Category: etc.

I’ve been skulking around a bit lately at Sigmund, Carl & Alfred and found a post a few days ago that I was meaning to link to. The Anchoress reminded me of it. It’s a quiet, affecting post about the lasting power of simple decency.

Go read it.

I have to say this. I have to. I have a wee problem when nutters procreate. If you’re a nutter AND having a child, we are not going to be friends. Of course, it’s all my definition of who’s a nutter, a wacko, a loon. But if it makes you feel better in your insanity, just knowing that you’re crazy AND having a child nearly drives me to the brink of nutterdom, too.

Take Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. After standing on the shore, mesmerized by the sparkle, they finally took the plunge into Kook Lagoon a while back. They are now Officially Crazy AND they are having a baby AND we are not going to be friends.

Here’s the latest information I found on what Uncle L. Ron and the Church of Scientology expect from Katie when she gives birth:

— She is not to cry out or scream or make any loud noise in general when she’s in labor; this is bad for the baby.

— After the birth, 7 days of silence. This is good for the baby.

— Oh, and of course, OF COURSE, Katie will not be allowed any drugs during labor. Because that is no good for anyone, I guess.

Hope there’s no post-partum.

See what happens when you go swimming in the crazy?

I AM BUTTON BABY! HEAR ME ROAR!!

Here are some of the words I whipped out for Tee Tee’s entertainment the other day:

pwincess … giwaffe … cockodile … elphant … hippimus …wabbit … koala … Cinwella … quesadilla — which I say best of all, because I love it best of all

And Tee Tee’s favorite: Humpy Dumpy

Later that day, I spontaneously blurted: “Hi, guys!” “Off we go!” and “See ya!”

No one knew I could say them. But just look at my eyes; I’d been saving them up for a bit, can’t you tell?

I can also say all these colors:

Er, well, really, I just say “orrj” for “orange.”

(Give me a break. I’ve only been on the outside 18 months!)

But I do know all these shapes:

Er, well, actually, that green one’s a real head scratcher.

Tee Tee says, “It’s not polite to brag, Button,” but I don’t know what that means. Yet.

Tee Tee also says she loves me but, apparently, I “freak her out a little bit.”

What’s that, Tee Tee? Oh. She says I need to remember that I still wear THESE:

That’ll keep me “humble,” she says.

Whatever, Tee Tee. I’ll just be over here, counting to 10.

About a month ago, a girlfriend of mine volunteered to lead worship for a women’s group at another friend’s church. She was quite nervous, as she is is relatively new to the guitar and has never led group worship before.

Well, after it was over, she sent me this email. It’s just adorably hilarious, so I thought I’d share it with you.

Oh, and the parentheticals are all hers. That’s her title, too. I didn’t change a thing!

Here it is:

“Well, mission accomplished.

“I managed to play (stumble) through my songs and conquer (mask) my inadequacies as a musician/singer. My voice sounded pretty good (slightly harsh) and I did not crack (that I was able to remember after the sheer adrenaline rush) and thank heavens (God) for my exceedingly loud voice (which I cannot control) because although I chose songs that everybody knew, nobody sang loud enough to be heard by me (over my exceedingly loud voice, that is) in the small living room of the house. Singing loud helped me to overcome my fears (mask my nervousness and yet mysteriously make it evident at the same time), but oh, well, what CAN one do??

“My friend told me that worship was ‘awesome’ (which I accepted with great suspicion) and failed to tell me what everyone else thought (which I accepted with complete understanding). However, she did mention that if I just kept on doing a few familiar songs rather than mixing it up, the women would ‘soon get used to my style’ (accept the fact that I am loud and play roughly as well as loud). This, of course, worried me and did nothing for my self esteem in this area, as I never saw myself with any particular type of ‘style’ and wondered what EXACTLY she meant. So I chalked the comment up to a polite way of saying, ‘Keep it simple, my friend, because you suck and everyone was ultimately taken aback by your “style” and your loud — GOOD GOD, OH SO LOUD voice.’

“I guess God made me (obliviously) bold. Love and blessings —“

Ohh, hahahahaha.

A competition where movie classics are re-edited to look like completely different movies. This one’s the winner. I don’t want to give away what movie it is. Go see for yourself. I’ve already watched it too many times, so I need to pass the urge along …. that way, perhaps I can be free ….

UPDATE: Oh, I should add, it’s only a trailer, not an entire movie. Hint: “Red rum, red rum, RED RUM!”

A quick story:

A friend of mine recently went to a new prayer group started at Church X. Let’s call said friend “Lou.” The group’s theme was “How to Pray.” Lou was curious, so he went.

