Mom called and said she and dad drove about 800 miles today towards Nashua. They are currently staying overnight in Milford, PA. They have about 5 hours of driving left tomorrow.
I didn't feel like organizing my charitable contributions tonight so I whipped through some pictures. You can see the local album here or the dotPhoto album here. There are pictures of Michelle and the kids, the new Swope baby, and Michael--the climbing monkey!
We looked at two more houses today but there was little appeal, primarily due to location. We would like to be in a neighborhood, not in an isolated home. One house had such a wooded lot I thought one could probably reach a tree limb right outside the kitchen window. The second house was right off of one of the main roads that connects Hollis to Nashua. For now we'll just be patient and watch the listings. Since spring is here, homes are popping up rather quickly now.
I was thinking about Carl Marx's famous quote "Religion...is the opium of the people." How misguided. I think it is those who daily take up the heroic Christian struggle for sanctity that soon realize that they cannot do it alone. Alone we are not sufficient. Left to his own means, man ends up wasting time pursuing a feel-good pseudo-sprituality that is having a resurgence in modern culture. It takes a good deal of strength and humility to admit that one needs the means offered in religion. It is pride and vanity to think it can be found purely on one's own. While the religious leaders are only human and the organizations far from perfect, it would be a shame to waste thousands of years of heritage, experience, and understanding of the human condition that are available in mainstream religions.