I am a little tired this morning after staying up until after 12am watching the Red Sox make it to the World Series again. Man it was a little nerve racking there for a little bit but then it opened up and I was able to breath again.

Tonight I will be serving the Liturgy of St. James here in the Village. Fr. Greg will be coming over to help out. If you find yourself in this area stop in Liturgy is at 6pm.

I need to stop reading the bogs this early in the morning. Here it is not even 8am and my blood is boiling. First passing out the “pill” to middle schoolers in Maine and now thanks to Huw I hear about a so called Christian prison group that is not allowing a church a participate in a program for kids because, wait for it, they allow gays to come to church. I am so over the top sick and tired of these so called Christian do gooders that only want people they like to participate in their programs. I am sure if my church wanted to participate we would be allowed because we don’t meet their narrow doctrinal views. I am so glad Jesus was not so narrow in who he ministered to or Matthew the tax collector, or the woman caught in adultery might not have been ministered too. We are all sinners and fall short of the mark but you know what we all deserve God’s grace.

We are so concerned with the outward signs in the church and so concerned that people are dressed the right way and that the priest says things the right way or that we should use Greek, Russian, Romanian, Latin or whatever language and we keep hurting people like this. I am so sick of all this crap in the church. We all need to get on our knees and ask no beg forgiveness from God for our narrow minds and cold hearts! I mean it! We have priests molesting kids, bishops covering it up, priests using church funds as if they were their own, and bishops covering it up. And if you one of the righteous Orthodox out there who think I am talking about our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, pull your head out of the sand, or any other place it might be, and look around. It happens here as well.
Although I do not support the homosexual life style I believe in an open church that welcomes all. Let me say that again. A CHURCH THAT WELCOMES ALL! Again we are all sinners! We all need to feel the love of Jesus and seek his mercy. If you are reading this and disagree with me I would rather you just kept surfing by. I guess I am becoming more of an activist in my old age. Maybe I should have more coffee before I post.

Thanks Huw for the story. you can read it here.

This is a follow up to my post earlier this week about the School Committee in Portland, Maine allowing contraception to be passed out in one middle school in the town. Keep in mind this is 11-14 year old girls. In the story the case is made that the three middle schools in Portland have had three pregnancies in the last seven years. So I ask you, WHERE ARE THE PARENTS!

We should be OUTRAGED over this. I would suggest that you write to Mr. Mike McCarthy who is the principal of King Middle School in Portland and express your outrage.

The kicker of the whole thing is that they do not even have to tell their parents! Well why would they? Obviously the parents do not care what their kids are doing. We need to rise up people. Our countrys morals are being hijacked by people who do not want to take any responsibility. I again ask where the parents are? If middle school kids are getting pregnant then there is another problem here. We are talking about girls and boys 11-14. Are we okay with this? I for one am not.

UPDATE: The meeting went very well. There were representatives from police, fire, ems, school, and the DA’s office. We have agreed to meet again to come up with some long and short term goals. In the short term the police will patrol the areas during peak travel times. We also had a state senator and a member of the state house of representatives. They are looking into legislation on cell phone use. The state of Connecticut just banned use of cell phones while driving. I believe New York has the same ban. It is time Massachusetts did the same. More to come on this issue.

Over the past few weeks we have lost three people, mostly young people, to horrific car accidents here in the area. This morning, the Police Chief in one of the communities has invited leaders of Police and Fire as well as clergy and other to what will be a summit meeting of sorts to try and come up with a way to combat this mess. The latest one killed was a 17 yo student killed on her way to school because she was send a text message! Nothing is that important! How can we get the word out that we cannot continue this trend. I am guilty of this as well. I talk on the cell phone, I have sent text messages, I have even looked up a phone number on my PDA all while driving. I guess I am going to stop this now.

It seems that we are getting more and more dangerous behind the wheel and more and more of us are getting killed doing this. I am not sure what is going to come out of all of this and maybe nothing will but we have to try and do something.

Last spring I responded to call of a motor vehicle accident right near the high school. I looked at the time and a I got a shiver as I knew school was getting out. When I arrived on scene they were cutting the roof off the car to remove the passenger. Four EMT’s were working on this kid to try and keep him alive. We sent for the helicopter to take him to the hospital. We cut the roof off the car and got him in the ambulance only to have him die on the way to helicopter. What a tragic waste of life. 18 years old and about ready to graduate from high school. So full of life taken away because of something stupid. We need to talk to our kids. Take away the damn cell phones or disable to text message parts.

Dr. Phil, I know I know, did a show recently on this and the stats are staggering. We need do something I am just not sure what that will be. Pray for us today as we have this meeting that something good will come out of it.