Thirsty

- said to be the personal motto of Alex Haley, popular writer from The Gambia, West Africa. Friday night I drive home to Muncie, Saturday morning I drive down to the Indy airport with my parents. Many hours later, we arrive in The Gambia, the smallest country in Africa, touching the west coast and surrounded on all other sides by Senegal. Rebecca will meet us there and show us her life as a Peace Corps Volunteer for the next 10 days. We'll arrive back in Indianapolis 2 weeks from Friday. I'm looking forward to meeting the Mandinka people, the hot African sun of the dry season, and drinking in some time with my parents and my passionate sister. Wikipedia: The Gambia , Mandinka people CIA World Factbook , Peace Corps , Catholic Relief Services As a Christian, pray for and with the 95% Muslim population via their 99 names for God . Friends of Senegal and The Gambia .

Today's "Penny Arcade". Generally, the comic is so worthless that I'm not even going to link to it. But today's was absolutely amazing. Post title from Father Bob's Billboard .

You know what "For Adults Only" means. X-rated. Porn star. "Explicit material." Seedy characters walking into an adult video store just off the Interstate. The word "adult" is commonly used this way. So what does it mean to be an adult? Some stuff that you can complain about all day (both about yourself and about others) without being called a Jesus freak. This stuff applies to everyone, regardless of your vocabulary blacklist.

Forgive me in advance. This blonde joke is high -larious! P.S. - while I'm linking, you must read a bit about Obi-Wan Kenobi I can't help you my love. All I can suggest is three things (1) whether you feel as I'm sure you do that Christ was true in his claims and is God (2) whether you are satisfied that the claims of the Catholic Church are reasonably justified. And then (3) -- probably more difficult for you than for me, as it's a question of temperament to start with -- whether in a Catholic Church you feel a sense of worship. For me this last grows. I find it less and less a difficulty -- in fact none really -- except through my own fidgetiness and distraction and general crossness with people and things -- but I accept absolutely now and with no effort that I am in the actual presence of God on the altar. There have been very few days this year when I haven't paid a visit -- even if only for three minutes -- to a church, merely to kneel and be astonished at t...

Today over my lunch hour I walked with Mehdi and Dan to a Mosque downtown near State and Adams. On the walk down, among other things, we discussed a bit about organized religion and how it compares to personal individual religion. The entrance was not very clearly labeled but Mehdi knew immediately where it was by all the Arabs coming in from the street. It was very close to the 1:10 start time so the small foyer was packed with men waiting for one of the two small elevators to take us up to the 5th floor. A few men waited in the foyer, making sure things were running smoothly, offering a "Salem Aleikum" to those they recognized. Once at the 5th floor, we squeezed into a packed gathering room where the preaching portion of the service had already begun. Shoes were taken off and placed in shelves on the back wall and in a side room. Some barefoot, some with socks. The front of the room was located in the northeast corner of the room, where a man was giving a moderately...