where i am inspirational

My fake foray into Facebook continues apace.

On a related note: I hate myself for it. I do. You probably hate me for it too, just don’t say so to me, ‘mkay? I think there’s something vaguely despicable about it, although I’m undecided if it crosses over into completely despicable territory. Deciding between “vaguely despicable” and “completely despicable” is not high on my To Do list right now.

So I have this vaguely despicable fake identity on FB. All I did was sign up. I’ve done nothing to “my” FB page. Without checking, I don’t even remember what my FB name IS. I know I’ve changed it several times, as if I’m trying to hit on just the right name for a character in a novel. Insanity cannot ever be ruled out with me is what I’m really saying here.

But can I just say this? Consarnit all with the precious Care Bear Christians on FaceBook. I talked about this in a related post here, but I’m now discovering a plethora of Christians –many of whom I know — who do nothing but quote scripture and speak in platitudes on their FB pages, AND IT BUGS ME. I assume these people really want to “touch other people” or something and that’s why they do it. They want to “make a difference” in the lives of others. They’d never talk to a known gay person or drink a beer — God forbid! — but they’d mechanically quote verses on their FB pages in hopes of earning extra Jesus points. They think that people are moved, deeply moved, by the fact that they just “liked” some FB page called “Mommy’s (sic) for Jesus Christ.” (I swear, I’m going to join this damn group just to correct their grammar and spelling. Honestly, mommy’s.)

I’ve seen Christians on FB warn each other: “Don’t drink, just spend time with Jesus!”

And “exhort” each other: “This week’s gonna be a bummer.” “Oh, well, ‘consider it all joy,’ you know.”

And scold each other: “Uh, LANGUAGE ALERT!”

Uhm, precious? Shut up. Seriously. Do you talk this way to one another in person? Do you? I’m all for knowing scripture. I know scripture, but I avoid prancing around in my real life spouting it in people’s faces. Mainly because I’m too busy prancing around naked. (Just seeing if you’re listening.) Look. I am not the vicar. Or the vicar’s wife. So I keep my vicary thoughts to myself. Or use them as sex talk. (You’re listening, right?) And, Crackie, if you don’t randomly spout scripture in person, why are you doing so on FB? And if you truly are an inspirational coffee mug in person? Well, that explains your presence on FB, I guess. It’s the only place that will have you. It’s funny. I find that MB and I don’t generally quote scripture or talk in bumper stickers to each other in our daily life.

How would that play out anyway?

HE: Babe, I had a horrible day.

ME: Bummer. Well, ‘delight yourself in the Lord,’ peaches.

*****

ME: I look hideous.

HE: Yeah, well, ‘Jesus wept,” you know.

*****

HE: I’m really worried about X.

ME: Yeah, hon? Remember ‘life is fragile, handle with prayer,’ ‘mkay?

KAPOW, KAPOW, KAPOW!

All right, Facebook Christians. Enough already with being an amateur preacher or a walking bumper sticker. Be a real person. Say real things. Say honest things. Say faith is hard because it is. Say faith takes courage because it does. Say sometimes you’re just disappointed with God. Say sometimes he pisses you off. Say sometimes you don’t understand anything anymore. Say sometimes you wonder if it’s worth it. Say sometimes you want to chuck it all and walk away. Because as far as I’m concerned, if you’ve never come to those places in your faith, you haven’t thought that much about your faith. You haven’t really turned it over and over and over in your mind. You haven’t thought about deep things; you think only what you are told to think. You haven’t really held your faith to the fire for fear that it will burn to ash. Bottom line, you really don’t have much faith in your Faith. So you live on autopilot and quote what you’ve learned but have never considered and tell people about rules but not about grace and you share a scripture but don’t know its context and you’re fake fake fake.

Enough.

Sometimes, it really pains me to realize that I am on Team Christian and that Christians are the Chargers. The Padres! The Seahawks! The Lions!

Don’t believe me? Here are some actual recent FB postings from the people on my team. MY team!

“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Numbers 6:24-26

Okay. Uh, great. Thank you for the benediction. Do you have anything else to say?

I am so thankful for the love of God. I’m excited to worship with my brothers and sisters tomorrow.

Well, mazeltov. You obviously didn’t go to Not On Your Life Cult, er, Church.

Here’s a thought: “Honor one another above yourselves.” Romans 12:10

Here’s a thought: How ’bout an original thought?

