Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Danse Macabre



Happy All Hallows Eve!

UPDATE: Fox 'News' is Declaring a War on Halloween.

"Halloween is a liberal holiday" - Sean Hannity. Oct 31, 2007

From the October 31 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

HANNITY [commenting on a satirical cartoon from The Onion] : You know what? I totally agree. I've got two young kids, and I am the food police. And I'm constantly monitoring what they eat.

GERALDO RIVERA (Fox News host): And but for your involvement, wouldn't they eat the worst stuff?

HANNITY: Chicken nuggets, pizza, cake, cupcakes, junk food --

RIVERA: Of course. There's not -- there's not a night where I'm out where they have the choice of what they order out that they ordered something that's bad for them. Always.

HANNITY: By the way, Halloween is a liberal holiday, because we're teaching our children --

COLMES: Oh, come on. Please.

HANNITY: -- to beg for something for free.

[laughter]

RIVERA: Do you notice I wore my costume? I wore my mustache tonight.

HANNITY: Hey, by the way, I heard Mike [Jerrick] on [the Fox-syndicated The Morning Show with] Mike & Juliet dressed as you.

COLMES: By the way, I'm going this Halloween as a Republican. I'm taking candy away from people.

Don't believe me? Watch it here:


via Crooks and Liars

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Whew! I can still keep my job!






Eucharistic theology
created with QuizFarm.com
You scored as Luther

You are Martin Luther. You'll stick with the words of Scripture, and defend this with earthy expressions. You believe this is a necessary consequence of an orthodox Christology. You believe that the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ, but aren't too sure about where he goes after the meal, and so you don't accept reservation of the Blessed Sacrament or Eucharistic devotions.


Luther


100%

Orthodox


75%

Calvin


50%

Catholic


31%

Zwingli


13%

Unitarian


0%




via "Orthodox" Erin

Monday, October 22, 2007

Sermon: Pentecost 21 - Year C

...One of my favorite prayers doesn’t come from those luxuriously poetic Celtic prayer books I keep on my shelf, or even from the utilitarian prayers we find in our worship books.

One of my favorite prayers comes from Homer Simpson. Before you tune me out, let me explain. One Thanksgiving while offering table grace, Homer loses it, offering thanks for “the occasional moments of peace and love our family has experienced…well, not today. You saw what happened. O Lord, be honest! Are we the most pathetic family in the world or what!?”

To which the family offers a hearty “Amen!” Prompting Selma, Homer’s sister-in-law to mutter out loud “Worst. Prayer. Yet.”

And we -the audience - are supposed to agree with Selma’s assessment and laugh at Homer’s obnoxiously inappropriate prayer. Because, by polite standards, that prayer was a joke.

But I thought, “Wow! What a...(read whole thing here)

Monday, October 15, 2007

Pentecost 20 - Year C

...I noticed that Lindsey has a picture of Mother Teresa on t’shirt with the caption, “Super Model” on it. Indeed, Mother Teresa is a super model for us to have as someone who lived her faith heroically, amidst the dying in the poorest parts of the world. Definitely, a “one.”

But, chances are you’re not going to abandon everything here in Lethbridge to devote your lives to serving the poorest of the poor half-way across the planet.

But lately we’ve been hearing that her diaries have surfaced, showing a woman suffering from tormenting doubt. We hear that her relationship with God was often strained or even estranged. That she shook her fist at who she thought was an absentee Saviour.

Some religious pundits are tearing their eyebrows out over this because they say that hearing about Mother Teresa’s doubt stains her memory and taints her legacy. It might stall the process of her becoming a Saint. We shouldn’t talk about the agonizing doubt of someone who lived so heroically faithful.

But I think...(the whole thing here)

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Intertwined

My wife and kids went to Edmonton last weekend to eat turkey with her family. I was left by myself.

I was looking forward to the time by myself. Actually getting to bed at a decent time without wrestling the offspring into their ‘jammy-jams. Reading in the quiet solitude of my living room, sipping a beer, before retiring to the basement to watch grown men bash each others’ brains out with hockey sticks.

Ah, the good things.

But I hit a snag. The house was TOO quiet. My plan lay in shambles at my feet. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t sit still. My stack of books remained untouched. Even this little blog went un-updated.

What was going on?

It seems that I need my family’s presence, physical or metaphysical, to ground me into my routine. Or to simply get me out of bed.

Have I fallen into a rut? A hole that’s a centimetre too deep to climb out of?

It seems so. As soon as the wife and kids arrived home everything fell back into place. My routine re-established itself. Life resumed.

Am I going nuts? Becoming co-dependant? Reverting to an earlier state when I had to be told what to do and when to do it?

What was going on?

A pastor-friend once told me that I shouldn’t find my identity in anything other than myself and what I make of my life. It wasn’t original with him, but seems to be conventional wisdom among certain brands of church leaders.

While community is extolled as a moral virtue, the romance of idealized individual plotting his/her own life course is summoned as personal imperative.

I shouldn’t find my identity in my job, even if it’s in the church, he said. What happens when I lose it? I am more than my job, I was told.

I shouldn’t find my identity in my friends. Friends pass away.

I shouldn’t find my identity in my family because my Family of Origin weighs me down with too much baggage.

I shouldn’t find my identity as a parent. For that’s too oppressive to my children.

I shouldn’t find my identity as a husband. For that’s chaining my wife to MY happiness.

So where DO I find my identity?

Someone more pious than myself might say that I find my identity as a follower of Jesus. And that’s all that I need.

Perhaps. But even Jesus couldn’t imagine life without his friends. Why would he want to?

I read someone say somewhere that if someone took away his family, his church, his job, or his friends, there would be little of “him” left.

That sounds right to me.

So, maybe my rut is a happy rut. Or maybe it’s not a rut at all. Maybe it’s the interweaving details of life that pull together to make me who I am.

I am my job. I am my friendships. I am my family. I am a husband and a dad.

Take any of these away from me and I’m no longer fully me. Diminish any of these relationships and you’ve got a recipe for loneliness. Or even alienation.

That’s why I grieve when a relationship is lost. When I change churches. When I lose contact with friends. When my family goes to Edmonton. And that's okay. That's what's supposed to happen.

Maybe that’s why I like to watch grown men bash each other with hockey sticks.

Friday, October 05, 2007

It snowed again today. But now it’s gone. Life returns.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Today's 80's Tune: Ultravox: Dancing With Tears in My Eyes

Stones

If we could all
just stop throwing stones,
and stoop, knees bent
and write in the dust,

we'd see that the dust
was once stone -
grand, and hard, and proud, and tough -
now ground and dissolved
in grace and tears.

So... how much better
to be a grain of dirt
on that kind prophet’s hands
than a stone
in the cold, accusing Temple
of the pure.


via

Monday, October 01, 2007

Happy October

My fave month. (But not because my birthday is found in this pagan month- hint, hint).