A little while back I was listening to Kidd Kraddick in the Morning on the radio and they were talking about a product they’d heard of called the Ear Candle. They had someone there in the studio who was going to use the product. You stick a hollow candle in your ear, light it up, and it creates a vaccuum and pulls the ear wax and “junk” out of your ear. It’s a cleaning type of procedure. And they have a website as well. Sounds interesting.

But they also mentioned another type of candle. You can check out it’s website too and let me know if you think it’s legit or not. It’s mighty funny either way. But I ain’t trying it out any time soon!

Josh Clayborn in his blog a story about some UMC bishops taking out a full page ad urging Prez Bush to repent. The comments to this post raise some issues that are eye opening to a degree. Seemingly many people are leaving mainstream denoms in favor of “Community Churches” or “Non-denoms” for different reasons. Check it out if you’d like.

I was looking through someone else’s blog this morning before church and came across one lady’s explanation as to why she wouldn’t be going to church this Easter, like most people do. Turns out she and her kids used to be a church going family, but got stung a few times by different churches. Here are some excerpts from her post.

I haven’t been to church in over a year. We were very active, at least we were trying to be active in our church for years. Seems that hypocrites live everywhere as well as gossips.
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Cliques do not belong in a church, yet they do exist.
Money is frequently asked for.
Gossip exists no matter how good a “Christian” you pretend to be.
People always ask the same people to do the same things. If you try to help, you are told thanks, but no thanks.
People in a church try to understand what you are going through, when you are military, but they never really get it.
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We did go to another church in town for Christmas, but it didn’t last long as I could not sit or stand for any length of time physically. I haven’t been inside a church since January of last year and I have no desire to do so. Greg doesn’t miss it as I have asked him if I made him stop going or wanting to go. He told me that he saw it as a chore and didn’t really think he was getting anything out of it.

I guess if you see things as a chore, or just something you do because you HAVE to, you no longer want to.

She even recounts a story about how she waited in the church parking lot for her daughter to return from a youth trip for over an hour w/o being told that the trip was running behind schedule.

I think that the Church as a whole is forgetting to serve God and the people instead of serving itself (does that make sense?) I think sometimes the health of the church is places ahead of the spiritual health of it’s flock and people get lost in the corners. And yes, the church is made up of imperfect people. People sin, and it’s not good. But it’s really a sad fact that there are tons of people who are frustrated by church because of hypocrites…but we are all hypocrites to a degree.

Anyway, here’s the entire post (there are 3 pages to it) with some salty, but honest language if you choose to read it: The Post
Check out the comments as well.

The Friday Five
1. Who is your favorite celebrity?
What makes a celebrity? Just to be different, I’m going to say Louie Giglio. He’s began the Passion ministries and all. He’s my favorite teacher of God’s truths, and I think it’d be nice to be able to hang out and talk.
2. Who is your least favorite?
Barbara Striesand….I don’t know..who cares?
3. Have you ever met or seen any celebrities in real life?
Sure. I live in a small town, but I get out now and then.
4. Would you want to be famous? Why or why not?
Being famous wouldn’t be a bad thing, but it’s not a drive or anything of mine. Just to know I’m being a good husband and dad while walking a path God’s called me down is enough for me.
5. If you had to trade places with a celebrity for a day, who would you choose and why?
Maybe Jim Ellis. He goes to all MSU football, basketball, and baseball games. And he’s paid for it!

Or does this picture make you laugh too. I try to imaging dogs being lowered out of helicopters. My dog gets scared of celing fans…she’d have a heart attack if she were under a copter.

A military helicopter carries soldiers and military dogs from the Special Force Corp (Kopassus) during celebrations to mark its 51st anniversary at their headquarters in Jakarta, April 16, 2003. Indonesian defence minister Matori Abdul Djalil on Tuesday issued one of Jakarta’s starkest warnings yet that a pact aimed at ending decades of conflict in Aceh province was in danger, with military action inevitable if it fell apart. REUTERS/Supri

Not that it’s a good buy or anything, but finally, www.statedog.com is tradeable at BlogShares if you click here. But if people start linking to me for some reason, then the value will go up *hint-hint*

I know you never say never and get all cocky about it…but after watching a special on ABC tonight about the surviving kids of the Branch Davidian Compound it blows my mind. How gullible did this people have to be to follow David Koresh? How wacked in the mind were they when they let him marry their pre-teen daughters and have sex with them? How insane were they to spank their kids to the point of drawing blood because he told them too? And they pumped their kids full of crap that anyone who wasn’t in the compound was evil and there’d be a big fight and a fire and a stairway to heaven and all that.

