We've actually been back from our honeymoon for almost two weeks now, but the internet and blogging and all that hasn't really been that urgent. Things are good, and we are thankful. The wedding day itself was beautiful; the ceremony went smoothly, yet I wasn't quite prepared for the surprise they had in store for me where Stevie, Mark Burnham, Alyssa Kell, and Holly Moore performed the Indigo Girls' "The Wood Song" during the cermony. Wow. The reception was a lot of fun, although my one regret is that I wasn't able to hang out with everybody or even see everybody at that time. Yet, it was still a sweet time.



That night, we drove our car (which had "Literally Married" written on the windows in shoe polish!) to a cabin in Julian. The next day we hopped on a plane (not literally!) and spent a wonderful week in Banff, Alberta, Canada. We also made our way up to Edmonton towards the end of the week ("Go Oilers!") after we had spent our time canoeing, seeing Lake Louise and Lake Moraine, and witnessing the crazy people at the 78th Annual Slushcup in Sunshine Village! In Edmonton and in Calgary we got to hang out with Tiana's Grandpa Herb and Christa as well as spend time with Tiana's Uncle Dan, Aunt Anne, and Tiana's fun cousins.

We haven't gotten back all of our wedding pictures yet, but I have some. First, there are the pictures of my bachelor-esque party that took place at the Wild Animal Park and some scattered locations that evening, ending up for some cool hang-out time at my old apartment with the guys. Here is a link to a Flickr pool of shots from that day. And here is a shot of cheese:



For the wedding itself, Dave-O lent his camera to a friend (as he was one of my bros in the wedding party) and so he has a pretty sweet gallery here. It begins at the rehearsal dinner the day before and then goes on to the wedding day.

And here are the pictures of our honeymoon. We sure did have a rad time up there.



We are both very thankful for all of our family and friends who were able to participate in our wedding day. As much as I tried to savour the day, it went by really fast. My brain did go to mush the last few days leading up to the wedding, so I'm very thankful for Stevie, Nate, Rusty, Dave-O, Charlie, Kaz, Johnny, and especially my brother Andrew for keeping me on track. Our friends Ryan and Laura put together a jaw-dropping array of food for dinner, and to them we are also extremely grateful.

Tiana and I are still settling into our new place, but the unpacking is almost done. Our place is looking pretty nice, and much of that is due to all the generosity we received in people buying up our registry gifts. We are quite humbled that people bought all of that stuff. Thank you so much! (Thank you cards are on the way, we promise!)

And now, life together begins. A life together where we experience the joys and sorrows together, and a life where even the mundane of the daily life is lived out in love. Like our Pastors John & Kathy kept reminding us: all that matters is the vows. Indeed.

Blogging over the next few months will be light. For starters, Tiana, our friend Leigh and I are driving up to the Bay Area tonight to celebrate our niece Katie's 3rd birthday (!!!). And then, as we are still settling into our place, I also have a bunch of reading to do as I am attempting to catch up on the reading due for our Henri de Lubac class, being taught by my pastor. So far, married life rearranges priorities, but it's a good thing. And don't worry, we're still hanging out with friends! Just like: don't worry, I'll still blog! ;)

[Also, for those of you who took pictures at our wedding, feel free to follow the instructions on our site to post your pics to our Flickr group!]

Yesterday I turned in four papers. The biggest one--the one on the Trinity--ended up being like 29 pages (the 100+ footnotes inflates that a bit, btw), and thanks to Charlie's helpful advice, I may have averted disaster. I'm still not a very good judge of my own work (i.e. I'm not very confident about it), so I probably won't be posting it until I get it back from my professor so that I can make the necessary corrections. We'll see. Most importantly, I finished my first semester of grad school and I think it went okay.

I had a few others to turn in, but those were just some basic essays that I was required to write for a 'Research Methods' class. For the summer, I'm most likely taking a class on Henri de Lubac that will be taught by my pastor. Considering the fact that it's an undergraduate class (but 490, so upper) and the very, very important fact that I'm getting married, coupled with the fact that my pastor is teaching the class, it looks like the reading involved will be at a very relaxed pace so that we can get our lives in order.

