God isn’t God who is completely (or even mostly) understandable by a finite human mind.
These five Christmas Songs have something in common – can you figure out what it is?
1. Santa Clause Is Coming To Town - Bruce Springsteen Version
2. Grandma Got Run Over By The Reindeer
3. Jingle Bells
4. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting) – multiple versions including the John Denver / Muppets Version.
5. White Christmas – Bing Crosby
Did you figure it out?
Answer: They all have the Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! motif in them.
Did I miss any?
Christmas trees are a unique product in that it is a compliment to hear that your artificial tree looks like a natural tree, and it is a compliment to hear that your natural tree looks like an artificial tree.
Sometimes I leave it up to me blogging readership to help me determine how off base I am. Maybe you can help me here.
So yesterday I was listening to a very serious commentary piece on NPR about the sad practice of extreme hazing which exists in the community of very high quality marching bands in the US. Apparently, new members are regularly and sometime brutally physically beaten as a part of being accepted into the band.
And despite the seriousness and sad nature of the story, I found myself laughing out loud after a three words sentence in the article.
The author was telling about how, in an interview with a band member, he had heard of “how she’d been attacked, time and time again, by the older flutists.”
And then the commentator said*, “That’s right. Even flute players.”
And as I was listening, unfortunately due to my odd sensibilities, all of the indignance and horror that I had been feeling flew away. Because after hearing that sentence, I was was expecting the commentator to continue:
“I mean, flute players are usually dainty, right? They dress in flowing gowns and don’t so much march as flow when they are out on the field, even when the band is playing a cover of a disco song. If I hadn’t heard it with my own ears, I would have thought that a stern look in the eye was as violent as a floutest could ever get. But this is how far these bands have fallen. Even the high woodwinds have been corrupted.”
But no, he went on to describe more of the psychological damages created by this practice.
Meanwhile, I continued chuckling. So . . . shameful, right?
* I know that in the transcript, it says “Yes. Even Flute players”. But if you listen to the audio, he clearly says “That’s right”.
These nine songs have three things in common. What are the commonalities?
Two of the three are fairly obvious, the third is not so much
1. “O Come O Come Emanuel”
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel shall come thee, O Israel
2. “Christmastime” (From the Charlie Brown Christmas)
Christmas time is here,
happiness and cheer,
fun for all
that children call
their favorite time of year.
3. “My Favorite Things”
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things.
4. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy.
5. “What Child is this?”
Joy, joy for Christ is born,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.
6. “How Great Our Joy”
How great our joy (great our joy) Joy, joy, joy (joy, joy, joy)
7. “Carol of the bells”
Christmas is here,
bringing good cheer,
to young and old,
meek and the bold,
8. Pat-a-Pan
God and man today become
More in tune than fife and drum,
So be merry while you play!
9. Fum, Fum, Fum
On this joyful Christmas Day
Sing fum, fum, fum
Did you figure it out?
Here are the traits these nine songs have in common:
1. All of them are songs you might hear at Christmastime.
2. All of them have lyrics dealing with Joy, Wonder and Happiness.
Those are the more readily apparent commonalities. Here is the one less noticeable, and more ironic.
3. All* of them are in a minor key.
Did I miss any that should be in the list?
In any case, never let it be said that a minor song is never happy. Especially in the month of December.
* Okay, if you want to be picky, “Christmastime” is at least non-major.
I’m always nervous that if I don’t have some kind of system to keep track of what I’ve worn, I’ll end up wearing my favorite shirt eight times a month (something that Debbie tells me wouldn’t actually be a sin – but I’m thinking – wouldn’t people start commenting: Hey, do you have a thing about that shirt?).
In any case, to prevent this sort of thing from happening, I keep a document in my dresser and every day I write down some quick code for what I’m wearing (for example – “bl str sh” might mean “Blue striped short sleeve shirt”) and then I look up earlier in the list to see when I last wore that shirt, make sure it’s more than two weeks ago and cross out that instance.
Want proof? I just finished this page and have started another.
I’ll just note that the top left portion includes items from last Christmas.
So I’m curious – what do you do to make sure the horrible over-wearing of your favorite shirt doesn’t occur?
I don’t think I’ve publicly admitted it on this blog, but I’m a bit of a Star Trek fan. I’ve watched almost every episode of at least four of the shows and I’ve been to exactly one convention. Does that qualify me?
So recently my wife and I watched The Captains, (it’s instant viewing on Netflix) a documentary produced by William Shatner in which he interviewed all of the other Star Trek captains.
It was actually quite interesting.
The most intriguing part was a section in which he asked all of them about the personal cost of being cast in the role. In it we learned that four of the actors who played the Captains were divorced, two of the divorces were at least indirect results of being actors on science fiction television and one (Kate Mulgrew) said that her kids resented her role in Star Trek and were ‘dripping contempt’ for the show.
