There's no such thing as an atheist

I used to have a teacher in Bible school. He had a long, crazy history as an evangelist.

One of those people that is passionate about spreading the gospel, and lived his life with no apparent fear. Anytime he approached an atheist he would tell them - "thats impossible, there's no such thing as an atheist." His reasoning was that an atheist believes that there is no god, no anything. That, in and of itself is a belief. Therefore you believe in something, and thus - you cant be an atheist.

Hard to argue with, and very clever. I can just see an atheist who hears this turning their eyes into a stare while they process.

I found a video blog on youtube this week by a guy named Pat. He is an atheist. He really made me think about things. Pat is anti-religion. He believes that all organized religion is nothing but a system of devised values used to entrench people with fear and create a stranglehold of power for the select clergy. Truthfully, its hard to argue with that. Pat has become one of my favorite video blogs to watch because he speaks the truth. I have heard more sense from him recently than I have heard from a lot of Christians.

"But from the mouth of an atheist?"

Yes.

"Are you becoming an atheist Sean?"

Hmmm..

Just kidding, of course not.

In fact, my faith in God is stronger now than ever before. His views seem to re-affirm my faith. The sad thing is that I agree with many of the things he says. He stated quite clearly during one of his very entertaining monologues that "If Jesus really was real, and was as compassionate and caring as he was shown to be like in the bible, if he returned tomorrow he may just be ashamed at the way his followers have acted on his behalf"

If this is not the crying out of a world in desperate pain, I don't know what is.

Of course, many "christians" who watched the blog, responded that week to him with death threats, curse words, threatening scripture verses, fire and brimstone. In fact one guy taped himself on youtube praying for Pat.

Nice.

Do we respond that way because the truth hurts? Why are we so offended if he doesn't believe in God anyway?

I am not by any means remotely close to being a perfect christian - and can someone define what that is anyway? Marci is always telling me I need more compassion and this is true.

I feel compassion for Pat. I feel he is lost. I emailed him and told him I enjoy his blog and that I would really like to have a beer with him one day. He seems like a fun guy, and I'm sure we'd have a great time. I'd like Pat to know who the real Jesus is one day. Not what our "religions" have made him out to be. Jesus simply came to earth and just walked. People were drawn to him, all he ever asked any of his disciples to do is follow and learn. Why can't we as a church be more like that? Where did we lose this along the way? I know some of you may respond that we need to "fight for our rights as believers, defend our faith" and this is all true. But all the "religion" in the world never won a sole except though love, peace and compassion.

If you would like to view Pat's blog, let me know in the comments field, and I will email you the link.

Sean.

Whack a mole

These past few weeks have been crazy. I have done it again and scheduled myself with too much stuff to do. I am now tired. Staying up late to watch the Olympics hasn't helped things much either.

Did you ever feel like work is similar to a game of "Whack a Mole?" You know - you whack one problem down, and another one pops up. Yup, thats my life right now! Oh well, better than having no work.

This weekend I am going to hang crown molding in the study. I have been convinced that the best way to do this is to use the pre-fab stuff and not the real deal. Our friend Bill tried to hang the real kind and almost lost his mind. To do this, you need a machine called a "compound miter saw." This sounds like it would be a fun object to own. "Kids, don't touch your father's compound miter saw!" What a fun thing to say.

We went to Baltimore this past weekend. My good friend, and "sister from another mister" Nikki asked me to come down and sit in with the worship team. She is the worship leader at Bridgeway Community Church in Columbia MD. We had a blast. Besides laying down some funky grooves - the kind where you have to bob your head at a slight angle, we had an awesome time of worship. Nikki's voice has literally made me cry before, she has more vocal control than anyone I know. We spent an evening in the inner harbor, which happened to be packed with hoards of Yankee's fans (Yankees were playing the Orioles.) I just don't get a whole game of baseball.

I just cant sit there. I know it's a great american tradition, but I would never subject myself to the traffic problems the affection for this game creates. Having said that, if you think baseball is boring, try watching a game of cricket.

I took some pictures - here they are.

Sean.

Now What?

Now what are we going to watch since the Olympics have ended? Sean and I have been glued to the TV or the computer over the past 17 days and have loved every minute of it. We have become Olympic junkies. As I type this, China has handed over the Olympic flag to London and this symbolizes the end of the 2008 Olympics. Sean stated it very well when he remarked tonight that it's like a friend who has come to stay for two weeks and then must go home. We feel sad. And a little worried that we have nothing to watch on our TV. Hmmm? Guess it's time to go back to the old fashioned form of entertainment and read a good book.

Home

We can say that our house is now our home. A year ago we became the proud owners of our first home. It's hard to believe that a year has flown by already. We love it here and often will find ourselves saying, "I love this house." It fits us perfectly. So, to show you all where this house has come from to what it looks like now, take a look.

The plot of land we couldn't wait to live on

The hole in the ground

It actually looked like a house.

Almost ready for us to move in

A year ago - August 25, 2007

Today - August 24, 2008

For some more photos and some interior shots, click here . . . Home.

Busy weekend

We had a rather busy weekend.

Friday night: Bob Dylan tribute concert

Saturday AM: New tires on Sean's car and a baby shower

Saturday PM: Party at the Hoffman's

Sunday AM: Sleep in!!

