All Hallows' Eve

Today may be the Devil's day, but it has so far been a fitting end to a week that started very weirdly for me. I am in a much better mood now that I have solidified our Thanksgiving plans. It looks like we will indeed go to Atlanta for the holiday and see the King Tut exhibit and visit the High Museum of Art. I miss museums and I want to torture my children with them for a little bit. And it gives me something to look forward to and I think I need that right now.

Speaking of children, Emma and Elizabeth got their first report card of the school year this week. Emma got a certificate for making all A's, the first time in her life she has been graded with ABC's instead of E's and S's. She is a smart little girl and does well in school, but is more of an over-achiever than a genius (she is the first child). She reminds me of myself. She puts all too much pressure on herself. She has meltdowns in class and her 3rd grade teacher had to have a talk with her about needing to find the fun and not worry so much. My 3rd grade teacher told me the exact same things, with the exception that she was a fundy and told me God was displeased with my inability to give it all to Jesus. Moving on.

Elizabeth's first report card in Kindergarten was chock full of "surprises." We understand that the two children are very different. Night and day have as much in common. Liz is a smart girl too, but her interest in education is not what Emma's is. Part of this, I am sure, has to do with their birth order and their place in the family. When Emma was born, we took her to museums and all manner of cultural events. She went to a very structured preschool and then to a very good Kindergarten class full of other teachers' children. Then we moved and things here are very different. We sent Elizabeth to the best preschool in town, which happens to be at our church. But the emphasis of most preschools around here is on social interaction rather than on academic achievement. Elizabeth has the social interaction part down, in fact she has really flourished socially since we have been in Florida, especially considering how introverted she is. What she lacks is the patience for the book learnin.' I am sure she will come around eventually, and she really did not have a disastrous report card by any stretch of the imagination. It's just we never saw any of those grades from Emma (or from Mom and Dad for that matter).

But the truth is, neither Misty nor I can completely understand what it is like to be a middle child. Both of us were the first child of our respective parents (Misty was adopted and was the second child in her family unit, but the first child of her biological mother) and played that role in our families. Because of that, there is often an interesting dynamic in our present household because both of us are in charge. But for our little middle angel, it is hard for us to grasp what it must be like to be compared to another sibling. And she was still very young when Madeline came along, so she had very little time to be the baby and our move to Florida did a number on her more so than any of the other children. There were times when we would pull up to our house, and mind you, she was not yet 3 years old when we moved, and she would say that she wanted to go home. When we explained that we were home, she would say that she wanted to go back to our real home.

That dilemma has long since passed, but understanding her quirks has been a great challenge because she really does not act like either of us parents. Not really. I mean, I am really an introvert, but I have pretended to be extroverted for so long that most people are still surprised to find this out about me. Maybe she acts more like me than I want to admit. Hmm. Anyway, I do wonder whether or not having an additional little one made it more difficult for us to give her the attention she needed early on. Some of her low spots on her report card are things that I think we let slide because we had enough to worry about without bothering to correct her grammar (or we thought it was cute). I am sure she will catch up soon enough. I just want to be fair with all of my children and make sure they get the same advantages or experiences. Granted that is not completely possible, and neither of our younger girls will ever know what it is like to be the only one. At least she is pretty. Enough.

Tonight we go back to church for our annual "Trunk or Treat" event for the children. It was pretty cold the first few days of the week, but it has moved back into the mid-70s so I guess it will be a shorts night. We will pass out candy and all that fun stuff from the back of our van. When we were still in Dallas, I had two vans pull over at two different gas stations (on two different occasions) and offer to sell me some speakers. I guess I looked gullible. But you should hear those speakers now. Sweet. Just kidding, and sorry for dropping the "sweet" bomb. I should be punished.

Peace.

Voting for That One

Ever since I got sick a few weeks ago, I have been in a funk. Not an out and out depression, just a blue time. Part of this is due to the fact that we are nearing the holiday season and since we moved to Florida this is not a particularly happy time for me. December is still fine. We are so busy with concerts and events and church activities that we don't have time to consider much else. And, we always go "home" for Christmas. But Thanksgiving comes so close to December that there is really no way for us to make another trip in that short of a time. We have begun to do things on our own, and the first year we were here people invited us over, but it was not the same. The food was different than our traditional fare, and so we have bowed out gracefully ever since. This year it looks like we are going to visit Atlanta for the Thanksgiving holiday. A new King Tut exhibit opens there next month and we thought that would be interesting and a diversion right before the Christmas season begins.