You know, I’m starting to wonder if I’m too much of a crankypants to be a Christian. Does Jesus love the crankypants among us? Maybe I just don’t have the proper team spirit. Maybe I need to get on board here. Be more of a bumper sticker. Be more Quotey McBiblepants. I hate being the outsider. Just jump on the Precious Moments Bandwagon, Trace. I mean, I want to touch people’s lives. I want to make a difference. I want to be inspirational.

So, okay. Here’s my verse to touch your heart today:

But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. Genesis 38:9

Have a shiny Jesus face day, pippa.

prayer

Hey, pippa.

I have two immediate family members with serious health issues. These do not involve me or MB. One has stabilized for now. One has just been discovered and is potentially life-threatening; we don’t know yet. I don’t want to go into details and I won’t be talking about this regularly on the blog, but I would like to ask you dear people to please pray.

I’m saying thanks in advance because I know you guys will pray.

So thanks.

I do promise this will NOT become the “serious health issue” blog because … well, ew.

I mean, I don’t want this to become “A Very Special Episode of Beyond the Pale” every cottonpickin’ day — because again with the ew.

the smiling casual graduate

Prepare yourselves to gorge on photos. Elder Nephew graduated high school this week and Tee Tee just got an email full ‘o’ pictures!

jsmile.jpg

Killer smile, kid. I don’t think you should be allowed to inflict this on those helpless college girls. It’s unfair.

the graduate + one

Elder Nephew graduated from high school on Wednesday. Sniff sniff.

Top 20 student in a graduating class of over 700. Not bad, kid. You’re way too tall and grown up and your eyes are piercing blue and your heart is funny soft and I love the way you love your little sister and Tee Tee just can’t take it.

jpgrad.jpg

I’m proud of you.

Do more face smushing, please.

checking the queue

So my dad now has Netflix.

Now this is your basic mini cultural revolution, believe me. He once was blind but now can see kind of thing. As I’ve said before, only half-jokingly, I am Amish — Amish by association with a dad who grew up in the heart of Amish country and would be Amish if he didn’t like electricity so durned much. In his heart of hearts, he is Amish. Because my dad, at 73, is an innocent. I don’t mean this as a negative. Not at all. Never. It’s endearing to me. The thing about him that most tugs at my heart. He’s incredibly smart, but he’s just an innocent about certain things. In business, he’s been a real crackerjack, successful and still working, I might add. Yet in other ways, he’s a bit of a Walter Mitty, creating his own world where he stacks rocks in weightless, tip-to-tip formations and turns wood into delicate lacy eggs and creates flowing stained glass lamps to make you weep, doing each until he’s mastered it and moved on to the next thing to master. He’s almost a savant in certain things. The ease with which can master things. If he can see it in his mind’s eye, he can create it in reality. He never questions whether he can. He simply does.

On the other hand, the majority of mainstream culture eludes him. Movies, TV shows, texting, iPods, all of that. It’s outside of his life. Beyond him in most ways. Well, I take that back. He does have a Kindle now and ….. well, I seriously need to monitor him, I think. Check his pulse. Take blood pressure readings. Chart his intake. I’m not kidding. He’s like a little kid who’s never eaten sugar finally tasting it for the first time and discovering an instant addiction the minute it hits his tongue. No one eaaaased him into it. Nope. BAM! He tasted the Kindle and his eyes spun round like pinwheels and he was gone. Nutso. There’s a bit of a feeding frenzy going on. A teensy maniacal binge. He’s now almost conjoined with his Kindle, one with it. Clearly, the man’s forays into mainstream culture need to be monitored and I’m just the smug little prissypants to do it. You just can’t be too careful.

I mean, in The Fly that Brundle guy becomes one with a freaking house fly, making him Brundlefly, which is disgusting, and eventually Brundledead, which is tragic not to mention messy, and generally not how you want your scientific experiments to go, I imagine. So I’m just doing my due diligence as a daughter by regularly checking in with dad to make sure he’s not actually becoming one with his Kindle.

I want a dad, not Kindledad.

So he called me Friday to announce he’d signed up for Netflix. Another foray into mainstream culture — albeit a very belated one — that makes my blood click like I’m watching a little kid cross a street by himself.

