Stats and....tats.

Have you ever looked at the stats of your blog? I find them interesting and I also find myself motivated to blog more because of them. This may be a poor excuse to blog though...to tweak stats. It almost sounds like I am making the first move toward learning how to be a public figure. I have been enjoying my blog though. The thoughts in my brain always seem better than after I type them out or speak them, but I do seem to be refining the process so they match up a little better over time.

I am a 'bloggernacle' or ldsblogs.com peruse-er. There I find commonality in thought when I don't feel it at church. Lately I have been feeling like quite the outsider at church. I find I side with the atheists and general nonbelievers at work more often than the believers....whatever the denomination. I skip Sunday school because I can only take two hours of 'it' on most Sundays. I am surprised I haven't bitten my tongue clear off by now after all the misconceptions, misquotes and false doctrine that either explicitly or implicitly gets thrown around like the common cold on Sundays at any given church house.

The problem from my point of view I hesitate to say. Only because I feel I am kicking a dead horse. I feel that I have thrown this argument down for everyone to see, and it's getting old. I recently spoke of truth and error on here. I was and still am guilty of spreading myth and rumor. I also spoke of history and how pictures painted of certain histories has more color than those that are eternally posing for their pictures to be painted.

One of those rumors is a popular one about the judgment bar at the very end. We stand there and get to review not only our lives but the history of the world in one form or another. We will 'view' events like a movie that is playing. One take on our lives is that repentance 'edits' out parts of our lives like they never happened and the rest we get to watch with Jesus, whether we want to or not. I just think it is interesting what people come up with.

Should I feel guilty and ashamed for how I act and feel? Should I, as a fellow Christian argue against silly doctrine that sprouts from ignorance and flourishes in the hearts of blind followers? Should I be expected to sit and listen to self-righteous 'Saints' give their superior perspective on life, faith, history and doctrine? I keep analyzing my life and how I want my kids to be raised. I am always questioning what path I want them to follow. Do I want this to be their life? Do I want them to be able to take their religion seriously, but be able to look at it and laugh as well? I always considered my ability to do so unique, something not everyone can do. You either have to choose to embrace one version or choose to stop believing altogether. A small percentage can look at many aspects of the church, say I don't believe that, and still go to church and worship. How do I give that to my children?

I am just finding myself tired. I am tired of feeling alone in my thoughts. Ironic, how I just posted about the need to have alone time.
Yet, it would be nice to interact with people with similar belief systems. I remember just not too long ago back at my last base, seeing fellow members on the flightline. It gave a sense of validation to my Mormonism and it felt good. I don't have that in my current squadron. True, my current squadron isn't even a fifth of the size, but that doesn't make me feel any better at work on any given day. The only 'home' I can give my thoughts and feelings in this aspect is in the small world of the bloggernacle at ldsblogs.com and similar 'homepages' where blogs are listed. Granted not all of them share common threads of opinion. This is the point; to have your blog linked to a mothership of blog links on a one page to share your opinions, whether they are in line with church teachings or not. I don't feel my thoughts are coherent enough, consistently posted, or even 'smart' enough to be there, among many other reasons.

Anyway. 'tis the season to miss home and miss my dad. I don't know why, since the recent run of dreams of dad ended weeks ago. Always pleasant, always with a theme of wishing he was there to spend time with. I miss his tired arms wrapped around me, speaking just as much of an "I love you" as they are "let me rest here a moment". I miss the bike rides. I know when I take my boys out that it just isn't the same without a car radio hooked up to a car battery and a dog. I miss the woodpiles oddly enough. I grew to love them. The sense of security they gave...always translating to a warm house. I miss the quiet yard at night when all you hear was the creaking of the tree house and the trickling of waterfalls. I miss helmet and 'The Cyclist' store where we went for all our biking needs. Dad let me go pick out a new cogset one year as I thought I needed a smaller-toothed one for descents. I remember getting bar-ends, after Bryan I think got them.
So many miles. So many emotions. So much longing for yesterday. I will get up tomorrow morning and put all these childish things aside for another time. I will put them aside, not forgotten, never resolved.