...but it is pretty funny for those who know me. I never thought of using craigslist to find people. Hopefully someone will find the other me.

http://dallas.craigslist.org/mis/614526963.html

This morning I went to Jon's church to hear him preach in person...finally. I had wanted to for a while and in the meantime have been relegated to listening online every now and again. For those of you who don't know Jon, he's that guy in your life who's the smartest person you know...except he's a little more brilliant. He would disagree...and maybe rightly so...but the point is that he's a great academic. Today, I was able to experience firsthand that he's also a great pastor and teacher. I also got to sit by a good friend of mine, James, who is one of those people I always count great joy in seeing. He is also brilliant in many disciplines and one of those truly authentic people whom you can't wait to share a beer with and love every minute of it. To the blogger, these guys may be better known as Jonny5 and cAPSLOCK, two of the great bloggers who hung it up before their time.

Anyway, I was wonderfully encouraged by Jon's message on 2 Peter 2, and I left very thankful that I was able to sit in today's service. For a while now, I've been thinking about the proliferation of anthropocentrism within the Church, and indeed I'll write much more of that later. Not today. Today, I am celebrating that I was graciously allowed to hear Christ preached. This may sound odd, but it is something I have found lacking in the current era of Christianity, and my soul has greatly been wanting for the message of Christ. This morning, my soul found a little quenching. In fact, it was permitted to quaff luxuriantly for about 30 minutes. There is no sufficient replacement for Christ. There is not a gospel of leadership that satisfies. Neither exists a competent gospel of "Christian living." Without Christ, all is empty and meaningless. It is like the tapestry upon which the Creator created light and life...formless and void. Today, I was reminded of the Light that brings life. As my good friend Ben so aptly claims - we tend to worship the derivatives of Christianity, not Christ. If Christ is revealed and is the true object of our worship, lives and actions change - both for the individual and the corporate. However, striving for the secondary qualities absent Christ will only yield confusion, bitterness, and legalism. Much too often, I find myself striving after these derivations; however, this morning I worshiped my Savior, and my heart sings.

Yesterday, Katie and I were supposed to fly to Tucson for a long weekend at the El Conquistador Golf, Tennis, & Spa Resort. Key words being "supposed t0." DFW airport shut down because of incompetency and simple lack of preparedness to what was a mild snow storm. Over 500 flights were canceled and 4,000 people were stranded at the airport when we left. (As of 7:00am this morning, there are another 70 canceled flights for today.) Our terminal also got shut down, which meant that there were no taxis. Hotels were being booked 20+ miles away. Oh, and nobody got their baggage back, including us. (This is, incidentally, the 3rd time in a row that Katie and I have exited our plane to learn that we won't be able to receive our luggage...what are the chances?) Anyway, we sat on the tarmac for five hours yesterday waiting to fly out - no joke, it really was five hours. That is an hour more than the new airline "bill of rights" allows passengers to sit in such purgatory.

Basically, DFW lost all control and ability to set up and execute lineups for de-icing and take offs. Our pilot was very honest and frank about the fact that he was getting the run around - for at least two hours straight, the de-icing manager just told him that we were "a few minutes away." Basically, all the plans sat in limbo awaiting instruction and nothing ever got resolved. After (again) five hours, we simply turned around and returned to the gate, as did the other planes. The pilot said that he honestly didn't know what to tell us, except that he's never seen anything like it and called it "historic." Here's what was even better though: when we were informed to return to the gate since we were never able to be put in a lineup, we were then informed that we would have to wait even longer because they couldn't find us a gate. Luckily, we got one; however, many planes never did, and their passengers had to exit via the stairs and then be transported on a bus. My major sort of frustration, however is that the plane was fine, as were the runways, for all the snow had melted off of both. The problem was that us and the others ran out of fuel while waiting for DFW to get a plan together, which they never could. If the weather really made us miss our weekend, I wouldn't mind as much. What kills me is that our trip, as that of thousands of others, was aborted because of total incompetence on the part of DFW. To put their total collapse in perspective: Dallas Love-Field had no cancellations, but they did have some delays...up to an hour.

We did, however, get to sit and visit with an amazingly kind man from North Carolina. He's rather prominent in the legal community, yet very humble and full of interesting stories. He was a joy to visit spend five hours with and without a doubt made the time much more tolerable.