In Name Only

The year Jennifer and I were married we were supposed to go thru a marriage preparation program that the Catholic Church was requiring to be completed to get married in the church. I believe the intent of the program was to ensure couples were compatible and to try and cut down on the number of failed marriages.

We went to one several hour long class at St John's Church in Butte with other couples who were planning to be married in the coming months and then we we were supposed to meet individually with our priest over several weeks to complete the other parts of the program. If I remember correctly, we had to take some kind of profile test (something similar to a Beckman profile) anyway we were blessed with a Priest (Father Burns) that was a good judge of relationships. We met with him one time. Based on the results of our profiles and the short interview we had with him, he stated we were well suited to be together and he made a exception for us and we were excused from having to attend the remainder of the program. I was always thankful for that. I was not pleased about attending this.

Like I have mentioned numerous times, Jennifer and I were very like minded on many things. We thankfully both shared the same political beliefs and values and we would bitch and moan with each other about the sad state of our political system in this country.

I remember when we moved to Louisiana and were voting in our first gubernatorial election. Our choices were David Duke (Former Grand wizard of the KKK) and Edwin Edward's a known thief and scoundrel. We bitched that these were the two choices that the two parties could come up with. Well little did we know that did not hold a candle to what the hell is going on in our country now.

Just to be 100% clear I never have and never will support Donald Trump nor did Jennifer. I realize that some folks that follow this blog are Trump supporters. That is your right, and nothing I am going to write or say is going to change your mind and conversely nothing you are going to say about Trump is going to change mine. All I will say is that the only difference between Donald Trump and Jim Jones is that Trump would charge you for the Kool-Aid. So if you are a Trump supporter we best not discuss politics at all and just agree to disagree.

In my opinion we have way to many "In Name Only" in our society today. (Yes, I know this is a term/phrase that the Orange Jesus made popular). Be it Rino's (Republican in name only), Dino's (Democrat in name only) Cino's (Christian in name only) etc, etc..

Last week at Rotary we had a speaker that came to our meeting she was from a local Christian school. Now this is a very small school, but she said some things that really bothered me. One was about parents that wanted to send their kid to their school because the kid had gotten kicked out of public school because of issues. She stated they were not a reform school and would not accept students with behavioral issues. Now I partially understand what she was saying, but I also thought that was a very Un-Christian position. So the way I took that (and maybe I am wrong) is that they will only follow the teaching of Christ when it is convenient to them or fits their agenda. That is not the Christ I learned about. That bothers me.

During our work career's we worked with folks that professed or acted like they were "holier than thou", they would wear the WWJD bracelets and they would have the fish symbols on their cars, but some of those folks were the most unethical and conniving SOB's you would ever meet.

We also worked with some folks that were very involved in their churches and did a lot of volunteering to help their fellow man. They did not advertise, boast or put on heirs about their religion. Those were folks that I could respect and aspire to be like.

Well I will get off my political and religious soap box. This has been bothering me for several days and I just needed to get it off my chest. If she was here we would commiserate on stuff like this and we could get vent and move on. In some ways I am jealous that she no longer has to worry about shit like this.