Advent Devotional — Wednesday, December 12

12/12/2007, 9:00 am -- by | No Comments

Wednesday, December 12, 2007
“As the deer longs for the water-brooks, so longs my soul for you, O God. My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God; when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?”
(Psalm 42:1-2; from the Morning Psalm in The Divine Hours)

The praise chorus which was inspired by this psalm is a quiet sort of song which conjures up the pastoral scene of flowing streams and verdant meadows. Of course, to the deer, the desire for flowing streams is not a romantic longing — it is a matter of life and death. The deer needs water to survive; a self-replenishing source like a brook was life to a deer. A deer would frantically, desperately search for water just to survive, to get by. It is this image that the Psalmist uses to talk about his own thirst for God; a frantic, desperate thirst, as yet unrequited.

Advent asks us to cultivate that same thirst for God. That thirst is a difficult thing to grow. For one thing, we live in a culture that assures us God is unnecessary and quite possibly even harmful to our happiness. But for another, many Protestant churches have stressed God’s availability to us. The concept of the priesthood of all believers, for instance, has (rightly) told us that we do not need a priestly mediator to interact with God–that each of us has access to God for our own individual selves. And of course we have and treasure that access; but it is difficult to cultivate a thirst for anything that is always available — even God.

So how do we cultivate this thirst? In his providence God has given us many ways. One meaningful Advent-sort-of way is fasting, taking away the delight of a beloved food (or all food for a short period of time). When we treat that self-denial as a spiritual discipline, prayer accompanies our fasting: Lord, let me long for you in the way I’m longing for doughnuts. Our spirits are trained to desire God again; through denying ourselves smaller pleasures, we learn to associate that longing with our greater longing for God. Let me encourage you to find a way of fasting, be it through food or some other gift of God you wish to give up for a time; in it, you will learn to thirst for the living God.

Joke of the Day, 12/12/07

12/12/2007, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

Why is Christmas like a day at the office?

You do all the work while a fat guy in a suit gets all the credit.

Jobsquatch, Vol. 1

12/12/2007, 1:45 am -- by | 3 Comments

On the heels of the great debate over Job Tate’s existence, Steve and Tom traveled to Vermont last month to see if they could lure the great mythical beast out of hiding. They brought along a video camera, two leather jackets, their leftover fries from Wendy’s and a dream — a dream that they could finally capture the elusive Tate on film, to prove to the world once and for all that Job lives and breathes and walks among us.

Now — on the day Americans celebrate as Job Tate’s birthday — we bring you their journey, captured on video.

The first step? Part one . . . watch it here!

This Week’s Chick Tract Answer

12/11/2007, 11:30 am -- by | No Comments

Which of these didn’t happen in the battle for one man’s soul??

 

If you picked “A demon hides a man’s car keys,” you’re a winner!!

OOPS! There’s Baphomet again!

©1984-2007 Chick Publications, Inc. Reprinted without permission as fair use (parody).

Boaz Bloom and Tumble-Down Row, Part Seven

12/11/2007, 10:00 am -- by | 3 Comments

The last of the Best of Job, continued. Lost? Read part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, and part six!

Well, Grandma, I did my deed. Your sweaters and stuff are now at the Salvation Army, your pictures boxed and shipped to New Hampshire. I’m sorry to take them from the heartland.

Your house was sold to a young couple from Texas or something. I thought you’d appreciate that. I found that $10 bill tucked in your TV Guide and took Becky to Dairy Queen with it.

We’re gonna write.

 

My last day in Chap, I ate all three meals in town and made my rounds, saying goodbye to a few people. Becky was on vacation with her family. In the diner, I saw the government man down the counter. Being two outsiders we naturally let our conversation fall into orbit, and I asked if he had the aerials with him, and if I could see them one last time. He obliged me and pulled them from his case, while encouraging the waitress to warm up his coffee. I thumbed through them casually at first while still maintaining a conversation with him, but then I began to become further engrossed in the photos.

Wait…

I thumbed back…then forward again.

