I do not have game, but I am not alone. I manage to channel Jerry Lewis whenever I am trying to be suave. Do you think you might have game? You might not if…
You immediately tell the cute guy about the impending doom that surrounds your life, your tampon brand, or any mention of bathroom problems. If you overshare, by that I mean that you start a sentence: “in the interest of self disclosure,” you do not have game. No one really wants to hear about exs, gynecological disasters (even if the story is kind of funny), your creepy dreams about exs, or your ethical dilemmas about how you want to have sex but hiring an escort seem wrong. You might be terribly awkward, but you definitely do not have game!
You suggest that he meet the ten time cuter babe in the office next to you (this usually happens before you realize that he might have been flirting with you). You cannot believe that anyone would ever like you. Usually you blush and run from the fellow. At least, you didn’t mention that your underwear was riding up. You do not have game.
You consistently catch yourself burping or releasing some other vapor, wipe your nose with your hand or scratch your unmentionables in public. You always get caught, always. You definitely do not have game. Chances are this is nature’s way of telling you to put your toys away. The game is over for you.
Getting game isn’t that hard. Whenever I have actually had it, it was when I felt confident about myself or in what I was doing. I had game when I didn’t even know I was playing. Maybe part of it is not playing- being honest, being who you are, and hoping for the best. On the other hand, I may just try to cram myself into this red sausage casing, slap on some war paint, and hit the scene.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Surviving without toilet paper; surviving without love
I should be more careful about vacation ideas posed by my friends. We could agree that vacation time together was fabulous. We could agree that the Grand Canyon is a spectacular vacation destination. We could not agree on where to stay. I wanted a resort hotel. My friends, nature lovers that they are, wanted to camp. I'd offered a campground stay of not more than two days in a campground near necessaries of showers with hot and cold running water and toilets. My so-called friends countered with the website now appearing on my computer screen.
"Vacation idea?" my friend had typed in the email, complete with a nifty blue link to a place I simply knew would be filled with cabana boys and spa treatments that would turn me into a massaged, salt-scrubbed, and seaweed wrapped vision of relaxed radiance.
Nope.
Not even close.
My acquaintances’s idea of vacation: Some week-long survival camp in the wilds of a rectangle state. Colorado, I think. Four hours from the airport, real hotels, and any glimpse of civilization as I know and appreciate it. I was mildly interested in an adventure week option the same way I’m mildly interested in people who wear lots of spandex outside the confines of a gym - I’ll look if nothing else garners my attention. Mild interest moved into startled shock when I saw the group treks did not allow toilet paper. Apparently, the guides of these $2000 adventures into the desert to return to our human roots would show us how to use natural alternatives to toilet paper.
Seriously?
Is toilet paper that detrimental to our primitive survivalist roots? Has it made us soft and unable to face hardships that swerve and crash into our lives?
Make no mistake, I’m no fluffy diva who has never trekked into the woods. I grew up on hundreds of acres of Mississippi piney woodland. My sister and I spent many of our days hiking through the woods around our house, planted firmly at the end of a dirt road that washed out with regularity. I’ve peed in the woods before. I’ve built lean-to’s and hiked old logging trails and scaled the walls of abandoned gravel pits. I know all about checking for ticks in intimate crevices after a day in nature. And I’ve used these so-called natural alternatives to Charmin.
As a priest, I’ve taken groups of teenagers on summer mission trips into the Arkansas mountains to learn about global solutions to hunger and into the hurricane-ravaged communities of swampy Alabama and urban New Orleans to rebuild houses and brought them all back alive and with minimal psychological damage. Teenagers. About twenty of them. Driving for hundreds of miles and working in the oppressive, humid summers of the south.
Take that, survival camp leaders.
I am a diva who has trekked into the woods and come out to find I enjoy amenities of invention and innovation, like central air and heat, indoor plumbing, bath salts, NPR, and toilet paper. So I choose vacations where toilet paper is a given. Preferably vacations where the toilet paper is comfy- ridged, magically combined with soothing aloe, and folded into a nice, neat point by the maids in my plush hotel room. Heaven has toilet paper. The good kind. Even, perhaps, dare I say, the really nifty moistened cloths for personal use.
I can at least understand why we couldn’t bring those on the adventure into hell week for $2000. They probably don’t decompose well in nature. I’m sure shade-grown coffee is out, as well as my iPod and filtered water. Comfort in general, and mascara. Only God, Oprah, or the deep love of a man to whom I’m married and who really, really wants to share this experience with me will ever get me on some excursion like this.
