Another interesting feature about today's Daily Office, is that Jesus tells the woman caught in adultery that she ought to "go and sin no more," almost as if He believes it to be completely possible for puny humans like us to accomplish that feat.

Well, it seems like it is. In 1 Corinthians 10.13, we are told that God will never present us with temptation that is stronger than we can bear, and that he will provide for us a way of escape. Which means that when we sin, we choose to ignore the way of escape, and do our own thing.

I suppose the question is why we choose to ignore that escape when it's given to us. Or, why do we choose to escape when confronted with one, yet choose to ignore the escape hatch when confronted with another temptation?

I don't really have an answer, so I'm just going to stop for now, and try to figure it out.

If Christians were afraid of worldliness as much as they are of holiness, they would set the world on fire for Christ.
-Anonymous

Posted by Michael at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've often heard people using the example of the woman caught in adultery as an argument for why we ought to let all people do as they wish - since we ourselves are dirty rotten sinners, we ought not to judge anyone. But there's a bit of a logical flaw there, and when I read the Gospel in today's Daily Office, I was reminded of these arguments.

True, Jesus asks those who were about to stone the woman to death if they are without sin. None are. Point taken. We are all dirty rotten sinners. Then Jesus turns to the woman and asks her where her accusers are, and she answers that there are none. Now, here's where it gets interesting. Jesus says, "Neither do I condemn you." Jesus does not condemn her for her behavior, and that's usually where the argument stops, because the argument is intended to show a loving Jesus (which he is), and, more importantly, to help the speaker appear just as loving and uncondemning. And that usually means allowing - or even affirming - every action under the sun, provided it doesn't hurt anyone.

It hurts God.

And besides, Jesus didn't stop with saying "Neither do I condemn you." He ended it with, "Go and sin no more." That tells us that Jesus clearly saw her actions as a sin, and that he expected her to never do it again. That's a far cry from allowing or affirming any and all actions under the sun.

The quest is, of course, to approach that ability of Jesus to lovingly tell someone that they are forgiven, but that they still are doing wrong, and that their sin is not to be continued. It's too easy to go the way of the hard right and run around with hateful signs, or go the way of the soft left and run around with open arms loving the sinner as well as the sin.

Frankly, I think that we all enjoy getting away with something. I know that often if I'm doing something wrong, but no one confronts me on it, I feel three things: 1) these people are pushovers, and don't really believe what they say, 2) these people are too afraid to hurt my feelings by smacking me in line again, and 3) they just don't care about me, otherwise they would say something (see #1 - I think they ride tandem).

So how do I respond? Well, gently but firmly in the areas where I am strong, and practically nonexistent in the areas I am weak. Which just goes to prove how much like Jesus I must become if I am going to correct and reprove people. The more I lovingly correct, the more I must be above reproach. Though none of us truly is, and that is why we need each other; together we grow, together we push ourselves toward ever more refined stages of godliness. Because we must correct others. And if not me, then someone else, who may very well correct and reprove me as well, because they must.

Which is why Jesus was the only one who could truly stand in front of that woman and tell her to go and sin no more. There are many theories as to what Jesus wrote in the dust that day, but I like to think that all He had to do was write down a few sins in the sand, and as each person there noticed the sin they were guilty of, they walked away, until the only sinless man remained.

And He forgave her; but He also told her to never do it again.

Posted by Michael at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday I decided that my little potion of doom wasn't spicy enough, and was lacking a bit in flavor, so today I picked up more jalapeño and yellow pepers, and also decided to pick up some serrano peppers. (I added two whole garlics yesterday) While there, I decided I needed to get a few habañero peppers too. I could hear the little orange devil taunting me as I pulled him from the bag. I'm hoping the flavor and heat index will pick up here with the peppers I added today.

Bring on the tears...

Posted by Michael at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Say what?!

In my Alma Mater's most recent alumni magazine there was an article about a sociologist from the National Study of Youth and Religion, who led "the largest-ever study of religious beliefs of American teenagers."

The five-year project interviewed 3,370 teenagers (13-17) from 45 states, and ran the course of 5 years, so it really was a huge study.