So now, there are eight days left till Tiana and I get married! And I am very excited and thankful and relieved and other words that might be used to express all sorts of awesomeness. I can't wait to see those of you who are coming that I don't see very often. It sounds like my bachelor party will be a hoot (but I sure hope we don't go to that line-dancing place Incahoots, or will we? *shudder* I've already gotten kicked off the dance floor there twice in the past -- never again!). Yeah, I already know what is pretty much going to go down because the main coordinators of the event (Nate and my brother), realizing that since I'm so boring, couldn't figure out what I would actually like to do, so they directly called me and asked me. "So Eric, what do you want to do?" My idea, after a bunch of hemming and hawing (because I don't really know what I would want to do!), is that we'll edit together some sort of video throughout the day as we explore San Diego. It will be a fun and awesome group of guys.

Okay, nothing more interesting for me to say at the moment.

David Fitch, author of The Great Giveaway, has a great post over at his blog by the same name called Why Fundamentalism and Liberalism Are Two Sides of the Same Coin - Where All Emerging Conversants Must Go. I still don't know a whole lot about what is dubbed the "emerging conversation," but his post is spot-on. (Similarly, Kevin D. Johnson over at Reformed Catholicism has discussed this topic along parallel lines on his post Outside the Three-Ringed Circus, as well as in the other posts I link to below.)

The views offered on Scripture from both of the camps described by Fitch (Evangelical Fundamentalism and Liberal Protestantism) seem to display this "two sides of the same coin" error rather paradigmatically. In an effort to attempt that third -- or perhaps better stated, alternative -- way to the EF & LP coin, I want to offer a selection from John R. Franke's excellent The Character of Theology: An Introduction To Its Nature, Task, and Purpose.

Before quoting this section, I want to say that even though I really thought Stanley Hauerwas' Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America was an excellent little book on this topic, I think Franke adds a rather profound pneumatological (i.e. having to do with the Holy Spirit) corrective to Hauerwas' account (although, one could also rightly say that when Hauerwas says that Scripture cannot stand outside the context of the Church, he is talking about the body of Christ as given by the Holy Spirit -- the following account is just better articulated, I think):

The negative attitude toward tradition born in the Reformation came to maturation in three contexts: the elimination of tradition in Anabaptist theology, the devluation of tradition in Protestant orthodoxy, and the undercutting of tradition in the Enlightenment. The emphasis on sola scriptura and the influences of these three contexts on the formation of North American Protestantism led to the virtual elimination of tradition in much of traditional Protestant theology.

However, in spite of the various attempts to minimize the human element in the rectipion of the Bible and the work of theology, the simple fact remains that Scripture must be interpreted, and this activity is always shaped by the thological and cultural context within which interpreters participate. It is simply not possible to step back from the influence of tradition and context in the act of interpretation or in the ascription of meaning. Interpretive communities that deny the reality of this situation and seek an interpretation unencumbered by the distorting influence of fallible human traditions are in fact enslaved by interpretive patterns that are allowed to function uncritically, precisely because they are unacknowledged. Such a mind-set has been labeled by Richard Lints as "antitraditional traditionalism," in which the disdain for tradition becomes an ironic form of tradition.65 Trevor Hart comments that the notion of a "pure" reading of the text "must be shown up fr the self-deception that it is."66

While recent conversations between Catholics and Protestants about the relationship between Scripture and tradition have started to close the breach of the sixteenth century, significant differences still remain, such as whether Scripture or the church has priority. This fundamental difference still animates contemporary dialogues between Catholics and Protestants. However, posing the difference in this manner is ultimately unhelpful in that it rests on foundationalist understandings of the derivation of knowledge. Shifting to a nonfoundationalist conception can assist in moving the discussion beyond this impasse. The Protestant principle of authority is bound up in the link between Word and Spirit, meaning that the authority of Scripture is finally the authority of the Spirit, who speaks in and through the test. Scripture is authoritative because it is the vehicle through which the Spirit speaks. That is to say, the authority of the Bible is ultimately the authority of the Spirit. This understanding of the relationship between Word and Spirit suggests the possibility of a parrallel connection between the Spirit and tradition. The pathway to such an understanding, however, proceeds indirectly through ecclesiology. The same Spirit whose work accounts for the formation of the Christian community also guides that community in the production and authorization of the biblical texts. This characterization of the role of the Spirit points toward an appropriate pneumatological-ecclesiological understanding of tradition.

