Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Hello on Wednesday. It's already mid-week! I haven't really begun yet! Just where are we now?

Carol and I went to the "travel doctor" and got our shots for the Kenya trip. The doctor's advice, which he offered along with the injections, can be boiled down to this: "Don't eat anything. Don't touch anything." Oh, fun.

The building contractor announced that he was ready to take up the old floor in our den. That forces out of another room. We now have no tv or internet access (although I may be able to piece something together if I can find the time.) So, along with the den, the kitchen is gone, the front and side yard is dug up, the back yard is full of junk from the construction, the living room is uninhabitable, the dining room has only a small space at the cluttered dining table for us to eat our meals. One of the bedrooms is filled with stuff. This is getting worse.

Caribou Coffee has a logo that I noticed the other day, "Life is short. Stay awake for it." My observation is that people can't or won't sleep, and their lives awake suffer for it. But it's a clever motto.

Our Wednesday men's group takes up the sixth chapter of Galatians, the last one. Many identify Paul as a sort of legalistic Christian (despite such letters as Galatians), but he has this to say, "The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself". So simple, so difficult.

Carol and I went to a party Saturday at the home of a very prominent lawyer, with whose friendship I am blessed. It's an annual event, and we have gone for many years. We meet fascinating new people every year, and I get to visit with lawyers that I have known at least professionally for a long time. I spoke with a lawyer who is in his mid-80's and built a huge reputation as a take-no-prisoners litigator, especially in divorce cases. He is a secular Jew, but interested in religion. He knows that I am a Christian. We were talking about Islam, and he said that Muslims call Christianity a "slave's religion", because of it's "turn-the-other-cheek" attitude. I said that my Scots-Irish anscestors would beg to differ, but that there is truth in that accusation. As Christians, we are to live to serve others. Some cultures denigrate the idea of serving and elevate the idea of commanding service. I don't know enough about Islam to say that this idea of service is a signal difference, but it could be.

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