Earlier this month, we made you aware of the poster which replaces Christ and His disciples with homosexuals. It was used to promote the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco.
Concerned Women for America first expressed concern and criticism of the poster, then others joined in condemning the act.
Within twenty-four hours, the Miller Brewing Company asked to have their logo removed. Now, they are making public apologies.
However, there are some interesting comments that came from this fiasco.
Nehl Horton, Miller Senior Vice President said after being called on it, "We apologize to everyone who we offended."
Translation: Please don't stop buying our products.
Andy Copper, board president of the Folsom Street event said after Miller got called on their participation in the event, "Miller was never afforded the opportunity to review our fair poster before it was printed and distributed."
Translation: Don't take this out on Miller, they are our friends and we want their money next year.
Copper, again, "I would like to apologize to anyone who felt that the image was disrespectful to their religious beliefs."
Translation: We had no idea that more than one hundred million Americans really felt strongly about Christianity and it's leader, Jesus.
Copper, one more time. "No malicious intent was intended."
Translation: We didn't think anyone held anything sacred.
Nancy Pelosi said, "I do not believe that Christianity has been harmed by the Folsom Street Fair advertising."
Translation: We didn't think you all would get that upset. Let's just forget about it and move on.
Schwarzenegger said, "No comment."
Translation: Just vote for me, but don't get me involved with this thing. Besides, I like girls.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said in their printed program, "To all organizers and attendees of the Folsom Street Fair, their families, friends, colleagues and visitors from home and around the world, have a great day and enjoy this wonderful and exciting event."
Translation: I've sold my soul for my job. I love my job.
The shortest scripture verse in the Bible comes to mind. "Jesus wept."
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Corporate America is sorry if anbody actually respected Jesus
Gary Randall at Faith and Freedom Network fisks Miller's half-assed apology for the inexcusable:
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Look on the bright side...
... at least it wasn't Michael Jackson.
That kind of cheap shot is why I have trouble respecting Bill Donohue. Yeah, her pictures are offensive. They tap into the last acceptable prejudice, and defame thousands of good men who stick to their vows of celibacy by implying that they're all seccretly coveting little chippies with short skirts and shorter vocabularies. It's obnoxious, and I hope the album bombs. But leave her kids out of it.
LOS ANGELES - Kinky photos of a half-naked Britney Spears perched on a priest's lap and leaning seductively against a church confessional sparked outrage among Catholic leaders.
At least one said the saucy snapshots, which grace the singer's thumping new dance album, "Blackout," are a "bottom of the barrel" stunt from a girl who really could use some quality time spent repenting sins in a wooden cubicle.
"This is all the puzzle pieces coming together. This girl is crashing," said Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League. "She's not even allowed to bring up her own kids because she's not responsible enough. Now we see she can't even entertain."
That kind of cheap shot is why I have trouble respecting Bill Donohue. Yeah, her pictures are offensive. They tap into the last acceptable prejudice, and defame thousands of good men who stick to their vows of celibacy by implying that they're all seccretly coveting little chippies with short skirts and shorter vocabularies. It's obnoxious, and I hope the album bombs. But leave her kids out of it.
Happy birthday!
It seems a little weird to be posting about Reformation Day, but Tim Challies' invitation set me to thinking. What, exactly, can a Catholic say about the Reformation? After all, it was a rebellion against the Catholic Church. We were, at least in the popular eye, on the losing side of it. And yet, I'm not all that sure either of those is really true.
No event in the history of western Christendom gets people as worked up as the Protestant Reformation. Catholics think of it as a tragedy, when whole countries departed the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church into schism, if not outright apostasy. Protestants treat it almost as the real founding of Christianity, as seminal as the First Vision is to Mormons. Both of them make a bigger deal out of it, I think, than is necessary.
It's not as though there was any shortage of heresies and schisms before Luther nailed his thoughts to the door. The Great Schism of 1054 leaps to mind. The Monophysites were still around, and are going strong today. The Nestorians are still there, too, albeit in lesser numbers. In the west, there had been the Albigenses and the Waldenses. All of them had split off from the mother Church, and some of them had stayed that way. (And that so many of those survived belies the myth that the Catholic church exercised total dominance and destroyed all dissenters. The Albigenses were wiped out militarily, but all the others were mostly left alone. And if you read what-all the Albigenses believed and did, I don't think anyone missed them when they were gone.)