Crucial in the development of such an understanding is the observation of Catholic theologian Avery Dulles, who speaks about the process of "traditioning," which began before the composition of the inspired books and continues without interruption through the ages.67 This stands as a reminder that the community precedes the production of the scriptural texts. In a certain sense, the faith community was responsible for both the content of the biblical books and the identification of particular texts chosen to make itself accountable. Apart from the Christian community, the texts would not have taken their particular and distinctive shape. Apart from the authority of the Christian community, there would be no canon of authorized texts. In short, apart from the Christian community, the Christian Bible would not exist.

Viewed from the historical perspective, the Bible is the product of the community of faith that produced it. The compilation of Scripture occurred within the context of the faith community, and the biblical documents represent the self-understanding of the community in which they were developed. As Paul Achtemeier notes, the "major significatnce of the Bible is not that it is a book, but rather that it relfects the life of the community of Israel and the primitive church, as those communities sought to come to terms with the central reality that God was present with them in ways that regularly outran their ability to understand or cope."68 Scripture witnesses to the claim that it is the final written deposit of a trajectory or a traditioning that incorporates a number of varied elements in its composition, including oral tradition and other source documents. The community of faith recognized these writings as authoritative materials, and these materials in turn were interpreted and reapplied to the various contemporary situations. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the community engaged in the task of preserving the canonical documents for the sake of the community's continuity. These writings contain the literary witness ot the events that gave shape to the community, the prophetic interpretation of those events, and the various context-sensitive instructions regarding the implications of those events for the community's ongoing life.

That same faith community has corporately confessed the Spirit-inspired charcter of the canonical texts as a distinctive collection of documents to which it makes itself accountable.69 Awareness of the role of the community in the production of the writings of Scripture, that is, to the process of traditioning present already within the biblical era, leads to a broader concept of inspiration. While inspiration includes the composition of particular writings produced by individuals, it also incorporates the work of the Triune God in the midst of the Hebrew and early Christian communities, leading these people to participate in the process of bringing Scripture into being. By extension, the direction of the Spirit permeated the entire process that climaxed in the coming together of the canon as the book of the Christian community. Thus, although the church precedes Scripture chronologically and is responsible for its formation, it has nevertheless, by its own corporate affirmation in the establishment of the canon, made itself accountable to Scripture as the norming norm for its life, faith, and practice. In this sense, the text shapes the community (pp. 149-152).

Further Excellent Discussions on this topic:

• At adversaria on March 6, 2006: How Gutenberg Took the Bible from Us: Some thoughts on the Ontology of the Scriptures


• At ReformedCatholicism on January 2, 2006: I wonder what history you have been reading...


• Another at ReformedCatholicism on March 21, 2006: On Inerrancy


• And yet again ReformedCatholicism on March 23, 2006: Outside the Three-Ringed Circus


• At Gower Street on November 15, 2005: Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon


• At The Phaith of St. Phransus on October 25, 2005: Thoughts on Scripture pt1 - "Our Family Story"


• Joel Garver at Sacra Doctrina on November 23, 2004: the bible in the middle ages

---

65. Richard Lints, The Fabric of Theology: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 91. (back)
66. Trevor Hart, Faith Thinking: The Dynamics of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995), 167. (back)
67. Avery Dulles, Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 96. (back)
68. Paul J. Achtemeier, The Inspiration of Scripture (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 92. (back)
69. Gabriel Fackre, The Christian Story: A Narrative Interpretation of Basic Christian Doctrine, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 19. (back)

There some wonderful discussion going on at Lee's blog on a post called "Trinitarian Hijinx." Great dialogue.

There's a pretty funny --and informative, no less-- interview with John Milbank about the Gospel of Judas and The Da Vinci Code over at the cool honey.

Update: Continuing, good discussion on Verbum Ipsum on the Trinity and language.

This is what I'm talkin' about:

A great snippet from David Bentley Hart's The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth, in which he attempts to sketch out a few aspects of the definition of "beauty" in his prolegomona:

Beauty is the true form of distance. Beauty inhabits, belongs to, and possesses distance, but more than that, it gives distance. If the realm of created difference has its being for God's pleasure (Rev. 4:11), then the distance of creation from God and every distance within creation belong originally to an interval of appraisal and approbation, the distance of delight. God's pleasure -- the beauty creation possesses in his regard -- underlies the distinct being of creation, and so beauty is the the first and truest word concerning all that appears within being; beauty is the showing of what is; God looked upon what he had wrought and saw that it was good. Within the world, beauty does not merely adorn an alien space, or cross the distance as a wayfarer, but is the true form of that distance, constituting it, as the grammer of difference. This presence of distance within the beautiful, as primordially the effect of beauty, provides the essential logic of theological aesthetics: one that does not interpret all distance as an original absence, or as the distance of differentiation's heterogeneous and violent forces, but that sees in distance, and in all the series and intervals that dwell in it, the possibility of peaceful analogies and representations that neither falsify nor constrain the object of regard...(p. 18).

