Do we all feel somewhat better? The Dow is up nearly 1,000 points. We still have a couple of thousand to go, before we breathe a real sigh of relief, but we have at least a temporary break in the trend.

Those who read this blog have seen comments by Linda. She is my niece and her husband Bob has had a recent hospital stay because of a gall bladder surgery. At the time Doctors discovered a spot on his pancreas. Further testing has revealed a mass, but the nature of it is still un-determined. Please pray for Bob and Linda.

My sister is still recovering from her heart attack and stint. In addition, her heart beat is only about 40 beats per minute. Sounds like the problem may run in our family. Please pray for her also.

Vicki, I trust that preparations are running smoothly for the Saturday extravaganza we call a wedding.

Yesterday my sermon concerned "Thou shalt not murder". I thought about asking for a show of hands and if no one was guilty then I could sit down, but I was concerned that someone would question my being paid for such a presentation, although I'm sure some would have recommended a raise.

However, if you spend time defining murder as distinguished from accidental death as discussed in Num.35, it does take a few minutes. Then when you sort through capital punishment, military action that leads to death, abortion , euthanasia and other such issues you can wind up with a rather lengthy sermon. I think I may have had one person upset with me. My guess is he thought it was too political, since his conclusions on the above issues would probably be different from mine. He and I have privately discussed the issues before. Oh well, whatcha gonna do? I feel a little like Jeremiah some time. Its a bit shameful to even compare myself with Jeremiah, when most of the people seemed pleased with the presentation and only one had a problem.

Eight years from now I could easily feel more like Jeremiah. Homosexuality will be briefly discussed as we explore marriage in the next week or so. If reading Rom1:26-28 can be declared hate language which many would like, then I suppose I would have to either identify with Jeremiah or discover a new hermeneutic. If Jeremiah could have lived in the modern era and had access to some of our great Ivy league theologians he would have found that it would have been unnecessary to take many of the stands that he took.