And then (at 58:55) Mr. Shatner asks Avery Brooks (Deep Space Nine – Benjamin Sisko) about his family life during the show and what follows is two minutes of . . . well, I would call it glorious incoherence.
How would you describe it? I’ve taken the time to transcribe it – here it is:
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Shatner: Did you lose family time?
Brooks: Of course!
Shatner: Did it hurt?
Brooks: Of course!
Shatner: But how much harm was suffered -
Brooks: Well, you’d have to ask them, I mean, because the attendant, the attendant of – of the movement of time, y’know for us all, y’know, there-there it is, there – the one – the one hand or the other. I mean who knows, therefore, y’know, in retrospect, y’know. I mean, you can do it that way: say I should have done this as opposed, y’know, I mean, who knows? I mean so – so – so I hold fast to what I’ve chosen to do and I’m not apologizing for that. But the attendant toll taken on family and all of that is, that’s – that’s it.
Shatner: What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? That’s profound. That was terrible.
Brooks: It’s true, baby.
Shatner: That was terrible.
Brooks: Well, it’s not terrible or not terrible, it’s true. It’s true.
Shatner: Well, it’s true, you suffered.
Brooks: It’s true, they suffered.
Shatner: You suffered.
Brooks: It’s true-
Shatner: But you suffered as well.
Brooks: Well, watch -
Shatner: Well, if they suffered, you suffered.
Brooks: Watch what I’m saying to you.
Shatner: I’m listening.
Brooks: It’s true. It’s not terrible or not. It’s true. You know, the toll – the toll on people, you can’t get it back. I mean, no matter what. I mean, whether-whether the decision to make, y’know, to do the thing or not to do a thing – you know what I’m talking about?
Shatner: Yes, I do. Did you discuss this with Vicki like this or did you -
Brooks: She knows, of course! I’ll move. Whether we survive is still accident, isn’t it? Whether we survive all of the sum of who we are -
Shatner: The cumulative effects of life.
Brooks: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve got to live it, baby. Like you. What’s different?
Shatner: The same.
Brooks: Hmmm.
========
Hmmm, indeed.
And for the record, Avery has been married to Vicki since 1976.
No matter how long you wait to do the laundry, you’ll always have that first thing to put in the bin after you’ve started it. You’ll be tempted to think, “If only I’d waited!”, but don’t.
This might apply to other areas of your life, as well.
As the story goes the popularity of the movie “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button” did not go unnoticed by the other Hollywood studios. The odd tale showed Benjamin throughout the course of his life growing backwards – from old to young.
One competing studio actually worked on a similar concept, this one where a man went through his whole life looking like he was a balding man of sixty three. But studio execs quashed the project saying there was “no character change” and that the protagonist was “too static”.
In the end the original concept photography was sold an used as another on-line education grant advertisement:
When I was quite young I used to watch the animated superhero show ‘Underdog’.
I will say that as a young child I found some of the scenes to be quite scary and sobering and none were more frightening to me than the episode called “The Phoney-Booths” in which the evil Simon Bar Sinister created phone booths that would transform normal people into slaves (with odd siren-like lights on their heads) who would do whatever evil he wanted them to.
And when Underdog fell into the trap and became (temporarily!) evil himself, the seven year old me found it very disturbing.
All that to say that when I see this internet add on the yahoo website:
. . . it kind of freaks me out a little bit. I’m pretty sure that’s not what the marketers were going for.
One of the most interesting thing about the Gospel as God’s Plan for Our Salvation is that in order for it to work, it required great evil – great Sin – to happen.
Universally speaking, or even from the perspective of our galaxy, no human has ever been where you are now.
So I was pumping gas on Friday and I saw this on the pump:
. . . and I thought to myself, “Those instructions, with it’s blue rectangle and red circle, may not be clear enough.”
So I thought I’d make a suggestion – in graphic format – as a service to those people reading this blog who design gas pumps:
What do you think?
I’m glad you’re here!
Want to hear my daughter singing a Bible verse song? Head over to the Fighter Verse Songs Blog and have a listen.
Or you could check out my Dad Advice Blog.
As usual, 3 disclaimers:
1. All quotes taken from sermons
2. All completely taken out of context
3. None found in the Online Sermon Texts – but many are on the videos
27 Witticisms From John Piper
As I was compiling these quotes, I noticed a slight theme. This year, a few of the quotes include a nonstandard word. In fact, I couldn’t use one of the quotes, because I couldn’t figure out how to spell the utterance he used. In any case, that’s what these first four quotes are.
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- [On Pastor John’s Definition of being ‘Free’] You aren’t really fully free if you aren’t doing what you desire to. You say, “I can! I can muster up my will and I can do what I don’t want to do.” Yes, you can. You call that Freedom? I don’t. Bleah.