Now, here's the quotes of the two "most significant findings" that got me to thinking:

First, contrary to popular notions, fueled by the media, most teens today are not religious 'seekers' rebelling against their parents' religion. Instead, they willingly accompany their parents to church.
Second - here's the troubling part - these teens, even those regularly attending Christian churches and youth groups, are hard-put to articulate the first thing about what they believe.

And I know that this doesn't apply to just teenagers. This applies to so many college students, and even adults. What's happened to the Church when people can attend regularly, and not have any idea what it is they are following? Maybe it's because churches close on Sundays these days (here & here), because it’s a "family day." Forget about the fact that it celebrates the birth of our Savior, the whole reason we're in church to begin with... Call me silly, but I see no mention of Jesus anywhere.

This actually sounds a lot like the article about Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Why’s that? Well, when pressed, the kids in the interviews "eventually described a religion largely devoid of any notion of Jesus, grace, judgment, salvation, or the cross. Rather, the creed of their faith goes something like this: 'God's out there somewhere, and if you just do what makes you happy and avoid being really bad, you'll go to heaven when you die.' This faith is characterized by what Smith and Denton call 'benign whateverism,' otherwise known as indifference."

I don’t know about you, but that makes me really sad.

benign whateverism
"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."
— Elie Wiesel

While the study suggests that the two main culprits are "an absence of biblical grounding and an absence of conversations about faith," I think that the real culprit is indifference. Do people care what the Bible says? Do people care what Jesus would do? Do people care that their friends practice a different religion? Or do they think it all comes out in the wash anyway?

If people had thick, solid Biblical grounding, and poignant conversations about faith, they might actually find themselves confronted with taking a stand one way or another, and so lack of biblical grounding and no conversations about faith are to blame. But the real reason that those two things never happen is that those who ought to do the teaching, or the conversational prodding are themselves mired in a lack of knowledge. It's really hard to care about something you know nothing about, and it's even harder to get someone else to care about it when you really can't answer the simple questions of "How will believing this affect my life?" or better, "How do you apply your faith to your life?" or worse, "Are you applying your faith to your life?"

moralistic therapeutic deism at least has an answer to those question: "Doing religion makes me feel better about myself, and that's a good thing." Of course, they don't believe anything they can place their finger on.

We, as Christians, however, do. And that ought to make us extremely joyful, and when questioned, passionate. Let’s just make sure that we can answer the questions.

Posted by Michael at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So I've finally gone through and worked out every eventuality for the days of the Daily Office, especially the gnarly time frame between Four Advent and The First Sunday after Epiphany. Spent a good portion of yesterday and today playing around with the proper calculations.

In order to test everything out, I had to put it onto my own computer and change the date so that the program got tricked into thinking it was a different year, a different day, etc. I think at one point I was looking at Epiphany Sunday, 2014.

Anyhow, the thing should now work without a hitch for then next 10,000 years — call me optimistic — except for the pesky typos that got into the lectionary, daily office, and collects from the BCP text file I downloaded. And now it's on to other things, like adding in the KJV, the NKJV, the Douay-Rheims, etc. and storing user preferences.

Yeehaw. I may never give it a rest.

Posted by Michael at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over the past few days I've had to shut down comments on my site because of crazy blog robots that run through and add advertisements to my website.

Because I use a popular, open-source blog program, people who really want to can download the software for free, and figure out how to be a public nuisance by writing blog robots to submit advertising commentary.

And someone has, because only a few hours, one of these crazy robots had added over 40 advertisements to my blog — but only to older entries, in the hopes I wouldn't notice, and Google users would find the advert, I suppose — and I had to go and delete them all.

Pain in the caboose.

In any case, if it continues, you may discover that I've had to set up an authentication system and require log in before publishing. Hope it doesn't irritate you, but that also means no random fun names anymore, just your username.

[Addition: in just the 10 minutes it took me to write and post this, those crazy blog robots have been at it again, so it's a definite on the registration.]

[Addition 2: sadly, in order to set that up, I need to pay for the service. The software is free, but anything beyond the blog costs money. So it looks like I'll just have to delete stuff by hand.]

Posted by Michael at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The land of Dungeonchurch, population 1.

