Yearly Archives: 2007

Cakes, Layers, and Potlucks

Pam made her famous carrot cake for the church potluck on Sunday. Actually, her famous carrot cake is three layers. She made a three-layer cake, but kept one at home for me to eat, and only took a double-layer cake to church. I appreciated that.

Joanna Herrick cut the cake. She’s around 80 years old, maybe more, with more energy–and certainly more enthusiam for life in general–than I have. Joanna gave me one of her observations from a lifetime in the church.

“Multiple layer cakes always go faster than single-layer cakes,” she told me. “That’s what I’ve noticed over the years with cakes I’ve brought. Whenever I bring a multiple-layer cake, there’s less left over.”

There you go: an observation you won’t find in any church growth books.

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Movies: Those Super-Secret Government Agencies

Pam and I saw “The Bourne Ultimatum” on Saturday. It was quite a thrill ride, like the first two movies. Only the first movie made any pretense about being based on the book by the same name. “The Bourne Identity” blew me away when I read it–my first Ludlum book. “Supremacy” and “Ultimatum” were good, too, but have no relation to the movies. But no problem–I loved the movies. It’s like getting six plots for the price of three titles (or maybe five-and-a-half plots).

In lots of American-made thrillers, the “villain” is the CIA or some other secret government entity trying to hoodwink the American people or do nasty things in the name of patriotism. That’s the general idea, anyway. Such was the case with “Ultimatum.” And I got to thinking about how this must play overseas. Foreigners continually see American movies in which we depict our own government as secretive and insidious. Have foreigners come to believe that this must be reality? Well, it seems that they DO believe this, whether or not Hollywood is to blame.

We saw previews for “Rendition,” a movie (with Meryl Streep as a villainous spy honcho!) based on our government’s practice of sending people to other countries (Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia) to be tortured, if we think they have some information that might be useful to us. They don’t have to be actual terrorists, which was the threshhold before Bush took office–just people who we THINK know something that might help us catch actual bad guys. It’s a shameful, disgusting practice which has resulted in people dying under torture and innocent people being whisked away. And I’m continually amazed that so many Americans (always Republicans! usually FoxNews fans!) defend the practice. There’s no way in the world Jesus would defend it. But what does He know? Jesus is so naive.

Anyway, that’s a movie I’m going to see, too. And people around the world will see it. At this point, it’s probably just more of the same–evil American secret agency doing things which aren’t supposed to be reached by sunlight.

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Vente, Grande, Whatever

Although I’m a big Starbucks fan and stop there most mornings, I don’t buy into the whole coffee officionado experience. Specifically, I don’t use coffeetalk in regard to drink sizes. I refuse to say, “I’ll have a vente decaf.” Tall, vente, grande–what’s with that? Can anyone really keep them straight?

So I use AmericanTalk: small, medium, and large. It doesn’t seem to unduly confuse the baristas (er…clerks). When I say, “I’ll have a medium decaf,” their minds are nimble enough that they can automatically translate it mentally and subsequently hit the appropriate button on the cash register.

If English is to be our official language, we need to resist attempts to replace our common usage with strange foreign terms. This, I believe, is important enough to be inserted into the Republican Party Platform.

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Cheney Gets Rapped by Another VP

Very interesting article in the Washington Post, Answering to No One, by Walter Mondale (Jimmy Carter’s VP). He gives a history of the role of the vice president, and then comes to Dick Cheney. His words affirm what I’ve felt for a long time.

Cheney set out to create a largely independent power center in the office of the vice president. His was an unprecedented attempt not only to shape administration policy but, alarmingly, to limit the policy options sent to the president. It is essential that a president know all the relevant facts and viable options before making decisions, yet Cheney has discarded the “honest broker” role he played as President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff….

Through his vast government experience, through the friends he had been able to place in key positions and through his considerable political skills, he has been increasingly able to determine the answers to questions put to the president – because he has been able to determine the questions….

I’ve never seen a former member of the House of Representatives demonstrate such contempt for Congress — even when it was controlled by his own party. His insistence on invoking executive privilege to block virtually every congressional request for information has been stupefying – it’s almost as if he denies the legitimacy of an equal branch of government. Nor does he exhibit much respect for public opinion, which amounts to indifference toward being held accountable by the people who elected him.

Whatever authority a vice president has is derived from the president under whom he serves. There are no powers inherent in the office; they must be delegated by the president. Somehow, not only has Cheney been given vast authority by President Bush – including, apparently, the entire intelligence portfolio – but he also pursues his own agenda. The real question is why the president allows this to happen.

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When Connor Sleeps

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Connor, like our cats, can fall asleep in a variety of positions. Here is he contorted in sleep, on our loveseat and in his crib. Cute stuff, but sure doesn’t look comfortable.