- The word ‘Alone’ is added in the ESV, The word ‘Deemed’ is added in the Study Bible, I’ve written those folks, all my friends who translated this verse and said “Don’t do this to me! I have to preach on this! The fact that he said it the way that he said it accounts for their objection in verse 13. If you take out the problem from Chapter 5 verse 30 you can’t explain the problem that the Pharisees in chapter 8 verse 13!” So forgive me for being little bit CLK here.
- I told Noel the other night how frustrating it is to preach through this gospel because when you’re starting verses like this you gotta slow down! And if I slow down I’ll never finish! So . . . we try to slow down a little and then Pssssh like this, y’know? So I’m doing a Pssssh tonight.
- Some pastors say “I don’t want to get into specifics. We’ll just have a hazy unity.” I don’t want to have a hazy unity. Hazy unity feels . . . bleah.
(We now return you to your regularly scheduled normal funny quotes from Pastor John)
- In fact, so much is here in verse 31, that I never got to verse 32, from which I took the title to the message.
- We want to fly away and be like angels. But we live here and we change diapers. Used to anyway. About 4000 of them, I figure.
- When we’re praying “forgive me”, we’re not just saying, “I hope you’re nice!”
- If you asked, “Show us the Father”, and I said, “as long as I have been with you and you don’t know me?” you wouldn’t come back to this church. And you shouldn’t.
- . . . So pretend like you’re in class for the next twenty minutes or so and we’ll close with preaching.
- [About our church’s location] Can you survive the fact that if you can see the church, you can’t get to it? Yes, you can. . . Try it sometime! Try driving down 35W. There it is! Twenty minutes later you’re at our church.
- I cannot imagine that it would be satisfying to become an itinerant conference speaker. Yuck.
- No one sins out of duty: “I don’t want to sin, but I really should, so I will.”
- For John, this was like he was writing in the 50’s. I’m 65. I remember the 50’s. I remember Elvis!
- When I read things like this in the Bible they jar me. I really love to be jarred by the Bible.
- If you haven’t been jarred when you’re reading the Bible, you’re not reading it.
- I’ve told that story a hundred time and people always laugh. You almost didn’t laugh.
- We’re talking about eternal life. It’s not eternal golf. I’m always picking on golf. Sorry David! No, it’s eternal Him!
- Some people are saying, when I think about Jesus’ love, I think about John 3:16. I don’t think about 11:5 [letting Lazarus die.]
- Human brains get us into trouble a lot.
- I listened to about 5 minutes of it. I couldn’t take it anymore.*
- If you’re dead, you’re dead. You can’t undead yourself.
- I think I get it [I can explain this complex text (John 9:40-41)]. But you’re going to have to help me. You’re going to have to not think about what you’re going to be doing in an hour. You will be lost.
- There’s only one kind of sheep. Mangy sheep.
- If you say ‘I don’t have anything to give [in a small group]’, that’s blasphemy. . . not to overstate it.
- I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I don’t have any promises about ease, except: It gets worse. I DO have huge promises about joy.
- There are those who think, “I don’t give a rip about mixed metaphors. If you’re a door and a shepherd, tell me about it!”
- We are little children. Little children don’t know all they need to know, but they really sleep well.
* The newest contemporary Christian music song? No, he’s talking about the tape from the first time he preached from John 16:16-24
If you’d like more Piper Quotes
Piper Quotes 1
Piper Quotes 2
Piper Quotes 3
And if you’d like to hear songs for verses from Pastor Piper’s church’s Bible memory plan (and maybe buy the CD) look here:
By the way, as usual, I’d love to hear what your favorites are.
Only in the movies are people evil for evil’s sake. In your real life, the people who do things you disagree with (politics, religion, lifestyle) have reasons that you might have sympathy for if you ever were able to take the time to talk to them and ask them about it.
* Relatively speaking
Suggestion from philthecarl: Unless you have physical difficulty typing*, if someone takes the time to write you a long email, it is ungenerous of you to respond with a one word answer.
* Yes, I have someone in mind.
Did you know that people in Minnesota like to go swimming after Labor day and before Memorial Day?
Did you know that it was over 90 degrees a full week after Labor day this year?
Did you know that if you close all of your beaches after Labor day, people will go elsewhere?
Just thought you’d like to know!
“I am not easy to please”
“I am judgmental”
“It relieves my insecurity to point out faults in others”
“I don’t want this problem to be my fault.”
“I don’t want this problem to be seen as my fault.”
“I need you to be on my side of this conflict”
“I might later complain about you if you bother me at all”
“I need to vent”
“I don’t have a gracious spirit”
“I deserve your pity.”
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So . . . don’t complain about people a lot, is what I’m saying.
Hello, Stuff Christians Like People!
Thanks for coming over. Here are a few other links you might be interested in.
My Attempts At Humor
Other Friday Everythings – includes Movies, Bible Books, LOTR and Actors
My Other Blog – A Blog about Christian Fatherhood
My Wife’s Blog – It’s called “Simple Diligence”
A Ministry I’m a part of – Bible Verses set to music
