http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JmA2ClUvUY&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIl4LkHYRkg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3S0wu4Zbfk

Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion of the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.

- Miguel de Unamuno

By Stephen Ashbrook

Hot days, stormy nights
I was calling to apologize 'bout last night
Now baby don't you go away

Fact is, I really want to be with you
And I know, I hardly ever show that to you
But I really want to let you know
Let you know

Things are much better when we're together
I'm not so fond of all these long days
Even longer nights

Things are much better when we're together
We're trying so hard not to get it wrong
We can't get it right

And I'm really sorry 'bout last night
About last night

I know I have been blind
'Cause you were right in front of me all the time
And I never even let you know

And now, you're really gone
I just wish I knew the number of the cloud that you're on
'Cause I really want to let you know
Let you know

Things are much better when we're together
I'm not so fond of all these long days
Even longer nights

Things are much better when we're together
We're trying so hard not to get it wrong
We can't get it right

And I'm really sorry 'bout last night
About last night

19-year-old Kevin Roose was a sophomore at Brown University when he landed an intern gig with author AJ Jacobs while Jacobs was working on his book: The Year of Living Biblically. It was this experience that revealed to Roose he had little to no experience, knowledge or understanding concerning evangelical Christians. So he decided to take a semester off from Brown to study abroad. By "abroad" he meant Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia - the largest evangelical University in the world.

During his semester, Roose struggles with the ethical implications of pretending to be an evangelical when he is not. He sings in Jerry Falwell's church choir, participates in prayer groups and makes friends - all with the intent of deciphering the inner workings of evangelical Christianity and eventually writing a book about his experience.

Things take a strange turn when Kevin requests and is granted the opportunity to interview Jerry Falwell for the school newspaper. The article is a success - so much so that when Jerry Falwell dies in his office shortly after Roose's article is published, it is his article that is reproduced in the tens of thousands and handed out at the funeral. Receiving calls from news outlets, Kevins Roose is faced with going from conflicted secular impostor to spokesperson for Liberty University.

I found the book fascinating and frustrating. I believe Roose gives fair treatment to Liberty University (the good and the bizarre) and I was glad to have read The Unlikely Disciple.

See also:

by Bruce Taylor

All dogs and children awaiting
his flat ascending steps
up the steepest hill
for miles around,
hunched over, hands deep
into the jingle of his pockets

full of keys and key chain,
change purse, small change,
clean hanky, subway tokens, Tums
and Lifesavers or better yet,

Chicklets, or cough-drops, or gum
he'd give some to any grandchild
who could spell his word for the day
or who had learned another verse
from Proverbs or the Psalms

with his good felt hat in his hand
and his jacket folded neatly
over the other shoulder,
and his always white shirt
and his pin for perfect attendance
in the too wide lapel
of his second best suit

and his braces, belt
with initialed buckle,
vest, vest-chain, fob,
collar-stays, tie-pin,
cuff-links, Parker pen
and pencil set, glasses case,
address book and billfold

and if it was a Sunday
his best blue suit
and his bible, the small one,
and a white boutonniere
for his mother who was dead
and the envelopes for the offering.

by Stephen Ashbrook

Are you still listening
'Cuz I want to know
If I've wasted my time here
Do you want to stay?
'Cuz I got to go

Well you can always come home with me
Either way doesn't matter much to me
'Cuz I'm at an all-time low

Well don't you remember
Not long ago
I made you a promise
What comes easily
Does not easy go

But you can always say the same for me
Either way doesn't matter; I don't see it
'Cuz I'm at an all-time low
I'm at an all-time low

I still believe
There's good times to be had
If we just turn around

And I still believe
That the summer needs spring
To turn winter around

I still believe
There's good times to be had
If we just turn around
Just turn around

Well isn't it funny
Funny to most
At least I heard you laughing
I flew so high
My wings turned to smoke
I'm a natural disaster

And you couldn't catch me
'Cuz your wings were broke
'Cuz I crushed them beneath me
I crushed them beneath me

Now I'm at an all-time low
I'm at an all-time low

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KPKoYbIw4Q

by Ray LaMontagne

She lifts her skirt up to her knees,
walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing.
I never learned to count my blessings,
I choose instead to dwell in my disasters.
I walk on down the hill,
through grass, grown tall and brown
and still its hard somehow to let go of my pain.
On past the busted back of that old and rusted Cadillac
that sinks into this field, collecting rain.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged.

And of these cut-throat busted sunsets,
these cold and damp white mornings
I have grown weary.
If through my cracked and dusted dime-store lips
I spoke these words out loud would no one hear me?
Lay your blouse across the chair,
let fall the flowers from from your hair
and kiss me with that country mouth, so plain.
Outside, the rain is tapping on the leaves,
to me it sounds like they're applauding us the the quiet love we've made.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged.

