too hard on Rome? too hard on technology?

I grew up in the Pilgrim Holiness Church and as a teen, my family joined the Methodist Church and then I became an Episcopalian in college and have been ever since. (I would contend I was an Episcopalian from birth in some odd way, but how could I justify that???)

So maybe I AM too hard on Rome. I'd only known it from a distance until I married someone who was an Italian/Hungarian Roman Catholic. So, for most of my life now, I have been in contact, by marriage, to lots and lots of ethnic Roman Catholics.

Nothing in that exposure has led me to believe the RC church is the 'one true church'. (Let me add that 'the one true church' is like saying 'the perfect apple'. I've had some good apples in my time, but never one I would call 'perfect'. I've been around churches all my life and I wouldn't claim that any of them was 'one' or 'true'. ) So maybe I am too hard on Rome.

And the internet and all its manifestations as well. Maybe I'm too hard on them. I only know what I know about churches and technology and most of what I know sins and falls short of the glory of God.

But then I don't get the current rage about Vampires either, but I know I've seen young girls I'd never seen with a book coming to church and choristers with their nose stuck in one of the 'twilight' books. I believe in reading and even though I've never read one of those, I'd rather young girls be reading them than reading nothing. Reading, for its own sake is worth doing. So is religion and so is communication. So maybe I'm too hard on everything.

I don't think of myself who is too hard on things--I think of myself as laid back and non-judgemental. And, I mostly am.

But I heard on the radio a few days ago that the pork farmers are suffering because people believe, for reasons beyond all my comprehension, that 'swine flu' comes from pigs. The name 'swine flu', as I understand it, was because the virus was isolated in a pig who caught that strain of flu from human beings! So, though I'm not usually hard on things, that just seems astonishingly crazy to me--that people gave up sausage and bacon to avoid the flu....As far as I can tell, there is no ill that can't be lessened, if not cured, by a good dose of pork.

Then there is the movie that hasn't been in all theaters yet about how the world will end in 2012. I was driving through rural Maryland and heard a preacher on the radio who had already bought into the Mayan legend that the end will be on December 2o, 2012--get the numerology? 12/20 2012? He hadn't even seen the movie but was saying how gracious God was to give us all this time to repent. Good God, is that nuts or what?

Maybe what I need to ponder is how 'hard' I am on stuff. I'll think about that now....