101 Reasons to be Whiskeypalian

Lessons and Carols were GREAT!!! It was wonderful to get to see son and daughter and daughter-in-law and her family. It's been a year since we saw all the in-laws. We just didn't have enough time there. On top of that, our flight back home Sucked Big Time. Daughter was flying out of BNA to Lacrosse, WI two hours before we were flying to ACT thru DFW so we got up at 4:30 (AM) to drive back to BNA. Daughter was booked on Northwest and her flight was delayed for two hours. She finally left about the same time we did. I really miss the two hours extra sleep I could have gotten. On top of that, we flew American and had a serious headwind returning. Then commo went down at DFW's Tower so with minimal fuel we had to land in OK City to "gas up". That delayed us long enough to miss our connection and instead of arriving at 2:20 we hit town at 5:00 pm and missed a party we were looking forward to. Serious "Bummer!" Good news is that we were able to pickup the pups from the kennel before it closed. We really LOVE our dogs.

Was a heavy fog on The Mountain the entire time we were there, so we didn't get to enjoy the beauty of Sewanee; but did run to the Bookstore and found a couple of interesting books. One The Case for Christmas by Lee Strobel (more about it next post) and another called 101 Reasons to be Episcopalian compiled by Louie Crew. Really enjoyed reading the reasons but while they were sometimes outstanding; I was most impressed with the Forward and Introduction.

I offer the following thoughts, ascribed to Phyllis Tickle who wrote the Forward:

1. We are "self-deprecating"
2. We are persuaded by faith and not dogma.
3. We are "disturbed by beauty and made absurd by the passion of an holy aesthetic." And seek to attract those akin to us.
4. We are a bit contrary in our faithfulness.

And from Louie Crew, who compiled the reasons and wrote the Introduction:

1. We see our job as to welcome and befriend others, while we rely on the Holy Spirit to persuade.
2. We are ecstatic about our faith.
3. We are a thinking lot and when two of us are gathered, you will find at least two opinions and possibly (I would say probably) more.
4. We value our right to disagree, yet we all feed at the same table (and welcome each other to join us).
5. Many of us are here because it is safe to doubt and we can feel God's love even before we learn to love Him.
6. We don't dwell on our sins continually; having an Altar we can leave our sins there weekly (and weakly).
7. We believe God has a sense of humor and try not to take ourselves too seriously. If you don't believe that, just listen to the Whiskeypalian jokes that abound.
8. And finally, we're not proud of ourselves, but of God and His "Good News".

With that, I'll commend you to Mr. Crew's website: http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/365plus.html

Read what we have to say about ourselves and see what you think.