Who am I kidding? Only God and Oprah could get me on some adventure trek like this. The man I loved would know better.
For many, though, forces other than God an Oprah are leading them into the wilderness for a fun-filled get away without toilet paper. Lots of survivalist vacation experiences exist. Days and weeks of living off the land. Specialized groups for women only, for men only, for hard-core survivalists only. Learn how to survive the conditions of life. Start fire without matches; eat bugs, twigs, and berries; hike aimlessly for miles; and wipe with leaves.
I’m all for people choosing vacations that make them happy and that recharge their batteries, even if it’s something like this. But survivalist vacations? Nature is often harsh, but more abundant than we think. Humans survived in nature for thousands of years. It’s humanity that makes survival difficult. Here’s a real survivalist vacation: try to live on minimum wage for a month in any major city. Try to find redemption in society if you’re trying to rebuild your world after making some big mistakes that landed you in jail. Try to rear your child in a country that argues with ridiculous insanity about the right of a child to be born, but callously ignores the rights of a child to live with adequate food, shelter, education, and medical care after the baby takes its first breath.
Toilet paper is the least of many people’s worries on a day-to-day basis. Maybe that’s why I find the no toilet paper thing so absurd. Charmin hasn’t made us soft, and living without it for a week or ten days won’t make us better able to survive the travails of life. It would just give me a chapped ass and a bad attitude.
Living without empathy and respect for others - now that’s hurt our survival. Our lives fractured by the idea that our personal experience is everyone’s experience and we have no desire to learn about the lives of others if those lives are harsh, depressing, or troubling. We are damaged when we refuse to see grace and love in the lives of someone who’s made a mistake; someone who has a different view on say, abortion or politics or religion; or someone who has made all the wrong choices and we shout that they don’t deserve our time or dignity.
For some, maybe even for many, surviving in the wilds of nature provides a time where we feel in control and even invincible because we survived in nature. If only the methods for surviving human callousness were as simple as the tips for eating certain bugs for protein and sucking water out of cactus roots. Jesus reminds us that that survival, the basic human survival, is based in love. Do that, my friends, and you'll survive anything.
"Vacation idea?" my friend had typed in the email, complete with a nifty blue link to a place I simply knew would be filled with cabana boys and spa treatments that would turn me into a massaged, salt-scrubbed, and seaweed wrapped vision of relaxed radiance.
Nope.
Not even close.
My acquaintances’s idea of vacation: Some week-long survival camp in the wilds of a rectangle state. Colorado, I think. Four hours from the airport, real hotels, and any glimpse of civilization as I know and appreciate it. I was mildly interested in an adventure week option the same way I’m mildly interested in people who wear lots of spandex outside the confines of a gym - I’ll look if nothing else garners my attention. Mild interest moved into startled shock when I saw the group treks did not allow toilet paper. Apparently, the guides of these $2000 adventures into the desert to return to our human roots would show us how to use natural alternatives to toilet paper.
Seriously?
Is toilet paper that detrimental to our primitive survivalist roots? Has it made us soft and unable to face hardships that swerve and crash into our lives?
Make no mistake, I’m no fluffy diva who has never trekked into the woods. I grew up on hundreds of acres of Mississippi piney woodland. My sister and I spent many of our days hiking through the woods around our house, planted firmly at the end of a dirt road that washed out with regularity. I’ve peed in the woods before. I’ve built lean-to’s and hiked old logging trails and scaled the walls of abandoned gravel pits. I know all about checking for ticks in intimate crevices after a day in nature. And I’ve used these so-called natural alternatives to Charmin.
As a priest, I’ve taken groups of teenagers on summer mission trips into the Arkansas mountains to learn about global solutions to hunger and into the hurricane-ravaged communities of swampy Alabama and urban New Orleans to rebuild houses and brought them all back alive and with minimal psychological damage. Teenagers. About twenty of them. Driving for hundreds of miles and working in the oppressive, humid summers of the south.
Take that, survival camp leaders.
I am a diva who has trekked into the woods and come out to find I enjoy amenities of invention and innovation, like central air and heat, indoor plumbing, bath salts, NPR, and toilet paper. So I choose vacations where toilet paper is a given. Preferably vacations where the toilet paper is comfy- ridged, magically combined with soothing aloe, and folded into a nice, neat point by the maids in my plush hotel room. Heaven has toilet paper. The good kind. Even, perhaps, dare I say, the really nifty moistened cloths for personal use.