The book pictured above arrived in the mail today! I won't have time to read it until the summer sometime, but I'm quite looking forward to it. Jamie has an excerpt from chapter 2 posted here.

Also, via my "James K. A. Smith radar," it looks like a blog called Faith Dance will be blogging this book soon.

---

30 days. Speaking of, if y'all received an invitation to our wedding, we're asking that you RSVP by today if you haven't already. Sweet.

I went to a short in-store performance given by the Dresden Dolls tonight. They only played three songs, but it was an awesome little set because they played three cover songs in a slightly different setting and arrangement than usual. They ended with a kick-ass cover of the Violent Femme's "Kiss Off." Takes me back to hanging out with my best bud Nate! Aside from vox, this was a pretty unique set because Amanda almost always plays piano and Brian pounds on the drums.

They also signed my copy of their CD that just came out today. Yes, I'm twenty-five years old and I'm a fanboy.

They're playing a full set right now at the Epicentre, but I have a ton of other stuff to get to! (hence why I'm not there) So, I better continue getting to that!

Full picture set here.

Peace, all.

In a way, without really knowing it, I've been waiting for this to come out!

The Centre of Theology & Philsophy now has a blog/discussion forum! What does that mean? Well, it means that this is the forum/blog for Dr.'s John Milbank, Conor Cunningham, Philip Goodchild, Karen Kilby, and potentially even those listed as fellows on their site. I'll be sending them their logins shortly so that they can begin posting (hopefully -- we'll see!).

In the meantime, I've created the first post to get things going. Feel free to drop your thoughts, questions, or whatever over there.

Without further ado, here's the forum I designed for all those cats:



(cross-posted to Radical Preaching)

Pictures of the wedding flower growing progress can be found here.

I don't remember where I found this exactly, but this article by Bishop N. T. Wright is excellent: Decoding The Da Vinci Code: The Challenge of Historic Christianity to Post-Modern Fantasy. Some excerpts:

In particular, this [the four canonical gospels] included from the start a strong political critique. Not the tired old left-wing harangue in Christian dress, of course, but a more subtle, more Jewish, more devastating critique: Jesus is Lord, therefore Caesar isn't. That is there in Paul. It is there in Matthew, in John, in Revelation. If the canon was written, or read, to curry political favor, it was dramatically unsuccessful. Those who were thrown to the lions were not reading "Thomas" or Q or the "Gospel of Mary." They were reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the rest, and being sustained thereby in a subversive mode of faith and life which, growing out of apocalyptic Judaism, posed a far greater threat to Roman empire and pagan worldviews than Cynic philosophy or Gnostic spirituality ever could. Why would Caesar worry about people rearranging their private spiritualities? ...

[...]

Neo-Gnosticism is the philosophy that invites you to search deep inside yourself and discover some exciting things by which you must then live. It is the philosophy which declares that the only real moral imperative is that you should then be true to what you find when you engage in that deep inward search. But this is not a religion of redemption. It is not at all a Jewish vision of the covenant God who sets free the helpless slaves. It appeals, on the contrary, to the pride that says "I'm really quite an exciting person, deep down, whatever I may look like outwardly" -- the theme of half the cheap movies and novels in today's world. It appeals to the stimulus of that ever-deeper navel-gazing ("finding out who I really am") which is the subject of a million self-help books, and the home-made validation of a thousand ethical confusions. It corresponds, in other words, to what a great many people in our world want to believe and want to do, rather than to the hard and bracing challenge of the very Jewish gospel of Jesus. It appears to legitimate precisely that sort of religion which a large swathe of America and a fair chunk of Europe yearns for: a free-for-all, do-it-yourself spirituality, with a strong though ineffective agenda of social protest against the powers that be, and an I'm-OK-you're-OK attitude on all matters religious and ethical. At least, with one exception: You can have any sort of spirituality you like (Zen, labyrinths, Tai Chi) as long as it isn't orthodox Christianity.

