had my usual wednesday guys meeting earlier in the week and while there we talked about the christmas service on the 21st. we have been talking about showing pictures of people's childbirth moments (directly after birth, not the Discovery Channel rated R type stuff) and i brought up that we need to remember that for some folks childbirth is not a positive emotional time but a very painful time. no sooner had i said anything, one of the guys there said "i knew you'd bring that up, i was just waiting for it" - like this was my own personal prison and i was all too eager to lock everyone else up in with me. wow, and these are my so-called "christian" friends.

you know, maybe i'm completely wrong and subconsciously am trying to spoil everyone else's perfect birth moment experience, but the way i look at it, the Father gave us our experience for a reason. one of those reasons was to make us (Dianna and I) sensitive to others who have had issues in this area. i don't think it is too much to ask that church service planners remember this and keep in mind that there may be others out there that don't connect the way their perfect little family experience does.

want examples...ok, how about the viola's who had their son die during delivery when the cord wrapped around his neck, about 2 years ago this month. how about the behrends who had their young child die during a swimming accident last summer and now they have to spend their first christmas with only his memory. do i need to go on? christmas can be a time of great joy or great sadness. surely it is wise to understand that and demonstrate what the coming of the christ-child has to offer in that respect. or is that just a bother, like me?

so sick of cheap churchy cliches and sayings, sick that followers of Christ accept them as words from the Master, and even more sick that we think we can win the world by tossing out these cheap stupid sayings that only those on the inside know what the hell they mean anyway.

turn or burn - get right or get left - i've proven the truth to you so now decide your eternal fate - NOW!!!

ENOUGH ALREADY.

new family pics

i'm a sucker for a trial membership to almost anything. the most current one is smugmug. it seems to be one of the best photo sites without having to know much code. go check it out here and let me know what you think.

Pax!

another 23 bite the dust

i was going to say another one bites the dust on thursday when my boss quit but i thought that would have sounded rude, but now that 23 were let go on friday i guess i could have said anything i wanted - anything would have paled in comparison to 23. i must stop my comments at this point...i don't want to be number 24.

well another one of our management team quit today - our executive vp and general manager of kerrville telephone. not real sure what that means for five star or for me personally, but surely it can't be any worse than the way things have been since our vp was fired last april.

christmas tree o' christmas tree

i walked into clay street at lunch today to see the big cross placed aside to make way for the big tree. now don't get me wrong, i most likely will have a tree at my place of worship (my home), i just thought it interesting that this visual really seems to be a metaphor for many things involving the church today. we have processed down our faith to make everything we want to do fit just so nicely within the package. if something doesn't fit, we just do a little adjusting and call it grace.

oh well, maybe one day we will learn to move the tree to put the cross in it's proper place.