The Mississipi Squirrel Revival

Some days (and especially the last few) even a pastor needs a good chuckle. Bro. F. at church pointed me at this amazingly funny video.

Funerals Are A Full Day's Work

The funeral for Sis. P took place today. I was at the funeral home for 9am and didn't leave until 5pm. Between the viewing and then the service and then the graveside, it was quite an amount of work. I'm ready for an early night.

My life as a roller-coaster

This week I experienced the death of a member of my congregation, Sis. P. Then Saturday was my youngest's birthday and we celebrated life. Then today the Lord directed me to preach on mercy and now tomorrow I conduct the funeral for Sis. P.

I'm normally a fairly level kind of guy emotionally, so I'm feeling a little like I'm on a roller-coaster right now. Hopefully everything will calm down this coming week and I can get my bearings again.

In Shock!

I have spent twenty one years earning my living as a computer programmer in corporations. One of the givens that I have encountered is that the annual performance review will be a travesty of documentation that bares no resemblance to what you actually did. Generally, they are a way for the manager to let off steam and blame you for anything that they think makes them look bad.

I had my annual performance review today and I'm in shock. My manager (actually a Director, but who's counting) wrote a magnificent review that was an accurate representation of my years activities. She even remembered some things that I had forgotten I'd done. She thanked me for all my hard work this past year and expressed her belief that I would do well this year in my new role as a Team Lead for my area.

It was a good job I was sitting down!

The Worst Part of the Job

After two and a half years of pastoring, the day I haven't been looking forward to arrived and I lost a member of my congregation. Sis. P was involved in an automobile accident yesterday and went to be with the Lord this afternoon.

Much as I love pastoring, it hurts and I don't ever want to get used to that feeling.

Pro-Choice Except For When They Aren't

Is it just me? There seems to be a super-sized storm going over the advertisment that Focus On The Family wants to run during the soon coming Superbowl. My understanding is that no one has actually seen the ad yet, but that the basic outline is available and is the mother of a football player speaking about problems during her pregnancy and her choice to continue with that pregnancy. After all the dancing monkeys, beer commercials with scantily clad women and even wardrobe malfunctions, this seems pretty uncontentious.

Enter NOW, the National Organization of Women, a pretty much washed up group who have a 100% record of siding with anyone other than conservative women. They are now (no pun intended) proclaiming that they are deeply offended by the mere idea of this advertisement. And yet after reading the entry on the FOTF blog, it appears what they are actually upset about is that this mother made a choice. They say they're for choice, but their actions tell us that they only like choices in favor of dead babies. The live ones seem to give them conniptions.

Can we start calling them "pro-death"? They have now forfeit the pro-choice label by being so upset over a mother who actually made one.

And Sarah Palin had some excellent words on the matter too.

Race or tribes?

So, over the weekend, I read about how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apologized for previous comments about President Obama's skin color. Here's Fox News report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/09/reid-apolgizes-racial-remarks-obama/

I suppose I could go on a rant about liberal hypocracy. But I'm sure that bloggers with more time to spare than I have, are already doing that.

Instead, I found myself thinking about one of Bill Whittle's classic essays by the name Tribes. Now, to be sure, Tribes is a little strongly worded, an unusual thing for Bill to do, but it was written as a response to a very strongly worded comment by a liberal. Tribes explores the fact that color has absolutely nothing to do with anything except the genetics of your parents and how much sunlight you personally reflect. And that's exactly it. A much bigger deal should be made of the direction that each of us choose and the people we choose to associate ourselves with. Our choice of tribe shouts a message to the world, while the color of our skin whispers at best. Go and read it carefully. It's one of Bill's most powerful essays.

http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/?s=tribes