Well I wasn't even in the door yet when I was approached by the first person welcoming me to the church. To say this is a friendly and warm greeting congregation would be a tremendous understatement. I shook many hands just getting to a place in the pew. During their greeting time they actually call on all guests to stand and introduce themselves. They spend a good amount of time greeting one another and one lady even came up and gave me a big hug. I met the Pastor and his wife who both sought me out to welcome me. It's a mixed racial congregation but the new Pastor and I'd say easily over half of the congregation are African American. When I introduced myself I mentioned that I was preparing for the Ministry and was just going around town visiting different congregations worship services. I've been told that African American congregations are always very excited to have members of the clergy visit and so I have to wonder if that wasn't part of the reason that so many sought me out to welcome me. At any rate if you want to visit a Church and feel right at home and valued from the moment you walk in the door go see Miracle Hills Baptist, you won't be disappointed.
Their new Pastor Dylon Young is a very animated and energetic preacher. He has a good speaking voice and delivers a good sermon, he was however far too long in his presentation taking just over 45 minutes from start to finish. He tackled a tough bit of scripture and gave it a good go but honestly I think he avoided the hardest part of the text and just brushed it off. I don't want to get into the practice of 'correcting' other Ministers so I'll just leave it at that. I will add that it seems to me the bottom line of his personal theology is 'The Devil is at the door. My own personal theology is 'The Devil is in the mirror', I think these differences are stark and we'd be far better off if we'd stop blaming some monolithic 'Evil' and start focusing on our own individual 'Evil' and the corporate (masses not businesses) 'Evil' that comes about in society. I am completely convinced that if you want to see 'Satan' just look in the mirror. That's the evil you need to concern yourself with not some mythic beast that you feel is trying to lead you astray. We all lead ourselves astray with our egos and sinful desires. We'd be far, far ahead if we taught people to take responsibility for their actions and not blame something else for their evil acts. I can tell you that every single act of evil I've ever committed came from my own ego, anger, lust, and pride. The only 'Satan' involved was the one staring back at me in the mirror.
After church I ran home had a bite to eat and went out to pick up the hardware I need for a unusual install that I had to do the next day. I had to run to several stores to find everything I needed and once I was done with that I swung by 'Half Price Books'. Even though I need more books like I need another hole in my head I found three books that I felt were calling my name. Honestly, I should be proud of myself for limiting myself to just three. LOL The books I picked up were;
"Writing In The Sand, Jesus, Spirituality and The Soul of the Gospels" - by Thomas Moore
"Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, a Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture" - by John Shelby Spong
"Paul Was Not a Christian, the Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle" - by Dr. Pamela Eisenbaum
The book by Spong is about 20 years old but is still well worth reading. Spong is one of the bigger names in Liberal Theology and I have yet to read one of his books. This one sounds very interesting to me and may well be the first of the three books that I dive into.
The book on Paul is written by an author who is a practicing Jew who teaches in a Christian seminary. This one is also very interesting to me as it addresses one of my favorite things to point out to people; that neither Jesus nor Paul had any intention of starting a new religion.
All in all, Sunday was a busy day for me, besides everything I've already relayed, I did three loads of laundry, cooked up a pot of chili, and went to the gym and did a heavy leg workout. I was very happy with my workout as I hit a personal best on the Leg Press, managed to push 1,080 lbs (plate weight only, I have no idea what the carriage weighs). I was happy but pretty shot after hitting the Leg Press so I just did a few sets of isolation work on legs, visited with some of my 'gym rat friends' and headed home.
I do want to also talk a little bit about my day on Saturday. Saturday they had the fourth annual 'UNO UFO Symposium' up at the UNO (University of Nebraska at Omaha) Campus. I went to this event the year before last but only took in a portion of the day, this year I worked it out to spend the entire day. I'll confess that I've had a life long interest in this subject and I have seen three different UFOs in my life. Now I will point out that I do not believe these crafts are from other worlds, I believe they are military in nature. Sadly, most (if not all) the speakers and attendees at the symposium are of the mind that these objects are visitors from other worlds, times, or dimensions.
The first presentation was actually about Ghosts and not about UFO's. I found this to be very interesting and the members of the 'UNO Paranormal Society' are trying to use science to capture evidence of the paranormal. Personally, I'm not at all convinced that the phenomena known as 'ghosts' has anything to do with dead spirits. I'm suspicious that if there is anything to this at all it has to do with Quantum Physics and either 'time' or 'dimensions'. Either it's a disturbance in time or it's a point where alternate dimensions overlap, or more likely there's nothing to it at all.
The second speaker went over some personal insights into the phenomena of UFO's. Honestly I got nothing out of it at all, he was attempting to tie together Quantum Physics, the Standard Model of Physics and UFO's. Yet he is just a layman and honestly has little better understanding of these fields than I do. It was all in all just a filler.
The third speaker covered the history of UFO sightings in Nebraska and Iowa. I heard this very same presentation at the previous symposium that I attended and so I was disappointed that there was nothing new offered up.
After lunch the fourth speaker took the floor. This segment was about 'Alien Abductions'. I honestly feel a great deal of sadness and pity for those that claim abductions. I'm totally convinced that these events are all psychological in nature and have to do with suppressed memories and sleep paralysis. Likely some of these suppressed memories have to do with terrible events and again I just can't help but feel incredible sadness when listening to their stories, even though I do not believe for a second that there are any Aliens involved.
This fifth speaker was Dave Pares, a professor at UNO. He along with a physics grad student have been working on 'Micro Space Warps'. At the symposium they announced results from an experiment they have successfully run five times which demonstrates a space warp on a micro level. This alone was worth the time to attend for the entire day. Finally a speaker who was actually presenting something that was rooted in science and who had documented his results. Dave and his grad student are working on scaling their experiments up and if they're able to recreate this on a larger scale, well then we're talking about a world changing event.
The Keynote Speaker is well known in the world of UFO's, Dr. Jack Kasher, UNO Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy. Unfortunately, I think Dr. Kasher is just too easy to pull the wool over on. His talk consisted mainly of his meeting with a shadowy figure who told him all these wild claims of unbelievable technology that he was working with. Oh and the guy also spent a year studying in the Vatican Library. In my opinion the guy he was talking to was a master con man and Dr. Kasher has a personality that is just easily swayed. After listening to his presentation I'm more convinced than ever that the UFO phenomena is completely terrestrial and is military in nature. Perhaps the military already has technology along the lines of the findings reported by Dave Pares in his presentation.
All in all the day was much like my last visit to the UNO Symposium, it was a day of people watching and a time to contemplate just what is it about humans that we will concoct and even convince ourselves of the craziest things. I suspect that we all have a need to be recognized in some field and these individuals have found their 'home' here and the wilder their stories the more they are looked up to like 'rock stars'. In many ways it makes one sad to think about the frailty of the human psyche.
So, it was an unusual but throughly enjoyable weekend. LOL
May you all have a wonderful and blessed week and in a couple days have a great spring.
In His Abiding Love & Grace,
Roy
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