Confession 1: I early voted last Thursday. I stood in a relatively short line and was finished in less than 20 minutes due to the fact that I had already decided who to vote for, wrote down my votes on a post-it note, and just went in and filled in the ovals. Florida's governor extended early voting hours this week because of the great turn out. Who knows what that means. Everyone on TV says it means something else. I posted that I had early voted on my Facebook page and it started a little uproar. I said "Yippee for Democracy" and several people decided they needed to make sure I had voted the right way or just make a joke. I enjoyed the jokes. As if voting for "that one" was somehow completely inappropriate. I also read on a "friend's" profile just last night that anyone who voted for Obama must be an idiot. I have heard so many negative things about the man this week that I want to throw up. I am so ready for this to be over. I recognize that the divisiveness will not go away any time soon, but at least the race will be over.

I have heard comments like "We are giving our country away." It reminds me of the 1992 race when Clinton won and the evangelical world was all in an uproar. Our country was somehow irredeemable. It seems to me that we also went into a period of great growth and reevaluation within the conservative movement in general and with the religious branch of that movement in particular. So, it may be that we will see some better things come out of the church if we will be willing to put politics aside and begin to care about what is most important for the church to care for--people, seeing Christ's kingdom built in this world, and preparing disciplined spiritual warriors. So, just maybe, the church is about to experience something wonderful no matter who wins the election. And, if the future follows history's model, an Obama presidency and a Democratic Congress will likely lead to a Republican majority in 2010. So, give it a couple of years and then let's talk. Unless, of course, he is the Antichrist. But we will likely know if 3.5 years or so. Unless, we are believers in a pre-tribulation rapture, then the Christians won't be here much longer, say only until January 19, 2009. (This is not a prediction, this is sarcasm and should be read as such.)

Confession 2: I went to see High School Musical 3 last Friday with the family. I never go to the movies. I don't care to be with other people that much, but I admit I wanted to see the singing and the dancing. It was a fine little movie and my children loved it. I think it is interesting how many musicals there have been made into movies lately. It begins to make me wonder if Hollywood knows we are in for a recession. Think about the number of musicals made during the 1930s. There was a reason for this: no one wanted to think about real life, they wanted to escape it. Personally, I like the HSM movies, but since I have had children I have joined the cult of Disney, so my reviews may be tainted.

Confession 3: I had the weirdest conversation this past week. A woman who is really involved at my church came into my office to talk about some things and noticed one of my diplomas on the wall. She commented that it was from Oklahoma and mentioned that she had lived in Oklahoma several years ago when she first got married. It ended up she worked at Quail Springs Mall at John A. Brown (a store which has not existed since about 1986) and lived near the mall and went to the same United Methodist church that my grandparents attended. It was surreal and brought back a lot of memories for me.

It is funny, but since I moved to Florida my memories of Oklahoma have gotten better. Maybe living in Texas was part of the problem since Texans do not care much for Oklahoma. It could also be that over the last few months I have been put in contact with several old friends from Oklahoma, many of which I have not seen or spoken to in MANY years. It has helped me to put a gentler spin on my memories. I am beginning to remember more of the positive things, which is a new trick for me. I have come to understand my father's fascination with his hometown a little better. He and my mother grew up in a place that for him was idyllic (I don't know that I would go so far as to say my childhood was idyllic, but go with me on this one) and he always enjoyed going back to visit, even though the town had just about dried up by the 1980s. He would have never moved back, but it was an idea I think he probably entertained at some point, maybe just out of nostalgia.

I have no desire whatsoever to move back to Oklahoma any time ever, but at least I have begun to think more positively of my growing up there. And that is not to say that things were unduly difficult for me while I was growing up, not any more than any adolescent I suppose. But I feel there is something to be said (whether subconsciously or otherwise) for how little contact I have had with most of the people I grew up with. Maybe most people grow up, move away and go on with their lives. I know that almost immediately after I graduated from high school, I lost track of most of my senior class (as most people tend to do), but I think the difference is that many of us had been together for many years in a very contained environment. Maybe that made it all the more profound and significant for me to relinquish that lifeline so quickly after having it for so long. But that has been the pattern for my life since then, giving up those things that I thought were precious for something better but scarier.

[Okay, I admit that I was in a funk when I saw High School Musical and with that surreal conversation about Oklahoma City following so closely after seeing it (and a bit of high school-like intrigue at the community college last week), these were my thoughts. I am insane.]

