Thoughts for today

I have had a few thoughts running in my head today and I thought I'd go ahead and make a blog post out of them. Please note the random nature of each:

There aren't many TV show that I watch, but from the beginning October Road was one that peeked my interest. It really has a good concept and has that "Dead Poets Society", "A Separate Peace" feel to it: set in the Northeast, small college town, about a writer. But for some reason after I watch each episode this show gets on my nerves more and more. I can't stop watching it though. This show has a lot of potential, but the characters bother me; it is as though each one is a caricature of a real person. I guess that is what "characters" generally are, but the people on this show are so over the top that I can't stand it. Conversations sound so unnatural, I think the writers must sit around and try to come up with lines that all sound like something you'd want to quote. Nothing sounds like anything normal people would say. In this week's episode, they used the word "clobber" many times to describe one character being beaten up by a group (yes a group, and these people are supposed to be about thirty or so) of people. That brings up another thing, the characters act and talk as though they graduated from high school last year; it was at least ten years ago! Again, I am addicted to this show despite, or perhaps it is because of, how much it bothers me.

On to others matters. I love this website ! This post is an especially good one: Top Ten Grammar Myths , who knew?

This is silly. I have nothing against the Catholic Church - I have many friends and family members who are Catholic Christians. This kind of things seems like a lot of effort and hoopla over nothing. Sins don't need to be listed or updated; sin is missing the mark, plain and simple. To use an analogy from my work, when I write a contract, I have to very careful about making specific lists or references to only particular laws or ordinances because I run the risk of forgetting something, missing something that might happen that is not contemplated by the contract. I don't try to make a contract vague, but I am careful to either be certain I've considered everything that could possibly go wrong and the consequences of that, or to be as general as possible. Now, of course just because a church chooses not to "list a sin" doesn't mean God doesn't see it as sin, but the church then runs the risk of having its adherents look to the list to be sure they are measuring up. Besides not being Biblical, that sets its people up for a hard fall if the church misses something. Here's a link to a Catholic's take on it.
UPDATE: Looks like maybe this story was blown a little out of proportion . . .

The Eliot Spitzer "scandal" reminded me of something I heard in church this past Sunday. It was a quote from Eugene Peterson, and I don't have the quote in front of me so I'll probably butcher it, but here's the gist: People today in America especially will tell you that what you believe in your heart is a private matter, it isn't anyone else's business what you believe in your heart. That is wrong. It is everyone else's business what I believe in my heart because that shapes how I act toward you and everyone else in this world. What I believe in my heart is actually a very public thing. Evangelical Outpost has thoughts on the subject as well.

I promise I am thinking about other things, but I'll end it there!