What makes the Protestant Reformation different? Well, more than anything, I think it's because it happened to us. Not personally, but in our backyard, and it still affects us today. The schism following Chalcedon is only a matter for history books in America; the Protestant schism is still very much in evidence here. (I suppose the situation is the opposite in Egypt, but maybe not. Churches being oppressed by Islam don't have a lot of time to fight between themselves.) It also coincided with the advent of the printing press, which made it much more a commoners' revolt. Literacy spread quickly with the cheap availability of books, which made the ordinary man more of an ecclesiastical force than he had been.
But the main difference is that the Protestant Reformation wasn't all about doctrine. Yes, that's right. It was less doctrinal than any other schism had been except the East-West split in 1054. The Reformation was as much a political struggle as a religious one, and really, I don't think doctrine would have entered into it had Luther's attempted reforms been more quickly implemented. Trouble was, nobody listened to him. It didn't help that the pope was attempting to unite European leaders to fend off Muslim armies, which took a lot of precedence over some German backwater. But because he went unheard, Luther had to get louder and more offensive, claiming that the Church didn't have any real authority over him anyway. If one of his assertions was shown to be contrary to scripture, he simply edited scripture. The Council of Trent eventually vindicated him on a lot of things, but by that time the damage was done.
It's hard to blame Luther. Simony and political intrigue were as much a part of Church life in his part of Germany as the sacraments. Priests were ill-trained, bishoprics were bought and sold, and the piety and gullibility of ordinary people were being played on by sharks like Tetzel. Luther was, I think, an honest man who really grieved for the Church he loved, as children will grieve for an alcoholic mother. If you look at his writings, he started out expressing devotion to the Church and to the pope; it was only as his cries for reform went unheeded that he headed off into heresy and eventual schism.
I rather believe that had the Church done the necessary housecleaning in Saxony, today St. Martin of Wittenberg would be called a Doctor of the Church and ranked alongside Aquinas and Augustine. (If nothing else, his hymns should have gotten him canonized.) Since it didn't happen that way, we have his legacy to deal with, and it's a dilly.
After he established the precedent of schism based on individual interpretation, others began to imitate him: Calvin, Zwingli, Menno, Servetus. And over in England, Horny Henry made use of the new doctrines to tell the pope where to get off. (It's not a coincidence that Ann Boleyn had strong Lutheran leanings.) Widespread discussion of theology was a good thing, overall, but one side effect was that one schism begat another. Hundreds of years later, Charles Taze Russell would discover that the Bible didn't really mean what everyone had been saying it meant, and would retranslate to suit. John Calvin's ideas on predestination would eventually lead to Fred Phelps and David Koresh. Both Reformers would be appalled to have spawned such things, but once the bottle is opened, it's mighty hard to stuff the genie back in.
So far, so bad. But the legacy of Luther doesn't stop at disaster. As a result of his actions at Wittenberg Cathedral, the Church was forced to make some major changes. The Council of Trent is maligned by Protestants because it didn't affirm their view of justification, but what it did do was root out the simony and corruption that had brought the schism on in the first place. Seminaries were established, liturgy was made uniform, and strict rules were put in place to prevent the sale of Church offices and benefits. (The full documentation of the Council is here. It's usually quoted badly out of context; oddly enough, the apologists that use it as a bludgeon against Catholics seem never to have read it.)
The ongoing conflict has also acted as a spur to both sides of the debate. I'm sure most Protestants would deny it, but the existence of the Catholic Church establishes a standard for Christian tradition that Protestants adhere to. Interpretations of scripture on issues like the Trinity and the Incarnation are by default the ones established by the Catholic Church before the Reformation, and it's the New Testament canon laid out at Hippo, Carthage and Trent that is still used today. Protestant churches that have liturgical worship use variations on the Roman Mass. Even in contemporary issues like abortion and homosexuality, when proof-texts for both sides get thrown around, it's the ancient tradition of the Church that's the fallback position. Protestants don't like to think of those standards as Catholic ones, but they learned 'em from us.
At the same time, the Catholic Church has been forced by the existence of other sects to keep its own house in order. We don't sell indulgences, we don't have popes begetting children, and we don't have priests making up dogmas because they don't know for certain what's official and what's not. Our parochial schools were until recently a jewel among educational systems; they were originally founded because the public schools taught a default Protestantism. (Today, Protestant Christian schools are founded to keep kids from being spoon-fed secularism. So it goes.) We fight on the same side in a culture that increasingly despises Christ no matter what church His followers belong to. Protestants are finding themselves more and more aligning with Catholics where they can, as their own denominations abandon orthodoxy bit by bit. All this makes us hold ourselves accountable, where we might not if we were the only game in town.
