Continued efforts, as one might say, to figure out the order of daily life, are being made (#Iheartthepassivevoice). I think there is a good chance Matt and I’ll be able to podcast this week, hopefully in time to post on Wednesday. Maybe that will work, I’m telling myself now. Also, for those who are frustrated, the technical problems with
”things” uploading to iTunes are being addressed, in one fashion or another. I think the only thing to do is to become as patient as Job.
Was Job patient? I don’t know. But I am learning to be so as I keep trying to take the bits and pieces of work and other kinds of obligations and shove them together into something shiny and perfect. For example, I am trying to post over at Patheos in a regular way. Here is a bit of my piece from today about the conversion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Christianity, mashed up with yesterday’s lections:
This strange tale has perplexed a lot of people down the ages, as they have wondered what sort of virgins–or versions, as some children like to say–these might be. What is the oil? Who is the bridegroom? What is Jesus talking about? Why is the kingdom always about the division between people who seem, for all outward appearances, to look very like each other?
For there are ten women, and they all have one job–to attend at the feast, to go along to the wedding bearing their small lights, to participate in the work of joining the new bridegroom to his bride. If they were modern people, they would all be jammed into uncomfortable dresses that they would never wear again, no matter what they tried to tell themselves about the expense and cut. They would be attending the bride, not the groom, and they wouldn’t have to hold lamps, they would be bearing extravagant–though smaller than the bride’s, of course–clusters of flowers suitable to the season of the wedding. Their job would be to express unalloyed joy for the insta-reel, then to be rewarded for their smiles with lashings of champagne and strong drink and bawdy dancing. Indeed, their participation is decorative rather than practical or essential, and, the morning after, too often flat. If you have been married, how many of the people who attended you do you even know? Don’t you occasionally look them up on Facebook and then go back to the story about the drunken relative who embarrassed you during the toast?
There are a lot of weddings in the Bible, and, though there might be some similarities, on the whole, they sound a vastly different tonal structure than weddings today. Many have peculiar and painful trouble associated with them. Adam was happily married at first–his own wedding being divinely arranged–but then pitched the world into sin right afterward.
Read the whole thing (if you like).
And, also, a dear friend has put me onto these super cringy and slightly addictive progressive propaganda videos. The one I just watched is so so bad, I can’t share it with you because you’ll never forgive me. All of them cause me to shudder and be dismayed but this one’s not as horrifying as some:
And finally, I found this cool Twitter account called Where’s Welby. There you can find links to fun things, including this video of his Grace beclowning himself in the service of false gods.
So anyway, have a nice day!
I like the video too, aside from the obvious choice of making the villain white (and the cheesiness). It's not really that progressive because the woman has backup from other men, ha!
I liked the cringy car repair video, too. It was a little AfterSchoolSpecial-ly for my taste. But it was all made worthwhile by the arrogant guy. I've met so many guys like that.
Also, the new spark plug they gave her was a completely different kind from the one it was replacing. Old one had two ground electrodes, and the new one only had one. Not sure it they did that to be extra funny, or were just being careless.