Work finally slowed a little. There are a lot of open support tickets I’ve been wanting to get Scott to close out though.
Right after Amanda got home from work we went to Wal-Mart to get a few things for the party. Amanda wanted to get some wire hangers for the s’mores, but we could only find some real heavy duty ones. Whatever happened to good old, cheap wire hangers?
After that we went over to McAllister’s for small group. Justin was out of town and Lisa didn’t come, though she said she wanted to the other day, but other than that everyone else was there, which was really nice. We pulled a couple tables together and ate outside and had, I thought, a really good discussion.
There was something that happened though, that hasn’t happened in a long time, and that was that some discussion got uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s happened since Paul was in our group and he and Rob would, at times, quietly butt heads a little.
We were discussing a quote from Lloyd Ogilvie that included this quote: "His holiness and justice unsettle our easy ethics and challenge our fluctuating values. At times, we’d all like a lesser and looser god." Now, to set it up a little, earlier we had discussed a little about worrying about people getting into Heaven and going to Hell. Amanda was saying something about that and Kaitlyn said that she (prefacing it "no offense" or something) thought it it as judgmental. Fast forward to the matter at hand and a few people were talking about seeing or reading The Golden Compass what with it supposedly being anti-Christian. Some people were saying that the movie itself, while not being Christian, didn’t come off directly as anti-Christian. Amanda was in the process of saying she wasn’t going to watch it and before she could explain that she had looked into it and found that the author, Philip Pullman, was himself very anti-Christian and she didn’t want him to have any of her money, Kaitlyn said something about hypocrisy and "letting your husband buy that video game." (She was referring to Grand Theft Auto IV.)
Amanda took offense to that and I jumped in to help defend her offense when Kaitlyn tried to say she wasn’t meaning to single us out. When I talked to Mike later he also said she didn’t mean to make a pointed statement at us like that and in an e-mail I just got she said it again. The fact of the matter though is that she said "you" and "your" and not in a general sense, and this was after insinuating Amanda’s judgmentality when Amanda was talking about praying for non-believers and not wanting to think of them going to Hell.
Do I think Kaitlyn meant to offend us? No, of course not. She and Mike are good friends of ours and we love them dearly. Amanda was going to talk to Kaitlyn after the meeting but from the time of the mini-outburst until she left she was a bit avoidant, which was a bit difficult since she was right next to Amanda. Anyway, I talked to Mike at the end and told him I didn’t want any awkwardness or hard feelings. I know Amanda feels the same way so I’m sure it will all be water under the bridge.
Kyle was sitting across from Amanda and Kaitlyn when she said what she did, and when Amanda was recounting the whole thing on the way home she said Kyle’s eyes got huge. I wish I’d noticed that. Half the group didn’t even realize anything was going on. I think Lorin said she missed the whole thing and she was sitting right next to Kyle.
Anyhoo.
We got home and watched last week’s Reaper. Sam convinced his girlfriend Andy that he honestly was a bounty hunter for the Devil and the Devil took Sam up on a favor he owed.
Then Andra called and I talked to her for a bit. Nothing new or anything, she just called to chat. Josh was trying to get Jackson into bed and Andra asked if he wanted to tell Uncle Zach good night. He said no, the booger. I’ll chalk it up to him being obstinate about going to bed.
Speaking of chatting, I need to call my grandparents. I haven’t talked to them in probably a month. It was before Amanda’s ovarian cyst ordeal, so yeah, it’s been at least that long. I’ve been meaning to call John Quinn, too. I haven’t talked to him since we were last in Kentucky, and I want to make sure he knows I’m praying for him all the time with his brain tumor and all.
Oh, I talked to Adam today, too, to tell him about the Old 97’s coming to Raleigh. He was getting Rock Band and Guitar Hero III for his Xbox 360 today from a guy off of Craigslist for $180. Terrific deal.
So after I got off the phone with Andra we watched American Idol. Jason Castro got the boot, as we figured he would, and having figured he would Amanda wasn’t too upset. Now we’re hoping David Cook goes home next week, because if he finishes in the top two he’ll be locked into an American Idol record deal, and they don’t seem to know how to make anything that he would be good at. And since we don’t much care for David Archuleta (sorry, I’m sure you’re a great kid) I’m hoping Sayesha wins. That would be a good out-of-nowhere win.
Amanda wondered about Jason Castro’s religious affiliation as he showed some signs of being a good Christian boy, so she looked that up and got sidetracked into all kinds of other American Idol discussions she found online. Finally at 10:30 I told her she needed to be getting to bed as she hadn’t washed up or gotten her clothes together for tomorrow yet.
Zach Dotsey