Over the past several years on social media I’ve seen time and time again that my Christian brethren are routinely posting racist, hateful, sarcastic speech on social media, while at the same time proclaiming Jesus as their savior.
My question is that can I still worship with these people and call them brethren?
I’m having a crisis of faith because I assume that folks would act the same in person as on social media. Not so. It’s a Jekyll and Hyde phenomenon.
This good news story about a good Samaritan who broke into a school during a snowstorm in Buffalo, NY:
What is not being discussed is how he went to 10 houses offering up to $500 just to sleep on their floor before being turned down. I took a look at the area around the school and was expecting a sparsely populated area:
Nope, it’s densely populated. I’m surprised not more people could help these motorists. I’m surprised the municipality didn’t open up the school in a time of blizzard for those stranded. I realize that the blizzard could have come suddenly, hence there were so many trapped. But somehow I believe there should be better preparedness in time of disaster so that death and injury could be avoided.
We are now 5 months into this pandemic. I haven’t been inside of a church building since our March trip to Hawaii. My trips inside restaurants and grocery stores are few and very limited. It’s drive through and curbside pickups. I worry that it might be years before we see a vaccine. I worry that my wife and I won’t be able to travel for quite some time. The most scary thing is the unknown. Someone cannot give a definite time when this could end and things could get back to normal. The uncertainty is really bothering me. I miss worship services, hugs, and traveling. I want this to end soon but I know it’s going to be months still.
Mornings can be rough. Before I get out of bed I hold my wife and ask “Is it all going to be okay?” She always reassures me that this too will pass. I’m anxious about the economy, my job, how long this will last….none of which anyone has a good answer to. I’d like to believe that those who lost their jobs…that is restaurants workers, barbers, nail workers, etc will get their jobs back immediately once the economy opens back up.
Once I get up and stay busy working from home, my mind is distracted and my anxiety goes down.
The curve seems to be flattening, but we have a long way off, maybe til mid May or longer before we can start seeing some sense of normalcy.
I pray that this will be over sooner than later.
The CDC has declared the current cornavirus outbreak a “pandemic.” President Trump has grounded all inbound European flights for 30 days. The economy is paniked. And I’m worried.
I’m not necessarily worried about getting the virus. Rather I’m worried about this herd mentality that makes everyone paranoid about not having enough toilet paper and closing schools. I worry that the summer camp which I have volunteered at for 20+ years will be cancelled this year. I worry that this Cornavirus might be a yearly thing like the flu and panic will set in a year from now.
I’m angry at the Chinese person who thought it would be a good idea to eat a bat and thereby spreading the disease far and
Currently I’m sitting in a hotel room in Maui. We haven’t seen much concern from others. Tourists are doing tourist things. A few signs are up about the virus. Target had a few signs up limiting customer’s purchases of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. But other than that I haven’t seen much panic. And it makes me wonder ow much panic is in Tennessee. Are we all laughing about this 3 week school closure or are people seriously hoarding stuff for the long haul?
Two days from now I’m transitioning through San Francisco’s airport. I plan on keeping my handling of seat rests and handrails to a minimum. Hopefully there will be no issues.
One thing that has remained constant is my wife’s unwavering support of me to calm me down when I start overthinking things, not only with this virus thing, but also with my other stressors in life. She is my rock and someone who I can depend on during times like these.
Last night my wife and I woke to around 12:30 AM to the sound of a car alarm going off in our neighborhood. My wife looked out the window and confirmed it wasn’t her car parked outside in the driveway. She had said that she though she heard the door open and went to investigate. I really should have gone with her. She came back to say she locked the kitchen door leading to the garage.
Now Mt. Juliet is not known as a crime capital. At the worst you’d have some teenagers breaking into cars. My mom had things stolen from her car before. Home invasions and burglaries are rare. Still it had me thinking what I would do if someone did break in. I’m not a gun owner and I don’t plan on being one. Guns are dangerous and would be more likely to hurt a loved one than an intruder.
I’m thankful that I live in a relatively safe city, but still the episode last night made me think about precautions I should do should I need to protect my family.
As I was watching the Olympic opening ceremony’s parade of nations, the commentators were commenting about particular athletes. Seems that many citizens of first world countries will compete for 3rd world countries. Some of them have ties to those countries like a parent or even a spouse from that country. Others have no ties. Azerbaijan has embraced naturalized citizen athletes in hopes of winning gold.
Sub-sequentially many have wondered how ethical is this? I understand the prestige of being an Olympic athlete, but is it truly ethical to send ringers in to compete? Isn’t the purpose of the Olympics for each country to show the best athletes from that country? And aren’t these results skewed when you have an athlete from the USA skiing for Mexico?
I just have this feeling that had I lived in ancient Rome, I would have spent more time at the library rather than at the Coliseum.
Yep, it’s been going on forever. Mankind loves their sports. Rome had their Coliseum where gladiators would fight to the death. Today we have baseball, football, and basketball which seem to invade my social media feed and conversation at every designated season.
Friendships have formed; enemies have been made, all to the tune of who thinks their sports team is the best. And most of the time, except for some rare instances where the fan actually attended the college they are cheering for, the actual players have no direct connection with the fans.
Professional sports teams recruit from all over. There is rarely a hometown player anymore. College teams do the same. Fans are fickle in their support, jumping allegiances based on which team is winning at that particular time. This is the precise reason why we see so many Alabaman flags in Middle Tennessee.
And I’ve come to this realization:
If you are a sports fan, then we cannot be [close] friends.
There, I said it. If all you talk about is sports, then there is no real connection. If sports is being spoken about at a party, I leave the room or shy away into a corner. I have nothing to contribute and I despise talking about something so fickle in nature. I’ve overheard football plays spoken about ad nauseum. “Well his foot was within the goal line.” “Well the ref made a bad calls.” I simply do not care because in the grand scheme of things it does not matter.
Please give me a good movie or documentary where the story presented matters.
I awoke this morning at 3:30AM from a troubling dream to the sound of dance music from the outside. This caused me a bit of stress when I thought to myself “My neighbor must be having a party at 3:30AM.” But by the time I got up it had stopped. I deduced it must have been a car stereo with a door opening for an occupant to get out or get in.
This brings to mind how people are up doing all manner of things during all times of the night. Yes, someone was out driving around my neighborhood at 3:30AM this morning. And yes, there were passengers flying in a jet airliner overhead at 11:00PM last night. These are unreasonable hours, but transport and entertainment (it seems) must go on. As for me, I’ll be asleep in my bed at those times.
I remember seeing a partial eclipse in the 2nd or 3rd grade though a borrowed welder’s mask. It was interesting and I was expecting a similar occurrence this time around with the “Great American Eclipse of 2017.” It stretched from Oregon to South Carolina and right through Nashville. We experienced totality at around 1:30PM today. It was amazing. It was spectacular. It was dark, but not complete darkness. I felt like dusk with a sunset all around you. Streetlights came on. We saw the glow of lights in our office in front of us. I took this photo above which I’m quite fond of.
I wonder what indigenous people must have thought when, without a forecast, the sun was eclipsed. I could see how they thought it might have been a sign of something foreboding.
This is what it must have felt with 3 hours of darkness from noon to 3PM when Jesus died on the cross. I don’t know if it was an eclipse or more unexplained divine phenomenon. It must have made witnesses frightened; hence the Roman soldier’s proclamation that “Surely this was the Son of God.”