Sunday PM: Photo shoot for the Wingert's 40th anniversary

Sunday afternoon we drove up to Messiah College and took some photos for our friends, the Wingerts and company. All manner of family and friends were there so we took the opportunity to get some nice family shots. It went great and we had a blast. It's always east to take great pictures when you have lovely surroundings and good weather. I enjoyed every moment.

It feels really good to have total digital control over all my pictures. Gone are the days of film. My new camera is starting to feel like an extension. I just imagine, point, compose and press the shutter. Click. And there it is.

Anyway here are some of my favorite pics: Click Here

To see the whole gallery of pics: Click Here

Have a great evening..

New Do

Well, I finally did it. I got it chopped off. What a relief! I am actually happy with the results. Less hair and no more gray. What do you think? Only nice comments please. If you don't like it, lie!

"We came to smash the Americans"

Did you hear this statement in the past 2 days? The now famous words uttered bombastically by the captain of the french swimming team. The same team that was defeated by the American swim team during the 4 x 100 men's swimming relay at the Olympic games in Beijing.

Ok, so I may not be the world's foremost authority on international diplomacy but I know this, no matter what country you come from if you are going to talk trash you better be able to bring it.

Even more classic was the comment of one of the guys from the American team.

"I don't want to hear any of that, I'll just take care of business when we get to the pool"

I watched the conclusion of the race in utter disbelief, as the fate of the "frenchies" was sealed by one hand's length. I was on my feet, both hands clutching my hair when Marci and I saw the glorious sight of the words "United States" flash first across the screen.

I think I was screaming as loud as Michael Phelps was. Even more tasty was the sight of the french swimmer (the same guy who claimed he was there to smash people) wallow in the water in a stunned shock.

So here's to you frenchy. Yes you helped us defeat the British all those years ago, and yes you gave us a very nice statue of a big lady - but let this be a lesson: never underestimate the power of a bunch of ticked off Yankees.

Au revoir'

Sean.

Final Product

Poor Sean. He just wanted to hang a few shelves and make the study beautiful. After some trials and struggles he did just that. Here's the study during shelf hanging . . .


And after . . .

Not bad, huh?

Sunday Ramblings

I tried to hang some of those fancy "floating shelves" in our study.
This did not go according to my plan. All I ended up with was 4 holes in our drywall. :(
I felt rather ticked off after that - especially since the wall is covered in red paint and touching it up is going to be a pain. (See attached picture for details.)
It's my fault, for once I didn't read the directions and I used the wrong wall anchors to hang the shelf. Turns out they were actually a lot stronger than I thought and removing them trashed our wall.

My war with Value City has come to an unceremonious end. I managed to fix our furniture and you would never even know that it was damaged. I have decided not to drive all the way to Harrisburg to exchange it again. Now they just keep calling me to let me know that the replacement stuff is here. Oh well, I think I will let them sweat it out for a little.

We are enjoying a day at home today. Marci and I just needed a day to chill at the casa.

Did you watch the Olympic opening ceremony? Amazing. Marci loves the Olympics.
She keeps saying loudly, randomly and with great exuberance "I love the Olympics!"
This is very cute, even when it catches me totally off guard.

Have a great Sunday.

Raw

A really wonderful friend of ours came over for dinner last weekend. We had a great time, and the whole week we were looking forward to her company. As the evening sun drifted lower in our kitchen window, and the evening's conversation spun it it yarns around our meal we approached the topic of God.
Our guest has lost someone very special and dear to her recently. A tragic accident resulted in the loss of a good friend. Marci asked her how she was handling things, and how she was doing.
One thing I love about our friend is the openness of that big warm heart she has. She openly talked about her emotions after the accident and how the whole situation had made her feel.
My heart was feeling sore for her as I recounted in my mind what I felt like the moment I heard the news. We spoke about God and how she had struggled in her mind to reconcile this whole event and still believe in a merciful Lord.
Then she said something that made my thoughts stop so suddenly I could feel myself breathing.
" I had to realize through this situation that I serve a God who would allow my friend to die"
Wow - did you get that.
I did. Very suddenly. Understand, that our friend still loves the Lord, very much so. But what she said was real to her, and certainly justified. But how can you possibly resolve this? Because it's true, it happened.
That made me stop and think. Once in a while you hear something that makes you do that. This was one of those moments. Stop and think about the realness, and the weight of that statement.
It wasn't said in any sense of anger or bitterness, It was said in all Godly respect and honesty.

Do I always see the bigger picture? How small am I? How on earth can something like this happen? I tried so hard to process this information last week. My limited conclusion is this: God is a merciful God, yet we live in a world corrupted by sin. I am convinced that as humans, we sometimes expect that God's mercy is lived out in the flesh when we ask for it here on earth. We expect it. Why wouldn't we? We are flesh and bone. I think that God's mercy exists in the fact that He died for us already and has bridged the gap we created between us and Him. That is where true mercy is displayed, on the cross and the fact that every day that we live in sin and we are forgiven. There is no account held against us who trust in Jesus.

Life is really hard sometimes. We are faced with sorrow and the question "why did this happen?" Amidst all of that I was reminded last week that we are all mortal beings. We forget this sometimes. This planet is truly only temporary. The young lady that lost her life in this story was a believer. I thank God for that. She is in a place with no suffering, and no pain.
Perhaps a way to settle this terrible tragedy in our minds is that she has now experienced the full extent God's grace. She has been reconciled to the Father through the death of his son and now lives and his heavenly kingdom.

I still don't fully understand, but for all of us I hope the following.
May you stop, slow down and breath this week. Don't miss your life going by.

Sean.