I can at least understand why we couldn’t bring those on the adventure into hell week for $2000. They probably don’t decompose well in nature. I’m sure shade-grown coffee is out, as well as my iPod and filtered water. Comfort in general, and mascara. Only God, Oprah, or the deep love of a man to whom I’m married and who really, really wants to share this experience with me will ever get me on some excursion like this.
Who am I kidding? Only God and Oprah could get me on some adventure trek like this. The man I loved would know better.
For many, though, forces other than God an Oprah are leading them into the wilderness for a fun-filled get away without toilet paper. Lots of survivalist vacation experiences exist. Days and weeks of living off the land. Specialized groups for women only, for men only, for hard-core survivalists only. Learn how to survive the conditions of life. Start fire without matches; eat bugs, twigs, and berries; hike aimlessly for miles; and wipe with leaves.
I’m all for people choosing vacations that make them happy and that recharge their batteries, even if it’s something like this. But survivalist vacations? Nature is often harsh, but more abundant than we think. Humans survived in nature for thousands of years. It’s humanity that makes survival difficult. Here’s a real survivalist vacation: try to live on minimum wage for a month in any major city. Try to find redemption in society if you’re trying to rebuild your world after making some big mistakes that landed you in jail. Try to rear your child in a country that argues with ridiculous insanity about the right of a child to be born, but callously ignores the rights of a child to live with adequate food, shelter, education, and medical care after the baby takes its first breath.
Toilet paper is the least of many people’s worries on a day-to-day basis. Maybe that’s why I find the no toilet paper thing so absurd. Charmin hasn’t made us soft, and living without it for a week or ten days won’t make us better able to survive the travails of life. It would just give me a chapped ass and a bad attitude.
Living without empathy and respect for others - now that’s hurt our survival. Our lives fractured by the idea that our personal experience is everyone’s experience and we have no desire to learn about the lives of others if those lives are harsh, depressing, or troubling. We are damaged when we refuse to see grace and love in the lives of someone who’s made a mistake; someone who has a different view on say, abortion or politics or religion; or someone who has made all the wrong choices and we shout that they don’t deserve our time or dignity.
For some, maybe even for many, surviving in the wilds of nature provides a time where we feel in control and even invincible because we survived in nature. If only the methods for surviving human callousness were as simple as the tips for eating certain bugs for protein and sucking water out of cactus roots. Jesus reminds us that that survival, the basic human survival, is based in love. Do that, my friends, and you'll survive anything.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Ten sure-fire ways to be an awesome* preacher
1. ALWAYS preach at least fifteen minutes. Don't believe any of this nonsense that no one has ever complained that a sermon was too short. Just remember, short sermons are sermonettes, and sermonettes make Christianettes. We don't need any more Christianettes running around. California has enough.
2. Make sure you include references to every passage of scripture read that day. After all, some committee on lectionary reform met for hours and hours to painstakingly select each of those precious passages of Holy Writ to be read and heard by the holy people of God (those who aren't making their grocery lists during the Epistle reading, anyway). So give each section of scripture its full due.
3. Make innocuous references to long-dead theologians. The older and more incomprehensible the name, the better. Seven or eight per sermon can't be too many. All those names make sure your congregation knows a) that your seminary degree is a GRADUATE degree and b) that you've read TONS of books. And if what those particular theologians have to say isn't particularly relevant to the text or message of the scripture reading, not to worry. After all, you aren't including them for relevance; you're including them to make yourself look smart!
4. Include the pronoun "I" with frequency. For example, "When I pray five times a day..." Or, "On the few occasions I've erred and strayed from God's ways..." You are a priest. Make sure you reiterate to your flock just how holy and wonderfully YOU are. Some may call these jaunts into personal reflections unnecessary. They're just jealous they can't tell so many amazing stories about themselves. Share away. Extra points for sharing charming and heart-warming stories about your friends and family's wonderfulness, too.
5. Bring up conversations and interactions with parishioners without getting permission first. Recounting an event with a current or even past parishioner in a sermon has NEVER blown up in anyone's face. Ever. People loved to be surprised when they hear themselves being talked about in a public forum. Also, don't forget to use thinly-veiled references so everyone will know who you're really talking about, even if you've changed the names.