As Pope Benedict has pointed out on several occasions, ours is a Mother Church with a number of daughters. Those daughters, after a tumultuous beginning, have grown up to be strong, beautiful and a credit to their mother. Like grown children, they may not be a mirror of the parent, but they also have virtues that their parent is lacking. Where we are sometimes complacent in our traditions, they are vibrant and enthusiastic. Where we lapse into cultural Christianity, they stress study and scholarship. In the past those virtues and lacks were reversed; they may be again someday. We'll always be different, but always from the same root.
We may mourn for their departure, but on this 490th birthday of the eldest daughter, let's also honor them for what they've become. Not children to be spanked, but peers to be loved and respected. Daughters in origin, perhaps, but sisters in fact.
Happy birthday. You've done Mom proud.
No event in the history of western Christendom gets people as worked up as the Protestant Reformation. Catholics think of it as a tragedy, when whole countries departed the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church into schism, if not outright apostasy. Protestants treat it almost as the real founding of Christianity, as seminal as the First Vision is to Mormons. Both of them make a bigger deal out of it, I think, than is necessary.
It's not as though there was any shortage of heresies and schisms before Luther nailed his thoughts to the door. The Great Schism of 1054 leaps to mind. The Monophysites were still around, and are going strong today. The Nestorians are still there, too, albeit in lesser numbers. In the west, there had been the Albigenses and the Waldenses. All of them had split off from the mother Church, and some of them had stayed that way. (And that so many of those survived belies the myth that the Catholic church exercised total dominance and destroyed all dissenters. The Albigenses were wiped out militarily, but all the others were mostly left alone. And if you read what-all the Albigenses believed and did, I don't think anyone missed them when they were gone.)
What makes the Protestant Reformation different? Well, more than anything, I think it's because it happened to us. Not personally, but in our backyard, and it still affects us today. The schism following Chalcedon is only a matter for history books in America; the Protestant schism is still very much in evidence here. (I suppose the situation is the opposite in Egypt, but maybe not. Churches being oppressed by Islam don't have a lot of time to fight between themselves.) It also coincided with the advent of the printing press, which made it much more a commoners' revolt. Literacy spread quickly with the cheap availability of books, which made the ordinary man more of an ecclesiastical force than he had been.
But the main difference is that the Protestant Reformation wasn't all about doctrine. Yes, that's right. It was less doctrinal than any other schism had been except the East-West split in 1054. The Reformation was as much a political struggle as a religious one, and really, I don't think doctrine would have entered into it had Luther's attempted reforms been more quickly implemented. Trouble was, nobody listened to him. It didn't help that the pope was attempting to unite European leaders to fend off Muslim armies, which took a lot of precedence over some German backwater. But because he went unheard, Luther had to get louder and more offensive, claiming that the Church didn't have any real authority over him anyway. If one of his assertions was shown to be contrary to scripture, he simply edited scripture. The Council of Trent eventually vindicated him on a lot of things, but by that time the damage was done.
It's hard to blame Luther. Simony and political intrigue were as much a part of Church life in his part of Germany as the sacraments. Priests were ill-trained, bishoprics were bought and sold, and the piety and gullibility of ordinary people were being played on by sharks like Tetzel. Luther was, I think, an honest man who really grieved for the Church he loved, as children will grieve for an alcoholic mother. If you look at his writings, he started out expressing devotion to the Church and to the pope; it was only as his cries for reform went unheeded that he headed off into heresy and eventual schism.
I rather believe that had the Church done the necessary housecleaning in Saxony, today St. Martin of Wittenberg would be called a Doctor of the Church and ranked alongside Aquinas and Augustine. (If nothing else, his hymns should have gotten him canonized.) Since it didn't happen that way, we have his legacy to deal with, and it's a dilly.
After he established the precedent of schism based on individual interpretation, others began to imitate him: Calvin, Zwingli, Menno, Servetus. And over in England, Horny Henry made use of the new doctrines to tell the pope where to get off. (It's not a coincidence that Ann Boleyn had strong Lutheran leanings.) Widespread discussion of theology was a good thing, overall, but one side effect was that one schism begat another. Hundreds of years later, Charles Taze Russell would discover that the Bible didn't really mean what everyone had been saying it meant, and would retranslate to suit. John Calvin's ideas on predestination would eventually lead to Fred Phelps and David Koresh. Both Reformers would be appalled to have spawned such things, but once the bottle is opened, it's mighty hard to stuff the genie back in.
