Here is our new car! It is a 2000 model (originally sold in 2001) Skoda (pronounced "Shko-duh") Octavia Combi. It has a 1.9 liter turbo gas engine (VROOM!) It has leather interior, automatic air conditioning, power windows/locks/sunroof/rear-view mirrors, 6 CD changer player/stereo, roof rack, lumbar support, seat warmers, extendable & height-adjustable steering column, cruise control (not hardly ever used here), and manual transmission - we like that!

I have to say that every time I drive this car, it is a blessing. It's quiet, comfortable, fun & easy to drive and looks good, too. I know it's just a car, but because it's a blessing, I try to relive the "blessing" part of it each time I drive it. Nathan & I washed it the other day and we were commenting the whole time how easy it is to wash 'cause you can reach the roof without a ladder!

Anyway, rejoice with us - don't envy us - or as the commercial goes, "Don't hate me because I'm (our car is) beautiful"... Just thank God with us for His blessing.

National sins

I’m sort of doing an informal survey on national sins and I’d like your input...

For instance, it seems apparent to me that in Slovakia, the country where we’ve lived and worked for the past 10 years, 2 of the national sins are gossip and unforgiveness. I don’t think I need to define those terms, but will if you want clarification.

What I’d like to know is if you agree with me that in the USA the national sins could be gluttony and materialism.

Now, I think I need to define those terms a bit. Gluttony in the way I’m seeing it is not related only to food, but to life in general.

The gluttonous spirit is evident in our garages packed floor to ceiling with stuff that we’ve not seen in months - if not years. It’s evident in the portions of food in restaurants and the leftovers we toss out daily because they’ve sat in our refrigerators for too long and spoiled.

It’s evident in closets full of clothes, yet we “have nothing to wear.” It’s also evident in the phrase, “Oh, this old thing....”

An Aside

Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to preach in our church (in Slovakia) and lead in the Lord’s Supper. As is customary here (yes, sometimes I do “go with the cultural flow” - although I didn’t wear a tie!), I tied the sermon into the context of the Lord’s Supper. When I commented that one of the Slovak national sins is unforgiveness, you could hear a pin drop - even on the carpet.

I fully expected a firestorm of comments - good & bad -- during the past week. The only comment I received, however, was from a former elder who asked if I really meant that and that he would have to meditate on that more as he had never heard unforgiveness named as a national sin.

Maybe we should preach more strongly about the sin of gluttony in the USA?

Just musing....

New photo! Now stop complaining!

Well, I finally caved in. I’ve been receiving complaints that my photo needs to be changed because the previous one was too something or other.

All right. I give in. I’ve changed it. How do you like it?

;-)

More on blogging...

I’m finally getting the hang of this blogging deal. I’ve signed up for a Technorati profile (http://technorati.com/profile/khshattuck) that’s supposed to get more traffic to my blog. Don’t know that I have that much to say, but if I can be useful to a couple of folks across the globe - why not?