snippets of life

The dishwasher is on round 2 of dishes from feeding 17 last night. Yeah, we used the 'real' plates and silverware. I didn't think a 'loaded' baked potato could withstand Hefty or Dixie or whatever brand of styrofoam I have in the drawer.

And so, we kicked off our college-age/singles discussion group last night. Half of our 20-somethin's now have the book "Sex God" in their hands. Hopefully they get the message in their heart too - it's good stuff.

I really enjoy having a table (or a few tables) full of fun folk around, sipping coffee and fellowshipping away. I've enjoyed it the last 2 nights really, as we were invited out to some friends' house Saturday night. Only thing missing from that night was the coffee - these are 'healthy friends' - some non-healthy people even brought cheesecake for dessert, but no coffee. Sigh.

Tonight we head to a church family's home to farewell their son who's headed to Irag soon. This,on the other hand, is awkward to me. I don't know this family as well. I will not know half the crowd and I really am not good at 'start up' conversation. But no one said life would never not be awkward, eh?

This afternoon we've just lounged on this Memorial Day. This morning My Beloved did the invocation at 2 Memorial Day services. The girls and I attended one of them. After the first one, My Beloved was contemplating the event. "Ya know, these things can be really powerful in context." We discussed how, most of the time we're so disgusted with America that we forget we love our country. And we are really blessed to have men who knew what honor and nobility and, can I say it, who were barbarians really in their attitude towards life.

I'm not trying to glorify 'that era', as that really is a pet peeve of mine - those who almost bow to our founding forefathers or any other time in history that they dub 'more Godly'. But I'm reminded that our culture is slowly (or maybe not so slowly) being more and more apathized, tamed, domesticated. That culture is definitely in the church - maybe it started in the church?

I'm just about finished with "Soul Cravings" so I'll leave ya with a snippet of what I read today. (I'm definitely becoming a huge fan of Erwin McManus.)

"...While religions have historically tried to make us the same, Jesus calls us to be different. If you have ever experienced this, you know your soul bristled at the demand to quietly get in line and conform. But something in your gut told you this was wrong....And you were right. Imprinted on your soul is the fingerprint of God. There is something inside you that resists surrendering your soul to legalism. The good news is that all that time it wasn't you fighting against God; you were fighting for what God has created you to become...."