So far, so bad. But the legacy of Luther doesn't stop at disaster. As a result of his actions at Wittenberg Cathedral, the Church was forced to make some major changes. The Council of Trent is maligned by Protestants because it didn't affirm their view of justification, but what it did do was root out the simony and corruption that had brought the schism on in the first place. Seminaries were established, liturgy was made uniform, and strict rules were put in place to prevent the sale of Church offices and benefits. (The full documentation of the Council is here. It's usually quoted badly out of context; oddly enough, the apologists that use it as a bludgeon against Catholics seem never to have read it.)
The ongoing conflict has also acted as a spur to both sides of the debate. I'm sure most Protestants would deny it, but the existence of the Catholic Church establishes a standard for Christian tradition that Protestants adhere to. Interpretations of scripture on issues like the Trinity and the Incarnation are by default the ones established by the Catholic Church before the Reformation, and it's the New Testament canon laid out at Hippo, Carthage and Trent that is still used today. Protestant churches that have liturgical worship use variations on the Roman Mass. Even in contemporary issues like abortion and homosexuality, when proof-texts for both sides get thrown around, it's the ancient tradition of the Church that's the fallback position. Protestants don't like to think of those standards as Catholic ones, but they learned 'em from us.
At the same time, the Catholic Church has been forced by the existence of other sects to keep its own house in order. We don't sell indulgences, we don't have popes begetting children, and we don't have priests making up dogmas because they don't know for certain what's official and what's not. Our parochial schools were until recently a jewel among educational systems; they were originally founded because the public schools taught a default Protestantism. (Today, Protestant Christian schools are founded to keep kids from being spoon-fed secularism. So it goes.) We fight on the same side in a culture that increasingly despises Christ no matter what church His followers belong to. Protestants are finding themselves more and more aligning with Catholics where they can, as their own denominations abandon orthodoxy bit by bit. All this makes us hold ourselves accountable, where we might not if we were the only game in town.
As Pope Benedict has pointed out on several occasions, ours is a Mother Church with a number of daughters. Those daughters, after a tumultuous beginning, have grown up to be strong, beautiful and a credit to their mother. Like grown children, they may not be a mirror of the parent, but they also have virtues that their parent is lacking. Where we are sometimes complacent in our traditions, they are vibrant and enthusiastic. Where we lapse into cultural Christianity, they stress study and scholarship. In the past those virtues and lacks were reversed; they may be again someday. We'll always be different, but always from the same root.
We may mourn for their departure, but on this 490th birthday of the eldest daughter, let's also honor them for what they've become. Not children to be spanked, but peers to be loved and respected. Daughters in origin, perhaps, but sisters in fact.
Happy birthday. You've done Mom proud.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
What's wrong with this picture?
Never mind the part about her being in her undies; that's actually irrelevant. You'll have to click on it to see it bigger to get it. I didn't want it too big here, because it might give onlookers the wrong impression.I didn't get it either; I had to look at the answer. That's here, where my Lovely and Brilliant Wife stumbled on it. Don't peek until you absolutely give up; you'll kick yourself. (Update: I took a look at the comments on the linked post, and it's a lot cruder than I want to direct anyone to. So the answer is hidden below.)
She has six fingers on her hand.
Friday, October 26, 2007
LOL HPL!
CTHULHU FHTAGN CHEEZBURGER!
If Ricki hadn't recently confessed to a love for this LOLCATS phenomenon, I wouldn't have the faintest idea what this was all about. My oldest daughter never reads this blog (she's heard quite enough opinions out of Dad in her time, thank you), but this is exactly her humor. She's the only one of my kids, I think, that's ever read any Lovecraft. Not that she'd actually LOL or anything; she's more the turn-up-one-corner-of-the-mouth-ever-so-slightly type.
Thanks, Cullen! I needed this.
Update: Here's another one I just had to put up:
If Ricki hadn't recently confessed to a love for this LOLCATS phenomenon, I wouldn't have the faintest idea what this was all about. My oldest daughter never reads this blog (she's heard quite enough opinions out of Dad in her time, thank you), but this is exactly her humor. She's the only one of my kids, I think, that's ever read any Lovecraft. Not that she'd actually LOL or anything; she's more the turn-up-one-corner-of-the-mouth-ever-so-slightly type.