6. Preach at least three sermons in one. People absolutely love the buy-one-get-one-free deals they see in stores. So why not have a buy-one-hear-two-free deal with sermons? What a great idea. You've got at least fifteen minutes (twenty or more if you're really preaching the word of God) to fill, so repeat points ad naseum, repeat yourself, and follow those rabbit trails to see where they go. Doing this will keep a congregation guessing as to what you're going to do next, and they will love you for the mentally challenging sermon that invites them to think, "What the f*&# is s/he preaching about now?"
7. Forget the theology that the Holy Eucharist is the most important part of the Episcopal liturgy. It's the preaching, because that's where it can be all about you. Jesus preached way more than he did that Lord's Supper bit. That's what the Bible says, anyway. Right?
8. Some may call it plagiarism, but a really good preacher recognizes a time saving device when s/he sees it. Many, many people have written amazing reflections on passages of scripture. I mean, just mountains of stuff. If it's a personal story about themselves, just change the names and make it about you. If it's a particularly stunning take on a passage, just say you thought of it. Most of these people are dead, anyway, so they won't care. It's only a crime if you get caught...
9. Don't prepare. Believe that the Holy Spirit will give you the words at the right time. What some call rambling, we in church work call waiting for the Spirit to come through. And remember, you have plenty of time to preach. At least twenty-five minutes.
10. Preach way too fast to make sure you get all your words in. People will complain that they can't understand you. Just ignore the Debbie Downers. All the really holy people will be able to understand you perfectly. And they'll have at least thirty minutes to get used to your speaking pace.
*awesome meaning you'll be run out of the pulpit with fire and pitchforks.
2. Make sure you include references to every passage of scripture read that day. After all, some committee on lectionary reform met for hours and hours to painstakingly select each of those precious passages of Holy Writ to be read and heard by the holy people of God (those who aren't making their grocery lists during the Epistle reading, anyway). So give each section of scripture its full due.
3. Make innocuous references to long-dead theologians. The older and more incomprehensible the name, the better. Seven or eight per sermon can't be too many. All those names make sure your congregation knows a) that your seminary degree is a GRADUATE degree and b) that you've read TONS of books. And if what those particular theologians have to say isn't particularly relevant to the text or message of the scripture reading, not to worry. After all, you aren't including them for relevance; you're including them to make yourself look smart!
4. Include the pronoun "I" with frequency. For example, "When I pray five times a day..." Or, "On the few occasions I've erred and strayed from God's ways..." You are a priest. Make sure you reiterate to your flock just how holy and wonderfully YOU are. Some may call these jaunts into personal reflections unnecessary. They're just jealous they can't tell so many amazing stories about themselves. Share away. Extra points for sharing charming and heart-warming stories about your friends and family's wonderfulness, too.
5. Bring up conversations and interactions with parishioners without getting permission first. Recounting an event with a current or even past parishioner in a sermon has NEVER blown up in anyone's face. Ever. People loved to be surprised when they hear themselves being talked about in a public forum. Also, don't forget to use thinly-veiled references so everyone will know who you're really talking about, even if you've changed the names.
6. Preach at least three sermons in one. People absolutely love the buy-one-get-one-free deals they see in stores. So why not have a buy-one-hear-two-free deal with sermons? What a great idea. You've got at least fifteen minutes (twenty or more if you're really preaching the word of God) to fill, so repeat points ad naseum, repeat yourself, and follow those rabbit trails to see where they go. Doing this will keep a congregation guessing as to what you're going to do next, and they will love you for the mentally challenging sermon that invites them to think, "What the f*&# is s/he preaching about now?"
7. Forget the theology that the Holy Eucharist is the most important part of the Episcopal liturgy. It's the preaching, because that's where it can be all about you. Jesus preached way more than he did that Lord's Supper bit. That's what the Bible says, anyway. Right?
8. Some may call it plagiarism, but a really good preacher recognizes a time saving device when s/he sees it. Many, many people have written amazing reflections on passages of scripture. I mean, just mountains of stuff. If it's a personal story about themselves, just change the names and make it about you. If it's a particularly stunning take on a passage, just say you thought of it. Most of these people are dead, anyway, so they won't care. It's only a crime if you get caught...
9. Don't prepare. Believe that the Holy Spirit will give you the words at the right time. What some call rambling, we in church work call waiting for the Spirit to come through. And remember, you have plenty of time to preach. At least twenty-five minutes.
10. Preach way too fast to make sure you get all your words in. People will complain that they can't understand you. Just ignore the Debbie Downers. All the really holy people will be able to understand you perfectly. And they'll have at least thirty minutes to get used to your speaking pace.
*awesome meaning you'll be run out of the pulpit with fire and pitchforks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)