The Scoop

Ok, here's the deal about last week. I started the week off well with a good blog on Monday. Tuesday I was at school, so no big deal. Wednesday, I came in, did my research, and sat down to compose one of the best blog posts I had ever done. Great fun, great commentary, I laughed, I cried....*sigh*...it was beautiful. However, I was foiled by my own impatience once again. I clicked to proofread my paper and the spellchecker got IDed as a pop-up. I told the computer to allow it and a window came up with a warning that I quickly got rid of by clicking "yes". Well, the window stated basically that if I navigated away from the page, I would lose anything not already saved. Since I hadn't saved anything up to that point, I lost it all. Oops. It's gone. Not like floating-around-somewhere-in-cyberspace gone, but never-existed-to-begin-with gone! Except for the memmory in my head, there was no post on Wednesday. So I'm back now. Just consider yourself encouraged and enlightened by the fact that you would have been on Wednesday if I would have read just a little closer. Go ahead. There, doesn't that feel good?

Proverbs 29:5 says, "Whoever flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his feet". This verse may not seem to click with most at first, but think about it with me for a minute and we might find ourselves swallowing somewhat hard afterwards. I think people like to recieve complements. Sure, they may turn red and even tell you they don't like to recieve them, but somewhere deep down, it makes us feel good. This can be abused. Consider any teenage TV show from the past 30 years, where the smart but socially defunct student would do anything to be noticed, recognized, or included with the "in crowd" of the school's hierarchy. The "in crowd" ring leader realizes this and drops a few nice sounding words in the direction of the wannabe. this goes on for sometime and even leads to the inclusion of the student, but at a price. He or she is required to do something, usually cheat on homework, to continue the relationship. When the deed is done, when the "in crowd" has what they want, the services of the wannabe are no longer needed and he/she is dismissed. The point I'm getting at here is that flattery builds one up only to be mercilessly let down. If you and I are guilty of this, we are taking on a selfish attitude with a complete disregard for the other person. We basically (like the verse says) "spread a net", set a trap, "for their feet". Shame on us if we use another person to advance our purposes.

Wednesday: Pure Passion w/ Ryan Dobson in Bloomington. We LEAVE at 5 pm (so be here before then) FREE event, just bring money for fast food. We'll be back 9:30-ish. This is in place of Big Deal this week.

Later.