Yesterday as I got together all the stuff I'd need to make some of this pickled peppers stuff, I found myself standing in front of the pepper section at Ralph's contemplating the blessings of habañero peppers. Or rather, I found myself contemplating adding just one habañero pepper for "flavoring." But then I realized that I probably wouldn't stop at just one, and I'd add way too many, and then before you knew it, I'd be at Holy Cross getting my stomach pumped.

So I decided against it, and just went with the Jalapeño & yellow peppers instead. We'll see how that turns out and see about adding in some other goodies (like Manzano and Habañero's) next time.

Posted by Michael at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Actually, it was nothing of the sort.

Last night I got a hankering for some food, and since I still had some of the good Padre's homemade escovitche, I pulled out the requisite side-products to cool the flames: milk, cheese, and wasa bread.

And I ate, and ate, and ate, and ate. And it was good.

Can't wait to make my own batch of it.

Posted by Michael at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One year, while I was growing up, the Army was pumping it's Machismo commercials with guys running around in mud, carrying M-60's and ammo strapped to their backs, building bridges, rescuing damsels in distress, and other various heroic efforts, all in the dark. Then comes a faint glimmer of sun above the horizon and a baritone voice-over gives this: "Army. We do more before 8am than most people do all day."

Growing up in Alaska had it's perks. One was 24-hour sunlight in the summer, and weeks of only twilight in the winter. My friend Lahka (short for Alahkalaq - a Native hero), worked at one of the Bush plane services called Baker Aviation. One morning, after having loaded several small Cessna's to the hilt with over 2,000lbs of goods and perishables going to the outlying villages - all at -35F - Lahka saw the twilight at the horizon, and was reminded of these overly testoserone laden commercials. And thus was birthed the Army Insult: "8AM?!?! Hell, we do more before the sun comes up than the Army does all year!" Over the course of the next several weeks we wore that thin joke to it's bitter end every time we managed to accomplish anything particularly titanic, or just plain "macho."

This morning, after having gotten up before the sun rose to go hiking at Eaton Canyon with The Stacia before work, I had reason to remember the ol' Army Insult. Only this time it wasn't so much an insult as it was a reminder of blessing (ba-da-boom, archbishop). For a good hour I got my heart rate up, hopped over stones like a mountain goat in kid's clothing, and chased little insects with a imaginary chopsticks (hey, chopstix are for Germans...).

It is an absolute need of this country boy to be in nature. Exercising where the trappings of city make themselves known at every turn just don't do it. Give me overgrown grass, birds, insects, and small woodland creatures, and you might just have to slap me to get me out of my ecstatic trance.

8am?!? Pshaa! The Stacia and I did more before 8am than most people did all day.

Posted by Michael at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So today I ran across Vegetarian Haggis.

How can you possibly desecrate a time honored traditional meat dish like Haggis?

It's like drinking caffeine free tea or coffee, fat-free milk, or sucking down fat-free icecream or fat-free sour cream.

If it's not the real thing - don't bother

You know, I used to be a vegetarian (3.5yrs), and after a while I realized just how many fake meat products I was consuming, and comparing to real meat, deciding which one was the best, i.e. which one tasted most like real meat. It wasn't until my junior year in college when I sat through the Thanksgiving Turkey fest at my friend's house that I finally came back to my senses. They had asked me to serve the turkey, which I did, though I stoicly managed to get through the entire meal with eating nothing but mashed potatoes, green beans, and bread. gee, yeehaw.

The next morning, the looming carcass of the turkey beckoned to me, and I finally gave in, cutting off a nice long strip of turkey and savoring the morsel in my mouth. I actually fell to the ground I was in such ecstasy.

Oh, the sheer joy of meat.

My body took to the meat quite well, I might add. At the time I was working out 4 hours a day in cross country and in the gym, and weighed in at 145lbs. Within two months of eating meat again, I weighed in at 165lbs, though I hadn't gained any fat.

Let me just say: Meat is your friend...
May you always be blessed with a bratwurst and beer

Posted by Michael at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So yesterday, during a bout with yet another warped brain, I decided to go for a walk to get the blood flowing. In doing so, I passed a little cottage that I normally only drive by.

It turns out that this is the Rose Tree Cottage: The Original English Tea Room. They sell tea and antiques, English foods, books, and other materials. Oh, and did I mention tea? They have by far the best selection of high-quality English teas I've ever seen. I had to pick up another box of Earl Grey for myself, as well as some Vanilla Black Tea. Good stuff.

