Gay Marriage and the Like

Queue has calmly and logically stated her opinion on the church and gay marriage, and I find it remarkably parallel to my own. I'd always thought about putting a long and emotional post here about the subject, but I like her style of bullet points much better.

This is part of a larger beef of mine, that all moral and environmental issues have become the property of political parties and no longer reside in the realm of private opinion. Abortion. Global warming. Separation of church and state. Prayer in schools. People argue - persuasively - for their viewpoints, but their viewpoints are always the same. Few Democrats will voice an opinion to overturn Roe V. Wade. An occasional Republican announces how inspired he was by "An Inconvenient Truth." But it's rare, it's incredibly rare.

I know that everyone holds pretty tight to their convictions, and firmly believes that they arrived at these choices through their own decisions. But the fact remains that pretty much everyone in America falls into one of two groups on all of these issues.

If we all really arrived at our own moral conclusions, there's no way that would be possible.

What Does It Mean to Fall out of Love?

I have an agenda on this question, I'll admit, just not an emotional one. I've been talking to some friends of mine who are on completely different pages with this question, and I realized that the answer to this question may not be the same for different people. Or there may be a right answer, but I just don't know it. And I'd like to, I'd really like to.

What does it mean to fall out of love with someone?

Seriously, what does that entail? Is it easy to do, or impossible? Is love just an emotion? Is it just a decision? Is it more than just feeling something until you commit to it forever?

What's the difference between loving your best friend and loving your wife? What's the difference between falling out of love with your wife and falling out of love with your girlfriend? And what's the difference between falling out of love with your girlfriend and falling out of love with Wendy's new Chicken Sandwich? Are these differences night-and-day or shades of gray? How many of these can you fall out of love with?

And can you fall out of love with God?

They Found Laura!

Here's a post to the story on FindLaura.Org. Not much is known too much yet other than she was living and working in Florida, which I guess makes some sense since the Mackenzie's have family down there.

One way or another, she's found! I'm thrilled about this since it's been weighing on my heart the last few months, as the Mackenzie's have been going through so much with Laura missing for... exactly 5 months, and their son Lloyd sent to Iraq two weeks after the fact.

I know it sounds silly to say this now, but I've always felt that she was alive, though there wasn't much proof or hope in that fact. I just always thought she was out there somewhere, hiding, and that eventually she'd be found. I don't know if it was any more than this damn unsinkable human buoyancy that we all posess, even the more pessimistic of us.

There's something in us that believes that there can always be a happy ending, that the white knight really will slay the dragon. And I'm glad it's not just Pollyannaism. I'm glad that sometimes our faith is justified, that our prayers and dreams meant something. It's what makes a sanguine life worth living.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Mackenzie family. I'm glad she's coming home.