Blogging and recycling
November 12, 2008
Hey, wait a minute…this satirical post about pastor blogging from Larknews.com has violated the cardinal rule of good satire: it’s funny only when someone else is being skewered.
Coffee with Lewis: humiliation for the humble
September 18, 2008
Let’s cut to the chase. Lewis was extraordinarily funny. Why does that matter? Is there not something gracious and edifying about laughter? I don’t mean the cutting, biting, derisive laughter, but the free expression of a cheerful heart made glad by God and thus discerningly amused by what he has done and is doing. Back in 2006 I blogged about such here. The excerpt below is from a secondary source: Surprised by Laughter: the Comic World of C.S. Lewis, by Terry Lindvall:
Laughter is a divine gift to the human who is humble. A proud man cannot laugh because he must watch his dignity; he cannot give himself over to the rocking and rolling of his belly. But a poor and happy man laughs heartily because he gives no serious attention to his ego….Only the truly humble belong to this kingdom of divine laughter…Humor and humility should keep good company. Self deprecating humor can be a healthy reminder that we are not the center of the universe, that humility is our proper posture before our fellow humans as well as before almighty God…”I suppose,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “we should mind humiliation less if we were but humbler.”
10 free dates your wife will love
September 17, 2008
At frugaldad.com you can find suggestions for 10 free dates your wife will love. Tie the children to the bedposts (or get a babysitter) and enjoy. I’m not sure that #3 (house shopping) will work so well in a small town like Kosciusko, unless you enjoy the prospect of spending the next month replying to the “So, I hear y’all are looking for a new house” comments.
Thinking and eating
September 4, 2008
Not sure how to analyze this. I’ll think about it some more after I finish the Fritos and the gummi bears.
Good eats in Beijing
August 6, 2008
As one who works from one language to another, I have a special sympathy and extra laugh for the sign purchased by this Beijing restaurateur, who apparently used an internet translation service to obtain an English sign to attract customers while the Olympics are in town.
I hear the “404 File Not Found Chicken” is to die for.
More jibbah-jabbuh about brittle crazie glasse
July 31, 2008
George Herbert used stained glass as a metaphor for preachers. How would Herbert have written his poem if the stained glass in the cathedral looked like this?
Perhaps it is a fitting metaphor for my preaching ministry, anyway. I pity the fool who doesn’t comment.
Happy birthday to you; I hope you won’t sue…
April 16, 2007
You’ve probably noticed that the ubiquitous chorus Happy Birthday to You almost never appears in films or television programs. You may have heard it explained that Paul McCartney and/or Michael Jackson own the copyright to the song and charge an exorbitant licensing fee for authorized use of the tune. That is only partially true. Neither McCartney nor Jackson (please stop singing ‘Ebony and Ivory’–that means all of you…I mean it!) own the rights, but the company who does has deep pockets and an itchy trigger finger when it comes to enforcing their rights. For more on the history of the most widely-known song in the English language (yes, even more widely-known than Sinatra’s My Way), you can read Mark Steyn’s history on his ‘Song of the Week’ feature.
Take me out to the ball game
April 2, 2007
Major League Baseball opened the 2007 season last night, with the New York Metropolitans defeating last year’s World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-1. With baseball season underway (and college baseball, which I follow more closely, has been swinging since February), it’s worth musing on the most familiar, popular baseball song of all time, Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Did you know that neither lyricist Jack Norworth nor composer Albert Von Tilzer had never been ‘taken out’ to a ball game at all? Mark Steyn has written an informative and entertaining piece on the history of the 7th-inning-stretch sing-along classic.
Bonus question: Think about the oom-pa-pa tune. Aren’t there some hymns from the turn of the 20th century that sound eerily similar? Bonus points if you can name some…
Holy laughter
October 5, 2006
When the gospel takes deep root in our hearts, laughter inevitably follows. Sometimes we laugh in joy and delight at God’s ways and our thick-headedness about it all. Sometimes we chuckle at the incongruities of life–the explanations of the world that 3-year-olds offer us, funny hats, and the catapult hurling Wile E. Coyote into the side of the mountain. Sometimes we imitate our Father and his prophet Elijah in mocking and ridiculing the arrogance of those who exalt themselves against God and his Christ (Psalm 2:2-4; 1 Kings 18:27).
Here are some thoughts from Charles Spurgeon on laughter and the Christian life.
I do believe, in my heart, that there may be as much holiness in a laugh as in a cry; and that, sometimes, to laugh is the better thing of the two, for I may weep, and be murmuring, and repining, and thinking all sorts of bitter thoughts against God; while, at another time, I may laugh the laugh of sarcasm against sin, and so evince a holy earnestness in the defense of the truth.
I do not know why ridicule is to be given up to Satan as a weapon to be used against us, and not to be employed by us as a weapon against him. I will venture to affirm that the Reformation owed almost as much to the sense of the ridiculous in human nature as to anything else, and that those humorous squibs and caricatures, that were issued by the friends of Luther, did more to open the eyes of Germany to the abominations of the priesthood than the more solid and ponderous arguments against Romanism.
I know no reason why we should not,on suitable occasions, try the same style of reasoning. “It is a dangerous weapon,” it will be said, “any many men will cut their fingers with it.” Well, that is their own lookout; but I do not know why we should be so particular about their cutting their fingers if they can, at the same time, cut the throat of sin, and do serious damage to the great adversary of souls.
At no extra cost, here’s one from Martin Luther:
It is pleasing to the dear God whenever you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.
LarkNews.com
September 25, 2006
At the risk of revealing too much about myself and what I think is funny, here is a link to LarkNews.com.
