Tony Campolo, Lefse Party and Indulging My Inner Child

I was driving home from work recently, flipping through stations on the radio until stopping on a Christian station that at one time in my life not all that long ago I would occasionally listen to. The person hosting the show was laying into Jehovah's Witnesses and how they're all going to hell because they're not interpreting the Bible the way he thinks they should. When he finished bashing them, he turned his attention to the practice of judging other people while encouraging his listeners to be more judgmental of one another and to not follow the trend in some circles of society where being judgmental is frowned on. He said the Bible calls on us to judge one another and that we should be doing this constantly throughout the day. Great. Let's all do that. I'd like to begin by judging him but really, I've got better things to do.

I reached toward the radio and said something I shouldn't have before turning to NPR, upset with the thought that this guy has people out there following his lead.

It's been a year since my divorce from Hosanna that resulted from my failed attempt to come to an understanding with their senior pastor Bill Bohline over his leadership about an issue that was troubling me. My heart has only hardened more toward organized religion in the year since and that disappoints me. I can't pretend it's something other than what it is.

But there is hope. There are actually people out there who in my eyes exemplify Christ's love through their words. I was watching a video last night from a theologian named Tony Campolo. He very much speaks to me and for me as I find myself reassessing where I'm at in my own faith/spiritual journey. Here's a link to the video.

There's a quote that's often wrongly attributed to Winston Churchill that says: "If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative by 40, you have no brain." My life seems to be working in the reverse order of that.

But enough of all of that.

Tammy hosted a lefse-making party at our home last Wednesday morning and it was a hit! Jackie, Erin, and Mom came over with Anja and friend Lena. I mean, what would a lefse party be without a Lena in the mix? Betsi and Tracey also came over and took their turn with the rolling pin. There's definitely a knack to the whole process. I of course shot some video for the archives. We plan to do it again next month except the focus won't be on lefse; it'll be Sunbuckles and Krumkake.

Typically this time of year I'm trying to take advantage of dry roads and mostly reasonable temperatures to squeeze in as many miles on my road bike as I can before the snow flies. But not so much this year. I've been giving the nod to my Mukluk for the past month while my skinny tire bike sits idle. Between the trails at Murphy, the Minnesota River bottoms, and local gravel roads, I've been having so much fun out there.

My inner child is alive and well and loves coming out to play!

Here's a link to my ride on Strava and some video from last Friday afternoon.