“Except for ending slavery, fascism, nazism and communism, war has never solved anything.”

I have no clue who originally said this. If you know, leave a comment.

Okay, so it might be April 16, 2004, before this movie makes it to Lincoln. But I’ll wait patiently, I guess. If you haven’t seen “Waiting for Guffman,” now is your chance.

You know that dream that every little kid has… the one where you wish your best friend lived next door so you could play all the time? Well, the dream’s coming through for this 25 yr old kid. Charity, Joie and Renee are moving in next door!!! : ) How fun is that??!

The Matrix – a movie I can watch again and again without being bored. It’s coming close to tying for first place in my list of all-time favorite flicks. Relive the experience in sound bytes.

Today is what a good Sunday is all about… a great worship service in the morning and long afternoon of peace and quiet, including a two hour loss of consciousness (usually referred to as “nap”) and the periodic gentle drumming of rain on the back windows.

While I’m on the topic of Sundays, here are a few reasons why Zion Church is home to me:
– warm, friendly people that I love as dearly as I love my own family
– music, including choruses that lift the roof off the house in praise to the Lord and traditional hymns that contain precisely worded sentiments of worship through the ages
– a thoughtful order of worship on a weekly basis: call to worship, confession and praise, giving, instruction and celebration of the Lord’s supper
– sound doctrine of the PCA
– godly leadership; most importantly, the leadership of Pastor Kerns (aka Stu to those of us who know and love him)

Just as my poor-man’s cable was turned off (explanation below), I discovered televisionwithoutpity.com. Not the best timing, huh? Another fun site recently discovered… flickfilosopher.com. Her bias meter is worth a few extra laughs.

We used to have cable, albeit the least expensive cable plan possible. Give me the major networks, CNN, and my all-time, personal favorite – TLC – and I’m happy. Last December all my television viewing pleasure came crashing down… Time Warner Cable ripped The income-producing Learning Channel from my world. Goodbye, Trading Spaces. Goodbye, The Baby Story. I will miss you! In protest I cancelled our cable. Unfortunately, the gal who cancelled it seemed terribly unconcerned with my protest. Yesterday the cable company finally made it out to our neighborhood to do the ugly deed (3 months late). S-i-g-h. I spent the later portion of my evening amidst a strange noise – Silence.

Thy mercy my God is the theme of my song
The joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue
Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last
Hath won my affection and bound my soul fast

Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here
Sin soon would reduce me to utter despair
But through Thy free goodness my spirits revive
And He that first made me still keeps me alive

Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart
Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground
And weep to the praise of the mercy I’ve found

Great Father of mercies! Thy goodness I own
And the covenant love of Thy crucified Son
All praise to the Spirit whose whisper divine
Seals mercy and pardon and righteousness mine!

words by John Stocker 1776

I had a Seinfeld moment this morning after getting a dental crown placed on a back molar… After blubbering through conversation with the dental assistant I was reminded of the episode where Kramer gets some work done on his teeth. He’s drools all over the locker room at the gym, then later is mistaken for a retarded man. Nothing so dramatic happened to me, though I did quite a bit of drooling at first and then the cashier at ShopKo looked at me a little funny.

Why didn’t anyone ever tell me:
– that white and dark meat are both found on a chicken? At Russ’s Market deli counter one morning I embarrassed myself silly by asking for both a white and dark chicken breast. (What? Whadda mean there aren’t Caucasian and African chickens!?!)
– that your tonsils are not the hanging-downy thing in the back of your throat? I just located their true position about a year ago.
– that your pupils can’t get larger if you stare directly into someone else’s eyes? (Don’t ask where I got this crazy idea from. Fortunately this myth was dispelled BEFORE I reached adulthood.)

Why does it take us so long to turn to the Lord in prayer, to be honest in conversation with Him?