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Movie: Hairspray

hairspray_300.jpgLast Saturday Pam and I saw the movie/musical “Hairspray.” My goodness, that was fun! After the opening song by Tracy Turnblad, “Good Morning Baltimore,” I turned to Pam and said, “This is going to be a good movie.”

Hairspray was delightful from beginning to end. The music and dancing were incredible. Mom and Dad–are you reading this? You’d love this movie.

I’d rank Hairspray as the best movie I’ve seen this year. And we’ve not seen any duds yet. We’ve seen seven movies, and I’d put them in this order: Hairspray, Evan Almighty, Live Free or Die Hard, Shrek the Third, Oceans 13, and Transformers. (Yes, we skipped the third iterations of both Spiderman and Pirates.)

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Charismatic and Orthodox

Last Sunday, our worship team played about six songs during an afternoon service for another church group. The local Charismatic Orthodox Church was dedicating its new facility.

Yes, you read that right–Charismatic Orthodox. Two words you don’t see together often. The New Jerusalem Charismatic Orthodox Church.

We held the service in an open-sided tent on their property. A generator in the bed of a pickup truck powered our amps and instruments. The strong breeze kept blowing my music around.

I suppose about 100 people were there, probably half black, half caucasian (which says something real good about them). They had bishops all over the place, and plenty of clerical collars. The lead pastor was a big black fellow, probably a former defensive end. Real nice guy.

The denominational head came up from Florida to say a few words. He was a fairly young guy, maybe 50 years old, with a very short ponytail and a purple shirt. He kept an informal bearing, almost playing the part of the cut-up as he bantered with the local minister. I liked him. He told about what they’re doing around the world–not in a lot of places, but in several places–and I was impressed with their spirit and vision.

After the service, I told the minister, “You have a great thing going here.” He said, “As long as we can keep politics out of it.” I gave him a thumbs-up.

The Charismatic Orthodox Church is committed to inviting other groups to use their facility. An organization that provides up to 2500 meals daily to poor children works out of their building. So does a prison ministry and, I think, some other groups. They want to be a blessing to the total body of Christ. They had named their building–big block letters on the outside–“Community House.”

I thoroughly enjoyed getting acquainted with these fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Good people. And they seemed to like our music, too.

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Baby Aspirin Meets Homeland Security

babyaspirin.jpgI went to the doctor yesterday, the first time since I turned 50. Visits to the doctor are going to be decidedly less fun than in the past. As if they’ve ever been fun. Maybe fun, if you compare them to going to the dentist.

For several years, I’ve been taking a 5mg tablet for high blood pressure. Well, Doc didn’t like my blood pressure reading. So he wrote me a prescription for a second pill. And then, for good measure, he told me to take a baby aspirin once a day. I’ve gone from one pill to three pills, and I’m only 50.

This morning I took the two prescription pills, which come in simple containers, and saved the baby aspirin for last. It was not easy to reach.

I tore open the box. The bottle had one of those plastic casings holding the cap in place. After some effort, I nicked it with a fingernail and was able to tear the plastic off. I then tried removing the plastic cap, but it wouldn’t budge…until I realized you had to line up two arrows just right. Even then, the cap was too small for my fingers, so I used my teeth to wrench off the cap.

Now I was confronted with one of those cardboard circular inner caps. I tried pushing it in with a finger, but couldn’t do it. So I hit it with some nail clippers. Finally, I could get to the baby aspirin.

Not so fast. There was still a wad of cotton blocking the way. I stuck my fat index finger into the bottle, but couldn’t find a way to force the cotton out. So I just pushed it to the side so I could pour out a pill.

By that time, I was definitely in need of a hypertension supplement.

I’ll work on the cotton ball tonight. I’ll extract it using my Channellock needle-nose pliers.

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Further Proof of My Codgerdom

I went to Pizza Hut for lunch today. As I left to pay my bill, the clerk, a young gal, said, “What’d ya have, Sweetie?”

I just gave her my bill and money. I hate it when waitresses call me stuff like that.

She counted out the change and said, “Here you go, Li’l Darling.”

Li’l Darling? What in thunderation!!!

These are terms you would normally think of sweet young things saying to old codgers, for whom there is no attraction. A pretend, game-like kind of false flirting to let geezers think they’ve still “got it.” If some young stud approached the check-out register, I seriously doubt she’d call him Sweetie or Li’l Darling. That would seem like genuine flirting. Rather, she’d probably be holding her breath, hoping he noticed her hair or something, maybe ask for her phone number.

But me? No, I’m totally harmless. Just another old guy.

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Connor’s Dedication

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Connor was dedicated this morning. Allen and Carolyn went forward with Connor, Pastor Tim asked them some questions about their commitment to raising Connor, and then Tim took Connor in his arms and prayed over him. Then we watched a video presentation showing photos of Connor (most of which I took) by himself and with various people (including two photos of Connor sleeping on me).

It was nice. And it was extra meaningful to Pam and me.

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