By contrast, the challenge of Jesus, in the 21st century as in the first, is that we should look away from ourselves and get on board with the project the one true God launched at creation and re-launched with Jesus himself. The authentic Christian gospel, which is good news about something that has happened as a result of which the world is a different place -- this gospel demands that we submit to Jesus as Lord and allow all other allegiances, loves and self-discoveries to be realigned in that light. God's project, and God's gospel, are rooted in solid history as opposed to Gnostic fantasy and its modern equivalents. Genuine Christianity is to be expressed in self-giving love and radical holiness, not self-cosseting self-discovery. And it lives by, and looks for the completion of, the new world in which God will put all things to rights and wipe away all tears from all eyes; in which all knees will bow at the name of Jesus, not because he had a secret love-child, not because he was a teacher of recondite wisdom, not because he showed us how we could get in touch with the hidden feminine, but because he died as the fulfillment of the Scriptural story of God's people and rose as the fulfillment of the world-redeeming purposes of the same creator God; and because, in that death and resurrection, we discover him to be the one at whose name every knee shall indeed bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, confessing Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father.

There's a bunch more pieces by N. T. Wright here.

Update: In similar news, this is absolutely hilarious! "Gospel of Judas" parody

All is busy. We drove about 1,100+ miles total this weekend to go to the Bay Area. Tiana had one of her wedding showers up there, and I think it went pretty well. I didn't attend until the last 10 minutes or so when they wanted me to make an entrance. I think they all 'approve' of me.

Later that night in Berkeley, I saw a friend that I hadn't seen in about seven years. It was good to catch up and laugh together again.

I'm about 2/5ths moved into our new apartment. I need to post some pictures of that place. It's awesome.

I've finished five books in the last week. If you're interested in what they were, they're listed in the 'recently-finshed' section on the left sidebar here. All great books, for the most part. That recently-finished section is piling up because I tend to write little mini-reviews for those things, but I haven't had time, otherwise they'd show up in another section.

I'm pretty swamped all-around, and I have plenty more to read before the semester is over. I've actually made some headway on the reading for my big end-of-the-semester paper, so that is good.

My taxes are done. Tiana's taxes will be worked on this week. We really need to get the internet hooked up at our new apartment.

There's still a good handful of things to get done before the wedding. No need to list them here, but things are coming along and we're very thankful for all the support and help from our friends and family. 46 more days!

First, I would recommend Lee's articulate and excellent thoughts in response to this recent, bizarre story about trying to scientifically 'analyze' the 'results' of prayer for heart surgery patients.

Second, Cynthia Nelson over at Per Caritatum has a wonderful and challenging post called " Contemplations and Questions Regarding the Principle of Non-Contradiction, Rationality and the Mysteries of the Faith" in regards to Augustine and discovering an analogical way to express the trinity based on some self-psychology. Fascinating. I just finished Karl Rahner's The Trinity today during my lunchbreak, so it's very enlightening to see what (rather, who?) prompted Augustine to formulate these thoughts in this way, even though Rahner is of the conviction that Augustine didn't go far enough in his thought. I'm not sure just yet what to make of all this. I have a couple more books to read before coming to any more clarity on this one.

This isn't a link, but lastly, I'll be heading up to the bay area this weekend -- tonight, actually, for a 500-mile drive! Tiana's wedding shower is this weekend, and so I'm sorta coming along -- sorta because I'm actually not attending, but I'll be around. People have been telling me with a smirk that "you wouldn't want to attend!" Hah! I'll be hanging out with my good friend Nate for part of the time, potentially meeting up with an old friend that I haven't seen in maybe seven years for the other part, and quietly reading tons (not literally) for the rest of the duration.

--Eric out.

One year ago today, my favourite comedian Mitch Hedberg died. He was really the only comedian with whom I really connected. Sometime in early 2003, a group of my best buds and I drove up to the Ontario Improv to see him perform. It was awesome. My only gripe about that night is that I couldn't stay for the next two shows he was to do.