Peace.

Returning to Form

So, I have been out of the blogosphere for some time now. I had a week or so where I felt just awful. I had a sinus infection/allergy episode and for a few days I could not talk (which was nice). People always wonder what happens when I get sick. The truth is I feel like I am going on a short vacation.

So, to catch up for the last couple of weeks: Two Sundays ago we had our annual Children's Sabbath in which the children are "in charge" of the Sunday services. Now, I do not remember a whole lot of it, even though I was heavily involved this time around, because I was overly medicated from the above mentioned sinus episode. Emma got to lead the Call to Worship and sang in a little group of girls. It was hard to hear Emma because one of the other girls was a mic hog. All in all it went well. I asked our worship team to help play for the children and it made a big difference (much better than having me play solo).

I have a confession to make: Much of the time I really think of myself as a patient (in public) person, but I had a really bad episode of impatience around the first of October. I have mentioned that the first day of class in August I went to class and all the students had a new textbook--one that I did not have. I got over this pretty quickly, but I have come to realize that it may have been festering more than I wanted to admit. Well, three weeks ago, I went to the college and went to borrow a key (I have since gotten a key of my own, but that is another much more mundane story) to get into the studio where I have been teaching every Friday for the last year and a half. When I opened the door, I quickly realized that there was no piano in the room. I was not happy and one of the other faculty members said she would have a piano moved in immediately. I said it was not a problem and went into a practice room for the day. It turns out that "my" piano had been given to another instructor who was new this semester. At the end of the day, my last student commented that she had heard that many of my students would be returning to their previous teacher in the spring. Now, if you recall, I took on several additional students to help out the college because one of the other instructors had to have an emergency triple bypass. Well, it turns out one of the faculty members went to visit him in the rehabilitation center and told him he could have all of his students back. She was trying to be nice, but she kind of put me and the student who told me this information on the spot. The poor girl felt bad because she thought I knew about it and she was also a little worried because she did not really know the man she had been promised to. This was the same scenario for all but one of the five additional students I picked up. Well, I was not happy and with three things to aggravate me, I decided it was time to send an email requesting clarification of our policies. It was nice, but clearly indicated my displeasure at finding these things out in a second-hand manner. I never realized how passive aggressive I can be. Everything within me said: "Just shut up about it and everything will work out." I did not listen. Everything did work out, and it was probably a good thing that I was able to communicate some of my frustrations before they became actual issues. The next week, my conversations with the faculty and the students helped to clarify that there was no problem at all. Those students who wanted to stay with me could. I got another piano moved into "my" studio, etc.

Now, here's why I feel bad still. The man that caused all of this discombobulation died a little over a week ago. If I had listened to that inner voice and left bad enough alone, there would have never been any issue. Death has a way of closing the door. Oh well, I will get over it. I just feel like a person. I hate that.

Speaking of my students: I have mentioned this one student before who is very articulate and able to discuss deeper topics with some acumen. She is very conservative, as I have mentioned before and she is really having a struggle coping with life at the secular community college. Most of the people there are very nice, but even the Christians "act like the world" according to her. She thinks there is nothing to set them apart. She mentioned some students that I know well and know to be committed Christians, and she said that "you would never know they are Christians." She will likely end up going to a very conservative Christian college soon because she cannot deal with being around worldly folks. I cannot say how much she reminds me of myself at her age. She is too old for her own good. She has great difficulty understanding and relating to people her own age. Part of this is because she was home schooled and part of it is because she comes from such a conservative family (no pants, no dating, etc.). I hope she will be okay.

I wonder how on earth I was able to remove myself enough from my conservative past to go to real universities. I mean, everybody was a "sinner" when I was in undergrad. When I was at SMU, half the campus was gay or bi-curious, everybody was a drunk (at one time SMU was VERY high on the list of preppy party schools), and the ones who were in the theological school likely did not believe in Jesus's existence, let alone his divinity. It was a beautiful place, and I learned to flourish as a conservative Christian in that environment. I began to learn for the first time what I actually believed, what I could leave behind as cultural biases, and what I might need to pick up. Granted, it was not over night that I was able to make some of these distinctions, and it would take several years before some of the things I learned would come to fruition, but at least I was able to step way outside my region of comfort in order to learn some lessons that I could not have possibly learned if I had remained confined to my evangelical bubble.