Whoa whoa whoa.

I laid them out on the counter, moved the salt shaker, and laid out some more. Sound rushed into my ears and my brow grew hot. For the first and only time in my life, I placed my hand over my mouth in instinctual shock.

From the air above Chap, in a series of photos, I saw Boaz’s daily path complete. And I could see, before tears clouded my vision, that the path carefully, artfully, in cursive — wrote out the name “Amelia.”

Directly above the town, lovingly carved into the earth with vulcanized rubber, funded by aluminum, powered by 200 lbs. of ballast and the thrust of two tired legs.

Amelia.

The man noticed my reaction and asked me what was the matter. I explained in stutters.

“Holy sweet Jesus…” he said with a gasp.

In a daze he added, before we parted, “He did everything but dot the ‘i’…”

 

So I went home, got my car — not a Honda — and went back to school.

Graduated. Married.

House on Long Island.

Kids.

I’ve rethought that summer over and over again and I think of Boaz often, still — a man I will always admire but cringe at the thought of becoming.

I’ve replayed conversations over in my mind — you know what I mean. His death always bothered me. It was such an inglorious end for a man who turned out to be one of my life’s heroes.

Ugh.

But, hey, listen, let me tell you something and then I’ll let you go, aye?

 

On a rainy night last May, I was lying awake, with my wife on my shoulder, thinking. As you know, 2 a.m. is no man’s land for thought, and I let my mind wander if I can’t sleep. Car payments, my son’s touchdown last year, my first dog.

I smiled about the sculpture out in Missouri and wondered how it was weathering the years of rain and snow and wind without Boaz’s upkeep. Amelia was probably dead now too, it occurred to me — buried next to that rich punk. All of hers and Boaz’s little spots down in Florida overgrown or developed into housing units — the place where they’d met now a mini-mall with 50% off Dockers or something, ya know?

Rain steadily thumped my roof. In my drowsy haze, I retraced the lines of Boaz’s path in my mind, in service to him. Upkeeping the trail in my mind.

“Did everything but dot the ‘i’…”

I suddenly shot up in bed, rolling Katie over. Closing my eyes, I feverishly envisioned the photos as best as I could after 20 years. I could see the name “Amelia” in the hillside; up above, the highway.

And I thought, and envisioned, and gripped my comforter — and could see the ‘i’ in “Amelia” rising up and pointing at the highway, directly at the spot where Boaz had died.

Died, and dotted an ‘i.’

I fell back into the pillows.

My friend Boaz had died a cucumber.

Advent Devotional — Tuesday, December 11

12/11/2007, 8:30 am -- by | No Comments

Tuesday, December 11, 2007
“He (Zechariah) asked for a writing tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God.”
(Luke 1:63-64; from the Morning Reading in The Divine Hours)

Zechariah is one of the more fascinating characters in the Christmas story. Because he fails to immediately believe the angel’s promise of a son, he is struck mute for nine months. When his son is born, he is freed from his muteness when he agrees with the angel and his wife Elizabeth that the baby is to be named John.

We tend to think of this as a punishment, and perhaps in a sense it was. But maybe it was more for Zechariah’s sake than anything. I believe that the deepest need of Zechariah’s heart at that time was silence. Think about it: he had just seen an angel appear before him, a supernatural messenger of God before his very eyes. This angel had given him good news, and instead of receiving it with joy, Zechariah demanded a sign: “How will I know that this is so?” So an angel stood before him, and still this was not proof enough for him that this was true; he demanded something more than the appearance of a supernatural being!

As remarkable as this seems to us, it reveals something about the human condition: we are able to miss even the most obvious messages God sends to us. The noise of our world renders God’s voice inaudible. The confusion of the world makes God’s good gifts look restrictive, makes our own self-destructive paths look appealing. Of course, the antidote to this is silence. When we intentionally shut off the noise of the world, we hear the voice of God without distraction and then we become more able to hear that voice amid the world’s noise. Intentionally choosing times of silence is a key to hearing God clearly in the world.

