From wordle.net, here’s a graphic representation of words used in my blog, with the most-used being the largest.
I don’t know how it chooses the words, however, as at least one word in the image has only been used twice, ever. But, it’s kind of cool, nonetheless.
I don’t really have a bucket list, that list of 10 things I’d like to do before I die. Not really—although I’ve had something of a short mental list that I’d compiled over the years. Two of my major ones were accomplished last year: I published a book, and I got to see Toad the Wet Sprocket in concert for my birthday. Okay, so perhaps not that exciting, but there you have it. One unfulfilled item is to visit the British Isles, especially Ireland and Scotland. Some day, perhaps.
One thing that was not on my list was to have triple bypass surgery, which I had last Thursday. It wasn’t nearly as fun as seeing Toad, but way more exciting. Last Wednesday I was getting winded doing yard work, and knew that I shouldn’t be. I drove in to the hospital, and the cardiologist set up an angiogram for the next morning. That procedure was quick, and a couple of hours later I was being wheeled down for open-heart surgery. When I woke up, I had a Frankenstein-like scar down the front of my chest. On a scale of 1 to 10, the pain was about a 13. A part of me wanted scream, “Freedom!” (Braveheart reference). A freaky experience, to be sure.
I’m home now, and doing well. I have very little pain and feel quite energetic, but can’t do anything for 4-6 weeks (lifting limited to 5 pounds—I can’t even pick up the cat). The reality really hasn’t sunk in, it all went by so quickly. But, I’ll have plenty of time to think about it. What I am aware of is that I now have a chance to add a few more items to my bucket list. Feel free to make any suggestions.
In the meantime, I have a lot of free time and so will catch up on my reading, and will blog more. Just a warning…
I know, I’m a few days early, but I’m already feeling guilty about not writing as often as I should. I resolve to write more. I do.
Actually, I’m just finishing up a study guide to The Gospel Uncensored, after which I can divert attention to new and exciting topics. I have a few in mind, including a plan to continue with my This I Know series. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to suggest them.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday (I can say “Christmas” here, as I’ve never pretended to be politically correct), and wish you a happy changing of the calendar.
The Pope
This is my body, he said, two thousand years ago. This is my blood.
It was the only religion that delivered exactly what it promised: life eternal for its adherents.
There are some of us alive today who remember him. And some of us claim that he was a messiah, and some think that he was just a man with very special powers. But that misses the point. Whatever he was, he changed the world.
- Neil Gaiman, from Fifteen Painted Cards From a Vampire Tarot
I like Neil Gaiman, for the most part. I especially like some of his children’s books, like Coraline, The Graveyard Book, and The Wolves in the Walls, but also for books like The Anansi Boys. I find it interesting that Gaiman, who is a fairly outspoken atheist, has such a fascination with gods and the supernatural—with myth, actually. It seems that he is often unable to tell a story without it. He appears to understand the great power of myth—but perhaps fails to understand that sometimes it’s bigger than he is.
Just for fun – and following up on yesterday’s musical theology (and because I no longer have time to keep up my classic rock blog), here’s an oldie from the rock theologians at Uriah Heep:
Blogging pioneer (and one-time commenter on this blog) Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk, passed away today of cancer. He was 53. More info here.
Some of the spam comments I get on this blog (and I get many, many spam comments…) are quite funny. Too bad I can’t quote them – I try to keep this a PG-rated blog. How in the world do people think up this stuff?
From my Conflict blog:
We all agree that bad conflict is destructive. An apparent lack of conflict is also destructive, because there really is no lack of conflict. It’s either open and obvious, or it’s hidden; and hidden conflict is, in my opinion, far more destructive. How many people disappear from churches for no apparent reason? Truth is, there’s always a reason, and typically it’s an issue of unresolved conflict (although certainly that’s not always the case). As someone once said, “wherever two or more are gathered, there is conflict.” Conflict is a fact of life, as long as we are imperfect beings. Rather than ignore this fact, as many churches tend to do, the best case scenario would seem to be to put conflict front and center, but make it good conflict rather than bad.
Read the whole post here.
A few months ago, I had a weird experience at Starbucks – my cursor started moving to the right, all by itself. I first thought my wireless mouse was having issues, but unplugging it didn’t help. No matter what I tried, the cursor kept on it’s determined course. It seems like a little thing, but your laptop becomes essentially useless if you can’t keep the cursor still.
I suspected that my laptop had a stuck right arrow key, but when I got home, it worked normally. When I went back to Starbucks, it flaked out again. In a different Starbucks. So, I googled everything I could think of, but no one mentioned a problem like this, except to say that some kind of signal interference can do weird things.
After a few weeks, it seemed to stop. Except for today. Once again, my cursor began it’s march to the right, making it hard to do anything.
Then, it occurred to me that I was sitting in a spot I didn’t usually sit, in a little alcove by the huge Starbucks sign in the window. I picked up my stuff and moved to the other side of the room, and viola!, the cursor behaved itself.
So, apparently the huge green mermaid sign was somehow hijacking my laptop.
Mystery solved… I think.
Faithful readers of this blog will know that I occasionally post articles about why you can believe and rely on the Bible, as well as criticize people like Bart Ehrman for making really stupid arguments to the contrary. That being said, I also believe that there are serious issues with those who claim that the Bible is inerrant, or “without error in any way.”
Believers in inerrancy, I think, find themselves putting more faith in inerrancy than they do in the Gospel; however, the 1st Century Christians didn’t, for the most part, even have the Bible. Yet, it is clear from Paul’s epistles that they had “the Word of God.” I suspect that the real issue underlying inerrancy is that these Christians have become trapped in modernistic thinking, where propositions must meet certain criteria in order to be “true.” In this way, it seems that those requiring that the Bible be inerrant actually suffer from a lack of faith – one of the unfortunate consequences of modernism – rather than having a greater faith, as they would have us believe.
Yesterday Stephen at Undeception posted The Bible and the need for proof, makes some good points about why we don’t need to believe in “inerrancy” in order to believe the Gospel. He asks at the conclusion, “why is it logically necessary, rather than merely preferable for one reason or another, that the Bible be entirely true through and through?”
My question, just because I’m curious, is “What do you believe about the Bible, and why?”
