a sigh of relief

my father called me this morning a little before 7. My parents and grandmother are all okay. Thank You, God, for taking care of them.

What horrible destruction and devastation. My heart is broken. I was born and raised in New Orleans, and then I lived on the coast in Mississippi for 12 years. I recognize many of these places shown in the videos.

What more can I say. Please, God, protect the people and help them make wise decistions.

:::sigh:::

So, Katrina has done its damage to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (and southern Alabama, too). Of course, I tried to call my parents, but all the phones are dead. Whatever service my father's cell phone is leaves a nice little message that due to the hurricane in the area you are attempting to reach, your call cannot be completed.

Hopefully, service will be restored during the night or tomorrow. I'm fairly sure they're okay, but I'd like to know just the same. Not knowing is the worst part.

Various and Sundry Items

Item the First—A Puppy

I went to Chipotle to grab a burrito tonight. When I was leaving, there was an SUV parked next to me, and inside was a man in the driver's seat holding one of the cutest little puppies you will ever see. He (the man, not the puppy) rolled down the window so I could take a closer look. My heart melted tremendously at how cute this little tyke was. He's 2½ months old and half the weight of when he will be full grown. His name is is Pilate (Pontius Pilate); they wanted to give him a really big name to make up for how tiny he is. I responded, "as long as he doesn't take after him", and the man agreed that he wouldn't. Pilate is a cross between a chihuahua and a rat terrier with the markings of the terrier. He was one of two pups in the litter, and his sister looks like a chihuahua. I hated to leave because the pup was so adorable.

Item the Second—Church and worship

I went to church tonight. I never seem to make it on Sunday mornings except to teach Bible study at 11:00. Saturday night is a contemporary service, which I enjoy very much. I don't think a contemporary service is more worshipful than a traditional service, or vice versa. However, there is more freedom of expression in a contemporary service. If you want to raise your hands, do it. If you don't want to do that, don't. Very simple.

I met some friends at the service who normally attend another church (First Baptist of Houston), but the freeway is closed where the church is (I-10 and 610), so they decided to come to our church tonight (Tallowood Baptist). <sarcasm>I hate our contemporary services when I'm in a funk, because I'm always faced with the greatness and goodness of God and the conviction of my own sin.</sarcasm> Tonight was no different.

Item the Third—Music

Today I got the music I ordered from BMG last weekend. This is the first music I've bought in almost a year. Why so long? For one, I'd rather buy comics and DVDs since there's so little current music out that I enjoy. Second is that BMG carries a very small selection of music compared to what's available, so that when I'm ready to buy some music, I usually can't find anything to buy to meet the requirements of any deal they offer. I know BMG is not the only source of music, but if I can get the average cost of a CD below $7.00, I'm going that way. One other thing that really irks me about BMG is the so-called "special" new release status of certain albums. Evanescence is a case in point. Released in 2003, their first (only?) CD is still under this special status, meaning essentially that you have to pay BMG a premium to buy this CD. Its purchase doesn't count toward club purchase fulfillment; it is not available as a free selection; and it's purchase does not allow you to take any other CDs free. I can see maybe six months, but two years? give me a large break.

Here's the music and my anticipated enjoyment on a scale of 1-10 (1-low, 10 high):

#	Artist	Title	Anticipated Enjoyment
1	Shawn McDonald	Live in Seattle	8
2	Passion (various)	How Great is Our god	9
3	Joshua Bell	Romance of the Violin	7
4	Jars of Clay	Redemption Songs	8
5	Bobby Darin	Live from Las Vegas	7

So long...

No, I'm not leaving, much to your chagrin. According to blogger, my last post was 8/5 [note: after publishing, I see my last post was 7/30, but my last updated post was 8/5, or so it would seem], not quite as long ago as I thought. It seems like forever, though you might be thinking it's sometimes better this way, my not saying anything.

If I were to have written anything within the past two weeks, without getting too deep into it, it would have gone something like, "I'm a total loser; I'm incapable of stepping above or outside myself; I'll never be out of the mess I've gotten myself into." But I try not to burden people with that junk. I mean, who wants to read that garbage?

The only thing worse than reading about it is living in it.

And to think, I'm going to lead a small group about our identity in Christ starting in a couple of weeks. Talk about being completely incompetent to speak on a subject. Yet, I know that this is my problem, and I don't think I'm alone in struggling in this area. I'm sure the specifics of my struggle are not shared in whole by others in my group, but all these struggles stem from not knowing who we are and not being aware of all that Christ has done for us.

I mean, how many times are we called saints? Yet we define ourselves as sinners. Guess what we act like — sinners! How can we act as anything but when we say we are just sinners [saved by grace]? When I say I'm a loser, I'm not going to act in ways that seem to differ from a loser's actions. Self-fulfilling prophecy. If I define myself as a sinner, I'm locked into that mindset.

This is not to say that I will not sin if I define myself as a saint, but that designation makes a ton of difference in how I look at myself. Now to make it real in my life, and not just some theoretical pie in the sky.