Shipwrecked & Comatose

Kevin and I bought a new TV this past weekend.  We upgraded from an old tube model to a much bigger flat screen with a few whizbangs and gizmos. Our old TV was twenty years old.  Let me me point out that it worked fine.  Over the years we have watched it regularly and it never failed us.  That TV served us faithfully for more than a decade. So why get rid of it?  Why would we throw out a perfectly functional television set?  (Unless we can find someone to give it a home, we plan to take it down to the electronics recycling center.) Why?  You'll just love this reason. (Wait for it) We're getting rid of it because... (You're really gonna love this) I bought some new Kinect games recently and the resolution on the old TV was terrible.  I couldn't read the onscreen instructions for the games.  It made playing correctly almost impossible.  We needed a good HDTV flat screen so we could see what we were doing while playi...

I had one of my typical bouts of insomnia last night.  I'm not sure what time I woke up this morning, but I know sometime around 4:45 I decided to pack it in and just stay awake until it was time to go to the gym.  I knew I wasn't going to sleep any more. When it was close to the time the gym opens, I began to don my sneakers and get out the door.  As I sat on the couch tying my laces, a terrible feeling of sleepiness came over me.  Of course I felt as if I could sleep as soon as I was about to just start my day.  I was sitting there on the couch trying to motivate myself to stand up and walk out the door, but all I wanted to do was lie back down and sleep. I considered going back to bed.  I thought I could sleep for another hour or two then I could hit the gym when I truly had the energy.  I could just call in late and take a couple of hours of personal time.  After all, with only a few months left of employment, my personal time is trul...

When I was growing up I spent a lot of time in church and Bible study and Bible camp. As very young kids, my fellow students and I never questioned openly things we were taught. (You can pick your jaws up off the floor now.) I grew older. I went to school and learned about science and history and how the world works. I learned about the origins of life itself. Like many others who were taught never to question their spiritual leaders, I felt a sense of cognitive dissonance. I understood that science is about those things that are tested and have hard evidence. Unfortunately it tended to be in conflict with what I learned in church. The funny thing is that once I, along with other students feeling the same conflicts, actually spoke up and asked religious leaders how to reconcile these two ideas, they were very willing to do so. I heard all sorts of comforting and semi-rational explanations: God works mysteriously and maybe some things we aren’t meant to worry about; God’s time is ...