Thanks, Cullen! I needed this.
Update: Here's another one I just had to put up:
A mother's day in three minutes
Dani passed this on to her e-mail list of moms last week, and was kind enough to include me. I'm not constructed as a mom, true, but I served as a makeshift one for some years, and dang if this doesn't sound familiar. It's a hoot.
Dani actually sent a link to Don Godman's post (H/TBUH), but I just had to steal it and put it up here.
Dani actually sent a link to Don Godman's post (H/TBUH), but I just had to steal it and put it up here.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
He hasn't been screwed enough?
Okay, I'm all in favor of a divorced father paying his due support. I pay mine without bellyaching (at least not too much), and I don't have a lot of sympathy for guys who dodge it. But this poor schlub has been in prison for 18 years for a crime he didn't commit. Is it really necessary to nail him this hard as soon as he walks out the prison door?
That last sentence makes me wonder if there's an alienation thread in all this as well: Mama's irritated because the boy wants to live with his father. Beats me; I don't know these people. But it seems to me that even an angry ex could cut this guy a little slack.
Dwayne Allen Dail, 39, was cleared in August of the 1987 rape of a 12-year-old Goldsboro girl. The girl identified him as her attacker, and hair found at the scene was similar to his. DNA evidence found on a fragment of the girl's nightgown years after the trial proved Dail wasn't involved in the attack, however.
Gov. Mike Easley pardoned Dail two weeks ago, making him eligible to receive $360,000 from the state – $20,000 for each year he spent in prison.
Dail, who now lives in Florida, was served Tuesday with a lawsuit by Lorraine Michaels, the mother of his son, who is seeking back child support. The suit does not specify how much money she wants, as is normal in North Carolina, but asks a "reasonable sum for the care and maintenance of the minor child" for the years Dail was in prison.
"Since his release, Mr. Dail has not indicated any intention to provide support to Ms. Michaels," Michaels' attorney, Sarah Heekin, said in a statement. "In order to fully protect my client’s statutory rights, it was necessary to file an action for child support prior to the minor’s eighteenth birthday."
Dail said he was devastated by the suit. He said his son recently moved to Florida to live with him.
That last sentence makes me wonder if there's an alienation thread in all this as well: Mama's irritated because the boy wants to live with his father. Beats me; I don't know these people. But it seems to me that even an angry ex could cut this guy a little slack.
She'd kill me
Although my Lovely and Brilliant Wife will be having a caesarian anyway, courtesy of our last (ten-and-a-half-pound breech) baby. I suppose there are people who would want to film it – in fact, there must be, as she was watching one on the Discovery Channel the other night – but it's a lot less likely than a normal birth.
I really don't understand why on earth anyone would want to aim a video camera at the business end while a childbirth is going on anyway. It's not one of those cuddly family moments you really want to include in your Christmas cards. More than anything, I think this cartoon kind of exemplifies the culture of crassness that has evolved around the Internet, the assumption that no matter what you're doing, somebody, somewhere, actually wants to see it.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Jerry Falwell was no fool
I didn't have anything against the man, but I often cringed when I thought of the things he said to the media. I kept wondering, "Does he have any idea how dumb he sounds? Apparently, he wasn't as clueless as I had always subconcicously assumed. That'll teach me to judge a man by sound bites.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Cradle Robber!
A 106-year-old man has married an 81-year-old woman in China.
Pan Xiting met his bride Chen Adi eight years ago and she has been taking care of him since then, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Their former spouses both died years ago.
"Now, we are a family and we will never separate from each other until death," the bridegroom was quoted as saying after the civil ceremony in the southeastern port city of Wenzhou.
This is more of a November-December romance, I guess. Or maybe into the following February.
Holding up their hands
Julie left an update on the baby girl with neuroblastoma in the comments:
I was thinking of Lauren and her situation yesterday at Mass, because the Old Testament reading was from Exodus 17:
That incident struck me as a perfect example of why Christians pray for people we don't know. Tammy and Andrew are obviously praying. I don't know their religion, but they're assuredly praying. (Even if they were atheists before, nobody whose child has cancer is going to refuse to pray on principle, I'll tell you what.) There's no way they can pray as hard as they want to; they're only human. So we, the Body of Christ, step in and hold up their arms, as it were. I don't know Lauren's family, but Julie does. I know Julie, at least within the limitations of the datawaves. Other people by now will have picked up this prayer request who know who I am but have never heard of Julie, much less Lauren's family, before. Last night I brought the prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in Moses Lake, Washington. Julie prayed in Houston, probably not in a Catholic sanctuary. Another Julie in Dallas goes through her blogroll looking for prayer requests, and may have picked this one up by the time you read this. (Update on Tuesday morning: she's got it here.) I know I have Protestant readers in Oregon, Alberta, and wherever Ricki is, among other places. And it extends beyond the Body: my Reverend Auntie, whose ideas of God are so radically heterodox as to no longer constitute Christianity, prays, and I think the real God hears her. I even know a couple of agnostics who would be praying if they were sure whom to address it to, and they're certainly backing us up as far as they can. They may not know God, but they know and love some of God's people.
We're from different communions, different places, and in some cases, even different religions altogether, but in one way or another, we're all lined up to hold up Tammy and Andrew's hands while they pray their hearts out for their baby. We'll probably never meet Lauren in the flesh, but that doesn't matter. She's still our concern to pray for, and God hears not only her parents, but the whole crowd of us supporting their praying hands. And when God's people support the hands of those who pray, neither neuroblastoma nor the Amalekites can defeat us.
Update October 17, 2010: Per Julie:
And via Julie, from Lauren's daddy:
Do we have an incredible God, or what?
Lauren is recovering from her first round of chemo. She goes again in 30 days for a check of the eye, another round of chemo, and a laser treatment. I know God is holding her in His hands.
Thanks for keeping her, mom Tammy and dad Andrew, in your prayers.
I was thinking of Lauren and her situation yesterday at Mass, because the Old Testament reading was from Exodus 17:
8: Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
9: And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.
10: So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.
11: And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
12: But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.
13: And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. [Emphasis mine, obviously. ]
That incident struck me as a perfect example of why Christians pray for people we don't know. Tammy and Andrew are obviously praying. I don't know their religion, but they're assuredly praying. (Even if they were atheists before, nobody whose child has cancer is going to refuse to pray on principle, I'll tell you what.) There's no way they can pray as hard as they want to; they're only human. So we, the Body of Christ, step in and hold up their arms, as it were. I don't know Lauren's family, but Julie does. I know Julie, at least within the limitations of the datawaves. Other people by now will have picked up this prayer request who know who I am but have never heard of Julie, much less Lauren's family, before. Last night I brought the prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in Moses Lake, Washington. Julie prayed in Houston, probably not in a Catholic sanctuary. Another Julie in Dallas goes through her blogroll looking for prayer requests, and may have picked this one up by the time you read this. (Update on Tuesday morning: she's got it here.) I know I have Protestant readers in Oregon, Alberta, and wherever Ricki is, among other places. And it extends beyond the Body: my Reverend Auntie, whose ideas of God are so radically heterodox as to no longer constitute Christianity, prays, and I think the real God hears her. I even know a couple of agnostics who would be praying if they were sure whom to address it to, and they're certainly backing us up as far as they can. They may not know God, but they know and love some of God's people.
We're from different communions, different places, and in some cases, even different religions altogether, but in one way or another, we're all lined up to hold up Tammy and Andrew's hands while they pray their hearts out for their baby. We'll probably never meet Lauren in the flesh, but that doesn't matter. She's still our concern to pray for, and God hears not only her parents, but the whole crowd of us supporting their praying hands. And when God's people support the hands of those who pray, neither neuroblastoma nor the Amalekites can defeat us.
Update October 17, 2010: Per Julie:
Lauren is doing GREAT! She has one glass eye -- that was the eye that had the first tumor (it was too late to save that eye) but thank God, they kept checking her other eye, and when a tumor developed in her good eye, they were able to control it with radiation and chemo, and saved her sight. She is very cute and a very happy child.
And via Julie, from Lauren's daddy:
We can always use the prayers, she is doing great, just got a new eye made last week and is as tenacious as a three year old can be. We go on friday to do another EUA (about every four months now, until she is around 5 to 6).
Do we have an incredible God, or what?
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Ya think?
"Duh" headline of the week:
"Not All Are Pleased at Plan to Offer Birth Control at Maine Middle School"
"Not all" includes, maybe, those reactionary godbags who prefer that their grade-school children not be made available for molestation?
"Not All Are Pleased at Plan to Offer Birth Control at Maine Middle School"
"Not all" includes, maybe, those reactionary godbags who prefer that their grade-school children not be made available for molestation?
