Amendment B Fails

For a bit of background, please refer to this post: 110th Mmeeting of the Arkansas Presbytery.

Presbyterian Outlook Magazine has reported that the Presbyterian Church (USA) has defeated Amendment B, the amendment allowing ordination and installation of GLBT Deacons, Elders, and Ministers of Word and Sacrament.

What do I say about this? I say that the sun will rise tomorrow. I say that this should come as no great shock. I say that I am disappointed, but this will not change the fact that the church I serve will remain a part of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Again, let me quote the Reverend Jeff Parker of First Rogers, Arkansas quoting the Book of Ruth telling the assembly, "Regardless of the outcome 'Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.'"

Straight, gay, ordained, lay, we are all the children of God. Siblings don't always get along, but we can never forsake nor be forsaken by God our Father. That is where our joy must be, not in the outcome of any amendment to the Book of Order. Peace be with us all and God bless us everyone.

Come and See it before YouTube Yanks it.

Shepherd Smith says torture is wrong on FoxNews and America is better than that. Let's just say at the 0:38 mark in the video he makes himself perfectly clear.

New Word Alert!

You read it here next (not first) yesterday: Blognore, it's my new word. In truth it has existed online since April 2006, or that's where I found it in a google search. Hence, I must give credit to the oldest citation of "blognore" I can find on the Internet, the Deep_Thoughts blog by The_Girl_From_Ipanema.

Blognore, verb: "to ignore something by not blogging about it."

Example, Mike Tyson said he could understand Chris Brown hitting his girlfriend, R&B singer Rihanna. Does the universe really require additional comment on comments this stupid from someone who abused his wife and did time for rape? I say no. Chris Brown-Dummy. Mike Tyson-Convicted Dummy. I blognore you. Next.

This is the way I use to blognore. Of course, by creating this example, I have effectively not blognored. Darn it! To blognore properly, no one can ever be really sure you have blognored at all.

T_G_F_I uses the verb to mean "to ignore someone and/or the work of someone in the blogosphere." Another wonderful definition. Her blog uses this context:

Gaurav,
You are a horrible fellow! I will "blognore" you. Yes, doing better, thanks for asking.

This can lead to other great words like, blognorance.

Blognorance, noun: The quality of knowledge and information created by the blogosphere.

Example: Me commenting on Middle East peace policy and its ramifications in world oil markets would add significantly to the quality and quantity of blognorance in the world.

Just for more useless information, this morning the word "blognore" generates eight hits on Google, "blognorance" gets 157 hits. Together we can make this happen!

Now That's Worth Posting!

It's been a while since I've posted, I pretty much feel like I've used up all of my words for a while, so I haven't written about a lot of really stupid things.

For example...

• I chose to blognore Hulk Hogan saying he can relate to O.J. What a dummy.


• I am blognoring Apple's iPhone App Store's stocking and then eliminating the "Shake a Baby" application.


• I am even blognoring the NFL Draft, mainly because the Chefs (er, that's Chiefs) seem to have blown the third pick in the draft.

This is what I have chosen to write about, a Chicago Cubs themed columbarium. Yes, that's right. If you've waited 100 years to see the Cubbies win the World Series, now you can wait an eternity with other fans. The Cubs may be cursed, but God must love Cubs fans.

Photo by Wayne Drehs for espn.com

Another Flawed Product Name

Condom maker Trojan has just introduced a new product called "Trojans2Go."

Frankly, I always thought of condoms as a "to go" kind of purchase. Imagine that conversation at your local drugstore.

Signs of Truth

You may have received these images before of a Catholic and Cumberland Presbyterian church arguing whether "All Dogs Go to Heaven." I have gotten it three times from three different folks, and it never ceases to amuse me.

Honestly, I think it's hilarious!

There's one thing though...it's not real. For details, check out this urban legend website.

These signs were created by someone using the Church Sign Generator. Honestly though, knowing this was not a conversation held between two competing churches in the real world does not make a difference to me.

People often complain that churches fight over the dumbest things when the Body of Christ should focus on issues of poverty, justice, and service to the Lord. People say that churches should stop navel-gazing into the occupants of heaven and instead seek the Lord and live as resdients of the Kingdom of God on Earth.

The people who say Christians are hypocrites have a hay-day with stuff like this.

Let's all laugh at this, because it's funny. But only when we live our lives so that the Lord thinks this is funny-instead of being all so true-will the last laugh not be on us.

42

Wednesday was Jackie Robinson day in Major League Baseball. Years before Brown vs. The Board of Education, years before the mess in Little Rock, years before George Wallace on the steps of the University of Mississippi; Jackie Robinson was the first African-American man to play in the Major Leagues.

As a memorial, about 15 years ago, every major league team retired his number, 42. Having your number retired is the greatest honor an individual can receive in a team sport. It is the team's way of saying "the impact you made is so important, no one else will ever be identified with this number."

On Wednesday, this rule was bent into a pretzel. On Wednesday, everyone wore the number 42. Everyone. So great was Robinson's impact that to celebrate the anniversary of this first game, everyone in the majors wore this retired number.

Gestures mean a lot, these gestures mean a lot. Douglas Adams said that the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything was 42. It seems like the question could be "what is the most important number in race relations."

Before politics, before education, even before a lot of lunch counters, there was the Dodgers infield. Whenever anyone asks "what is the value of sports?" This has to be a part of the answer.

The Pope Has a Point

The Associated Press reports this from the Pope's Easter message...

Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday that reconciliation was the only way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and said the entire world needed to rediscover hope to end wars, poverty and financial turmoil.

Well, you can't go wrong playing the hits. Happy Easter--He is risen, He is risen indeed.

Thanks be to God for Those Who Help

Last night, after the Tennebrae Service, Marie and I went to Sonic. (Who ever thought of putting a Frito Pie in a tortilla should get the Nobel prize for gluttony!) Getting ready to leave, the XTerra would not start. Yes, the brand spanking new-used vehicle died.

Fortunately, our Sonic is next door to an auto parts store. I told the guy I had a dead battery so he handed me a charger. Well, it didn't have the juice to turn over the truck. So our car-hop came out of the restaurant and asked if I needed a jump. She said if I had cables, she could give it a go. I have cables so it was off to the races.

As she pulled up to the truck, a guy in an H-3 jumped out to help. I hooked up the dead one and he hooked up the live one and Marie turned the thing over. Hooray! Praise God! By this time, the auto parts guy was looking for his porta-battery and took it back to the store. He didn't even try to sell me a battery!

Today, it started right up, but I took it to another auto parts store in town. They charged it and checked it and it was dead. So they sold me a battery and cable grease and so on. The sales guy even helped me install it in their parking lot. That's service!Now it starts and runs like a champ.

Why did I go to another auto parts store, becuase if the sales guy didn't want my money last night, he wasn't going to get another shot, especially since his porta-battery didn't work. This is where I recomment AutoZone and not mention the other store. (No, it wasn't WalMart.)

I also want to thank the guy who jumped out of the H-3. But the biggest thanks goes to the waitress who pulled her truck around to jump mine. Yes, she did get an extra tip.

Thanks again to everyone who helped last night and this morning. Praise be to God!

Miracles and Lurking

Let me draw your attention to the "Live Traffic Feed" box from Feedjit on the right hand side of your screen. This little add-on allows everyone to see the source of traffic to a particular website. In the last week or so, I've gotten a lot of hits from a thread on politicalcrossfire.com.

It may not be polite to lurk, but I have and have loved the comments found on this thread.

First of all, I love you people. There is some passion in this thread that I miss. You folks are great.

On another note, the discussion has taken a turn into the arena of "miracles." I like this take on miracles which comes from a sermon called "Here's Your Sign." The illustration below references the Peabody Award winning Futurama episode “Godfellas” by Ken Keeler.

"Futurama" is a television show produced by the creator of “The Simpson’s.” It’s about a man, Philip J. Frye, who was accidentally frozen in a cryogenic lab at midnight on December 31, 1999 and thawed 1,000 years later. In the episode titled “Godfellas,” Frye’s best friend and roommate, a robot named Bender, is accidentally shot from a space ship’s torpedo tube while it’s traveling at maximum velocity. Since Bender is moving faster than the ship’s top speed, there is no way to catch up and rescue him. Bender floats through space until he passes through an asteroid field and accidentally accumulates a microscopic civilization on his stomach (or what passes for a stomach on a robot), which declares him God, and worships him despite his constant inability to provide for their needs.

After the civilization that lived on Bender destroyed itself, he was distraught. Then he found an eternal omnipotent presence, the cartoon equivalent of the god of the universe. Bender shares his lament with the greater power. He says that no matter what he did, he could not help them. He did something, it didn’t work. He did nothing, and that didn’t work either. Then Bender learned the lesson of quality miracles from the being, “When you’ve done something right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”

I like this, do we need heavy handed miracles or a Lord who prefers to steer us gently? I like the Lord that works so gently we won't be sure God has done anything at all. As for me, I prefer relationship to manipulation.

BTW, that "Homeland Security Since 1492" t-shirt is great!

More Fat Music

I actually own the 45 of this song by Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band with The Rootettes.

Please, it was a gift. But come on, it is a great groove.

College Stories

Thanks be to God that I am a better man now than I was twenty-five years ago. A case in point...

When I was at university, I took the midnight to 2:00 am shift on Monday night/Tuesday morning (this actually has meaning in the next paragraph) at the college radio station. This was in the days of dime-draws and an 18 year old drinking age. (How any of us survived is a mark of the sovereignty of God.)

I ended up with what is either the last shift on Monday the 13th or Tuesday the 14th of February. Well, I was breaking up with a girlfriend and was in a sarcastic mood. So what did I do, I played two straight hours of break up songs. I had the first shift on Valentines Day and I played two straight hours of heart wrenching music. I started with Genesis singing "Misunderstanding" and went from there. This hit by the Atlanta Rhythm Section is one of the many I played over those two hours.

It was not a good night.

What was funny? A couple of days later I was told a group of my fraternity brothers who knew me well were listening. Suddenly one of them got up and said he was going to call in a request. The others told him to sit down. Paul's on a roll tonight, we're going to ride the wave.

They had been drinking. At least I had not. After all, it was tough to run the board after a bunch of dime draws.

As John Astin said time and time again on the TV show Night Court:

"But I'm much better now."

Today I am happily married--coming on twelve years. As for her, while I don't know what has come of her over the years, I hope and pray she's doing great. But I won't mention her name so as not to embarass her.

...or me.

More Church Signs

This is the church sign I put up for this Sunday...

SportsCenter

Have I ever told you I love sports?

Glazed and Confused

This is sick. By the way, the title to this posting comes from the article on ESPN.com, I did not come up with it. The good news is the proceeds benefit the North Carolina Children's Hospital. I love it!