I knew he was a drug user, as his comedy mentioned it from time to time, but I was always confused as to whether it was an overdose or a heart failure that ultimately caused his death. This Wikipedia entry on Mitch Hedberg mentions that,

Hedberg was born with a heart defect for which he received extensive treatment as a child. Though this condition initially had been cited as a possible cause of death, in May 2005 the New Jersey medical examiner's office reported "multiple drug toxicity," including cocaine and heroin, as the official cause of death. Results of the autopsy and toxicology reports were first reported by journalist Peter Hyman in the January 2006 edition of Spin magazine.

[More info can be found here by the guy who originally wrote that article.]

Even though people know I hold all life as precious, I've often told people that Mitch Hedberg has been one of the few celebrities that I've really been bummed about losing prematurely. I don't mean to post this info about Mitch's drug use to try and eclipse his comic genius and his gifts in an "I told you so" kind of way that many people around the internet are disrespectfully doing, but just to regretfully acknowledge what happened, because -- heck, I didn't know. So I mourn.

Before I end this post, two things. The first is that I thought this was really cool: From this interview in Filter magazine, found at Hedurgh.com:

Do you get a lot of fans coming up to you with their own "Hedbergian" jokes?
Oh yeah, yeah. A lot of people come up to me and they kinda talk like they think I talk, and they'll tell me a joke. They'll say, "Hey, I thought of a joke for you today." It's like, "What do you mean for me, man?" All it is is the way you're talking. Just stop talking like that, and that joke is for you.

And the second is a collection of Mitch Hedberg jokes that I've never actually heard until I found this Wikiquote page on Mitch. None of these, to my knowledge, appear on his two CDs, Strategic Grill Locations and Mitch All Together. To find more of his material, check out Mitch Hedberg's Official Site and follow the links around to his videos and fan sites which have more videos as well. In fact, if you've never seen or heard him, you should do that right now, because probably 51% of these jokes are his delivery style and so therefore, the effect of many of these jokes will probably be lost.

[Warning for the sensitive-of-hearing: yes, he uses profanity, but for as much as he uses those words, he's probably one of the least vulgar and harmless guys you'd ever meet. I realize this is long, but intentionally so. Those in livejournal land need not complain about me not using an LJ-cut; if you don't want to read, just scroll past.]

Is a hippopotamus a hippopotamus, or just a really cool Opotamus?

A kitten bats around a ball of yarn but what he's really saying is, "You know I can't knit, motherfucker." That is one foul mouthed kitten.

I don't like grouper fish. Well, they're okay. They hang around star fish. [crowd is silent] ...Because they're grouper fish...

People teach their dogs to sit; it's a trick. I've been sitting my whole life, and a dog has never looked at me as though he thought I was tricky.

A dog came to my door, so I gave him a bone. The dog took the bone into the back yard and buried it. I'm going to go plant a tree there, with bones on it, then the dog will come back and say, "Shoot! It worked! I must distribute these bones equally for I have a green paw!"

I saw a fish all by itself, I said, "Dude, you should stay in school."

This one time I was in a convenience store, and a guy came up and asked me, "What's the score?" and I said, "What is the game? If it's a competition between me and you, and the object is to ask the other guy questions he doesn't give a shit about, then you are winning, one to nothing."

You know, if I made orange juice, I would not be so hardcore on people. I would be more polite, like I would not print 'shake well' on the carton, cause you don't know how good people can shake, you know? I would write, 'Shake to the best of your ability.' Then I'd have a diagram that shows the uninitiated how to shake. 'Alright, put it over here, then put it over here, then put it over here quicker.'

I went to a restaurant, and I saw a guy wearing a leather jacket, eating a hamburger, drinking a glass of milk. I said, "Dude, you are a cow. The metamorphosis is complete. Don't fall asleep or I will tip you over."

The last Dawn dishwashing liquid commercial they had an oily duck and they cleaned it off. They said "Dawn dishwashing liquid cleans off a oily duck." That's a weird way to advertise a dishwashing liquid. We clean oily ducks and plates, so if you have an oily duck over for dinner we can help you in two ways.

I was in a restaurant and I ordered a chicken sandwich, but I don't think the waitress heard me because she said, "OK, how would you like your eggs, sir?" I tried to answer anyhow: "Incubated. And then raised. And then beheaded. And then plucked. And then cut up. And then put on a grill. And then put on a bun. Shit, it's gonna take a while. I do not have time. Scrambled. You fuckin' confused me."