Of course, we cannot be trusted to intentionally choose the gift of silence; neither could Zechariah be so trusted. So he had silence graciously thrust upon him. And after nine months of imposed silence, finally he was able to recognize a good gift of God when he saw it. “His name is John,” he wrote, and finally he was able to move from silence to proclaiming the good news of God.

Likely you will not have silence thrust upon you these next two weeks. But I pray that silence suffuses your very being until Christmas Day. Live as one set apart from the world; live as one who observes it. Make a conscious effort to drown out the noise of the world, so that you can hear the Incarnate Word when He is spoken. And in so doing, may God equip you to proclaim the good news of that Boy to the ends of the earth; and may God’s vision for your life be born in this time of silence.

Quote of the Day, 12/11/07

12/11/2007, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

“The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.” — Augustine

The Council’s Ruling — Most Dangerous Creature

12/10/2007, 12:00 pm -- by | No Comments

This and every Monday, the Bweinh!tributors, having convened in secret for hours of reasoned debate and consideration, will issue a brief and binding ruling on an issue of great societal import.

This week’s question — What is the most dangerous animal or creature?

Erin delivers the ruling of the Council, joined by MC-B, Job, and David:

The mosquito. Malaria, dengue fever, encephalitis, West Nile anyone?

 

Tom dissents, joined by Connie and Djere:

Community-associated methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus. Flesh. Eating. Disease.

 

Steve dissents:

Cats. They reduce testosterone in men and have been known to turn ordinary women into crazy muttering plastic bag collectors.

 

Mike dissents:

Animal from the Muppets. WOMAN!!! WOMAN!!!

 

Chloe dissents:

The rat can travel anywhere, and carries with it diseases capable of decimating entire civilizations.

 

Josh played no part in the determination of this issue.

Next week: What is the most quintessentially American food?

Ask Bweinh! Poll — Christmas Highlights

12/10/2007, 9:45 am -- by | 1 Comment

Today’s Ask Bweinh! poll (now presented in Spanish — just hit the ‘SAP button’ on your remote!) asks for the Bweinh!tributors’ favorite parts of the Christmas season.

Rank Highlight Points
1. People/Family 29
2. Decorations/Mistletoe/Tree 14
3. Snow/Cold Weather 12
4-5 (tie) Cookies; Vacation 11
6. Carols 10
7. Dinner 6
8-10 (tie) “The end”; Candlelight Service; The Wumpus 5
Other Wood smoke; Generosity; Presents; Movies; Shopping; Chex Mix; Regifting; “Annual Nativity Scene Lawsuits”; Elves; Egg Nog; Festivus 1-4

 

Advent Devotional — Monday, December 10

12/10/2007, 8:30 am -- by | 1 Comment

Monday, December 10, 2007
“Once he came in blessing, all our ills redressing;
Came in likeness lowly, Son of God most holy;
Bore the cross to save us, hope and freedom gave us.

Still he comes within us, still his voice would win us,
From the sins that hurt us, would to Truth convert us:
Not in torment hold us, but in love enfold us.”
(Hymn by Jan Roh; in the Vespers Reading in The Divine Hours)

“The sins that hurt us.” We don’t often think about this reality: sin hurts. Even us Christians think of sin as something really hard to avoid because it’s so much fun. Illicit sex, a life of stingy, self-satisfied wealth while the world starves, an ability to take advantage of another without uneasiness: these things may seem wrong to us, but equally they seem thrilling. We channel these feelings into healthier, or at least less destructive, activities: we may watch them on a movie screen, but at least we don’t act on our feelings. Yet we often forget that sin hurts. And not just in the sense of where you’ll land in the afterlife. Sin hurts here, in this world.

Think about your body. It is a marvelous machine, capable of so much, especially at a young age. Yet when we fail to use our bodies for their intended purposes, we actually harm them. For example, when we treat food as an emotional crutch rather than as fuel for the purposes of God, our bodies often reflect it in being overweight. When we fail to exercise our bodies, while working at jobs where we sit all the time, our bodies are incapable of being all they can be — all that God created and intended them to be.