Also, they serve Afternoon tea at 1:00, 2:30, and 4:00PM, and reservations are required a week in advance! They're that popular. And all this only a moments walk from work, and I never knew, because I never walked past Wild Oats where I buy sushi...

On another note, for those of you that love to read, one of the guys at work told me about a website for booklovers and bookswappers, called Book Crossing. Here you take a book you'd like to share, put a note in it, and drop it off where it can be found by someone else, who then also logs onto the website and leaves notes about how they liked the book. The site keeps track of the book and let's you know how others liked it, and where in the world it has traveled since you dropped it off into the great wild. It's actually pretty fun. Today I picked up a book called "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," by Alexander McCall Smith, which is a story about a character named Precious Ramotswe, the only lady detective in all of Botswana. I've heard great things about it. Let's hope it lives up to the hype.

Posted by Michael at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So today I learned something fun. If archbishop makes fun of your sweater, make it look like he stole and image from your site, and be a big old techno-bastard.

Quick and easy, if you have access to your .htaccess file on Apache.

Oh, and I do.

Blessings archbishop!

yeehaw

Posted by Michael at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

She's only 83? Cradle Robber!

Posted by Michael at 9:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Man, pesky little booger.

Oooh, ok. That's good....

A little more to the right....

Dang it!

Not again...

Posted by Michael at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

"Are you bored? Tired? Full of Melancholy?

That's right! Sleep in any corner of the Museum of Contemporary Art, and we pay you for your time."

Was it wrong for me to respond?

Posted by Michael at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So the last week was a crazy one. After having a great time during Thanksgiving at my parents house in Tucson, AZ, I came back to broken everything at work.

It seems that during ThanksGiving I got a little slaphappy with all the foods I'm not supposed to eat because I'm allergic to them (beautiful things like coffee, corn, and chocolate). Nevertheless, I ate them anyway, thinking that I could, only my body hasn't quite rewritten it's DNA yet to provide for a lack of headaches when pummeled with poison. Go figure. So I happily spent Friday, Sunday, and yesterday embroiled in migraines. Bummer dude.

Thankfully - a belated ThanksGiving here - after coming home from running with a friend, I was able to watch 2 episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, and then I crawled into bed at 8:50pm. I didn't climb out of bed until 7:40am. And now I feel refreshed. Nifty isn't it?

So, let's play catch up on the Thanksgiving Fest Aught Five.
Day 1: The Stacia and I head to San Diego where we cohabitated in a youth hostel, and I shared a room with four guys, one of whom was from England, traveling around the world for 5 months, stopping of in New Zealand to work for a few months while traveling. Sounds like he's going to have loads of fun.
Day 2: We begin our drive to Tucson, during which time we see many new and exciting things, like desert, and desert plants, and desert, and sand...
Day 3: ThanksGiving day. We help The Mama out with setting up and cooking, and such, and then we eat loads and loads of food, until we burst. Afterward, the family plays games, including Trivial Pursuit, during which we ganged up on the least suspecting family member and pummeled them. (actually, I can't remember who won... I think we had to shut it down and play something else).
Day 4: We get up, planning to go for a run, or hike, or some such thing, but instead lay around for quite some time, while I read, and The Stacia chats it up with The Mama. We then proceed to my sister's house, where we help her decorate her house, and clean up in prep for my mother's b-day party the next day. Then we all head to a movie, which turned out to be rather a bust, because it was so dirty and just not so funny (except in maybe 3 spots where I almost choked on my popcorn I was laughing so hard).
Day 5: The Stacia and I go for a hike in the Saguaro National Park area, where we have a deep and meaningful conversation and she agrees not to kill me with a cactus shoved up my nose. We then proceed to my sister's house again, for the celebration of my mothers 65th birthday.
Day 6: We decide that we are Lewis & Clark, and head off on an expedition back into Crazy Country (aka California), during which we make up all sorts of weird word games to play, and discover that Palm Springs is a bottle neck for traffic on the I-10.

Whew! What a vacation. Loads of fun.

Enjoy the photos

Posted by Michael at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)