The Gospel According to Target

Don't worry!  This is not one of those urban legends suggesting that people stop buying from Target because the powers that be of that shopping giant are doing something awful, evil or ungodly.  Why I chose this title will be clear shortly.  A couple more questions about FACEBOOK first , though.  No one has still explained what it means to "poke" someone.  So I poked my sister Polly, because there was a note on the right side of the screen saying she had poked me.  Maybe, we can both figure it out.  I am also amazed by the number of friends that people have.  I am quite delighted that I have 172.  But I checked two of my friends at random and discovered that one had 787 and one had 725.  Both these friends are only a year or three out of college.  Tell me, do college students invite the entire football team to be friends?  Or the entire junior class?

To present the major reason for today's blogging, I need to explain that we have been attending CrossRoads Community Church for two and a half years and really love it.  Back in the winter of 2007, Linda was looking for a church where she felt comfortable.  A lifelong Catholic, she felt that that church simply wasn't providing what she felt she needed in a place to worship.  Because I wanted to make her happy, I went searching with her.  I have always considered myself a spiritual person.  I have never faltered in my belief in God; in fact, it would be about impossible for me not to believe.  But I have never been religious.  I attended the Congregational Church as a kid, but never got much from the attendance.  So we met with Pastor Mick Keville, whom we had known for nearly 40 years, and began going to church at CrossRoads.  Like I said earlier, we loved it and felt fulfillment from attending.

Then came what Linda said was our official sign from God.  Only a couple months after we started at CrossRoads, I was stricken with congestive heart failure and found out that a virus had attacked my heart causing cardiomyopathy, an enlargement of the heart.  The heart failure was a result of that.  Through my ten days in the hospital and the convalescence that followed, I was the beneficiary of wonderful prayer.  Prayer from CrossRoads, the Presbyterian Church, the Congregation Church in Webster, and who knows where else.  And I improved at a pretty dramatic rate.  I had a great doctor, lots of medicine, a wonderful wife watching me like a hawk, great friends and family helping out, but I truly, truly believe that the power of prayer was instrumental in my recovery.

Now, last weekend, Linda's sister and mother came to visit us.  We had an absolutely fabulous time.  When Sunday rolled around, Linda went with her mom and sister to St. Pat's.  I wanted to go to CrossRoads, but Linda's mom doesn't know that Linda and I attend there.  So that I could go to church, we hatched a little plot. If when they returned from St. Patrick's, Linda's mother asked where I was, she would be told I was at Target.

This is the sad irony of organized religion in miniature.  We would love to tell Linda's mom how happy we are at CrossRoads.  What a wonderful thing it would be to share, but we can't because of what is too often the nature of religion.  Sadly, Linda's mom might be hurt or angered or frightened, we don't know for sure, if she knew Linda was going to a church other than a Roman Catholic one.  The reason is the too often professed doctrine of "my church is right and yours is wrong and that's all there is to it."  

  When I was a kid my catholic friends told me I was going to hell for being a protestant, but we all know it isn't just catholics who once made or still make this horrifying claim. Also, we all realize that religious differences are the source of so many problems in our world.  What is most troubling to me is that we don't seem to have made much progress addressing this sad state of things over the centuries. There's nothing new in what I have written tonight, but I wanted to share it as the Gospel According to Target.