devil

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Don’t Be Surprised

A friend emailed me this morning, distraught that he’d been unfriended on Facebook because of some comments he’d made defending Christianity. I didn’t find his remarks all that offensive—unfriending seems a rather extreme reaction!

Then there was this week’s news that North Korea has banned the import of any products with shapes or logos resembling a cross. It’s not just religious articles or symbols—the ban includes men’s neckties and women’s hair pins!

At first glance, these two events seem to have little in common. A closer look suggests that the same emotion underlies both—fear. Let me explain.

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Greater Than the Boogeyman

pop file error messagePete hasn’t had a break all week. First it was just the distraction of moving back into our house. Then the email router at the ICTA office stopped working. That used up five days and it still isn’t really fixed. On Thursday a construction crew on the street outside the office accidentally hit a gas line, and the entire building had to be evacuated. So much for getting any work done.

That evening our router at home starting having fits and we lost our internet service. Then, while on the phone to the phone company (which also provides our internet service), the home land line died. (You know it’s bad when you can’t call the phone company!) Oh, and did I mention that our poor cell reception is augmented by a “personal cell phone tower” which runs, you guessed it, over the internet. Pete had to leave the house to call the phone company on his cell phone.

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