Rocky Mountian Hi

Sitting in the eastern shadow of Pike's Peak today, blue-sky, puffy-cloud Colorado mountains' majesty surrounding me. Just wondering. . . .

Do you have to be evangelical to eat at Panera Bread on Sundays for lunch? Seems like most of the crowd is. And they're not much into laptops.

Had a wonderful evening interlude with a blonde Belgium on Saturday. Smooth, silky, easy on the eyes and easy to like. In fact, easy to want to know better. Doug, you are so right in so many ways. Jesse, I have come to the West and been converted.

If I go down to Old Colorado City, can I avoid the the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory? Why is the flesh always willing but the spirit weak?

Towering over me to the north is Ft. Dobson, the faux Colonial brick fortress compound of Focus on the Family, not to be confused with Focus on Republicans. I read once that it is a major area tourist attraction. Just wondering: will Dobson's demise elicit a "final resting place" furor similar to that engulfing poor Billy Graham? If you've not heard of Franklin's plan for a gauche Disneyesque burial site, visit http://www.religionnewsblog.com/16819/billy-grahams-sons-in-feud-over-parents-burial-site. The barn pictured above begins the visit to the memorial site with a talking cow. Really.

Perception-reality collison? In Blue Like Jazz, author Donald Miller wrote: “At the end of each month I would start biting my nails, wondering what account owed me money or whether or not I would pick up any writing assignments. There’s not a lot of work in the Christian market if you won’t write self-righteous, conservative propaganda. I write new-realism essays. I am not a commodity.” Of course not. That's why his Thomas Nelson bestseller now has more than 775,000 copies in print, and he is the "not angry, just ironical" young man of religious literature.

My collorary to Acton's Law: Being a commodity tends to corrupt and being a very popular commodity corrupts completely. Good luck, Don, but I wonder if the pendulum of self-righteousness doesn't swing both ways. You've made it this far--so far, so good.

OK, the natives are showing up now. Time to go look at the mountains.