can you explain it?

Listening to Bill Maher ridicule our beliefs with a crowd laughing at every word makes you wonder if the reason he’s never understood Christianity properly is because no one was able to explain it to him… or maybe he’s just what he looks like, an irritating, ignorant rationalist trying to put on a comedy.
The only reason I would, or could ever be ashamed to call myself a Christian is because of other so-called “Christians” parading around like some know-it-all-self-religious-throw-it-in-your-face idiots who when asked to explain their reasoning come up with a load of crap you can’t even back up with the Bible.
In America, those “claiming” to be Christians have decreased from 86 percent in 1990 to 75 percent today, and I know that is still a rather large portion, but it’s not the “claiming” or “labeling” that should matter but what people believe and do… and if they can explain themselves—the reason for the hope that should be very apparent in their lives. To call Christianity “just another belief or religion” is degrading by all means and if a so called Christian is not capable of explaining what it really is than they shouldn’t be claiming any religion at all until they’ve got their facts straight. To have a religion means to have faith in it, something that backs you up that you believe in and work for… you can call Christianity what you want as a religion---but what it really should come down to is a person distributing Christ’s love through a very evident relationship with the Father.

nothing

She twirled the match around, like a sorcerer with a wand controlling the flame before it bit at her fingers. I imagined the smoke, now climbing in the air from the black head of scalded wood, was an old woman with long gray hair ever entwining behind her coal face. She proceeded to light the five candles, each rich vanilla. They were all below four inches high and would not last long. There was a blue candle of which I did not know the scent, with a glass frame to keep the wax from spilling. When she blew them out I put my finger in the milky wax. It burned for only a second until it dried into a round crust on my fingertip. I peeled it off to examine the perfect, smooth print inside the now hardened impression.