In Defense of Abby and other good postings

I noticed two recent blog posts (listed on my blog scroll to the right)that were highly poignant to me, and ones that made me want to write about them. The first one I just noticed today, and the second has troubled me for the last few days. The first one is from a minister out of the Washington D.C. area, who writes under the blog title, A Church for Starving Artists. She writes on June 16 about what Christians value, that which plays out in the what they worship. The picture she uses is from a church advertisement shown in the June 21 issue of Newsweek. It shows a "perfect" affluent white family, a large suburban home, a nest egg piggy bank, stained glass depicting the two saints (I'm thinking Paul and Peter), a classic white church with pillars, and a leather bound bible. I'm thinking, does this portrayal really depict the gospel? The author of this blog writes,
"I've been thinking, too, about idolatry and the things we worship that are not God. Many of us worship the Bible. We worship our families (hence The Family Life Center.) We worship our churches. (Lots of people who self-identify as devout Christians worship the Bible and their churches.)....We also worship other stuff. At least I do. Idolatry is maybe the toughest commandment, even though we act like it's adultery." This makes me ponder what I do in terms of idolatry, what I worship that is not of God. Let's start with pride....Sidebar along these lines...I saw a display banner on the road for a church. The banner had a huge apple on it with one word in all caps, DECEIVED. Hmmm! That's a whole another topic for later, and I'm guessing the woman is blamed for the root of this deception. I found this funny at the time I saw it with the judgmental notion that crossed my mind, "oh how, theologically immature." Later, I wondered the value of my judgment.

Now to Abby...
I've been following this girl's story since her boat became severally damaged because of bad storms, leaving her boat, Wild Eyes, unsailable and her stranded at sea. I deeply admire this young girl. I remember how intrigued I was as a kid, when I saw the National Geographic story (and later reading the book)of Robin Graham and his boat, The Dove. Graham sailed around the world at age 16 too. What I wonder about is the huge backlash of criticism about this girl, and about her parents. One of the criticisms was about the cost of her rescue and who was to pay? What? Okay this makes me insane? Does saving someone's life cost too much? And the alternative would be to let her perish in the waters of the Indian Ocean! Well, some argue, she should not be out there in the first place. I'll continue this part of the discussion for another day. Look at the sidebar that links to Abby's blog for her answer to the critics. Tomorrow, I'll continue this discussion...