I like swiss cheese. It's the only cheese you can draw with a pencil and identify. You can draw American cheese, but someone will think it's cheddar. Swiss cheese is the only cheese you can bite and miss. "Hey Mitch - does that sandwich have cheese on it?" "Every now and then!" I got some swiss air on that bite.

I like cottage cheese. That is why I want to try other dwelling cheeses, too. How about studio apartment cheese? Tent cheese? Mobile home cheese? Do not eat mobile home cheese in a tornado. It would be devastating.

I like waffles better than pancakes. Because waffles are like pancakes with syrup traps. They say to syrup, "you ain't going anywhere, don't even be trying to creep down the sides. Just rest in these squares, if one square is full, move on. When you hit butter, split up."

I had a stick of Carefree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.

I want to get a vending machine, with fun sized candy bars, and the glass in front is a magnifying glass. You'll be mad, but it will be too late.

I like the hotels that have the rotating restaurants, you know? I've never been in a rotating restaurant, but one time I took my girlfriend to a merry-go-round, I put her on it, and I gave her a burrito.

I recently took up ice sculpting. Last night I made an ice cube. This morning I made 12, I was prolific.

Bologna is a deli meat for people with eyes.

Tortillas are sleeping bags for ground beef.

A sleeping bag is a tortilla for a human.

I tried to have a cookie, and this girl said, "I'm mailing those cookies to my friend," so I couldn't have one. You shouldn't make cookies untouchable.

I'm going to open up my own chain of comedy clubs, Price is Right style. There will be no one on the bill, just a bunch of people in the audience with name tags on. Then someone will get on the microphone, "John Chicattee come on down.... and you better be fucking funny!"

(A Sunday show) This sign says "IMPROV". I had a bad set on Friday night, so yesterday they put an "E" on the end of it.

I'm getting a good deal from this club — 50% of the door. Last night I got 50% of the door, and tonight I'm getting 50% of the door. Tomorrow, I'm going to go out and buy a door.

I have some speakers up here, thank God, because last night I didn't have them and I was telling jokes and I had no idea which joke I was telling. So I told jokes twice. I even told that one twice.

This shit is funny, why are you guys not laughing? Well, actually, this is not funny shit. Funny shit would be if you took a shit, and it came out looking like...a sword.

That joke came from the top of my head, and the top of my head ain't funny.

I asked this guy for directions to the store. He said "Oh, that's just a hop, skip and a jump away." Well... that ain't how I'm getting there. You got any directions for those who are walking?

Chicago is known as the Windy City, and Montana is called the Big Sky State, so I think that we should somehow combine the two to create the ultimate kite-flying experience.

I can whistle with my fingers, especially if I have a whistle.

I called the hotel operator and she said, "How can I direct your call?" I said, "Well, you could say 'Action!' and I'll begin to dial. And when I say 'Goodbye,' then you can yell 'Cut!'"

I wear a necklace, cause I wanna know when I'm upside down.

My belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops hold my belt up. I don't really know what's happening down there. Who is the real hero?

I got a new car with satellite radio. After about thirty minutes I had to ask myself, "Shit, what should I buy?"

I saw a commercial that said, "Forget everything you know about slipcovers!" ... So I did. And it was a load off my mind. Then the commercial tried to sell me slipcovers, but I didn't know what the hell they were.

Sometimes I get so pissed at my parents because they wanted to adopt. My sister could have been the love of my life, but now I'll never know.

I was gonna stay over at my friend's house. She says "You're gonna have to sleep on the floor." Damn gravity! Got me again. You don't know how bad I wanna sleep on the wall!

I wish my name was Brian because maybe sometimes people would misspell my name and call me Brain. That's like a free compliment and you don't even gotta be smart to notice it.

I saw this girl once, and she was born without arms. I spoke with her parents, and they said she doesn't know the meaning of the word "can't." Poor girl, not only can she not wear bracelets, but she cannot embrace a simple contraction. Just take out some letters, put an apostrophe in there, and move it up!

This one guy said, "Look at that girl. She's got a nice butt." I said, "Yeah, I bet she can sit down excellently!"

Russians take shit too far. Roulette is fun and all, but no, those Russians had to take it one step further. How do you come up with a game like that anyways? Whatever they do, they do it with intensity. Who was in space first? I rest my case.

I bought a scratch-off lottery ticket, but then I accidentally spilled calamine lotion on it, so it did not need to be scratched. Shoot! I will not know if I have won!