The conversation goes like this:

Dad: So we got Netflix.
Me (hmm): Hey, that’s great, Dad.
Dad: Yeah. We’re queueing up all the classics.
Me: Cool.
Dad: The first one we got was Citizen Kane.
Me: (uh-oh) Oh, yeah?
Dad: Yeah. (pause) I didn’t like it.
Me: Oh? Why not?
Dad: It was boring. I didn’t get it. I mean, I got it, but I didn’t get it. Why is it such a big deal?

I explain why Citizen Kane is a big deal. He is unimpressed.

Dad: Well, okay. I just didn’t like it.
Me: That’s okay. It’s not for everyone, Dad.
Dad: But I’m supposed to like it.
Me: Oh, who cares? I mean, you like what you like.
Dad: That’s true. So we’re just going through their list of classics.

The word he fails to mention here is “indiscriminately.” He is going through the Netflix list of classics, adding them to his queue indiscriminately.

He continues.

Dad: Yeah. Midnight Cowboy is next.
Me (what??): Oh. No, Dad.
Dad: “No,” what?
Me: You won’t like that.
Dad: I won’t?
Me: NO. Trust me, Dad.
Dad: But it’s already been sent.
Me: So what? That doesn’t mean you HAVE to watch it.
Dad: Well, yeah.
Me: So don’t, okay? TRUST ME ON THIS.
Dad: But I like cowboys.

Oh, sweet baby Jesus in the manger. He’s not kidding, either.

Me: Not really about cowboys, Dad.
Dad (he will not let it go): Oh? Is it too violent or too sexual or something?
Me: Well, okay. One of the characters is a male prostitute.
Dad: Oh.
Me (laughing): You asked.
Dad: I think I’ll skip that then.
Me: Funny. That’s what I just said.
Dad: Wanna know what else is in my queue?
Me: Yes, actually. I think you’d better tell me.
Dad: Okay. Um. Rear Window.
Me: Great! Hitchcock. One of my favorites. Jimmy Stewart. Grace Kelly looking gorgeous. You’ll like it.
Dad: Blazing Saddles?

Literally, the man is rattling off movies without the slightest clue about them at all.

Me: Uhm …. not sure if you’ll like it. It’s Mel Brooks. You might think it’s stupid funny.
Dad: Okay.
Me: Try it and see.
Dad: Chinatown.
Me: Uhm ….. (incest alert, etc.) …. well …. it’s a great movie. Hmm. Try it out, Dad.
Dad: Ooh. We watched Lawrence of Arabia.
Me: Yeah? What did you think?
Dad: Well, we had to watch it in installments.
Me: Yeah. It’s long. That’s okay.
Dad: But I thought it was fantastic!
Me: Great! Yeah, I just love that movie.
Dad: Let’s see. What else is in the queue? Oh. A Clockwork Orange?
Me: No, Dad.
Dad: No?
Me: NO.

A Clockwork Orange??
The man is Amish. Not in a million, Ephraim. Good grief. He needs my hovering involvement more than he could possibly imagine.

Dad: Okay. North by Northwest?
Me: Another Hitchcock. Plus Cary Grant. Put all of Hitchcock in your queue, Dad. I think you’ll like him.
Dad: The Godfather?
Me: Well, it’s violent, Dad, but you’re a guy. You HAVE to watch The Godfather. You just do.
Dad: Breakfast at Tiffany’s?

I tell you true: He will not even catch the gay thing.

Me: Hm. Well, there’s Audrey Hepburn. Sure, Dad. You might like it.
Dad: Well, I like her.
Me: Watch it, then.
Dad: Okay. I’ll let you know how it all goes.
Me: Great. Yeah, keep me posted.

Seriously. Keep me posted, Dad.

I can’t have you watching movies all willy-nilly. I do not want Hollywood stealing your innocence at 73. Plenty of time for that when you’re older. And someone needs to be the parent around here, young man. Nothing R-rated without my approval. I mean it. I have your cell phone number and I WILL be using it.

I will not have your Amish eyes spinning round like pinwheels, mister.

there was a day

There was a day called yesterday when I didn’t know what this was. (NSFW.)

I want to know just who poses for these photos on Wikipedia? First, the fellow apparently has a problem. He volunteers, one assumes, to share this problem with the world, but then he has to ….. uh, be proactive with himself…. in order to show the problem in its …. best light??

I’m sorry. It came up in something I’m editing and I didn’t know what it was and now I do and I’m ever so sorry to know, but not sorry enough not to share it with you.

I need my wubbie.