My Mid-Life Crisis

I'll be 43 years old in a couple of months. We're having my 25 year high school reunion this year. Next month my wife and I will have been married 14 years. In other words, I'm at that stage in my life where men do stupid things.

In that spirit, I've decided to try to train for and complete a marathon. I'm thinking of the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC in October. My thoughts are that since the race is about six months off, I'll have enough time to get ready. I'll need it. Right now I run three miles about three times a week. I do the Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston every year (including this year) and it's a 10k (6.2 miles) but that's about it as far as distance goes. I'll probably follow the Jeff Galloway run/walk method. A friend of mine from high school followed it to run his first marathon.

Anyway, wish me luck. I know this isn't nearly as exciting as most mid-life crises, but hopefully a lot better for me.

A sad note

I mentioned once before that a woman in my church was battling cancer. Well, she died and her funeral was this past Saturday. Very, very sad affair. She was the mother of three girls aged 16, 12 and 8. Prayers for her soul, her husband and the girls would be greatly appreciated.

I'm somewhere in this picture

My wife and I did the Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston today. Very slow, but we had a great time. Of course, any good the exercise from the run did me was outweighed by the huge amount of food I've eaten this weekend.

The Role of the Pope

There is a good article here on the role of the Pope. I think the best part of the article is here:

What more could we expect from the bishop of Rome than that, like Peter, he
strengthen the whole church’s faith in Christ’s resurrection? How could he
better serve the unity of an Easter people than by proclaiming insistently the
event that brought the church into being: the resurrection of the crucified
Jesus? The pope must also lead the church with the loving authority of a chief
pastor and be a model for all worshipers in celebrating the sacraments. But his
great task for all the world is to announce that Christ is risen. Nothing can or
should ever count against the power and joyfulness of that unique message.

Who else can proclaim this most important message to the world? Sometimes the world needs to hear someone speak for all of Christianity. No one can do that besides the Pope. The world today needs to hear from the successor of Peter and we Protestants should be grateful to Catholicism for providing this voice.

Four Catholic Teachings that just kinda made sense to me

Jennifer has a great blog that I enjoy reading called Et Tu. I highly recommend you check it out sometime. One of her many wonderful posts was one entitled Five Catholic Teachings that just kinda made sense to me. Under the theory that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I give you my own list of four things that kinda make sense to me about Catholicism and are missing from my Protestant upbringing.

Purgatory I've never been particularly comfortable with the notion that when we die we either immediately go into eternal bliss or are damned forever. I know, for example, that there are a lot of things about me that will need purifying when my life is over. I can be self-centered, mean, selfish, and a lot of other unpleasant things I'll spare you. If heaven is a place of perfect peace and beauty, I'll need to clean up a bit before I come in. On the other hand, hell (which I unfortunately believe is real) seems like a pretty severe punishment that a gracious God would reserve for only the worst, most unrepentant sinners.

The Communion of the Saints I know Protestants believe in some form of the Communion of the Saints, but I like the Catholic understanding (at least as I understand it) much better. Why is it OK to ask the lady sitting on the pew behind me to pray for me, but not OK to ask those who are closest to God in heaven? Why would those in the presence of God stop caring about us still here on earth? And the teaching of the lives of the Saints gives us good role models to follow in our own lives. I'm constantly amazed at some of the backgrounds the Saints came from. If some of them can turn their lives around, hopefully I can too.

Confession Of course, I'm not Catholic (yet) so I've never been to Confession, but I like the idea. I do many sinful things in my life. I ask God in prayer to forgive me, and maybe that's enough. But I think I'd do better (and be less likely to repeat the same sins) if I had to tell a Priest what I had done. Hopefully he would give me advice to avoid such actions in the future. I like the idea of being accountable to the larger community. I know the Priest acts as Christ in forgiving our sins, but I'd also like to believe he represents the entire Church as well. Am I too far off in this belief?

The Eucharist The Catholic understanding of the centrality of the Eucharist to worship and Transubstantiation is what is attracting me the most about Catholicism. I talked a little bit about that previously here, here, and here. The short version is that the only place I'm going to get this regularly is in the Catholic Church. (I know the Orthodox might be possibility for some people, but I live in a small town in rural South Carolina. I'm a long way from any Orthodox Church.) I believe the Catholic Church is right when it proclaims the bread and wine are made into the Body and Blood of Christ. Hopefully, one day, I will be able to receive these.

Anyway, just a few thoughts. I realize that the test of good doctrine is not whether it agrees with me and there are some things about Catholicism that challenge me also. But that's probably good for me too.

More proof I'm old

As I may have mentioned earlier, I'm fairly new to this whole blogging thing. And there has been a learning curve for me. For example, it was only a few weeks ago that finally figured out how to post videos from YouTube on here. And as you can see, the layout is a little on the plain side.

Well, this weekend, after several weeks of begging, I agreed to let my 11 year old set up a blog. (Side note to my wife or any other panic stricken relatives of mine: She has to show me what she posts in advance and she doesn't use the computer without her mother or I present. And we check her e-mail.) Anyway, within an hour of setting it up, she had figured out how to post videos, she had a poll, and it was generally much more visually interesting than mine. Of course, her blog is mostly about pokemon and other video games, so we're not exactly appealing to the same demographic. Anyway, it made me feel old to find that she surpassed me in techno savvy in just a couple of hours. This must be what my parents felt like when they discovered my brother and I could program the VCR and they couldn't.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to Everyone!!

I was right, my mood did improve a lot today. The service at church was wonderful. We had lunch at my wife's parents and the food was fantastic. The kids behaved and I even got a nap when we got home.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. My thoughts and prayers are especially with those joining the Church this weekend. Congratulations and may God bless you.

He is Risen!