So much to write about, such a wonderful weekend!

First of all, my friend Jena (not Jen!) is pregnant! This is awesome news on a bunch of levels, and especially meaningful for me since Jena's wedding was instrumental in my reconciling with God.

Secondly, a bunch of weird stuff happened to me while I was walking home from work Friday evening. First off, I saw someone riding a unicycle in Boston traffic, talking on a cell phone. Please, would someone pay attention to this guy before he causes an accident? I haven't seen such blatant and dangerous plea for attention and love since... well, in a while. Probably since the last time I saw someone juggling.

Also, I saw a woman bicycling buy, slapping her thigh and singing "uh-huh-uh Frustrated Woman!". Is this some new song I've just never heard? Or was she just telling the world that she is a "uh-huh-uh Frustrated Woman!".

Now, here's a question for you. Who in the world wears open-toed shoes while walking around a filthy downtown area and doesn't pay attention to where they are walking? I don't know her name, but I saw a woman with open-toed shoes step into a pile of used napkins and had them drag along with her feet and I swear I want to puke just remembering it. Wake up, people!

Lastly, I had a wonderful time on Sunday. I always do, because there is great joy in keeping the Sabbath reserved for God. I met up with my friend Maciej who I haven't seen in years and we talked about all sorts of spiritual things. We talked about how hard it is for him to keep God's law, and I told him that it just isn't possible without the Holy Spirit and if you try to keep God's law out of the power of the flesh, you will always fail. "When flesh fights flesh, who wins? the flesh". Anyway, he asked me how one gets the power of the Holy Spirit and I said that it is something everyone gets when they make Jesus their Lord.

Now I had always assumed that Maciej was a Christian, but one who had been exposed to some incorrect teaching which was just holding him back from living the Christian life. But when I told him that he got the Holy Spirit when he made Jesus his Lord, he asked "Well, how does one make Jesus his Lord?"

My jaw almost dropped, but I recovered quickly and told him the basic elements of the gospel. When then spent two and a half hours discussing some of his objections and hesitancies to making Jesus his Lord and Savior. He still seemed hesitant to live for God, through God's power (rather than his own) by the time the evening service came around, so I invited him to join me for the evening service at my church.

Now, Maciej is used to traditional, Eastern European, Catholic mass. Well, PSC is a little different - especially in the evening. We listen to modern music or traditional hymns arranged for modern instruments, and we sometimes raise our hands in worship. We spend a lot of time greeting each other and passing the peace of Christ to each other on communion Sundays (which yesterday was) and we take communion in the evening by intincturation, which looks nothing like a Roman Catholic Eucharist!

Anyway, Maciej seemed to really enjoy the sermon which tied in to a lot of the things we were talking about (Maciej mentioned this and I said "That's God - get used to it!"), and I brought (with his permission) Maciej forward for prayer with one of the elders of the church after the service. After the elder prayer for Maciej to find out who God really was, I asked Maciej if he was ready to make Jesus his Lord and he said "Yes" and I just didn't know what to do. I actually said that to Herman (the elder who was praying with us) - "I don't know what to do now!" and Herman led Maciej in a prayer of repentance and commitment.

Now Maciej is a new creation! Praise God! He is on the road to a wonderful adventure. I can vouch for that!

Anyway, we talked afterwards about some important things he needs to do and he asked me how he would have to integrate all of this with his being Catholic and I told him that "You just need to dig into scripture and examine you conscience and see if you can reconcile being Catholic with God's Word". I hope that was the right answer. I mean, I had a lot of respect for John Paul II and the new Pope looks like a true brother in the faith, but there is a lot of bad teaching going on in the Catholic Church and it's easy to get pulled away from Christ there.

If any of my Christian friends are reading this, please pray for Maciej, that his new life would be off to a great start and that he would grow deep roots in the Lord.

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