News Of The Week In Review (NOTWIR) 10/28/2017

It was a fairly boring week. I cut the church service after class on Sunday and escaped to the Temple in Panora for my worship service. I worshipped in Spirit and Truth and mostly with a Mepps Bucktail #2. The small mouth bass were not enormous, but there were many. On the way home I slid down to Redfield, but while the temple there is beautiful, I did not catch as many fish. Redfield is a sleepy little town where the American Legion hall is nicer than city hall, there is one classy restaurant, no Subway and one Casey's. It's kind of perfect. There is a house on the north side of town that looks like it may have been built in the 1920's. It's in original condition and has the Middle Raccoon river in it's backyard. In my imagination, I was wondering what it would be like to live there. The notion of moving to a new city kind of excited me. If they only had a Hy-Vee and a pizza place, but I digress.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday blew...literally. It was windy for most of the rest of the week. I did get some more fish caught in spite of the considerable breeze. I also noticed it was getting progressively colder.

Friday I used to do laundry, read and watch movies on Amazon. It was cold, windy and spit snow off and on a good portion of the day. Friday night I went out with the boys from church. This is turning into a bit of a club. We get together every other Friday for dinner and talk. Right now we are three in number. I hope we will be expanding soon. From my perspective, this is a very good thing. I get 'man' time with straight Christian guys, they get the advantage of having someone in their group that has had a different kind of life. We learn from each other, joke with each other and love each other. It's what real Christian men do together in some respects. Since we are all single for one reason or another, it helps us deal with loneliness too. The things we talk about when we are together are considered confidential and right now, so is our membership roll. We are planning a Thanksgiving gathering in November at a local restaurant. Other will be invited. This may begin the expansion of our group. It will be interesting to see what develops.

I want to do a brief review of one of the movies I watched on Friday. It was called "Southern Baptist Sissies". It was about four SSA boys that grew up in the same Baptist church in Texas. It was more a play than a movie; a play that had been filmed before a live audience. The stage was set like the inside of any average evangelical or fundamentalist church building, complete with pews, Off to one side of the stage there was another set. It was supposed to be a specific table in a local gay bar where two of the regular customers sat next to the piano player. Some of the funniest lines in the movie happen during those scenes. The piano guy was also the pianist at the Baptist church, making the whole thing funnier.



The story line concerns how growing up in the fundie environment can effect SSA people. The writer/director of the film obviously has a lot of grudge like baggage that derives from his personal experiences in the church and it comes out in the script in both dramatic moments and comedy moments. The story that is told is true and the writer is one of the four boys in real life.

I would stop just short of recommending this to Christian friends because of the frankness of  the script and some scenes of near nudity that might be misinterpreted. The message of this movie/play is one that Christians need to hear, but the sarcasm and snark with which the message is delivered would most likely just create anger rather than promote understanding. In some ways, it is the mirror image of some of the judgments we see delivered from Christian pulpits today.

If you are feeling up to it, feeling daring, go ahead and watch it. It's available on Amazon Prime for free. You might make sure the kids are in bed first. It will make you wonder how a place like church, that is supposed to be about love, grace and forgiveness, can leave young men hopeless and hating themselves.

It resonated deeply with me in many ways.

Hard freeze tonight. Bring in the brass monkey. See you in church tomorrow. Maybe ;^)