Raccoon picture, post notes on graduates story and next week’s feature

Greetings religious friends.

I finally got up the pic of my friend, the raccoon. I want to do an experiment here and see if anybody is actually reading my blog. The raccoon is from my column about six weeks ago. If anybody reading this has a good name for the raccoon, please let me know. I should add that the beast and I have since made friends. As a matter of fact, against my wife’s advice, I fed the beast a Little Debbie snack cake from my own palm last Sunday. He’s quite unafraid of me, I assure you. He approaches me on the porch as I sit reading and expects food.

I really enjoyed talking with graduates and their parents this week. Cara Depew, who will attend the University of North Alabama, really has an international perspective. She’s a real seeker, curious about world religions and cultures. Anna Lunceford had great things to say about every church having its own character. She said that the recent turn-over in Calvary Baptist’s pastoral staff has helped her ease into the idea of change. Another neat thing Anna’s doing, that didn’t make it into the article, is participating in a Bible study with some of her fellow Tupelo High students who also plan to attend MS State. She said they’ll touch on scriptures about change, growth, and new experiences. Daniel Hoing said that the public transportation system in Taiwan is pretty good. He anticipates no problems getting to Mass. He said a lot of very poetic things about the harmony between science and faith that I didn’t have room to include. Daniel’s graduating class at Ole Miss’s Honors College was a pretty diverse group. He’s ready to travel to the other side of the world, I can tell.

I had a great conversation today with Dr. Ed Holiday and Rev. Anthony Hatch. If you were in McCalister’s Deli around 12:30 Friday, you probably got a good laugh at how many eavesdroppers were listening in. The topic: Faith healing and the big revival taking place in Lakeland, FL. My two friends first alerted me to the goings-on in Florida as we stood in front of City Hall on the National Day of Prayer. I got busy with other things and haven’t watched Lakeland as closely as I should have. Exciting, interesting stuff. To summarize, the Rev. Todd Bentley has been spearheading a huge revival there since April 2. The thing just keeps picking up speed, graduating into larger and larger arenas. I want to do an article about faith healing, using the Lakeland revival as a backdrop. Rev. Hatch just got back from there. He had lots of exciting things to say. I won’t give away all my stuff before the article, though. Maybe next week.

Thanks for your letters and emails. I love to hear from readers. God bless you all.

Peace,

Galen

This is a YouTube video of the Lakeland event ..