He was a charismatic leader. I gotta give him that. But he had some stupid followers, if you ask me. And the Heaven’s Gate people too. And the Kool-Aid drinking people too. Are people really that hungry to believe in something. Does all it take is someone filled with self confidence and passion and a strong personality?

Sheesh….

I wanted to link directly to the entry of Rick’s, but I couldn’t get Rick’s Blog to work right with its archving and all…stupid Blogger! So I’m going to copy/paste it here for you. But it’s a great story of him and his kids at the local Barnes and Noble and how maybe this is the same way God interacts with us…or more acurately how we do or don’t respond to Him:

Yesterday was a weird day. Or at least the evening fellt all out of kilter. I left work to pick up the kids from my wife – she has a 6pm class at our church’s bible college, and I’ve got an 8pm class, so I planned on taking them to Barnes & Noble, let them pick out a book, get me and the missus a latte to take back when we swapped again before my class.

He apologized, and I still felt like

He apologized, and I still felt like scum – but hoped that he might remember the finger even if he didn’t remember not listening.

Same thing with Cammi on our way out. I had a tray of coffee and a bag with her book inside, and I’d asked Trace to close his book while we walked to the car and to hold his sister’s hand. He keeps on walking, she keeps on skipping, and WHAM, trips on the doorjamb heading out of the store, scrapes her knee and three spots on her shin.

I felt like dirt as I turned slowly (had to protect the coffee, right?) and inspected the damage. Where Tracer hadn’t yelled before, she made up for it now. I felt so bad – I was *right* and should’ve been *obeyed*, but that didn’t help her right now. I didn’t scold her right then either. We talked about it on the way back to church, and we bandaged her leg pretty good. Tracer’s finger was fine, and we waited for class to be over.

Do I do that to God? Do I pretend to listen, but then do my own thing as it suits me? I find myself wanting to finish my own song, my own game, my own ministry, and I wonder how many times I’m crushed my finger in something because I wasn’t listening… or how many scraped knees I’ve had spiritually because I was skipping merrily along without listening to God as He told us to be careful, to hold hands, to take care of the coffee.

You know that feeling in your gut when you realize that your keys you need to unlock your car door are inside your car? I had that yesterday. Except that it was van keys and I was in Tupelo with my daughter and a church van with a flatbed trailer behind it. But my belly was full of Cici’s Pizza, so it made everything okay.

But there’s always (for me at least) that moment of consideration. That moment where I think, “If I just bashed in this back window, I could get in a lot quicker than having to borrow a phonebook and phone somewhere and then having to wait 30 minutes on somebody to come so I can pay them $40 for 20 seconds of work.” But alas I went to the Golf 1st shop to call a pop-a-lock place, waited about 15 minutes for him to get there, and paid only $20 for what actually took about 5 minutes.

During the wait I sat on the trailer with my daughter picking up rocks and dirt clods and hurling them into the parking lot. She tought it was way fun and I enjoyed watching her do it. She has a great affection for rocks…any kind. She likes to put them in her pocket, in Daddy’s pocket, in any compartment she can find at home too. Rocks, rocks, rocks. But I’m not fooled by the rocks that she’s got. I still know she’s Addie from the block. But it really is amazing to see how much joy she can get by throwing rocks and dirt. I sometimes long for a return to simpler things…but then those thoughts are interupted by me thinking I need to go check my email or something like that.

Is it just me or does the radio seem to sound better when driving down the open road with the window down in your car. Really doesn’t depend on what song or band it is. But if you’re out on the highway and have the wind whipping and the volumn cranked up, it sounds so great!

And it makes you sound better singing too!