State of the Blog Address

This blog had three objectives when it began. We're down to two now - the first objective having been lately achieved. I mean, I only really began blogging in a desperate attempt to bring my affection for Lisa down out of the ether and construct some sort of ramshackle connection with her. That chasm has been spanned - God knoweth how! - and so this thing is left now with very little to accomplish. My second original objective was to encourage my family and friends in their blogging by maintaining one of my own - I love it when they post! The third objective was simply to have a ready wilderness in which I could cry out. And so. . .

Why do you suppose Mel Gibson will be buried for his recorded rantings while Alec Baldwin was forgiven his? I suspect it has to do with Gibson's absolutist Christian faith. Am I right? Come on - let's be above reproach out there fellow Christians and run the good race for His name's sake!

Open Letter to Betty White

Listen, Miss White - when endowed with grace by the blessing of many years ~ don't poach it for a paltry laugh or two. A perverted tongue garners the applause of idle minds - a pursuit a person of your age should have abandoned decades ago.

Protestants in Exile

I'm not troubled by the retirement of John Paul Stevens but I'm struck by the fact that with his departure from the Supreme Court the nation will suddenly be without a single protestant justice. Whatever happened to protestantism in the public square? The Supreme Court is populated by six Roman Catholics and two professing Judaism. The Speaker of the House is a Roman Catholic as is the House's minority leader. The Vice President is a Roman Catholic. The Senate Majority leader is a mormon. Of course our president is a protestant but a maddeningly amorphous one. There are fewer and fewer protestant conservative voices as well. Newt Gingrich, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham - all Roman Catholic (that's just to name a few). Mitt Romney and Glenn Beck are Mormons. It's no wonder the public discourse is lacking simplicity and clarity of thought - I don't have much confidence in the thinking of people who make a labyrinth of liberty.

Musing While Waiting

I'm beginning to think the government is determined to leave the church with nothing to do but shepherd its members in metaphysical matters of nonreason. "We'll take care of everything having to do with life in the real world thank you very much." Nefarious!

On another topic - I think I'm ready to declare my open appreciation for the musical offerings of Pink. Am I wrong?

You should have seen me change the oil on my lawnmower yesterday. A more unlikely success could hardly be imagined - I mean I'm daily gathering concrete evidence of God's love for me here. I know it was an awkward and uncomfortable experience for the machine - the thing was violated in all honesty - but just one rip of the cord after the long off-season and my weeds were all laid low. Praise be!

I Like Mom's Coffee Best

There are no less than sixteen Starbucks locations in my fair city while she boasts only two Dunkin Donuts. I prefer a simple brewer to a barrista and a styrofoam cup to a cardboard sleeve and I'm still kinda a coffee novice who can't understand why one cup should cost so much more - so I usually go to Dunkin Donuts. On those occasions when I do patronize that cadillac of coffee shops - I always enjoy carrying on the following rebellious exchange:

Barrista: "What can I get started for you today?"

Me: "Hi. I'll have a medium coffee."

Barrista: "You mean a grande coffee?"

Me: "Yeah, I'll have a medium coffee."

Barrista: (Looks away fumbling with the stack of cups)

Me: "Thanks."

What's wrong with me? The stakes are definitely coming loose on my hospitality tent down here:)

Matthew 23:10

For the first few years of my ministry the focus of my energies was not in listening but locomotion. Not content in the station or with creeping along the countryside I came to reside in the tender car lustily shoveling coal into the engine's fire box. Only when I had a full head of steam did I take a long look down the track laid ahead and wonder where it was I was going. I looked for the brakes and found none. I ran through the coach cars only to find I was alone. Though it was a lonesome desert valley I was speeding through I thought it better to derail there than blow my whistle through Babylon. It hurt when I jumped in front of that steam engine - all the more when I realized how hard I'd had to work to make it hurt that much. I've walked the wreckage for nine years now and I no longer have strength sufficient for the shovel. But when asked why I won't attend the leadership conference - I don't have to think before responding: "Because I'm not a leader."

I Took it Easy

I was wrong about the Olympics. I enjoyed catching this event and that and I'm so proud of the United States. We did so well! I'm kind of looking forward to the next winter games which are going to be held in Russia. What will the world look like in four years? Perhaps it will have been made new.

Sweet and Low

"What good is a dead bolt when the enemy is in residence?"

Her husband said nothing and proceeded to kill the porch light, turn the lock on the front door, and look at his wife still sitting on the kitchen floor.

"Can't we just go to bed?"


(By the way ~ I really overcooked the bit about the olympics. "Rancid heaping forkfuls" was an unfortunate overstatement. I sincerely hope the IOC will accept my apology and unfreeze my bank account already.)

Down Bubble For Me

Look askance at me if you will but I can't stand the olympics. The broadcast plate set before me will have a few wholesome morsels of sport and competition but who can keep his appetite while picking through the rancid heaping forkfuls of controversy, humanism, mythology, and anticlimax. "Look! Look!" I'll be told. "See here - this is important! You can hardly grasp the significance!"

My life has enough stress as it is. I mean - I don't go trawling through hospital emergency rooms looking for more burdens to bear. So why become emotionally invested in an athlete's hopeless attempt to find meaning and redemption in life by winning a medal? I mean really - come on - it's so spent and wearisome already. I don't know - do I need a hug or what's going on?

Lord Willing

After church tomorrow I'm off to the airport to take a jet plane to New England. I'd appreciate any prayer you can spare - I'll be ministering to the students at the Berkshire Institute for Christian Studies in Lenox, Massachusetts during their Spiritual Emphasis Week. Chapels, dorm devotions, dinners at Friendly's, and other opportunities will be given me, I hope, to challenge, charge, and encourage those people up there. Thanks

A Pundit Crying in the Wilderness

Harry Reid shouldn't be seeking forgiveness from the president but rather from all the dark-skinned Americans speaking with a "Negro dialect" who he apparently sees as unfit for a candidacy to the land's highest office.

Postive Aggressive

When the American male exchanged his gray flannel suit and derby for a hoodie and a baseball cap he most certainly was not trading up. As an aside (this whole blog's an aside actually), Rutland seemed pretty post-American to me this last trip home. A walk around downtown was like stepping into a Radiohead music video or something. Any Vermont natives, expatriates, or visitors agree?

I hope he was able to play a couple rounds today

I sincerely miss having George W. Bush in Washington - quote's like the one he made about the proposed TARP funding and the state of the U.S. economy back in September 2008 make him my most beloved public servant: "If money isn't loosened up, this sucker could go down." I get tickled every time. I really miss that man. . .