I made it through the weekend

Well it is Sunday evening, which means not only have I lasted 5 days on this fast, but I got through the weekend without a drink. There are so many people I need to thank for this achievement, but I will single out Tappers for going to Edmonton last night. No doubt, had he stayed home he would have tried effortlessly to get me to go out. I am sure I would have held my ground, but it was nice to not even have to deal with the tempation. I would also like to thank everyone in edmonton for texting me at 5am to call me an idiot for not going to edmonton and partying with them this weekend. Thanks for the support. lol

Today was an interesting day. Going to church after fasting for five days is a tricky experience. Like i said the other day, my mind is not really all there right now. I find myself constantly in thought, and more times than not, I am thinking about religious matters. So, to go into church and have Dyron discussing Lent, Fasting and everything else that has been on my mind, was quite surreal. I also find it funny when preachers use the term Satan. I dont know why, it is just a funny word. The kind of word you expect from the middle ages. I also dont know why Dyron chose to use this word so much today but he did. I guess when your sermon touches on the topic of temptation it is as good a word as any. Anyway, because of my altered mental state from fasting I literally had to hold in my laughter everytime I heard the word. I wanted to yell out the line from the exorcist "The spirit of Christ compels you" "THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST COMPELLS YOU" HAHAHAHA But i didnt think that would have gone over to well.

So anyway after church I stuck around for the annual meeting. It was like most committee meetings, and it was interesting to see what kinds of discussions the church has regarding the direction of the congregation. What I found most interesting was a brief discussion about the Youth. It has been my experience that churches seem to screw with teenages more than any other social group. The most tragic part of that, is how they screw with them, while at the same time believing they are helping them.

One of the elders of the church said some pretty good things. He expressed how important it was to give teenagers a good grounding before they head off to University, or into the "real" world. I could not agree with him more. But then in the same sentence he got on the topic of life being a serious game. A game of life and death. I was ready for him to use the words "fire and brimstone" but luckily he did not. I looked around the church and wondered, who in this room, could even come close to relating with what most of these kids are going to be dealing with in the coming years. Every one of them a parent living in a bedroom community, trying their damndest to keep the real world with all its pain and suffereing from entering into their lives. How can people who work so hard to seperate themselves from the hardships of life, relate to those who are going through it. It always strikes me as odd how elders can sit around and discuss how best to deal with youth, and yet very rarely do you see two generations over the age of twenty sitting in a pew together.

I also find this as odd at lodge as well. The older masons talking about a decline in membership, yet these same men all have grown adult sons or grandsons, and yet i dont see them coming to lodge. Why would someone not want to come to lodge with his father, hell that is the only reason i joined lodge.

But back to christianity. One of my misgivings about christianity, is that they seem to not want to look at the real world, the way that it is. They want to look at it from a position of "what it should be". I saw an interview the other night with Larry King and John Stewart. They were discussing politics and John was basically laughing at the state of the US political scene. Larry asked him who he supported and he basically said, "I would be happy if they could just agree on what is reality." He sited as an example a recent debate regarding euthanasia. Both parties looking at the same person in a vegatitive state. One camp suggesting she was half a yard from the grave, and the other contending she was a treatment or two from running the Boston Marathon.

And such is the state with christianity. One camp ready to accept the good news for what it is, and another preparing for the apocalypse. One group trying to turn the church into a political force, and another trying to simply to be better people. One group trying to lead the youth, and another walking with them. From what I have read, I must contend the best way to assure a group of people get to where you want them to go, is simply to take the journey with them. The unfortunate part of this in todays world, is society does not let us walk with them. I myself would love to work with teenagers and young adults. I know people like Ryan should be using their education degrees to work with these young people. Fysh does a great job working with troubled teens in the summer. And yet because we are not "proper adults" we are viewed as unacceptable to guide these young people. This is quite ridiculous considering how each of us does our best to influence and direct those younger adults within our spere of influence.

I tend to gravitate to young adults. I have always felt more comfortable with them because we have much in common. Things that i do not have in common with most men or women my own age. Namely, I am not a father, I am not a parent, and yet society for some reason feels like I should act as one. I do not understand this.

Anyway this blog is getting long, and is full of tangents and incomplete ideas. I should probably just erase the whole thing, but I wont. After all this blog is also sort of my diary, and I would like to be able to look back on this caffuffle of ideas another time.