This student also mentioned something striking to me that reminded me of a couple of my former students. She said that she did not feel that she was complimented enough at the community college. She mentioned a former teacher who was very hard on her, but was also very complimentary so she felt like even though she was not performing to her potential, at least the teacher thought she had potential. In my mind, I was immediately taken back to my office on the fourth floor of the administration building at Southwestern almost ten years ago now. I had these two students who were probably two of my best students, one of which basically took my place at the college when I left. They sat me down one day and, dead seriously asked me what they needed to do for me to be complimentary of them. In their estimation they did everything I asked of them, but I never seemed to be completely pleased. At that time, I told them that I was pleased with what they were doing, but I knew they were capable of so much more and that when they started performing on that level, then maybe I would be more complimentary. Truth is, I very rarely remember my voice teachers every being all that complimentary of me. I knew they thought I was talented. I would not have been in their studios if I was not. They always pushed me to be better. It did not mean I was not any good, it meant there was still more room for growth. I think I would have been suspicious of a teacher who was too complimentary. As for my students, I have a high bar because I know what is truly good (and how rare I actually hear it). This came up again today when another student mentioned that before she ever met with me, she asked one of my other new students what to expect when meeting me. He commented that I listened to him sing and then said "Okay" and that was about it. I guess more people expect to hear a "Wow" and maybe I should work on that. How does this sound: "Wow. That was mediocre."

How much do we need the approval of others? I like to think I don't, but the truth is I keep much to myself for fear of what others will think. Take politics for example. I am only honest here. I rarely mention my political leanings to anyone because I get these horrified looks that scream, "I thought you were smarter than that" or something worse like "and you call yourself a Christian?" So I have pretty much kept to myself for the last couple of months. I get tired of hearing about how Obama will bring about the end of the world or that God's reputation will forever be besmirched if Obama wins because it means Christians could not pray hard enough. I was going to go and vote today since early voting started in Florida today, but the line was too long when I went by the election board this afternoon and I did not want to carry Madeline with me into a long line.

And finally, today is Emma's 9th birthday. It is hard to believe what has happened in the last nine years. I have been to several different countries and moved halfway across my own country. I have moved further toward the center of the theological spectrum which continues to exhilarate and frighten me. I have seen craziness take hold of both ends of the political spectrum and the division in our country become so large that I wonder if we will ever be able to agree to disagree without vilifying each other. Maybe I just want my conservative compatriots to still love me and not vilify me now that I have become a liberal.

I have come to realize that my early-life pessimism couched an optimism and wide-eyed idealism that causes me such grief when I hear people spouting rhetoric full of hate when they are really good people and should know better. I have learned that it is hard for most people to be sympathetic toward people who are not like them and see them as people and not just as a group (the poor, the gay community, another ethnic group, whoever). I may feel compassion for the poor and the oppressed but that does not necessarily mean I want to live in the same neighborhoods where all the drive-by shootings occur and where it is easiest to find drugs. I have learned that people are capable of great love and great evil, and that these forces are all too often at work within the same person. I have learned that even though I can talk about these things in a rational manner, I still fall prey to the same forces that I so detest in others. Maybe this is the reason they bother me so much. But I have to continue to believe the world can be a place of wonder and joy, a world that is full of adventures that I want to share with my children.

I have to believe this world can exist.

A Sad Day When God is That Small

A week or so ago I heard this on the news and it bothered me. Then it appeared in my email this morning and I thought I would share it.

When did God get so small that He cannot work if the President is not a Republican? When did we get so angry with each other that we cannot even agree to disagree over politics? What happens if the one we think is the bigger sinner wins? Does that mean God failed?

Passionless Existence?

So the last week has been another week full of weird thoughts.

It is a little ironic that immediately after writing my last blog about all things political, I had an encounter with my music appreciation class. The story goes something like this. This young woman, whose neck and political leanings are red, came into class and asked me if I liked Obama or McCain. I was noncommittal so she went on to describe this website with all of these jokes about Obama. This led to an "interesting" altercation of sorts between several of the students. It was congenial, but this same young woman commented that she might move to Canada if Obama was elected president. I did not have the heart to tell her they have universal health care and are much more socialistic. Someone else commented that Canada was getting hard to immigrate to. Then the other young woman dropped the bombshell. "I am afraid that Obama is the Antichrist and that all the stuff in Revelation will come to pass if he is elected." There was silence and nervous laughter when much of the class realized she was not kidding. She did tell us it was not because he is BLACK. I told her, after I picked up my mouth off the floor, that if Obama was indeed the Antichrist, then we needed to pray that he would be elected in order to bring on end times events. Then everything would be better.

