Expanding Horizons

BTW "Horizons" is one of those dream scrabble words that you want to get on a tripple word score and get the "H" on the double letter score to the left. H=4 and z=10, so that's 24 x 3=72 + 50 (for using all 7 letters)=122 (Wow! In my dreams).

Most bizzare out-of-the-blue scrabble word I heard off was "Atalaya." Now that's skill. 4 A's is a killer, but to transform that hand in to a seven letter premium is simply genius.

Anyway, the "expanding horizons" refers to my blogging experience in the past month. Ever since Nathan of Fides, Spes, Caritas started the Alliance of Progressive and Moderate Blogs, I've ventured out of my usual blogging circles and have been very pleased to discover a lot of very interesting Christian blogs. It's been an eye-opening, horizon-expanding, (enter your cliche here), experience.

I am particularly fascinated by the preachers and their discussion of preparing and delivering their sermons. It is refreshing to get away from the stilted Catholic environment where preaching has been relegated to a function of the hierarchy independent of the promptings of the Holy Spirit and as a tool of dogmatic conformity. I did some, not much, preaching back in my day as a minister, and it was a different dynamic than what I am seeing on the web. It usually occured during evening service and often it was impromptu, so there wasn't time for the detailed preparation that you see in the traditional setting.

A quick aside. In Black churches, the reason why preachers and musicians flourish is because the Church is a safe haven and youngsters and the inexperienced are encouraged to dabble during services. Usually an established minister or pastor would preach in the morning, but during other services, especially evening services, there was plenty of opportunity for preachers and musicians to try and fail and learn. This is inconceivable in the Catholic setting and many traditional settings. Most Black musicians who started in Church did not start out perfect. They got up and fumbled around with the encouragement of everyone until they became proficient. Anyway . . .

Visiting other Christian sites beyond my regular circuit has been great especially just knowing that there are quite a few progressive Christian blogs out there. That's defintely worth the price of admission.