Summer, Summer, Summer-time!

Hey folks! As I told my brother after the first three times he told me to "freakin' blog already", I try very hard to not let any important or intelligent thoughts to enter my head during the summer months. However, since I've been told by at least six people now to "freakin' blog already" I thought I'd appease the masses.

Here's a few things I've been thinking about recently.

THINGS I'M EXCITED ABOUT:
My new car: a 2007 Dodge Caliber, silver, with avg. 25mpg, auxillary hookup for the iPod, plenty of space for people and cargo and 17,000 miles-it's by leaps and bounds the nicest car I've ever had.

My happy, peaceful, crawling-all-over-the-place nephew, who's a month ahead of development schedule, who reaches for you when you walk in, who laughs when you tickle him, who hauls himself up with just your fingers for help and who just loves life so much.

The Simpsons movie: the most anticipated movie ever!! After twenty years, it's finally here.

Feeling like a lazy slob when I don't work out three days a week. I'm the last person anyone would have expected to EVER feel this way, but here we are.

Dad's new hair; it's about time you stopped parting those four hairs up there.

My current project to listen to every Beatles album. Not the greatest hits or the anthologies, but each album front to back how they were meant to be heard. Mustoe, I seem to remember at some point questioning your devotion to the Fab Four. Now, I must apologize and thank you for opening my eyes to true genius. Now, if you could just stop being a wuss and put some metal in your rotation, we'll be even.

THINGS I'M NOT SO EXCITED ABOUT:
Two things concerning the United Methodist Church-1. This Holsinger or Holstetter or something who's up for surgeon general I think, which has brought into light a paper he wrote in 1991 about the detremental and unnatural physical and psychological effects of homosexuality. This paper includes descriptions of the damage done to the "anus" and "rectum" and an explanation of the unnatural nature of homosexual using the image of male and female pipe couplings in plumbing to shed light into the complex and mysterious world of human relationships. And who was the benefactor and recipiant of this scientifically sound paper? Why the United Methodist Church, of course! This has put us right in the middle of the conservative bigotry and homophobia after being relatively seen as an open church for years. Distinguished delegates to General Conference (which in this readership is pretty much Dad) the time is now! It is time to stand up and say as a church that we will be loving, welcoming, embracing of all God's children!
2. The conference new young adult ministry, MC2, of which I recently tried to become a part. As I learned, there's really no room for me to help because this will mainly be a student-led ministry focused on campus ministry alone. Apparently, the only young adults the conference is failing to reach are college students, and there's no room for ACTUAL young adults, working as pastors, who are willing to help out and be an active voice in reaching and ministering to young adults.

The Catholic Church: For the second time in my life, I went to a Catholic mass and sat through a communion service of which I could take NO PART and listened to the congregation sing One Bread, One Body. One of the great old hymns about how communion brings us all together sung in the context of the "one true church". At the end of the service a young adult (imagine that) from a national group that organizes Pro-life walk-a-thons came to the lecturn and urged us all to go and protest the KC Planned Parenthood building for all the EVIL that goes on inside. We then sang the closing song...They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love. "We will walk with each other, we will walk hand-in-hand"-unless you're not Catholic. "They will know we are Christians by our love"-unless you have to go through the heart-wrenching and impossible decision to get an abortion, then you'll know we are Christians by our picket signs!

Well, there you go. Those are the summertime innerworkings of the brain of Brad.

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make...
Peace, B