I had this interesting conversation with an African-American student who has grown up in a military family and has been primarily home-schooled for much of her life. She is articulate and well-versed in current affairs. She is one student with whom I am able to have an intelligent conversation about politics or other pertinent topics. She is a Baptist. I have no problem asking dumb questions. We talked about whether or not the black man can get a break. She talked about how difficult it is for her to communicate with others of her race since she has been socialized primarily with Anglo-Americans and has been well-educated and has no interest in pretending to be something she is not. What struck me was how much she was like me when I was her age: pro-capital punishment, extremely pro-life, hates fags, thinks inmates want to be in prison, etc. I did not say much, but in the end I told her that I used to feel the same way, until I realized that I was a sinner and needed people to be compassionate toward me sometimes. It is hard to be pro-life when it is fine to send people to the electric chair (many of whom are people of color, so don't get me started). I told her if we were to be pro-life, we needed to be interested in dealing with poverty and improving educational opportunities for the poor not just preach on about the evils of abortion (which, are many, I agree). I also told her that it is easy to be in favor of capital punishment until you meet someone who has had a member of their family face the death sentence. Things look different when they have a name and a face.

I received an email from a "friend" of mine who is what one might call a Messianic Christian. She is a Gentile who absolutely loves Israel and thinks that we all should love Israel just as much. She is very opposed to any concession of land to the Palestinians because God gave Israel that land. When we worked together, it was difficult for me to be completely neutral because I have visited Israel and the West Bank and see the plight of the Palestinians. It is also hard to explain that one can be both pro-Israel and in favor of human rights for the Palestinians. Well, God help us, Sarah Palin, in the vice-presidential debate last Thursday mentioned that the two-state solution was the only solution to the Middle East peace process. Well this friend is devastated.

My point is not to deal with the political ramifications at the heart of the Middle East peace process. What struck me, and has always struck me about this person, is how passionate she is about Israel, often to the extreme. I have at times thought she sees things where nothing exists. But, come what may, she will stand by her strong-held beliefs, beliefs that she feels follow whole-heartedly after God's plan for his chosen people. Whether she is right or wrong, I will leave up to the Lord to judge. It is neither here nor there.

I just have to ask myself: Is there anything in my life that I am so passionate about that I am willing to walk off the proverbial cliff for? Is there anything that I believe so strongly that I am willing to give up everything to follow after it?

I hear the sound of crickets chirping as I think about it. I wonder what the ramifications of a passionless existence truly are. Granted, I was willing to drop everything that seemed important to me in order to make the biggest change in my life to follow after God's calling. But that was yesterday. I wonder how often we need to reevaluate how we are doing in the passion department. Every year? Every month? Every day? Hourly?

In other news:
I received word that I had been accepted into the Master of Arts in Theological Studies program at Asbury Theological Seminary and I will begin classes in January 2009. I guess I am excited. I will be taking a course on campus in Kentucky in January and then I will take a couple of courses through Asbury's distance education program.

I am looking for money. Any givers? My new ministry will be called Christian Academics Studying from Home. You can make checks out to C A S H.

Separation of Church and State?

I heard this minister on NPR the other day talking about how he was encouraging his congregation from the pulpit to vote for John McCain. And, better yet, he is playing chicken with the IRS. It sounds like he wants a legal battle to redefine the nature of tax exemption and what religious leaders are allowed to discuss in their houses of worship. His argument centers on the idea that the IRS regulation in only about 50 years old, while the 1st Amendment is 220 years old and therefore more binding. Thoughts?

"Ask Me About My Divorce"

These last few weeks have been some of the most worrisome that I have seen in a long time. I realized Friday that I was absolutely in a frenzied state of mind. I have this mellow professional persona that belies a passive aggressive tendency. See, I can take a few not-so positive things happening in the world around me, but lay on several more and I begin to see conspiracies. This happened to me Friday, and I will not go into the specifics, mainly because they are ridiculous and would make me look like a moron if I spelled out what led to my psychotic break. Things are fine now, but I am beginning to see that I might need to be more honest about things that bother me than to passively say they do not until twelve things pile up and I have an aneurysm.



