyone had anything to share. My wife's elbow was in my ribs immediately, because she knows I always have something to say. I had been studying the epistles of John, and I became interested in how much they echoed what Jesus said during the last supper. So I went to the microphone and I asked, "Does anyone remember the first thing Jesus said after Judas left to betray him? It's significant because he was alone with all of the real apostles, and no one else, for the first time we know of. In John 13:34-35, the first commandment he gave us was to love one another, and he added that men would recognize his disciples by their love for each other. Priority number one for this church should be to develop a Christ-centered community of people who are willing even to die for each other, if necessary." Everyone applauded, but nothing has changed. American Christians always applaud when they hear pleasant things, and then they wait to hear something even more pleasant. I'm not encouraged by applause. I'm grieved almost to tears by not having anyone really listen. How do I know no one listened? Every teacher knows that when no one asks questions, they don't get it. If someone had listened, they would have asked the question in Acts 2:37, "What should we do?" "How can we find time to be together and become closer, so we can fulfill the commandment we've been given?"

Nothing scares me as much as the unprepared church. It is so pleasant living here in Laodicea, and it's so dangerous.

Even though I'm not happy about the constant barrage of election year politics in a non-election year, I decided to listen on satellite radio to the most recent Republican debate among the eight officially declared Republicans who aspire to the presidency.

I kept waiting for a defining moment, when one of them would set himself apart from the others and prove to me that he was more presidential, more principled, yet more pragmatic, and more wise than his colleagues. For me, that moment never came. Yes, Ron Paul is different, but whether we should be in Iraq or not, he clearly does not grasp the significance of the growth of Islam in the world, and he certainly has no idea what to do about it, except the idea of retreat, surrender and capitulation to their every demand. If I want to do that, I can vote for Hillary. I don't need Ron Paul. On second thought, I still wouldn't vote for Hillary, but the point remains that I don't need Ron Paul if I want to vote for isolationism.

By the way, I would love to be an isolationist. It's much closer to my heart than America as world policeman. But isolationism can only be practiced if we are willing and able to produce everything we need to consume and if other people are willing to leave us alone if we leave them alone. Neither of those things are true in our case.

We are producing less and less of everything. We have allowed ourselves to become a consumer nation, and above all else, we depend on foreign oil. Our failure to provide for ourselves is shameful, but we are where we are, and it can't be changed overnight.

Secondly, Ron Paul's belief that the Islamic world will leave us alone if we leave it alone is demonstrably false. The French aren't doing anything to the Islamic world, except trying to hide from it, yet the French police are afraid to go into Moslem enclaves in Paris. How about Thailand? Thailand has no military presence anywhere, but they have a thriving Moslem insurrection.

What struck me most about the debate, though, was two words which were never used at any time. The first unused word was "Bush". John McCain mentioned the president in passing by acknowledging that he and the president worked together on the failed immigration bill, which many Americans, including me, were opposed to. Other than that one reference, there was no mention of the current two-term Republican president, which is really astonishing in a debate of Republican candidates. I guarantee that next year's Democratic nominee will not run primarily against the Republican nominee, but he or she will instead run against the record of this administration. While Democrats run against this administration, Republicans will apparently be running away from it, unwilling to speak about its successes or its failures. It would make much more sense, in my opinion, for the president to get both applause and criticism from the current Republican candidates. But complete silence says a great deal, and one thing it says is that none of these Republicans should expect to be in the White House on January 20, 2009.

The other word which was neither uttered nor asked about is even more significant. That word is "China". I predict that soon after next summer's Olympics, perhaps at the very beginning of the next administration, there will be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and it is likely to be a very bloody invasion. What is our next president going to do about it? Nothing, and they all know it, and the Chinese know it.

Even the press can't ignore the daily recalls of toys, food and every other unsafe thing which is coming to us from China, some of which is the product of the slave labor of children. Last night there was silence about our trade deficit with the Chinese, how many American dollars they hold as the result of our deficit spending, and how they are beginning to dump those dollars in an apparent effort to undermine our currency.

There was silence about the renewed alliance between China and Russia, no discussion about the growing Chinese need for oil and how that will affect both us and them, and there wasn't even a hint of speculation about why the Chinese are funneling money into our own political campaigns.

There was complete silence last night about Chinese espionage, most recently including hacking into Pentagon computers, as well as computers in the U.K. and Germany. We Americans are not even wondering out loud what Chinese motives are, and we ought to be wondering a great deal about it, because the Chinese are being very aggressive on a number of fronts.

In fairness, Duncan Hunter has spoken about our problems with China, but there has been a deafening silence from the rest of the Republican field, and there was complete silence from everyone last night. Unfortunately, I'm left with the impression that none of these people are ready for the presidency. By the way, don't expect me to endorse Fred Thompson either, because he has thus far been too chicken to even show up for these debates. Leaders lead, they don't watch the festivities. Whether the next president is a Republican or a Democrat, it seems to me that their chances of making the world a less dangerous place for Americans are slim and none, and that's not good.

By the way, none of these candidates mentioned Russia either, nor did they seem concerned about the expansion of NATO to Russia's doorstep, which I believe is a mistake which continues to be passed down from the Clinton administration.

Isn't it also odd that none of these candidates talk about crime, except for Rudy Giuliani, who tells us he solved the crime problem in New York by himself, apparently with no help from the police or anyone else? Giuliani keeps telling us he's a great leader, but great leaders have followers, and Rudy has never once given credit to a follower for anything, as far as I know. Here's a hint for America's mayor. If you want to become the president, try congratulating someone besides yourself just once.

Of course, I can't fault people for not answering questions they weren't asked. So part of what I'm saying is that the debate questions need to be a great deal better. Perhaps one or more of these men have the potential to be good presidents, if they were elected. But the fundamental problem with the American presidency is that there is no appropriate training for it. It's a job men either grow into or fail at. Being a senator, a congressman, a governor, a former first lady, a former mayor or a millionaire lawyer and claiming it has prepared one for the presidency is roughly analogous to me claiming that I am prepared to manage a chain of Italian restaurants because I have eaten spaghetti once or twice. Even the vice presidency isn't good training for the oval office.
A former vice president led us into Vietnam, and another led us into the Watergate scandal. The presidency is so unique that it has become a crap shoot for both the voters and the candidates.