Sunday, February 26, 2006

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

Sorry I haven't posted anything here in a while, I'm still here. Time just seems to slip up on me and before I know it weeks have passed by. I've been fairly active on my other blog, but this one has been languishing for a little while. It's mainly because I feel a need for what I say here to be significant in some way. I'd like for everyone who visits to have something to take with them after they've read one of my posts. A thought or an idea that maybe somehow will help them thru their day. I haven't had a lot of deep spiritual revelations lately...so I haven't posted.

I guess I go through life with blinders on a lot of the time. Busy with trivial personal stuff and not really giving much thought to spiritual things. Get up, get to work, do the job, go home, crawl in bed and start all over the next day. Most of my free time I spend surfing around on the Internet. I enjoy reading the news, particularly the weird stuff. My other blog is a reflection of that, but I don't run across a whole lot of things that deal with religion...not in a positive sense anyway. Anything about religion is usually dealt with in a negative way by a lot of websites. There's a lot of disillusioned non-religious people out there, and a lot of religious folks that just can't seem to get along with one another.

One thing that caught my eye in the last couple of weeks has been the furor over the cartoons of Mohammed that were printed in the Danish newspaper. I don't know if you've seen the cartoon, but it was pretty tame. Nothing spectacular, yet it caused a great deal of commotion including quite a few deaths. A lot of media outlets have been sympathetic to the Muslim viewpoint, stoping just a bit short of endorsing the violence. Where are these sympathizers when Christian sensibilities are offended? I can't begin to count how many times somebody has portrayed Christ in an offensive fashion. For example the artist who created a copy of Da Vinci's Last Supper using elephant droppings as his medium. To me this would have been much more offensive than a cartoon...yet it was permitted to be displayed with only a smattering of complaints.

Another item that I found interesting was one about an Israeli construction company that is digging up a Muslim cemetary and moving the bodies to a different location for reburial. The Muslims are understandably upset over this and are complaining loudly to the local government, which is turning a deaf ear to their complaints. The ironic part of the whole thing is that the construction company is clearing the land so that a museum can be built on the site. A museum whose purpose will be to promote tollerance and understanding between different religions.

The bombing of the temple, mosque, or whatever you want to call it in Iraq last week is another prime example of how some folks just can't seem to get along. One day we're all going to wake up and say "why is it so hot and why am I in this handbasket?"

Monday, February 06, 2006

Super Devo

I've got to admit I'm not much of a sports fan. I was always the last kid picked when they chose sides for baseball or any other game. I was overweight, had two left feet, couldn't hit the ball and certainly couldn't catch it. So, for some strange reason, I never developed much of an interest in sports.

When someone invited me to a "Superbowl Devotional" yesterday, my initial reaction was less than enthusiastic. "Superbowl? What's the big deal?" It's just another football game as far as I was concerned. I don't really have a favorite team and certainly couldn't name a single player on either team. Yeah, I've watched some of the Superbowls in the past but I couldn't tell you who won any of them. I remember the commercials more than the games.

But I got to thinking, why not? Just because I'm not interested in sports shouldn't be a reason to skip out on the fellowship. I skip out on too many things like that as it is...so I went.

And I'm glad I did. I was impressed that the fellows kept the devotional discussion going way past kickoff time...and nobody said a word about it. Big deal, we missed the kickoff. Of course there was pizza and chips and a lot of noisy hooting and hollering during the game, but it was all in fun.

Halftime rolled around and instead of watching the Rolling Stones, we watched a video of Bono's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. He gets a little slow start, but once he gets going he makes a lot of thought provoking comments.

Anyway, I had a good time despite not being able to hear the commercials for all of the noise. Thanks for the fun, food, and fellowship, guys. I'm looking forward to doing it again next year!