Sin works in the same way. When we fail to act on God’s intentions for our lives, we bear the scars here and now. When we make a habit of degrading our neighbor, something in our conscience goes numb and it becomes more and more of an effort to love our neighbor. We retreat into ourselves, trusting fewer and fewer people, until ultimately we are incredibly lonely. When we make stingy and selfish decisions, we are less and less inclined toward the generosity God intended us to display. We turn further and further to possessions and money for happiness, and live our lives in a constant state of disappointment that they cannot deliver.

It is for this reason that God’s voice still “would to Truth convert us.” It is not because God wants us to live a life of renunciation where we sign away our rights to enjoy anything. It is because God wants us to see what we Truly are, the purposes for which we were created. And if we live in that way, if we live with an eye toward taking on behaviors which reinforce those purposes, and rejecting behaviors which work against those purposes, we will live truly happy lives.

Imagine owning a shiny, sleek convertible and insisting it was actually a Land Rover. You’d take the convertible off-roading for about 30 seconds, until you tried to drive over a rock or through a creek. Then you would realize the folly of treating something that was created to be one thing as something entirely different. So it is with us; when we pretend that we were created to achieve, or to gain possessions, or to exalt ourselves, we are headed for disaster.

Joke of the Day, 12/10/07

12/10/2007, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

After her son fell in the pond again and came home with his good school clothes dripping wet, the exasperated mother sent him to his room and washed and dried his clothes.

A little later, she heard a commotion in the back yard. She called out, “Are you out there wetting your pants again!?”

There was dead silence for a moment, and then a deep, masculine voice answered meekly — “No, ma’am, just reading the meter.”

Football Results (Week Fourteen)

12/9/2007, 10:48 pm -- by | No Comments

This year, the Bweinh!tributors shall compete each week by proxy on the mighty gridiron!

The fourteenth week’s results
Buffalo def. Miami; Indianapolis def. Baltimore; Green Bay def. Oakland
San Diego def. Tennessee; Cincinnati def. St. Louis

Bweinh!tributor This Week Overall GB
Djere 5-0 51-19 —
Mike 5-0 46-14 —
Tom 4-1 50-20 1
Steve 4-1 49-21 2
Josh 0-0 41-15 3
MC-B 5-0 47-23 4
Connie 3-2 44-26 7
David 4-1 42-28 9
Erin 0-0 27-18 11.5

 

By category
Avid fans: 152-59 (.720)
Slight fans: 93-47 (.664)
Uninterested: 197-123 (.616)

Countdown to America Electing Yet Another Self-Centered, Self-Serving Egotist 2008

12/9/2007, 7:50 pm -- by | 2 Comments

There are more than three weeks until the official start of the Year of our Lord 2008.

Already there are over 7,100,000 hits on google for election 2008. Contrast that with fewer than 3.9 million for Britney Spears, and even a walrus can see that FAR TOO MUCH has already been written about an election over 300 days away.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy politics as much as the next guy who minored in Political Science (Poli-Sci, for those in the know). I’m just not a glutton for punishment. Not that the news media are going to let us off the hook. They’ll be all up in our collective grill, telling us either what we already know or what they want us to know, creating and destroying buzz words faster than Dan Rather can give a frog a handgun.

Flashback 2004

Djere is seated in JLM 319 – Editorial, Opinion, and News Analysis. The assignment was to inform the professor which Presidential candidate you support (thus splitting the class in half), and as editorial boards, write an endorsement for your candidate. After tallying the slips of paper a sigh, and a slight pause, Professor Karadjov speaks.
 

P.K.: “I’m going to need five volunteers. Contrary to national polling, Mr. Maxon here is the only student in the class supporting President Bush for relection.”

So clearly the *next* generation of Journalists is as liberal as you thought they’d be.

Thank God for democracy and all that, but if this election crap keeps up, it’s going to take more than Twiggy water skiing around a kiddie pool to keep from losing my mind.

