For those who asked, my swell new Kindle is the Kindle 2. It is the in between model. The newest and swellest version, the Kindle DX, will be available later this week from Amazon and will be bigger than the one I chose. It is also $125 more. My rationale for the Kindle 2, aside from the additional expense, is that the beauty of a reading device is in its transportability. The biggest version begins to resemble a laptop in size and who wants to drag something like that around? I had a startling experience at the hardware store today. A customer who I did not recognize, walked by me and said, "It's a lovely day in Hooterville." That set me back a bit, since only my friends and family know about my blog. Maybe a coincidence? A minute later he stopped next to me and said, "Merle Wayne Sneed, I presume?" Turns out that he is a guy my niece has been dating for sometime and those wacky youngsters thought it would be a hoot to mess with old Merle. Good one. Can we talk about God for a moment? I'll begin with a story. Many, and I do mean many, years ago, Mrs. Sneed and I were in a group discussion of some sort and I offered the observation that "church" was primarily a social activity. This caused a guy named Mike to go into a state of complete meltdown. Mike was a nth generation, back East hardcore Catholic, for whom the Church was sacred in some vague sort of way. I'm betting he couldn't articulate what he thought the Church was, but it damn sure wasn't a social activity and he told me that in no uncertain terms. Fast forward to yesterday. I'm listening to an interview with a guy who is espousing the position that the Church is largely a social activity that brings people together and fulfills our basic need to be connected to other people. He talked about secular Jews and secular Christians who don't for a minute believe all the mumbo jumbo you hear in a most mainline congregations. They just enjoy the company of other people in that setting. As he said, it is important for people to care for others and be cared for by others. Plus people coming together can do a lot of good in the community. Of course the problem is that every church has rules that no one follows well enough to suit everyone else, so there's lots of drama going on. Plus you really have to suspend disbelief to buy into the mythology. So here's my thoughts. What if there were churches with no dogma, no guilt, no afterlife stuff, no higher authority and no God? Just a place where you could meet others of a like mind, learn something that is actually useful in real life, plus have a nice time? Bars don't count. Current skeptics and secular groups tend to exist to beat up on the concept of God and the various superstitions that accompany organized religion. Believe me, sitting through that discussion is as tedious as the worst of sermons, by the dullest of ministers. So, this might be a retirement gig. Pastor Merle Wayne Sneed, Church of the Here and Now. Our creed could be, "We could always do better, but we're doing okay." Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky