The Lucy Bull in me

Maybe it was the desert ~ maybe it was a tent without stakes ~ maybe it was just me; but as I lay in the dark in a room with but a bed, a single song slew me. On loan from the Tempe Public Library was a recording I was playing of one of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion programs. Providing a musical interlude that evening at the Fitzgerald Theater in Minnesota was Iris Dement. She sang her song "Our Town" and my heart filled my head with all the memories of my Grandma McCuen it kept hidden within. I loved the Saturday nights in Benson when Grandma would have us hush and she would tune in the Prairie Home Companion on the stereo. With daylight and the day's static fading - I'd sit enraptured by the storyteller and his guests. Well ~ I heard that song again today and I lay happily haunted once more.

When you don't have time for a DISC assessment

I can learn almost everything I need to know about a person's disposition by how they answer the following question ~ Is a Reese's peanut butter cup a candy bar?

Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft Gets Honorable Mention

Like a Siberian Russian able to hold obscene and toxic amounts of liquor - I can take in a bunch of Christmas music without cracking up. Here is a list of my favorite mainstream radio offerings:

1)"Do You Hear What I Hear" by Whitney Houston
2)"Celebrate Me Home" by Kenny Loggins
3)"Hey Santa" by Carnie and Wendy Wilson
4)"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" by Gayla Peevey
5)"A Holly Jolly Christmas" by Burl Ives
6)"All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey

Alright, I'm running out of time here at the Friedman Branch and you all are busy hating - but how about these terrible offerings at the bottom of the list:

987)"Happy Christmas (War is Over)" by John Lennon
988)"Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg (Besides Johnny Cash's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" - this may be the saddest song ever composed - keep the sharp objects out of arm's reach)
999)"Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney

Congratulations Paul McCartney and Wings

Simply composing the most uninspired Christmas song of all time!

Confession

I have Luke Wilson's wallet.

Ode to Sarah Palin

No faith is safe in Harvard Yard
No conviction in Chapel Hill or New Haven

The unaddled sat in folding chairs
In Sunday school they viewed the world from heaven

Pealing Out

From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice comes this little gem of dialogue occurring between sisters Jane and Elizabeth Bennet the evening of Jane's engagement to Mr. Bingley:

"I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!" cried Jane. "Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled out from my family, and blessed above them all! If I could but see you as happy! If there were but such another man for you!"

"If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness."

In accord with the prime directive. . .

In an attempt to keep the Irvings up to date here - I've officially come out against restaurants and the Late Show with David Letterman this past week. Movie theaters are currently under review and the appeals process in the matter of Third Day has sadly ended in failure - my disfavor was upheld.

proofreading my own paper

Pretenses are bad things only when one excels in making them believable. Awkward, stumbling and bumbling pretenses are considered cute in their desperate earnestness. Of course I would just as soon have nothing to do with them at all. But alas. . . my labyrnthine manner of society has made simplicity impossible in some matters. I'd like to say something like "I'm committed to being more straightforward in these areas" but I know that possession of a candid tongue is not acquired through aspiration but rather a settled conviction.

Deja vu at the dentist office today. . .

Three things that are sure to happen while I visit the dentist for a cleaning:
1) The dental hygienist, having learned that I'm a pastor, will make available to me the dossier on her spiritual life and will wait to make the most ridiculous assertions about God and salvation until she has both hands, a mirror, and a pick in my mouth.
2) The song "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls will be played faintly in the background but not faintly enough.
3) I'll have my bitewing x-rays taken and I'll think to myself what a cool word "bitewing" is.

This just in . . .

At a press conference earlier today, John Tate announced that he was coming out against the USA Today newspaper. While never a subscriber, Mr. Tate has been a long time supporter and patron of the popular daily. Reading from a prepared statement, the pastor, flanked on either side by the untrimmed hedges that mar the appearance of the otherwise stately parsonage, declared : "The decision to end my twenty year relationship with the USA Today has not been an easy one. The paper has been a faithful companion for many a flight, coffee break, and meal eaten alone at a restaurant. Concerning those meals, I would like to personally thank the paper for all the pity it has successfully deflected over the years. But in the end, my ongoing campaign against the doppelganger was being compromised by my addiction to useless information. I'm afraid that USA Today is now USA Todon't." Mr. Tate also cited cost increases and what he called "subversive attempts by the editorial board to curdle the faith of Christians" as reasons for the break-up. A spokesman for USA Today expressed shock and disbelief at today's announcement: "We've heard grumblings from Mr. Tate in the past; but he always comes back. Where else is he going to read a critical treatment of the weekend's color commentary of sporting events or find out the truth about the love lives of reality stars? He'll be back." Tate sounded resolute however when fielding questions from the imaginary gaggle of reporters assembled on the east lawn. When asked if he'd pick up and peruse an already purchased and discarded copy, Tate replied coldly "I might poach it for the crossword." Tate was seen late today outside of the Dunkin Donuts on Washington Road with what appeared to be a copy of the Augusta Chronicle. The doppelganger could not be reached for comment.

From the desk of the spiritual archaeologist. . .

Lasting holiness can only be achieved when abstinence at long last matures into abhorrence. To love what God loves and to hate what God hates is the only sabbath I know.

Obviously asea at sixes and seven here

A helium-filled balloon tethered to a cellophane-covered basket of pre-packaged and artificially-flavored "goodies" should be honest and read: "Get well soon or this antiseptic sentiment may be the last you're ever given."

"A pig in a cage on antibiotics"

I was watching a national news broadcast recently when the anchor breathlessly sent our attention to so-and-so on location at the scene. "What can you tell us?" asked the anchor aping concern. "Good morning" the so-and-so began. "It has been reported that maybe. . ." Now, it really doesn't matter what he said next and I couldn't tell you anyway ~ I'd quit listening. "It has been reported that maybe" is certainly everything that's wrong with the modern news media. A so-and-so speculating on someone else's understanding of a matter that is desperately trivial to begin with.
The more you know.

Hold fast the fellowship

Fences make for good neighbors and awful disciples.

The Life and Times

Alright, so I was having my windshield replaced at a car-care place and the "waiting room" was a few cast-off chairs set against the wall in the cramped payment office. Defense mechanized book in hand I decided to roam down the road looking for a place to park it and wait for the phone to vibrate "It's ready Mr. Tate." I happened upon Mt. Olive Baptist Church. It was a large church on a very large piece of property that was no longer properly maintained. Everything about the grounds was proof that every organism arcs, that no tree grows unabated to the stars. The place was kinda spent. Anyway, I circled the church in click-clackety dress shoes, khaki pants, and a nice button-up collared shirt - I was headed to the hospital first thing. I began to stroll through the church cemetary reading the epitaphs and sketching out what might or might not have been the biographies of the departed under foot. It was then that I noticed a teenage boy and a teenage girl walking carefully toward me - they were creeping, truth be told. They weren't really looking at me - they were actually staring. I wondered to myself if this was an avoid and conquer situation. It clearly was not. I turned and started walking towards the two. They stood perfectly still now - we were all alone. "Are you two members here?" I asked pointlessly. The girl leaned in and with voice quavering asked "Are you a ghost?"
C'mon. Are you serious? I'm being taken for an apparition now? I need to get out more. Shake things up. Something.

What happens in Eden. . .

Why is a meadow or the forest floor always clean and my house always dirty?

On the Meteorological Industrial Complex

I don't know what can be done about it, I suppose, but there has got to be a significant reduction in the amount of weather reporting in this country. There is absolutely no reason for a half-hour broadcasting of the local news to lead with the weather, tease with the weather throughout ("your weekend forecast coming up", "your seven day forecast coming up", "your live doppler radar update coming up", "the entire third grade clase at Lamarr Elementary reads the weather coming up"), spend like eight minutes on the weather, and close with the weather. And have you watched a morning "news" show like the Today show recently? You get a national forecast and the forecast in "your neck of the woods", "your zip code", "the little world outside your front door" at the beginning of every half hour and then the last five minutes of every half-hour is your local studio doing a full five minutes of meteorological improv with a little local cat-up-a-tree, crime, and traffic thrown in. I don't know - if this is what finally gets me back blogging maybe I should just pack up the car and head for Dowling Park already. It's like the line from that Gin Blossoms' song: "They tell the time too often on AM radio".

Strike the Tent

I had the pleasure on Tuesday of sitting in my study at the church and listening to the piano tuner work on our sanctuary upright. Except for meeting times, there's no attempt at climate control in the large room and an unchecked Georgia summer sun will certainly relax a string or two if not cause the whole thing to spontaneously combust. For almost an hour he could be heard methodically striking his way through the scales. I suppose one couldn't call it beautiful music he was making; but it was awfully satisfying to hear sour note after sour note turned sweet as dissonance gave way to resonance. My heart and mind have been similarly warped by the often unchecked and oppresive glare of Satan - I pray the presence of the Holy Spirit and sing along with Robert Robinson "Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace."

From Inspectah Deck's New Charlotte Office. . .

I strongly encourage you to find and read an article entitled "The Coming Evangelical Collapse" that is currently posted on the website of the Christian Science Monitor. The article is written by Michael Spencer. I'd love to know what you think.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html

It's a Blockbuster night at 10 Downing Street!

Alright, so our president gave their prime minister a gift of 25 dvds. What's up Gordon Brown - you better come strong when Obama crosses the pond! You're going to have to do better than that red, white, and blue festooned Rolls Royce you have picked out. Show some class and have wrapped the latest Harry Potter book - and make that a hardcover kid!

Gleanings from Lost Hours

"Come away with me and they won't see us for the dust!" Great line for sure. It loses it luster not a little, however, when it is learned that the inspiration for such an exclamation was a married woman and the caller a married man. The bloom is lopped clean off the rose when it is further revealed that the adulteress was shortly thereafter hacked to pieces with an ax whose wielder was the adulterer's deranged butler. The tragic couple: Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney. The place: Taliesin in Wisconsin. Had they only read Anna Karenina or noticed Lazarus at the gate.

My sometimes Irish Idee Fixe

As I stood in line at the Best Buy here in Augusta to dutifully buy the latest U2 album I got to thinking back over some of the other times and places I picked up one of their records. Here are the ones I could remember in chronological order:
1) The Joshua Tree purchased at the Idyllwild Pharmacy in Idyllwild, California. Trent McGath
played this album devotionally all summer and when he left to go back to Twin Peaks I
realized I was hooked.
2) Achtung Baby purchased at the Ben Franklin in Fair Haven, Vermont. This is still the single
record of transportation for me - and to think - I almost spent the $7.99 on licorice and such.
3) Zooropa purchased somewhere in the bleak and blighted north end of Pittsfield,
Massachussetts -probably the K-Mart. I can't hear the title track or Stay (Faraway, so
Close!) without thinking of BICS.
4) Pop purchased at the Wal-Mart in Toccoa, Georgia. I can't say if that was the first time I
felt old or the first time I realized I was already too old; but listening to
Miami in my dorm room I knew the spell was broken
5) All That You Can't Leave Behind purchased in Augusta. I always think of my time in
Wenham, South Hamilton, and Benson when I here this one. Listening to Walk On with
white knuckles as I steered the Caprice home to Benson after guarding the College of St.
Joseph's against itself all night as the snow piled up.
6) How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb purchased at the Target on Southern in Tempe,
Arizona. I always think of my drives across the Sonoran desert to visit Josh, Sarah, and
the Tates in California when I hear this album.

I know I bought other albums; but can't say where or when. I'm certainly not the biggest U2 fan in the world or even the family but they've provided a pretty cool soundtrack for several passages in my life. What images will be jogged when I hear a few notes from No Line On the Horizon?

All my original thoughts were used up yesterday.

Here's a spiritual take on Shakespeare's line in As You Like It ~

Christians are April at the altar and December at the abacus.

an odd Mardi Gras memory for you

From George Augustus Sala's America Revisited, 1883

"It was about ten minutes past nine when the Carnival began to boom in the form of a most tremendous clamour of brass bands. Shawm and pipe, psaltry, and ophicleides blown louder than ever; cymbal and triangles, and especially that very old friend of mine, the Big Drummer. He came along in the light of torches, drubbing away at the parchment as though for dear life. Last night he wore a splendid military uniform, and had on his shoulders epaulettes of red worsted as bright and big as prize tomatoes. But I was aware of him many years ago, when he wore a leopard skin mantle and a brazen Roman helmet, with a white plume. I was aware of him when he was in the service of a travelling dentist, when he administered a thundering whack to the drum simultaneously with the extraction by his patron of a patient's tooth. The whack drowned the patient's yell of agony."

Xanadu Community Church

Alright - so Charles Dickens, by creating the character Ebeneezer Scrooge, gave the church in England a mirror with which to see how hideously deformed its visage had become.

So - can you think of a similar instance in which an author has done the same for the church here in America? I know it wasn't Orson Welles' conscious intent - but I think the character Charles Foster Kane - Citizen Kane - is a good nominee. The movie's autopsy of the blighted soul of one sold into slavery to the sole values of personal peace and affluency is powerful preaching indeed.

What do you say - other nominees?

The Curse of King Midas

In 1685 England's King Charles II died from kidney failure having inhaled excessive amounts of toxic mercury vapors. Alchemy can be a deadly obsession. Only the truly obsessed would devote millions of man hours and dollars in the pursuit of transmuting base and common metals into precious ones. Alchemy is all but a dead science today - people know they can't meddle with magnesium and make gold, tinker with zinc and make silver, or alter aluminum and make platinum. Sadly, however, spiritual alchemy is alive and well and has millions chasing the mechanical rabbit around the track. Christians are desperate for faith, hope, and love - just not desperate enough to mine them. They'd much rather try and make faith out of the abundance of their inclinations and hope out of the abundance of their daydreams and love out of the abundance of their blessings. Gold is valuable because it is rare - I'm afraid the same is true for Christianity's precious metals.

Happy Valentines Day!

Love is always worth celebrating. But does saying so betray a lonesome experience? Perhaps. It's more likely the evidence of a slavish concern to secure the unpitiful good opinion of the erotic class. Whatever the case - I have no idea why I've known so much love in my life.

The Accidental Blogger

It's been said that he who would pun would pick a pocket. Well a purloiner of pantaloons I'd rather be than a pedantic . . . ah never mind - I hate puns. I really do.

Carolyn Joy Tate

Happy birthday to the girl who gave to the Culture lexicon the gifts "heek" and "scrumpster dumpster". In fact - I remember "heek" was so white-hot for a time that we all grew hopelessly weary of the interjection and had to officially retire it to the scrumpster dumpster. The halcyon days of Hot Pockets, sheet-cake dinners, and voyages on the Mimi - I love and miss you tonight Carolina Absoluteee. God bless you. . .

Tongues Without Chests

It's by no means an absolute rule - but in general I don't want to hang out with people who use the word "freakin" as a minced oath. Either be profane or be creative. Of course I prefer the company of the latter; but the former will always do instead of suffering the half-hearted. One can't effectively combat evil who is discontented with good and as one engaged in the fight I want not their fellowship. Let's have the courage of our contentments as well as of our convictions.

January 11 - Happy Birthday Josh!

Georgia's an alright state. I suppose the worst thing I can say about it is that it happens to be situated some three thousand miles away from Idyllwild, California. I'd love to spend some of every day in the company of my brother Josh. He's one of only a handful of men that I would entrust the entire world to. Among the albums of my Josh memories, I suppose the most treasured page would be the one bearing the images of April 28, 1986 when he and I both accepted Christ in the Washington D.C. Convention Center after hearing the gospel call given by Billy Graham. Brothers indeed! Love you and your family Josh - I wish so very much I could be there to celebrate the day with you. . .

Now for a conversion of another kind

With the forty dollar coupon I got from the suits yesterday I went out and purchased a digital converter box for my tv. The picture is certainly far better but I can't say as much for the view. "And upon the fourth horse I saw a most curious rider. He had the body of a man and the head of a hyena and was endowed with a vulture's wings for arms and talons for feet. He cackled as he rode and the masses called after him chanting 'Maury! Maury!'"