I saw a billboard for the lottery. It said, "Estimated lottery jackpot 55 million dollars." I did not know that was estimated. That would suck if you won and they said, "Oh, we were off by two zeroes. We estimate that you are angry!"

Last night my friend drank 26 bottles of O'Douls... He is a non-alcoholic.

If you drink O'Doul's, you're not drinking. But if you drink 20 O'Doul's in a half hour, you're a fuckin' non-alcoholic. Non-alcoholism is a problem, too; and there are symptoms, like when you fall down, it will always hurt.

I would imagine the inside of a bottle of cleaning fluid is really clean. I would imagine a vodka bottle is really drunk.

I thought my teeth were white, until I washed my face with Noxzema. They're not white, they're off-white. Hell, I'm not even white, I'm off-white. We're a new race, we will prevail!

I was in my hotel's shower, and I started washing my hair, then I looked at the bottle, and it turned out I was using body wash. It was like a scene from one of those action movies where they get real close to the object. I was like, "Body wash... BODY WASH?!?" And then I realized my hair was part of my body and I didn't even care.

Cavities are made by sugar. So if you need to dig a hole, then lay down some candy bars!

Magicians disappear all the time, but as soon as a regular person does it, everyone is all scared. "Tom's gone!" "Is he a magician?" "No." "Then let's print up some flyers!."

Imagine if you were a drummer, and you accidentally picked up two magic wands instead of sticks. There you are, keeping the beat, the next thing you know, your bass player turns into a can of soup.

It's hard to dance if you just lost your wallet. "Whoa! Where's my wallet? But, fuck it, this song is funky..."

In my house I have a sliding glass door, and on it is a sticker that says "Warning: Alarm System". And it's a pretty simple alarm system, consisting of... a sticker.

I'd like to get four people who do cart wheels very good, and make a cart.

People in a parade are cocky. They think they've attracted an audience, but really it's just people waiting to cross the street. I could attract a crowd too if I stood in everyone's way.

That would be cool if the Earth's crust was made out of graham cracker. It would disappear just like the ozone layer, but for completely different reasons.

Why is Cloud 9 so amazing? What is wrong with Cloud 8? That joke came off the top of my head, and the top of my head ain't funny!

If my kid couldn't draw I'd make sure that my kitchen magnets didn't work.

See, I'm a dreamer, man. And when I was a cook I'd always work with people who weren't dreamers. Like, I was cooking at this restaurant and I put a hot dog on the grill and my kitchen manager came over, and he said, "Mitch, put the hot dog up here, in the right hand corner of the grill, so in case you get a whole bunch of orders at once you have all this space available." See, that's how I knew he wasn't a dreamer, 'cause the day I give up my dreams is the day I have strategic grill locations. A dreamer has a philosophy: the entire grill is hot.

R.I.P., Mitch.

From Les Misérables:

Marius: If we can't win today, then none of us have a future.
Jean Valjean: You have love. Thats's the only future God gives us.

Praise the Lord! CPT Statement: CPTers Released

I love how the statement from the Christian Peacemaker Teams linked above ends:

Living through the many emotions of this day, we remain committed to the words of Jim Loney, who wrote:

"With God's abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies.
With the love of Christ, we will resist all evil.
With God's unending faithfulness, we will work to build the beloved community."

Amen!

Highly recommended reading:

Charity as the Exchange of Consumer Goods and The Commodification of Homeless Youth,
by Dan (poserorprophet).

...a little bit of discussion has been going on about my previous post on Hauerwas over here at the GO: Thinktank.

I wrote the following essay for fun back in November of 2005. This essay comes in response to a paper written by Steve Bush and the discussions following it on both the Generous Orthodoxy Thinktank and -blip- blogs. I've been busy with a number of things, so I just recently re-worked the introduction and added a few other finishing touches for publication on this blog.

There are links a-plenty, so feel free to click around to read the original paper and discussions that followed.

Feedback, of course, is welcome. Enjoy.

---

Engagements between Hauerwas and the nation-state: A reply to Steve Bush
by Eric Austin Lee



[Update: I re-posted this due to the fact that because the post was originally written in November and I had saved it as 'private', only those who would see my archives from that time would have seen that post on my LJ. Those viewing my blog on my site have no problems, however.]