Where are we going and what are we doing in this handbasket?

Writing a blog post and do-it-yourself brain surgery made equal sense last night. But it was OK.

I went from church directly to the Cardinals/Steelers game courtesy of Matt who had an extra ticket. Thank you, Matt! We had seats on the 50-yard line, second deck. But he got a text from his boss in the second quarter, so at halftime we moved directly across the stadium to a private booth courtesy of Hyundai, one of their firm's clients. Leather seats, free food and drink... If you're going to watch your team get a serious beat-down you may as well do it in comfort.
The Cards stink, but we knew that before the game. The surprise: it looked more like a Steelers home game. Yellow towels everywhere! Seriously, I think Pittsburg fans outnumbered Cards fans. Only in Phoenix, where everyone is from somewhere else. In this case, Pittsburg.

Which reminds me of something Ken said last Sunday. Ken & Sue and Bob & Karen, friends from our church in Michigan, were in town for a wedding and visited Pathway. Afterward Ken commented that our service was really early (9:00) and that driving to the school where we meet they noticed the streets were empty. It occurred to me afterward why. It's not because our service is all that early but because this is Phoenix, not Grand Rapids. It is still normative in West Michigan, or nearly so, to go to church Sunday mornings. Look at the people on the road Sunday morning and they're clearly headed to church. Everybody else is still in bed. In Phoenix it's the same thing, just that those going to church are a much smaller percentage of the total population. The streets are empty because maybe 3% of the local population attends church. I'd guess that in Grand Rapids it's closer to 15-20%.
Agree/Disagree?

Outcry is too strong a word but voiced objection describes the reaction from many Western leaders to the public display of Gadhafi's body in Libya. People there wait in long lines to walk through the grocery store cooler and pass by the body of the man who brutalized his own people for decades.
This feels like hypocrisy to me. Western countries often put the bodies of government leaders on display so people can pay their respects. It's a need on the part of the viewers to experience a catharsis, to act out their grief and make a statement about their esteem for the deceased individual.
Apparently it's OK to express grief and appreciation by walking past the body but not relief and a sense of freedom. That is, it's clearly not the act the West judges, but the emotions behind it. I'm a lot more sympathetic with the Libyans and the value of the public display to their process of putting that evil behind them.

Harley Davidson is recalling over 300,000 bikes because of a problem that may cause the brakes to fail. Harley owners are more worried about getting their bikes to start. Then they can worry about the stopping part.
"Never ride a Harley further than you're willing to walk back."

Tomorrow I pick up the tie rod ends. Installing them will take some time and care lest I end up with front end alignment issues so I don't know when it will happen. Maybe Thursday morning?

The good people of Pathway are way too nice to their pastor.
A few weeks ago I displayed a slide containing a line drawing of a very, very overweight guy named S.J. Bedmizan, Lrg, an acrostic for the 13 tribes. Then last Sunday I showed a similar drawing of that same guy, now muscle-bound and in a body builder's pose. The two images are a mnemonic device to teach, in the former case, the names of the 13 tribes of Israel and, in the case of the later drawing, the placement of the 12 tribes on a map of the Promised Land. In the second image he's S.J. Bedmizan, Mgr. - reflecting a promotion at work.
Yesterday's quiz included the question, "What was the name of the guy with the great physique a lot like Pastor's who climbed the ladder of success?"
Yeah, I lobbed them a softball.
Only one guy took a swing. He wrote the correct answer, "S.J. Bedmizan, Mgr." and crossed it out. Next to it he wrote, "Woody Allen."
One of the elders.