Gentlemen, if you're gonna preach, for God's sake preach with conviction!

Does anyone know how to tell the difference between a cold and allergies?
It's spring, so I assumed that my sufferings are from allergies. However, when I have allergies, my sinuses typically suffer. They're not this time. Instead, my head is so filled with disgustingness that it's actually knocking me off-balance. So is it a cold? Or simply a reaction to a new environment?

I'd like to know, because I've felt pretty crappy for a week. If it's a cold, I need to lay off exercise and rest so that I can recover. But if it's allergies, I need to treat them so that I can have a semi-normal life. And so I can not snore at night. Right now I just feel like a slug because I can't work out and when I'm feeling icky I tend to not cook and therefore eat less healthy.

In other news...Easter was interesting. For anyone who does not know, we drove up to Arkansas to visit Ariel, Roger and Patrick. Patrick's baptism was on Saturday night and of course we attended church on Sunday morning. And...church didn't feel right (It was an Episcopalian Church, btw). It felt, for one of the few times in my life, that I just wanted to get out of there. Like I could get nothing out of it. As Barry and I discussed on the way home, we understand now how others can criticize church so much. Experiences like this one leave you with a sour taste in your mouth. We had to flip back and forth between books and bulletins, the words were complex and, quite frankly, meaningless, and the tunes were extremely difficult to sing. Is the goal of this church to serve its members or is it to look outward? It is my feeling that the only ones they can be reaching are the long-time Episcopalians. True, churches must fill niches, and churches should not let go of all traditions or cater to the lowest common denominator simply to increase membership or "reach the lost".
I'm intelligent. I grew up in the Lutheran church, I'm aware of traditions and their meanings and I enjoy a liturgical style. But this church alienated even me. Churches need a wake-up call. Those that only preach basic sermons about the essential Christian message--ie, Jesus died, believe in him and you'll go to heaven--and leave out anything deeper, and cut out any adiophora (the trappings, the beautifiers) are going to choke themselves. They're not going to reach those who need more, who need a reason to exist in this life rather than the next, who need to think rather than mindlessly accept. And churches that throw up their walls, who cling to traditions that make sense to no one save learned seminarians, who preach mere intellectualism and don't give people a sense of the mystery, these ones are going to drown in their self-righteousness.
It appears that these days we only have two choices: dumbed-down passion, or a cut-and-dried intellectual exercise. No wonder people believe in God and feel they don't need to go to a church. What is there for them?