Umm, Religious Question

I asked my new aquaintence if he was raised in church. He said, "Well, my Mom is Catholic and my Dad is a Republican."

Party!

Jeremy and I went to the most culturally diverse party in our lives. It was a birthday party for a black (Jamaican?) lady and was hosted by an Hispanic man who is a gifted cook. There were about 15 whites, 5 blacks and 2 Mexicans. I think Jeremy and I were the only marrieds. We danced to salsa music, Depeche Mode and Gospel. The age range included gray-heads and college students. Even the cat and dog were hanging out together.

It was the most fun I've had since the float trip.

Trip to Emergency Room

My whole life I've never needed any medical treatment stronger than antibiotics or a filling. Well, I can't say that any more.

I had to get some fingers stitched up. I felt so sorry for them. I appologized to my fingers all the time. But I heal up more every day. I've started playing guitar again some and I can cut hair.

Cell phone picture from the ER; mercifully blurry. But you can tell how red my face was. Apparently adrenaline makes me turn funny colors.

Jeremy Goes to Dallas

Yup. Jeremy had himself a road trip to Dallas. He jumped in the car on Friday evening, drove from Kansas City to Dallas, hung out there all day Saturday and was back in time for church on Sunday morning.

He came back with a week's worth of pictures.

Legalist Churches aren't OPEN, HONEST or VULNERABLE

AND FURTHURMORE....

I'm still on a soapbox about churches that are too much about the rules and not so much about the people.

Churches who make up extra rules SUCK because:
1. It's so hard to be a good Christian anyway. Why make it harder?
2. It makes God seem unbelievable if He gives us illogical rules.
3. These churches create an environment of seemingly perfect and holy people. The sinner feels shame and condemnation. He can't share his struggles with such people. Too many unrealistic expectations.
4. The ATTITUDE of these places is just so bad! The hatred, the anger, the impatience, the mean spirit. It drives the sinner away into the arms of the world.

If a church puts too much emphasis on rightousness and not enough on the hit-and-miss process it takes to achieve rightousness, then the people become afraid to talk about their weaknesses to one another. Finding someone to help us bear our sins is a really good way to conquer even the worst faults. If everyone admits their faults, then no one feels like, "I'm the only one."

Our churches need to say, "We are all broken, so you don't need to hide."

Then we need to receive prayer, quality time together, and PATIENCE!

Is my church and is your church a safe place for sinners? If not, the sinners will be there anyway, faking it and not getting healed.

When others share their faults, we can feel superior to them. We can blab to other people. We can make them into our pet project. We can drown them with our sage words of wisdom from our miniscule experience with the same problem. Although these responses are loads of fun for us, it's not very helpful to the person sharing his raw wounds.

Update

I've been gone a long time. I've been having back problems that don't allow me to sit and type.

Well, we have a contract on the White house, and the Highland house is going to market today.

Now we are broke. I am back at Great Clips to try to catch up while we are waiting for houses to sell and waiting for my health problems to clear up. I am at a new Great Clips at 75th and Nieman in Shawnee. It's called the Tomahawk Great Clips.

I'm still doing some side jobs for my Dad and for my real estate agent.

These last few months were really hard ones. The problems just wouldn't stop. Now it seems that things are clearing up. It's always better after the hard times than before. But I will be permanently scarred, physically and mentally. What do scars mean? It means that we were injured, but we have healed.