About 30 people were gathered in one of the classrooms. The leader spoke for a while about praying to receive “words.” At one point, one of the co-leaders spoke quite loudly, saying, “I give you authority in the name of Jesus Christ!” and then said, “Let’s all be quiet and ask to hear from the Lord.” A hush fell. One older gentleman in the group, though, started reciting The Lord’s Prayer out loud. When he finished, he quietly said, “THIS is the model of prayer we’ve been given by the Lord.”

Everyone in the group stared at him — as my friend described it, “as if he were crazy.” The man fell silent.

After a few moments more, the leader said, “Raise your hand if you are NOT getting a word from the Lord.”

During the silence, Lou had been flooded with Scripture, but not ‘words,’ so he raised his hand. The leader walked over, face puckered in concern, apparently, and whispered, “Ohhh. Let me pray for you.”

Lou whispered back, “I’d really like to talk to you about the focus of the group.”

The leader glossed over the comment.

“Well, were you getting a word?”

“No. I was getting Scripture.”

“Oh. Well, let me pray for you.” He did. Lou still “got” Scripture — and nothing else.

The leader simply turned away from him.

“Okaay. Who has a word for someone in the group?”

Most of the hands went up and one young fellow was called on to start. He went ’round the room, giving words to everyone. They were generic, about “freedom” and “new things,” nothing truly individual or relevatory. God is universally in the business of freedom; universally in the business of doing new things, all the time. Nevertheless, the leader was so excited, he just called out, “Well! You’re on a roll! Why don’t you just ‘do’ the whole room?”

My friend left without getting his word and without saying another.

Maybe this is your church. Or the church of someone you know.

“I thought it, so it must be from God,” right?

Here are the opening sentences of a popular Christian novel:

Garret Steele gripped the saddle with his thighs and held on to the horn with his left hand as the buckskin gelding beneath him set its front legs, then darted in the opposite direction in pursuit of the wily calf. The heifer was as range wild as any Garret had ever seen, but he and old Buck had been herding cows together for many years. They weren’t about to be outsmarted by beef on the hoof.

Uhh …. is it me? “Beef on the hoof”? “Wily calf”? I find this …. somewhat cheesy, really, and although I do like cheese on my beef, this does nothing for me. Why, oh, why is so much Christian fiction set in the gun-slingin’, cow-ropin’, tobacky-spittin’ Old West? Was it just a simpler time? Morals and mores less hazy than now? Or is it really the secret dream of every Christian (but this one) to live in a time where men had “callused hands” and “gripped the saddle with their thighs” and women had “flouncy petticoats” and “swooned at the sight of a man gripping the saddle with his thighs”?

I guess that is more exciting than swooning at the sight of a man taking out the trash.

Still, I’m genuinely asking: IS it me? Do I just need to simmer down, li’l lady? If it isn’t just me, then may I say there’s hope for all of us as writers? And if it IS just me, well …. there’s something wrong with you, pardner. 😉

Maybe the secret lies in writing about those cunning cows. Heck, I’ll give it a try. I just wrote about pigs, for Pete’s sake.

A-HA!! That’s it! My work of Christian fiction will be all pigs. No people. People are irritating, unpredictable, not as tasty. My porcine hero will have “callused hooves,” but still “grip the saddle with his little piggy thighs.” My porky heroine will have, well, if not “flouncy petticoats,” then certainly the “curliest li’l tail west o’ the Mississippi.” And, of course, she’ll swoon at the whole gripping piggy thigh thing. Who wouldn’t?

And this is Christian fiction, right? So my pigs will romp Old Testament through the pages: an unclean, unholy band of cow-pokin’ porkers plundering the countryside. They will be feared and reviled and spoken of only in hushed tones. No one will dare touch them for they are unclean. Their name …. will be Legion.

Of course, this is all just a rough sketch. And I probably shouldn’t drink before I blog. But I do know if I tell the tale in flashbacks — the very end at the very beginning — the first sentence of this unparalleled work of Christian fiction will be:

“Squeal, piggy.”

Get out the Kleenex on this one, because it’s gonna get messy. You’ll be crying with laughter reading Sheila’s story of her first-hand encounter with Miss Liza Minelli.

Kleenex, people. Be prepared. I’m just trying to help y’all be good little Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

Lyn over at New Things has written a short, lovely post on mourning. I think, somehow, it’s the perfect counterpoint to the essay on “weird Christians/conservative Christians.”

It points to what it means to be a simple Christian.

I witness the testimony of believing family members, who have surrendered their will for dad’s healing here and now, to the perfect will of their Lord who chose to heal Dad for eternity, instead of granting him a few more years on earth. I have seen that peace that passes all understanding ….

Go read the whole thing.