I keep having these thoughts that would make good blog ideas while on my walk but forgetting them by the time that I can actually blog. They all tend to be what I would call "interesting dichotomies" or why the church thinks differently about things. I do remember one, though.
I was listening to about four talk shows last night on my drive back from Dubuque seeing a great drum and bugle corps competition. Hannity and Colmes, Alan Colmes, George Schultz, and the O'Reilly factor. I'd listen for a while until they frustrated me and then I'd switch to the other side and listen for a while. While there were points that I agreed with all of them, there were also times when it was abundantly clear that they violated the values of Love God and Love neighbor that I treasure.
One of the more interesting conversations happened on the Alan Colmes show. There's an Arabic speaking school being opened in Queens and people are opposed to it. When I was listening to it, they got the typical redneck idiots who think that the language is the problem, not
radicals that want to kill us that happen to speak the language. One person just made me angry because he said something along the lines of, "I'll ask you a question: they will read from the Koran", which makes me mad because it's not a question.
What really made me mad, however, was that no one was listening to anyone else. Everyone else was so steeped in their own position that the basics of respect, hearing the concerns of others and addressing those concerns, was totally lost. I just kept thinking that it's a good thing that church doesn't operate like this. We aren't always going to change for you but we allow for dissent and at least try to listen to what people say.
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