Sharing is never an easy thing to do. Truly bearing your heart to others is something that takes courage and often times a certain level of desperation. There are always feelings of regret, inadequacy, weakness, remorse, and embarrassment afterwards. One can’t help but feel a little vulnerable after they have truly opened themselves up to a person. There is always a risk involved with opening up like this. How will the person receive what it is you are exposing to them? How will they react to this new found revelation of you? It is these uncertainties that make sharing that much more difficult.

But honest sharing is important. If we are not honest with each other then we can’t begin to grow together. If we can’t bear ourselves to each other then how close are we really. Is it true camaraderie, or just a facade that we keep up for appearance sake. We need to stop being fictitious people. We need to be true, we need to be authentic.

The Church is dying because we can’t be honest with each other. We slowly drift away from each other making it that much easier for the enemy to pick us off one by one.

Do I know you, or do I know a shell, a false portrait that you put up hoping that I will never know the truth?

I called my Dad today to see how he was doing. He had a physically recently and they noticed that his liver enzymes were off the chart. They did some more blood tests and it turns out he has Hepatitis C.

I don’t really know anything about the disease, other than it is the leading cause for Liver Cancer and Liver Transplant. I know that if caught early on it is pretty treatable with a 90% clearance rate. I don’t know how far along my Dad is, or what sort of treatment he will seek. Sometimes treatment isn’t even an option.
I am at a loss. I don’t know what to think. It is out of my hands and until more is found out I can only wait. It seems like every where I turn there is one more jab to my stomach.

I just want every one to know that I will be purchasing one of these little babies. I know what some of you are thinking, “You’re just a fan boy. A Mac boy slave. You have been brainwashed by their clever marketing and unique style.” That might be a bit of it, yes. But let us not forget that mac’s also work very well. They are stable and simple to use. Installing is as easy as dragging a folder to your applications. Uninstalling is as easy as dragging it to your trash can. I have left behind the world of having to hunt down drivers. I have forgotten what the blue screen of death looks like. Macs are easy, and not in a sexual way.

I am also going to be getting one for two reasons. A) I was already in the contemplation of getting a newer ipod. Not really soon, mine still works, but when Tristan started showing off his new video capabilities I started thinking of some cool uses of my own. So I was thinking getting one this year. B) I am already a loyal Cingular customer. I have found their service to very good compared to my other experiences with phone companies. They don’t charge me to pay my bill online. Their insurance service for phone replacement is very prompt. I was planning on signing up for another two years anyway. Since iPhone will be exclusively Cingular, I won’t have to worry about changing or anything. I’m already on board there.

Now before anybody decides to get on my case (I am pretty sure my only supporter will be Phil) At least go to the site and check it out, and if you are feeling extra bold, then watch the keynote presentation on the site. Steve jobs goes through and shows off all the cool little features: the two point screen, the ability to flip through your albums, the browsing capabilities, the really nifty voice mail feature, and the cool accelerometer. If you go through all of this and still have a better reason then just your bias against Apple to criticize my desire to own one of these, then have at it.