As everyone in the world, I am concerned about the crisis in the financial markets. I have no money, but I always thought one day I might. Maybe not. Some people told my wife yesterday they could not vote for Obama because Democrats are socialists. Only Republicans stand for democracy and free market enterprise. I thought this was funny, considering that Congress is debating a bill to bail out Wall Street from a very Republican president that sounds very socialistic to me. I thought Republicans were all about personal responsibility. This bill does not sound very Republican to me. Dear God, does that mean President Bush is a socialist? Okay, there go the conspiracy theories again. It is also striking that the same person who told her Democrats were socialists was also opposed to Obama's idea of making community service a more integral part of high schoolers' education. This at a school that requires parents to log in at least 20 hours of volunteer service to the school each year. The question comes back: "Would you have a problem with an idea like this if John McCain had thought of it?"



It is just funny to me that we hear what we want to hear. I have heard people say that at the debate Friday night Obama kept talking in circles. I wonder how many times we needed to hear about the surge from McCain to make his point clear. Point is, they are both politicians and they will say what they think needs to be said to stimulate their voters. And has anyone noticed that McCain has gotten considerably more conservative over the course of the last two years than he ever was before? I remember thinking he might be the devil in 2000 because he was not very kind to the religious right. So, it is difficult for me to hear him talk so pretty about Jesus when I am not convinced this is not a political ploy.



So what is it with evangelicals? It is like some kind of Pavlovian response. We hear somebody say Jesus is their homeboy and then we tune out the rest. That's enough. He passes the test. I am frustrated by my tribe. I think I may need to move to Oregon. I guess I wish people would spend more time educating themselves than waiting until the last couple of months and then looking for the key things to check off the political list. Pro-life? Check. Pro-Marriage? Check. Pro-Jesus? Check. Pro-Corporate Greed? Check. (Sorry about that last one.) At least with McCain we do have the option of looking at his long legislative history to discover what the man believes, not just what he has said over the last couple of months. And, not to leave Obama above the fray, his record on some things that are very important to evangelicals is checkered at best, and absolutely frightening at worst.



I plan to leave any substantive discussion of those VP candidates until after their debate this week. I am scared of both of them. Someone asked me what I thought of Biden when Obama announced his running mate. I told them I thought Biden was a loud mouth, that he did not always think before he spoke, and might cause problems for Obama if he said the wrong thing. I am still waiting to be proven wrong on this one. I mean, give me a break. He said FDR got on television to calm the nerves of the American public right after the Wall Street crash that led to the Great Depression. Okay, Roosevelt was not even president and who had a TV in 1929? There is no excuse for that.



No one has asked me what I think of Sarah Palin, I think because her background is in the Assemblies of God and most people who know me know I was once in that great fold as well. God love her, she is really cute and I love to hear someone from the great white north talk, dontcha know. I particularly enjoyed her interview with Katie Couric, the she-devil, asking Palin about foreign and domestic policy issues. And what was that bizarre comment about Putin flying over Alaska and all that talk about trade missions to Russia? Funny. I kept wishing she would say "I can see Russia from my house!" I think she will be well rehearsed for the debate and will surprise a lot of people. I just hope Biden does not have his foot surgically implanted in his mouth.



A friend was blogging about grace the other day, and in the course of his article he mentioned that divorce tends to be a sticking point for many Christians. They have grace for everything else except divorce (and homosexuals, but that is not the point here). I come from a fellowship that had a strong stance against divorce. None of the ministers could be divorced, until recently when the General Council allowed for pre-conversion divorce. I always wanted to ask which conversion this meant, since I was always of the mind that one sin meant I had to get converted all over again. Anyway, I never got the idea that the fellowship believed divorced people were not called by God to do ministry, they just could not do it in the Assemblies of God. The great concern that I heard in debates about this topic was that we would be descending to the culture to admit that divorce was an issue that affected as many churchgoers as it did non-believers. Again it goes back to the idea that we erroneously hold to that some sins are worse than others.



Last Wednesday night a man came to church with a button on that read: "Ask me about my divorce." I didn't. Part of me wondered why this man would be broadcasting this to the church. The other part of me thought it was just weird to air one's dirty laundry that way. I wondered about social boundaries when maybe I should have been worried about the individual without said boundaries. I guess I am working on grace myself.



And last but not least: You might be interested to know about Bill Maher's new movie Religulous which sounds to me like a scathing diatribe against evangelicals and other extremely religious groups. Here is the New York Times review of the movie. I kind of love and hate Bill Maher. He is completely anti-religion (he thinks anyone who is religious is incapable of rational thought) which bothers me a lot, but he makes me think more than most. So I have to give him credit for that. I am not suggesting you go see this movie. I won't. Granted, I don't think they show socialist, Democrat movies in Panama City.