Mondays are for the agony of defeat and the thrill of baptism ramblings

Amazing, perplexing, gut wrenching, and exhilarating. How was your weekend? So much happening, so many thoughts, here they are in no particular order.

- I added a niece and a nephew last week, one from my sister, one from my brother in law. I doubt that ever happens again, so yeah for family and babies and for getting to work on my mad uncle skills

- In a story that my nephew will hear the rest of his life, Gretchen and I both misunderstood the name of our new nephew. Over the cell phone from his very tired dad we thought we heard the name Mason, it is in fact Nathan. 12 hours later, a bunch of facebook messages later and after a visit from the in laws, we figured out we had it totally wrong. Sorry Nate, Uncle Greg loves you!

- The Terps stage a comeback of legend only to lose on a buzzer beating three pointer. From the first time I saw the brackets I was bummed we ended up with MSU because they were such a tough match up for us, but I have to give my boys some credit, they almost pulled off some magic. I am going to miss this do or die squad led by Vasquez. They were never boring!

- Has there ever been so many buzzer beaters and close games and double digit seeds advancing to the Sweet 16 before? Throw away your brackets and enjoy the madness. I appreciate the fact that there are as many Ivy League schools left as ACC schools. Crazy year.

- You could hear a collective groan go out all over the country last night with the passing of the health care bill. I didn’t know what to think about it other than to feel like it was historic one way or the other and I am glad God is still God and Lord over all.

- I have no idea if this health care will end up being the horrific nightmare it is portrayed to be or the saving grace others want us to believe, but it just feels like a mess. I don’t have much confidence in it for solving the major problems of health care, but I am praying that through the mess those who suffer the injustice of no health care, with no prospects of getting any at least have hope today that the quality of their lives will improve. I am not sure where Jesus would have fallen on the issue, but I pretty sure he would want all people to have medical care, so I am going to pray for a miracle where by this convoluted system can do something besides bankrupt our country. I am always trying to put a positive God spin on things like that.

- As a pastor I have decided I am going to do what I can to limit health care spending by re-instituting belief in healing! That is something we can all do. Let’s beseech our creator with prayers for healing and a demonstration of faith in healing this country has never seen before. Let’s see if we can’t do something about health care issues that by passes insurance altogether.

- Jesus, baby! Sweet Jesus! After 1400 pages and 6 weeks of reading I finally made it to the NT. I have never been so excited to read about Jesus before.

- On a side note Ezra and Nehemiah never get enough pub for being amazing works of scripture. They usually get busted out when someone preaching for a building campaign, but they are amazing. There is a lot for us, who are still living as exiles in many ways, to learn from their efforts in a hostile world.

- We had 16 members join the church yesterday, 2 that were baptized and 2 that confirmed their baptism as infants. What an amazing Sunday. Here are some pictures.