Well I looked my demons in the eyes,
laid bare my chest, said "Do your best, destroy me.
You see, I've been to hell and back so many times,
I must admit you kind of bore me."
There's a lot of things that can kill a man,
there's a lot of ways to die,
listen, some already did that walked beside me.
There's a lot of things I don't understand,
why so many people lie.
Its the hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged.

I wish there was no such thing as war and yet, as long as there have been humans, war has been a reality. I don't see that changing any time soon. I confess that I find war fascinating; the public reasons and how they intersect with the private reasons; the stories of people who volunteer to go to war in an "appropriate way" and how their training and expectations collide with reality. It is one of the crucibles of human existence and yet what is gold and what is dross is open to interpretation.

This American Life is one of my favorite podcasts and they had a doosey on the Iraq / Afghanistan wars. The program historically leans left-of-center but I thought they made a fair treatment in this episode and it really struck me:

“The Christian call is to share,” says Campolo. “There’s nothing wrong with making a million dollars. There is something wrong with keeping it.”

- The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

I noticed the same thing from watching hours of Pat Robertson’s 700 Club. Sometimes you’ll get a crazy “Let’s assassinate Hugo Chavez”–type comment. But a lot of it is indistinguishable from standard morning TV: an interview with a gospel singer, or a health segment on the club’s weekly “Skinny Wednesday” feature (the wackiest thing I learned there was that Robertson has a side business in “age-defying protein pancakes”). That’s the big secret: The radical wing of the Christian right is a lot more boring than its liberal detractors would have you believe.

- A. J. Jacobs from The Year of Living Biblically

Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying us at the moment

- CS Lewis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJfGnqKoXYY

I could probably save a lot of time if I just made a t-shirt that says, “I’m sorry for disappointing you”

- The Bloggess

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0Q9xhnDXcA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06SKvgBu6LA

http://thedawgrun.blogspot.com/2007/08/7-wonders-of-hey-wait-minute.html

Japan's Nuclear Boy passed gas - sorta like America's 3-Mile Island Boy. Japanese doctors are working around the clock to keep Nuclear Boy from fully crapping his pants - like Russia's Chernobyl Boy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hSVxA&feature=player_embedded

Seriously, If you had to write a newspaper headline based on this video, what would you go with? "Japanese Prime Minister says 'We are trying to keep our S*it together'" . . .

"World prays that reactor does not take a dump" . . . .

What's your headline?

If you want to stand out, don’t be different; be outstanding.

- Meredith West

Christians do not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us

- CS Lewis

http://youtu.be/OCbuRA_D3KU

A Prairie Home Companion Broadcast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbhW_K3NvmQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXM3wrIhcwY

Suddenness of provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man: it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am

- CS Lewis

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less

- CS Lewis

by June Robertson Beisch

On first seeing it, I was repelled
by the idea of eating something so
exotic looking and sinister,

having read Jean Paul Sartre's line
about crustaceans having a dubious
consciousness. But I was in New York, and

the young man I had met there tucked
my napkin under my chin and
handed me a nutcracker for the shell.

I was from Minnesota, raised on
lakes and brook trout. I, too, was
uncooked and formless, like the creatures

who take on the shape of their environment
My first taste was delicious, but the
third was even better and by

that time I was a real New York girl
who wore skinny black dresses and false eyelashes,
able to handle myself with any

crustacean, dubious consciousness or not.

First the original:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66TuSJo4dZM

Now the new:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh0QQsIOlKg&feature=player_embedded

The truth is, what we call interruptions are precisely our real life, the life God is sending us day by day

- CS Lewis

by Peter Mayer

I’m like one of those Japanese bowls
That were made long ago
I have some cracks in me
They have been filled with gold

That’s what they used back then
When they had a bowl to mend
It did not hide the cracks
It made them shine instead

So now every old scar shows
From every time I broke
And anyone’s eyes can see
I’m not what I used to be

But in a collector’s mind
All of these jagged lines
Make me more beautiful
And worth a much higher price

I’m like one of those Japanese bowls
I was made long ago
I have some cracks you can see
See how they shine of gold

My dad smoked a pipe constantly. Cherry flavored tobacco from Thrifty Drug was his weapon of choice. He also ordered tobacco which came in round tins and we kept the little plastic discs to our disc guns in them.


My dad smelled of pipe tobacco, my toys smelled of pipe tobacco, our house, our cars, smelled of pipe tobacco; and it is a happy memory. Although my parents divorced when I was eight, I never saw them argue. I never saw them fight. No one in our house ever raised their voice. It was a happy time. It was a time that smelled of cherry flavored pipe tobacco.

