Vain attempts at meaning

This has been a week of tragedies...the Minnesota school shootings, the Jessica Lunsford sexual abduction and murder case.

Terrible events, all. Yet every time events such as these occur, the same things follow. News talk shows ask “experts” what the government can do to guarantee that tragedies like this will never happen again. A misguided affected person or a legislator with a desire for name recognition will introduce some worthless piece of legislation intending to correct a symptom related to the tragedy. This week’s news brought an onslaught of debate on, “Do we need more cops in schools?” “How do we protect our children?” Maybe we all need bars on our windows.

A recent pathetic example of this is of a mother whose son died on his 21^st birthday from binge drinking. Sheis dedicating her life to getting a law passed that would declare that the 21^st birthday doesn’t occur at midnight, but rather at sunrise the following morning. The premise is her son died because he went to a bar at midnight when he turned 21 and he might still be alive if he hadn’t been able to do that. Sad, because it’s flawed thinking, wasted energy, and ultimately a law that has no purpose other than to someday appear in a book of stupid laws. Maybe the reason you can’t whistle underwater in Vermont is a misguided mother’s love. (I do wonder how that one came about!)

The truth is one can never guarantee that these things will never happen again. Just this morning the news gave us a story from Iowa similar to the Jessica Lunsford case. People will always commit crimes, people will always do wrong. “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.”

The real tragedy is seeing people put hope and trust in those vain attempts to find meaning.

Toby, faith and weed-post it here.

In the post "Things I Don't Understand", I made the statement that I don't understand "How Toby sings about his faith and about getting high with Willie."

- One person asked me who Toby is.
- Anonymous said, "Does that mean he doesn't have faith? "
- And then Anonymous said, "No, some people put their faith in things that go up in smoke...not in eternal things...too bad."

Either Anonymous was having an argument with himself, or there were really two Anonymous'. I sure hope it's the latter.

A1 seems to think that weed and faith are consistent
A2 implies that Toby puts his faith in weed

What I was really getting at is that Toby Keith sings and talks about being a Christian, so A2 missed the mark. Toby doesn't claim to put his faith in weed. At the same time, he sings about getting high with Willie Nelson. And A1 says, "what's wrong with that?

"Faith" can mean anything, so they could be consistent. But if you are referring to the Christian faith, are they really? I'd like to hear back from A1, or anyone else, what Scripture has to say about it...

Hidden Joke

Somewhere in the papal posts is a hidden joke. See if you can find it...

Are the Pope's Peeps Keeping Something From Us?

Enquiring minds have been clamoring for news of JPII!

First there was news of the Pope everywhere, and then all of a sudden nothing! A huge news vacuum; the world goes from hanging on to every word about his condition to nothing! How are we supposed to take this? What was happening? Were the Pope’s peeps hiding something?

Well finally today a news story appeared! The Vatican released the Pope’s new video. It’s not up to par with his “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” video, but true fans will love it. To quote wire service report, it’s “the pontiff speaking a few words in a husky voice….seated during a Mass …the small chapel in his hospital suite.”

But rumors abound. Some sources say the Pope left this earth about a year ago and the staff has been using stunt doubles and old videos to cover for him.

Others say that’s not true at all, but stated that the Holy Father was just down after being kicked off American Idol, and decided to keep a low profile for a while. The presence of the video makes that story seem plausible, since JPII wants to please his fans and he likely released the video to do just that.

Still others say that he has been totally engrossed in watching the coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and has not left the TV since it started. Larger room service orders of KFC and beer give plausibility to that story!

I’ll guess we’ll just have to stand by.

Scottish Joke

An Englishman, and Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar and each orders a pint of Guinness. When the drinks arrive they notice that all three pints have a fly in them. The Englishman looks pained but picks up a teaspoon and uses it to carefully scoop out the fly then proceeds to drink his beer. The Irishman sticks his fingers into his beer, picks out the fly, throws it on the floor and then drinks his beer. The Scotsman picks the fly out of his pint, and holds it over the drink, shaking it and saying, "Spit it out ye bugger! I know ye swallowed some!"

Know any good ones? Post them here....

What Makes You Happy?

So post a comment...

Things I don't understand

• People who think June Carter Cash can sing
• Michael Jackson's nose
• People who think Man is basically good
• Star Jones' appeal
• Interest in Donald Trump
• How cats think
• People who care what Bono says
• Paying to see the Bob Dylan of today
• People who hate Walmart
• Katie Couric's appeal
• For the last twenty years, Social Security was a crisis, and now it's not. How'd that happen?
• People who support the troops, but not what they do. How does that work?
• People who think only whites can be racists.
• City people who look down on country people, but want a house in the country
• Steve Erkel
• Pancakes and eggs for supper
• The appeal of apple juice (just look at it)
• Not liking spinach, liver or lima beans. What could be better?
• How flounders got their name?
• Kenny Chesney
• How Toby sings about his faith and about getting high with Willie
• Pathological animosity towards Garth and Shania (all they did was succeed)
• What is that on Michael Jackson's chin?
• Bloggers

So tell me what puzzles you...

The Pope and I both say "Hi!"

Frozen Smiles

Botox is a wildly popular cosmetic therapy. People have it injected into their faces and it makes them look younger. It’s not a one-time thing, though; the injections must be repeated every 4-6 months for as long as the patient wants the effect.

From a spiritual perspective, Botox is intriguing. Don’t get nervous: this is not back-to-nature indictment of cosmetic surgery; something about Botox just seems ironic.

If you’re not sure what Botox is, it’s a drug made from botulism, a deadly bacteria that paralyzes and kills people. The CDC says that “[a]ll forms of botulism can be fatal and are considered medical emergencies. Foodborne botulism can be especially dangerous because many people can be poisoned by eating a contaminated food.”

Several years ago, scientists figured out that botulism could be refined and developed into medicine. It has been used to successfully treat various spasmodic disorders. Somewhere along the line, scientists also figured out it could also be used to remove the appearance of wrinkles. As one doctor’s website says, “[the] repeated muscle contractions from years of smiles and frowns and surprises…deepen facial lines. Once Botox is injected, it seeks and finds just the right nerve endings that cause the contraction and halts the spark that contracts the muscle by blocking the release of a neurotransmitter. The nerve is then incapacitated by the Botox until it starts to awaken again in about 4-6 months. Then another shot of Botox restarts the process.”

If you didn’t catch that, it freezes the nerves in your face. People inject a disease into their faces to freeze the effects of smiles and surprises!

Smiles, frowns, surprises; the effects of a life lived. Injecting a disease in your face to wipe out the sleepless nights holding a sick child, or a dying mother. No, repeatedly injecting a disease in your face to eliminate the laughs at the dinner table, and the surprise of a 40^th birthday party.

Halting the spark of life so you can look good. And as Saturday Night Live’s Fernando says, It's better to look good than to feel good."

Many of us have our own spiritual Botox. We have our own ways to inject low-levels of death into our lives to freeze the effects of life. It seems better to be frozen than to feel the smiles, frowns and surprises. For non-believers, this is the normal course of things; life is Botox. Even believers, though, can be fooled into believing that numbness equals contentment, and that contentment equals peace.

A prayer for today might be, “Lord, let me find your grace in the stuff of life, in the passion of smiles, frowns and surprises. Let me not seek to freeze them out of my life with my ways. Amen.”