Blog Report: The Personal, The Political, and The Religious

Ahh, the joys of moving back in with the parents. Version 2.0 is never the same as 1.0, and the spawn, now used to coming and going without outside influence, must adjust to the different expectations of the parents. Blogger Dave Smith, over at iamdave, has an interesting first-hand take on the experience.

Moving back home can have its benefits but not without certain costs. Parents ought to treat their offspring like adults who are a part of the equation, and offspring should make their intentions and requests up front and clear.

In the position of moving back home myself-and having full expectations of the (n) day/week detour my life would invariably take-I donned the pads and braced for the worst. It turns out that the popular agenda among family psychologists (which I am not, but you’re getting my opinion anyway) and career advisors (which I do for fun) is that moving back home is ‘healthy’, ‘encouraging’ and ‘financially sound’ in a hyper-competitive, high-turnover job market.

That’s perfectly fine, but here’s a perspective from the other side of that coin:

The Spark’s own Sylvie Galloway is a mommy blogger par excellence, but that doesn’t mean she’s not versatile. In a recent post over at her blog, Sylvie is a Blogger she takes on the circus that is national politics, and does it quite well.

I try to stay away from the fray that is national politics, honestly I do, but it is like watching an episode of Springer. You know its a train wreck, you know people are acting like fools on national TV, and you are just waiting for someone to throw a punch, or a chair. Sometimes I believe that following national politics is better then any quasi-reality TV ever conceived. No one can make that stuff up.

Why is it so entertaining? Because common sense, taking care to be up front and honest, and respectful dialogue has flown right out of the window. We have republicans refusing to vote for something democrats propose, without bothering to read the proposal to see if it has any merit. We have democrats calling republicans names,and not even trying to work with republicans, we have both trying to second guess the voters, so they can get another term. In fact election campaigns start earlier and earlier every season. And no one is addressing the problems we face.

Next up, I’d like to do something a little bit different for blog report. Anybody who bothers to take a look at the local blogosphere can tell you that Spartanburg is absolutely saturated with Christian-oriented blogs. We typically don’t cover them on blog report for a variety of different reasons, but every now and then there’s one that stands out, one that really displays a certain mentality that, while somewhat disturbing to those of us who aren’t religious, speaks volumes about religious fundamentalism in our little corner of the country.

This recent post by blogger Sharon over at A Scrapbook of Me, fits this bill nicely. It’s a review of the book, If God is Good by Randy Alcorn. It’s a pity I can only give you a short excerpt of the post, because the whole thing is definitely worth reading.

I highly recommend this book to anyone. I don’t remember a time in my life that I wasn’t a believer in Jesus Christ, Son of God, virgin born and resurrected after death. I was raised in a Christian family and going to church. In high school I began to have questions and didn’t live like a Christian but I re-dedicated my life at 17 and haven’t looked back since. I’m still a sinner but a sinner saved by grace and the Holy Spirit dwells in me to help me to grow spiritually.

Unbelievers like to act so superior to true Christians. They trot out all these philosophical questions that are suppose to put us in our place. AS if they think so much more deeply and we are just in denial. I can assure these smug unbelievers that most, if not all, true Christians have asked themselves these same questions. Guess what! There are answers. Maybe not the answers we like or understand but there are answers.

Shifting gears, but still vaguely keeping with that religious theme, we have post from Pastor Dave Nichols from his Dave’s Methodist Blog. Paster Dave’s latest post is called “The Funeral That Went Bad,” and it’s…well…we’ll just say an interesting take on that most solemn of times, the family funeral. I highly recommend reading the entire post.

We did the service and I stood there to make sure she was buried without incident. Then I went over to the Funeral Director who was a Methodist. I said: “Don’t you know that the United Methodist church does not allow an open casket during worship.” He said that he didn’t know it. I told him that if he ever did anything like that to me, I would get him. (I don’t know what I meant here)

Turns out the family had shopped around until they found a Funeral Director who would promise them an open casket. Also, I wasn’t letting the family show off in church in front of the casket knowing that the children barely spoke to their mother.

That’s it for this week’s blog report. If you know of one we missed, be sure to let us know in the comments, and as always, be sure to visit Sparkle City Blogs to get your local blog fix.