You sick bastard
You think that's artistic? Wait till I find you in a dark alley and show you what I think is art.
Heartbreaking, infuriating story here. A/T to A Welsh View.
Heartbreaking, infuriating story here. A/T to A Welsh View.
Water needed for New Hope Farms
I know Atlanta's in worse shape right now, but it sure would be nice if this place got the well it needs, too.
Full story here.
I remember when New Hope Farms actually was a working farm, as the people who ran it went to our church in town. My grandmother was one of the early volunteers; she used to spend several days at a whack living with the "kids" out there. I don't know how many places like New Hope are out there, but when you hear the horror stories about some of the institutions the developmentally disabled have had to live in, you can really appreciate the good ones. It'd be a shame if they had to close down for lack of water.
New Hope Farms, a 29-year-old home for 18 developmentally disabled adults at Goldendale, is in a crisis. It needs $85,000 to complete its new water system or it'll have to close.
The farm was founded in 1978 when a farmer and an idealist got together, the farmer donating 40 acres and the idealist bringing the first few men to live on the farm and raise turkeys.
The farm no longer raises pigs, rabbits or turkeys. Instead, backers say, it "grows love."
Full story here.
I remember when New Hope Farms actually was a working farm, as the people who ran it went to our church in town. My grandmother was one of the early volunteers; she used to spend several days at a whack living with the "kids" out there. I don't know how many places like New Hope are out there, but when you hear the horror stories about some of the institutions the developmentally disabled have had to live in, you can really appreciate the good ones. It'd be a shame if they had to close down for lack of water.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Prayers needed
For little Lauren, who's nine months old, and has already lost one eye to neuroblastoma. The cancer's too big to laser, so her doctors are putting her through chemo today and tomorrow to try and save the other eye. Ready, kneel, pray!
Happy birthday, Ollie!
I was going to post this tomorrow, but I'd forgotten about the time zone thing. The oldest denizen of the blogosphere turned 108 years old today. It's kind of staggering to realize that this lady was born when the internal combustion engine was still a novelty and man had yet to leave the ground. And today she's blogging.
Wow. Blog on.
Wow. Blog on.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Forever young
Ken will call me a ghoul again, and he's welcome to. I see these because the first thing I do when I get to the office is usually to poke through the AP wire, and it includes a roundup of the day's obituaries. This was one I really didn't want to see. Deborah Kerr now travels in elephants.
I know, I'm supposed to think of Deborah Kerr as the schoolteacher in The King and I, and she certainly was wonderful in that. I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't ever seen From Here to Eternity, and although we watch An Affair to Remember (right before Sleepless in Seattle) every New Year's Eve, I actually liked the original Love Affair better.
My favorite memory of her is in an obscure British film called I See a Dark Stranger, which I recorded years ago off some TV station and still dig out once in a while to re-enjoy. It's set during World War II, and Deborah played a "little slip of a girleen" from the west of Ireland who tries to join the IRA, finds she's about twenty years out of date, and instead winds up spying for the Germans. The film was okay in and of itself, but it would have been just another late-night British relic except for her. She took a rather generic role and made the young lady into the sort of beautiful, innocently sexy, and self-contradictory creature that so many girls that age really are. When she turned up her nose at Trevor Howard, you could see her looking at him out the corner of her eye. When she declaimed her principles (mostly an inchoate hatred of Cromwell), she sounded just like a thousand other young women who throw themselves so passionately into their causes, never dreaming that they're not alone in them. She wasn't a part in a script, she was a real girl, and the kind that makes you tear your hair out and champ at the bit by turns. She might as well have been sitting next to me, rather than on screen, she was so thoroughly real. I was smitten with her by the third scene.
No matter how much time passed, I don't think she ever lost that inner colleen. A couple of weeks ago I watched Reunion at Fairborough, a TV move from the 80s where she played a grandmother who's reunited with her wartime American lover (Robert Mitchum, playing Robert Mitchum). Not only did she sparkle as much in her 60s as she had in her 20s, but her character's granddaughter could have passed for Bridie Quilty in Stranger. Not in appearance, but in passionate, naive fire. The fire never faded, nor even smoldered. Time might have passed, but she never aged. She always sparkled with every line.
More than any better-known character of hers, I'll miss that beautiful, aggravating little Irish girl, I think. That's how I'll always remember Deborah Kerr. Young, fiery, impossible, and utterly wonderful.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
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