Hey there, Stranger

Let's see if I can do this without throwing the laptop through the window. No, it will be fine. I've had some technical difficulties, but I think it's up and running pretty well again.

Did you even notice I was gone? No matter. All you missed were my thoughts on pollen and my excitement over last week's episode of Real Housewives of NY. The best episodes always have one of the ladies going off their meds and last week it was Kelly. I couldn't have been any happier if diamonds had rained down from the sky. Fantastic.

I'm just back from lunch at my favorite restaurant. I had salad and wine. It was the perfect thing to eat out on the patio, but mostly I ordered it because of a story I read in Ploughshares. It was called "We Belong Together." You should read it. It will make you order salad and wine. Well, you definitely don't want to be the guy with the Whiskey.

So, I finally know what my Summer Bible Study is going to be. We're doing Kelly Minter's Ruth: Loss, Love & Legacy. It should be good. I'm doing it with Beth Moore, herself. I did Kelly's No Other Gods with Beth, too, and it broke me wide open. Hopefully, I'll have a similar experience with Ruth. I could use a big word from God right about now.

But, Ruth. Right? I know. It's not my favorite book. I love the journey. I love the mystery. I love the grace and redemption. But I don't get Naomi. It's like she's taking the opposite journey, but her fate is the same. And Ruth's relationship to Boaz kind of freaks me out. It will be so great to have someone who really knows her scripture break it down for me. I have a bad habit of only seeing what I want. I go in looking to have my own limited view affirmed, which is kind of a waste of a Bible. I do it in life, too. I'll get an idea and spin my own twisted narrative to make it true. I'm working on it.

We're invited to get little groups together to do the study. Fellowship and accountability are supposed to be an essential components of Bible Study, but I'm not sure that's going to happen for me. I've done a few studies at a local Baptist church and, while I enjoyed meeting many of the gals there, I kind of felt like a fraud. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm wildly liberal and my world view is vastly different from most of theirs. I smiled and nodded a lot. I think being able to compartmentalize like that is either a valuable life skill or extremely detrimental to your mental health. I'm not sure which.

OK, I've got things to do before I pick up the munchkin. It would be great if you'd do me a favor and imagine a nice conclusion. Thanks.