Swiftboating, leapfrogging, gerrymandering… aww, crap for crap.

On the bright side, it was my (unbeknownst to me) Al Capone quote that got my endorsement voted best in the class.

“And remember: this election day, vote early, vote often, and vote for Bush.”

 

P.S. So far, only one reply… from the RON PAUL campaign!

Advent Devotional — Sunday, December 9

12/9/2007, 8:35 am -- by | No Comments

Sunday, December 9, 2007
Second Sunday in Advent
“Fling wide the portals of your heart;
Make it a temple, set apart
From earthly use for heaven’s employ,
Adorned with prayer and love and joy.” (From Lift Up Your Heads, Eternal Gates by George Weissel; in the Vespers Reading in The Divine Hours)

This hymn expresses almost perfectly the sentiment of Advent. The first verse essentially says, “Jesus is on the way;” and our response is summed up in this second verse. Because the Savior is here, our response must be to open our lives completely to Him. We “fling wide the portals of our hearts,” giving Him complete access to our lives, to tinker in whatever nooks and crannies He wishes to change. The goal of all this is holiness, that is, we wish for our hearts to be “set apart,” different from the rest of the world. We have different purposes: we have moved from “earthly use” to “heaven’s employ,” trading in human purposes for God’s purposes in our lives. We also have a different sense of what makes us beautiful: “prayer and love and joy” serve as our adornments rather than whatever the world is calling beautiful at the present moment.

In what ways are you pursuing holiness today? Let me suggest that the hymn’s message is a wise one. In order for us to become set apart, in order for us to allow God’s purposes to shape and mold our desires, we first need to “fling wide” open the gates to our heart. Our first step has to be to allow Christ unfettered access to our lives.

We often pay lip service to this without realizing what it really means. It means that in a sense we can never be at home here, as many in the world are. Our sense of security cannot come from our jobs, our homes, our nation, our possessions, for allegiance to Christ may (probably will) threaten these things from time to time. Instead, our sense of security has to come from its best and only source: from God himself. “All other ground is sinking sand,” says another hymn, and this is true. To become truly holy, truly set apart, can be a painful process of letting go of other allegiances that are comfortable to us.

May the next few days of Advent be for you a time of “flinging wide” the gates to your heart, and allowing Christ access. Even when it’s scary, even when it’s painful, may you find your security not in created things, but in God himself. May this be so not for your own sake alone, but for the whole world you can touch with the hands of Christ.

Scientology – nicht aus Deutschland!

12/8/2007, 8:41 pm -- by | 2 Comments

I’m really not the biggest fan of Scientology. I know that’s probably hard to believe, but I personally think that Galactic Overlord Xenu is a little overrated. Sure, maybe he was king of the Galactic Confederacy 75 million years ago, but if you’re an evil overlord, you just don’t go around killing billions of your subjects with volcanoes and hydrogen bombs. It’s bad practice and it lowers morale across the empire.

Since I don’t like Scientology all that much, I should have been happy when I found out that the German government is considering declaring Scientology unconstitutional. However, in increasingly atheistic Europe, I worry that the grounds on which the Germans are considering banning Scientology (cult-like behavior and exploiting followers for financial gain) could easily be extended to Christianity from an outside observer’s perspective. Scientology has both of these characteristics to an absurd degree that no sect of Christianity with which I am familiar possesses, but give it a few decades.

If you’re not inside Christianity, there are parts that you won’t get. I was Christian from an early point in my life, and I still didn’t understand speaking in tongues or prophesying when I saw them. Unless lawmakers in Europe are themselves Christian or receive large amounts of electoral pressure from Christian groups, how can real, Spirit-fueled Christianity differentiate itself from cult movements? From my perspective, the Truth can triumph easily if people are willing to be God’s instruments, and national governments should not protect a follower of any religion, sect or cult from being “duped” unless that person normally has special protections against such things (children, the elderly, the infirm), even if it causes that person financial harm. What do you think? What threshold should be used to determine what components of religion (if any) should be regulated?

« Previous Page — Next Page »