The oddest thing happened to me last Monday.

I don’t count myself among the “blame America” crowd.  You know, the people who think that America is evil, has no conscience or soul, and pretty much everything it does is wrong.  See also: “the Great Satan.”  This group is made up mostly of people who I like to haphazardly label “flaming liberals.”

I also don’t consider myself a supporter of Ron Paul, because I can’t decide if the Ralph Nadar of conservatism is crazy like a fox, or crazy like Dennis Kucinich.  Literally everything he does could go either way, right down to him wearing a blue plaid tie to last week’s Republican debate, a strictly red tie affair.  I like to carelessly paint all of Ron Paul’s supporters as “right wing sociopaths.”

But as I watched the debate last week, Ron Paul said one thing, just one thing that actually got him booed, and I haven’t been able to get out of my head since then, because it illustrates a growing compulsion in our culture.

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Hey everyone, time for another guest post.  Today, we’ve got Jeremy Statton, pictured left (not the baby).  He’s a freaking orthopedic surgeon, and a great guy with a post you’re going to love.  Check it out, then head over to Jeremy’s blog.

My church is largely made up of young married couples.  They bring an incredible amount of energy to a young church plant.  Few things are more beautiful than seeing these young adults meet Jesus.

They present two unique problems, however.  One is that young couples like to make babies, and all these babies make a mess.  The second is that these young families have very little disposable income.  We have lots of kids running around wreaking havoc, but are unable to afford to pay anyone to clean it up.  And then I get to volunteer to clean.

I love the idea of service. I imagine myself providing clean water to poor, thirsty children in Africa, or storming into a brothel in Indonesia, freeing teenage girls, or receiving a humnaitarian award in a luxurious hotel in New York where I receive a fifteen minute standing ovation.

I do not, however, see myself mopping the pee stains left on the bathroom floor at church.  I want to serve, but I want it to require less work…and certainly less urine.

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Hey everyone, come take a walk with me.  I’m really excited to be blogging today on Modern Reject.  You know Nicole because she blogged here a couple of months ago.  Now, it’s time for me to return the favor, as Nicole is recuperating from having her third kid.

What am I blogging about today?  The one thing that exists in our culture, one problem that I think looms bigger than almost anything, one thing that every kid, including Nicole’s new baby will eventually have to deal with.

You won’t want to miss it!  See you over there.

It’s that time of year again.  Football season is upon us.

Tens of thousands of fans attended season openers in stadiums and millions watched from home.

Pro football is practically the only sport I enjoy watching at all.  But it’s a love-hate relationship, with more hate and less love lately.  I’ve never attended a game in person.  I don’t play fantasy football.  And I don’t blog about football.  In fact, if you blog about football, I guarantee I will not read your blog.

Today’s post is about football.  But the less you like football, the more you’ll probably like what I have to say.

Because I’ve realized something this football pre-season more than ever.

Football hasn’t just passed up baseball as our national pasttime.  It’s become our national religion.

Don’t believe me?

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Google "spiritual but not religious" and a picture of a shirtless, greasy-haired hippie weirding out everyone on the beach will be among the first results.

“I’m spiritual but not religious…”

Few phrases in the English language chap my delicate, pasty hide faster than that one.  It conjures images in my mind of aging hippies playing with magick crystals and talking about faeries and just generally needing a punch in the face because they misspell nerdy words to make them seem more alluring.

Nevertheless, it has come to my attention that despite all evidence to the contrary, not all spiritual, non-religious people are like this.

Then I started really thinking about what it means to be “spiritual” but not “religious,” and it dawned on me that maybe these people have the right idea.

So, just for today, I’m going to suppress all my face punching urges, because I’ve learned a few things about what it means to be spiritual but not religious.

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And we’re back!  Today, I’m participating in a synchro-blog hosted by Ally Spotts,  called “Confessions of a Christian Twenty-Something.”  There’s several other participating bloggers, so when you’re done here, check out who else is writing and maybe discover some other cool bloggers.

The idea of participating in this little blog schindig sounded cool, so I signed up.

Then I had to think of a “confession” to make.

Crap.  That’s hard.  Can’t think of anything off the top of my head.  Things are fairly awesome right now, actually

Does that make me sound like a prideful jerk to say that I don’t have anything to confess?  Maybe I could confess my pride…no, that’s lame.

Maybe I could sneak a peek at what the other bloggers are confessing, just to get the guilty creative juices flowing.  Kind of like being a prayer group voyeur.  Nothing wrong with that, right?

Let’s see…insecurity…guilt…doesn’t go to church…doesn’t pray…

Well, none of those really apply to me.  Dang it.

But that really is the story of my life.  When prompted for a prayer request, I rarely have big problems that people want to pray about.  I don’t have a confession of guilt I feel compelled to make in public.  Some people have constant prayer requests, don’t they?  I imagine God spends a lot more time on them.  After all, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

That’s when it hit me…I’m a really boring Christian.

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