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Time to update whatever readers I have to the wonderful story that is my life. This weekend, Clear Lake celebrated its 125th anniversary. By itself, this probably isn’t the most significant thing to ever happen, but it was accentuated with a visit from my dear Amanda. We’re visiting back and forth once a month this summer while we’re apart (a summer which couldn’t be going slower, I must add). However, our brief weekends together go well. When I was at her house immediately after last semester ended, we went out with her friends, spent time in the Mall of America, and I rode a real roller coaster for the first time. We also ate cookies from a Nestle stand.

When Amanda came here, we were able to start off with a picnic with some of the local folk. The local pork producers put together a pork feed. Good food, and wonderfully cheap, it offered a nice little excursion to our lake. The lake itself isn’t all that great, but it’s peaceful to look out over the water.

The next day we spent going back and forth between some of the Anniversary activities, including a craft show and the opening of the city’s time capsule. There were old newspapers and letters, and anyone who was still around in the community collected what they had stored a quarter of a century earlier. The next day was the closing of the vault where Amanda and I worked diligently to put together little letters of our own to (hopefully) have returned in 25 years’ time.

Our letters were rather nostalgic. We wrote about personal lives, politics, our friends, even gas prices. I wrote two short letters. One to myself with little bits of trivia and questions to one side. The other was to the future residents of my current address explaining how we had built the house with our own hands, and how that house’s sister was just down the street from them. Adam and I both signed it. Amanda wrote one long letter to her future self spanning over a page. I’m counting on reading hers for most of the things I inevitably left out of mine. I only caught glimpses of her letter before it was sealed in its acid-free envelope and concrete case. I wonder if we’ll actually be back to retrieve it.

The weather wasn’t terribly cooperative this weekend, but we made due. Instead of having our picnic and campfire on saturday, we made no-bake cookies. They turned out well and were eaten by the whole family shortly after.

Adam spent the last week at Boys State, making two Boys State veterans of us. I’ll tell you, nothing made me quite as sick of and betrayed by the American Way than Boys State, but I felt better a couple years later after reading Animal Farm.

Sigh… how will the world unfold?

Seeing my sweetheart leave after such a short visit was a bit of a downer, but we will carry on and see each other shortly after the Fourth of July.

What ended the weekend on an exciting note was the little accident that happened to my Grandpa just as Amanda was leaving. We saw him in the door holding his face with blood running down it. Turns out he had fallen while working with some potted plants and cut his face open just below his eye. He was bleeding quite a bit, but no more than I would considering his injury. After getting some stitches, he’s just fine now. There’s quite a bit of swelling, but that should go down in a few days. His lifespan is definitely showing it’s frayed end now (being 95) but he and my grandma are both outliving most of their generation and are relatively healthy and still can walk on their own. We’ll see.

So much left to do for work! We have some really big projects coming up with the CFSP and I/UCRC. Hopefully I can find something to fill the gaps in the pocket book, but it’s looking slim. Oh well. Money isn’t everything, right?

Time to wrap up my evening, I suppose. Back to the grind stone in the morning!

-Matt D.

I was saddened to find this on the internet today, not because they’re downplaying my religion as a collection of shallow fairy tales, but because nothing productive came out of it from either side — basically atheists and bible folk pricking at each other.

Because I couldn’t write my own answer to the question on the discussion, here’s something that I might have written:

One of my favorite stories from the Bible is that of Samson.  It reminds me that I can achieve great things even at my weakest.

A few of my other favorites have to do with inspiring people to take care of themselves, be introspective before judgmental, and treat other with the kindness and respect that we’d want to see directed toward ourselves.  I also like the ones where people overcome oppression and fight for their values, even in the face of death.

If I could pick another, I’d probably go with the one where even when the whole world decided to turn to selfish desires, there was still one man and his family that could restore some dignity to the human race after the rest had been washed from the earth.

There are even better ones where even the people who would have otherwise died in that flood got a second, third, and 539th chance to turn themselves around.

Unfortunately, these really are just fairy tales for a grand portion of people today.  The philisophical weight behind them has boiled away for all but a struggling minority.  I could talk all day about how religious people are less anxious, or how letting go of worldy ties can reduce stress, or even how waiting until marriage for sex can make a couple more commited to staying together.  However, for every bit of evidence I can sctratch up about each of those subjects, a thousand more experts can be presented to show the opposite.  Christians in particular are being seen more and more as uneducated and closed minded, that we’re simply not looking at the evidence.

I wish I could fight the dimishing reputation around religion, but all I can really do is defend my side of the issue by following my doctrines and traditions the best I can.  It’s tough most of the time because so many people think I’m crazy for trying to follow old lifestyle rules when things like free speech and contraceptives can be purchased at any given Walgreens.  Maybe I am crazy, but I’d like to live with the delusion that waiting until marriage is about more than just not getting pregnant, just like eating unlevened bread was more about practicality than following some random dogma.

I’m not looking to convert anyone.   It just seems that there are a lot of atheists on the internet who would be quick to judge me and my philosophy as uneducated and narrow-minded, and I’m getting tired of it.  I know that’s not the case for all atheists.  For a long time, most of my friends were either atheist or agnostic and respected my stance.

All I’m asking is for you all to be supportive of my decisions and understand that I’m following it for more than just blind faith reasons.  I believe that a loving, caring, personal and omniscient God gave us a whole book full of wonderful stories to help us in our daily lives.  Whether they’re factual or not, they contain profound teachings which clash with intuition and common practice and force people to question their nature and the universe around them.  That’s how I like my literature.  That’s how I like my fairy tales.

Pedophone (n)
Someone who speaks on the behalf of children.