When scandal reaches home

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Today, a friend of mine ran across the newest (OK, its a few months old) scandal of celebrity in the evangelical church.  Along with my wife, we chatted with her about how to take this newest revelation.

Replay the good – you don’t need to replay the bad.

Simple but profound.

  • This doesn’t negate justice, but does allow for forgiveness.
  • This doesn’t overlook the happenings, but dismisses the anger. 
  • This doesn’t deny the hurt, but overcomes the bitterness.

The disadventure of COVID

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My mind has been churning.

I liked my life of normal.  I had enough people in my life.  I had enough projects in my life.  I had enough life in my life.

Then COVID.  Then my guilt plugged in.  Then my shame plugged in.

I could now reach the world – I was expected to reach the world!  No more boundaries in the virtual world while the physical world was in lockdown.

A relative started a genealogy page.  Now I know way too many relatives – and there is an expectation that every day is a family reunion day.  I’m just one comment away from the next comment.

I used to be satisfied with one church service on Sunday.  Now I watch up to three or four.  I’m part of a prayer group out of Ontario.  I can stream into any number of edifying, communal, global gatherings.

My local hardware store was the mediator of product.  Now I can go online and enjoy my new friend, “AI” (Artificial Intelligence).  AI knows my needs, anticipates my longings and costs me a lot of money.

So my body is here.  But the rest of me?

A visit to the funeral home

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I have worked for our local funeral home.  Sometimes as the officiant for a funeral.  Sometimes as an assistant for the funeral directors.

Yesterday I popped into the funeral home.  I had a class of college students who were there to see what happens at a funeral home (that’s a whole fun story in itself!).

The staff started talking with me. 

The funeral home budgets their fiscal year for around 120 – 130 funerals (no guarantees!).  There are a number of adjectives that go along with the word funeral, like “profitable”, “indigent”, etc.  Putting all those varied types of funerals together you would have an average of around 10 or a few more funeral arrangements per month.

As of January 29th, they had completed arrangements for 24 funerals, less than three were COVID related. Prior to that in 2020 there had been no COVID related deaths.

Any thoughts?

News Hound loose in my house!

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I have been over the years a news hound.  I seem to be able to sniff out trends and dig up references.  Maybe that’s my early training.  Here are two examples.

When I was in grade eight, I went with the family to the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto.  This was the agricultural exhibit for Ontario.  There were horses and other live animals.  AND there were manufacturer exhibits!

How I enjoyed collecting all the brochures.  I even went home and categorized them.  Then I sent out the pre-stamped information cards to the various equipment companies.  I was learning so much, both about silage and sewage.

Then a representative of one of the companies phoned our home, asking for me.  Well, I wasn’t going to buy any of their equipment, nor were my parents (we lived in the middle of Toronto at the time). 

That shut down my information gathering project.  But the desire was not extinguished.

Jump to grade ten.  We are now in a smaller town just outside Toronto.  A current affairs project is due in my history class.  We are to check out present political happenings in newspapers that are accessible to us (which I took as being newspapers delivered to our home).  Thus, with no accessible newspapers (we didn’t get newspapers at the time), and no content for the paper, my grade was a dismal failure.

I did not like failure.  I decided to find everything I could about assignments that were given to me.  That spark of research has not been extinguished in my life.

Thus, the news hound!