weekly post from July 9, 2006

Hello friends & loved ones,

I hope everyone had a nice 4th and a terrific pride. We had wonderful weather for it. Jim and I have been going non-stop since Friday. On Friday, I slept a few hours and then met Jim in the city and we had dinner with two women from church. I had to work Friday night (I am off tonight) and then on Saturday I slept for about three hours before meeting Jim in the city (he did a prayer for the grand opening celebration of a gay coffeehouse). Then we drove to the parade site and marched in the parade. After the parade, we went to a diner owned by a Vietnamese guy (yummy Asian food) with some girls from church and then made it home by 10. Today we had an interfaith service at the park and then stayed for the picnic in which our church had our own tent. We had a very nice turnout of people both days. We watched the NBC and Fox local news and Fox had a coming up spot in which I was briefly seen stomping my feet and waving my arms. Jim thought I looked wonderful but I'm my own worst critic. It was one of the points in the parade in which we were stopped and I was trying to keep the energy up. Both stations featured clips of our church people. We had on tie-dyed shirts that said, "Would Jesus Discriminate?" They really infuriated the protesters. We did an excellent job of drowning them out, as did some people standing on the sidelines. Our church are really incredible. All in all it was a wonderful weekend. I did take a number of pictures and posted a few of them on my blog (I mean a few). I didn't want to ask a whole bunch of different people if I could put their likeness on my space. Sadly, there are none of me. I have to get better at asking people to take pictures of Jim and me. If I receive any of me from other people I will make sure and put them on there.

Until next week, when I'll be taking another shot at the pulpit (yikes!), stay safe, stay, happy, and stay healthy.

love,

paul