YO Yo Ma

I can't believe we're already into June, time is flying by and life is growing like a canteloupe in Montana (not making sense is fun). Last night I went for a walk on the Rosy Mound trail, played some ultimate frisbee, and watched the film Finding Neverland, it was a great night. And before that I had such a great conversation with someone at work about that whole God, Christianity, heaven/hell stuff. She believes in God, but her experience in church has been less than fruitful, to say it kindly. She went to a church a couple of weeks ago, by the invite of a friend, and said the "sermon" left her frustrated and hurt. She said the "sermon" was about how Christians need to "disown homosexuals because of the filth of the sin and because they are heading for a eternity in hell." I continue to have problems finding that particular scripture, but it must be there with all the frickin churches that preach it. Anyways, this girl is frustrated by the "lack of love, acceptence, and tolerance," she has experienced in the church, from her childhood through the present, the message she has heard has been the same. It still blows me away at how often this message is still given, and how embarrassed I feel to be a Christian at those times. But I save the good news for last, this girl has a friend who has been attending the Watermark gatherings and she mentioned to her that I gave a message about, "McDonalds and Jesus," this past Sunday. She asked me to explain what in the world I talked about, thank God I was able to explain it soo much better than I did on Sunday. She was amused at the analogy, but said it made a lot of sense to her. This sent us into great discussion about all kinds of stuff, and her thoughts on heaven and hell, which I enjoyed. She couldn't imagine what heaven is like, but was pretty sure that hell isn't much different, if not the same as earth is now. She said that because of how mean and unaccepting people are and the amount of selfishness she has seen. I was so thankful though, that she is still so open with everything and she would love to come and experience the community that is Watermark. I apologized for what she has seen to this point, but that she is in a great place to believe that God is real and, most importantly, that she desires to seek truth. I am still amazed at the opportunity I had with the conversation and that we didn't miss a beat of work during the whole dang thing. Interesting, working at Panera Bread and talking about "the bread of life," coincidence... yes it is because that is the dumbest crappin joke I have ever attempted. Thank God for working in spite of us and that He still chooses to use us.

Wallace D.