Saturday, May 3, 2014

Weekend Excitement

The blog took a night off last night as my daughter and I went to the Bengie's Drive-in.  We saw a couple of movies we both wanted to see, MUPPETS MOST WANTED and CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER.  Both were pretty good, and I'll provide a review another time.

Today was Free Comic Book Day, which takes place annually on the first Saturday in May.  Many comics publishers create special comics just for the day, and comic book stores provide them free to those who shop at their stores.  I started participating about 5 years ago with my daughter, Melody, who is a voracious reader and is constantly reading books, and loves comic books, too.  We went to Big Planet Comics in College Park, across from the University of Maryland.  The writer (Grace Ellis) and artist (Brooke Allen) for the comic "Lumberjanes", about a bunch of girls at a summer camp and monsters, were on hand to autograph the book and meet comics readers.  Melody was a little shy, but we talked to them and they were very kind enough to sign her books.  They were really nice and made Melody feel important, which made me happy.  We stopped for lunch around the corner at the original Ledo's Restaurant, which was deeeeee-licious!  Still number one on my list of best pizzas.

Next was Melody's school's annual carnival, and we had a good time there.  My parents joined us, and Melody had a blast playing games and meeting up with some of her friends.  Ms. P, one of Melody's favorite teachers (and mine!) was there, too, among others, and it was nice to chat with her.  She's about half my age, but, wow, if she was older...  I believe she got married last year, but Melody didn't think so.  We never did see her finger to be able to confirm it, and I didn't want to ask.  She's an awesome young lady, and a very good teacher.  Melody got a lot of nice prizes from the games she played, and after a few hours of fun, we said goodbye to Grammy and Pap and we headed home.

After a short break, we went to our church, Grace Community, for the Saturday evening service.  Pastor Mitchel gave us a great message, and it had me thinking about how it impacts me.  He gave us a great quote (and I can't recall who he got it from), but it was, "Social media is the junk food of the soul," which refers to the empty satisfaction things like Facebook provides to people with little interaction with other people "in person", instead of virtually, and he discussed the importance of community, referring to Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 - "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor:  If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.  But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.  Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.  But how can one keep warm alone?  Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."  This has been one of my favorite passages ever since my wife, Teresa, and I performed a sketch on Easter Sunday that included these verses.  Mitchel shared the story of a guy who, upon getting excited about having a couple of hundred "friends" on Facebook, he invited them all to meet him at an area bar for a little get-together, and no one showed up!  Anyway, Mitchel's parting suggestion to develop relationships and be present, play together, serve together, and pray together is great advice.

So now it's off to bed!  Have a great evening, everyone!


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