My first step-father smoked two packs of unfiltered Lucky Strikes a day. My second step-father smoked pipes constantly - harsh, English-style tobacco. These were not happy times.

Statistically, given my upbringing, I should be a chain-smoker. All three of my brothers are - I am not. During college in 1991-1992, when I was trying to make sense of my childhood, I bought a pipe and some sweet-smelling tobacco and smoked it on the cliffs of my conservative-Christian university overlooking the Pacific Ocean (an expellable offence). As the comforting smells of childhood washed over me, I cried until I had no more tears to cry.

From time imemorable, humans have offered up burnt sacrifices to the god of their choosing. I have known hemp-wearing folk who rail against second-hand smoke in restaurants who go home and light incense and relish the look and smell of the smoke. Who among us does not enjoy the smell of a fireplace or the smoke-filled memories saturating their clothes after a beach bonfire with friends the night before?

UPDATE:

Told you so.

by David Ford

well nothing broke your fall and so you fell
down like concrete angels
like a nickel to the well
dragging a wish for silence

Maybe that's all marriage is - Loving your enemy . . . Maybe that's what love is . . .

I have OCD (notice I did not say "suffer from"). My father, on the other hand, suffers. He is a step below Jack Nicholson's character in "As Good as it Gets".


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44DCWslbsNM

I have learned a few things about OCD. For one, it has both a genetic and an environmental component. In other words, partially hereditary. I have also learned that OCD is an anxiety disorder meaning that obsessive-compulsives experience additional stress in day-to-day living because of the condition.

Fortunately, I know I have OCD and am able to keep a lid on it most of the time. I know that my desire for order goes beyond the bounds of what is socially acceptable and so I have learned some coping mechanisms. One is willful blindness. I have decided that (with the exception of special events) sweeping the house is not my concern. I do plenty of other chores (including windows) and for whatever reason, the floors is one of the places I have drawn a line. So I simply willfully ignore the dog hair and dirt until someone else gets around to sweeping.

But there are times, when I have the house to myself for a few days, that I hand the car keys to my disorder and say, "She's got a full tank of gas - lett'er rip!). this is one of those times. The wife and child are out of town visiting family for a few weeks and I have been in OCD overdrive. The entire house is dusted, the bathroom and kitchen are scrubbed, the laundry and dishes are done, the floor (yes, even the floors) have been swept and mopped, the yard work is done, the windows are sparkling clean (mostly), the dawgs have been bathed, my email inbox is empty and the budget is done (it sorta bothers me that the garbage cans in the driveway are not completely empty but trash day isn't until Wednesday . . .).

But here's the thing with OCD, once your life is ordered, you no longer have excuses to not do the more important things. Like writing (for instance) or going to the gym etc. The house is clean, ordered, peaceful - now what? So today is a turning point of sorts - I am out of excuses.

Well . . . not today. It's Sunday after all and I plan on enjoying a day of rest.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

~ Seneca

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzucpFgi7Xk&feature=player_embedded

This book has caught my eye a number of times but I always figured it was just a little too hokey. On the recommendation of a friend, I picked it up and totally enjoyed it.

A. J. Jacobs is an agnostic of Jewish descent. He decides he is going to spend an entire year living the Bible as literally as possible - which leads to some hilarious interactions with his wife, family and one particularly cranky senior citizen in Central Park.

Throughout the year, A.J. Assembles a team of counselors consisting of a Priest, a pastor and a Rabbi to advise him. He visits snake handlers in the South, Amish in the North and even makes a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands.

I found the book entertaining, fascinating and, in the end, heartwarming. I would highly recommend it.

Teaser:

The shepherd is a Bedouin man in his twenties wearing a red sweater and an orange jacket. He is shy and quiet, but in keeping with Middle Eastern hospitality, he invites me to tend with him. We stand side by side, watching the sheep graze. I expected shepherding to be a silent occupation, but it’s not. The sound of two hundred sheep chomping grass is surprisingly noisy. And that’s not to mention the constant b-a-a-a-ing. And lambs do say just that: “B-a-a-a-a-a.” It reminds me of how Julie sneezes; she lets out an “Ah-choo!” as if she’s reading from a script. The shepherd does not have a flute or harp or staff (the hook-shaped instrument). But he does have a rod. He carries a black rubber tube that looks like it might have once been part of a tractor. I ask through the translator, “What do you do with the rod?” “It’s just for appearance,” he admits. I love that. Even shepherds are concerned with superficial things. I ask him a few other questions. “How long have you been doing this?” “Two years.” “Is the black sheep really rebellious?” “No, it acts the same way as the white sheep.” “Do you like being a shepherd?” “Yes, very much.” And then the conversation dies. Which is a relief to him, and OK by me. We just stroll along silently, listening to the chomping and b-a-a-a-ing.