I would have posted this video on my other blog, but right now that’s dedicated to covering the San Diego wildfires — and besides, any LDS mother could have said all these things verbatim.
Anyway, here’s the embedded video:
Enjoy. 🙂 ..bruce..
Category Archives: Humor
Highly recommended: The Year of Living Biblically
Last week, I received (via Amazon) and read The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs. Jacobs, a self-described Jewish agnostic and an editor at Esquire, had previously written The Know-It-All (in which he described reading the Encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover). In this case, however, he was not only reading the Bible, he was attempting to follow all the commandments and injunctions found in it.
The book is a delight. I admired Jacobs’ honesty, particularly about his own failings and struggles, his empathy with the various religious groups he encounters even (especially!) when he strongly disagrees with their beliefs and practices, his willingness to introduce great upheaval in his personal and family life just to find out what this Bible stuff is all about, and his courage to adhere to his lists of commandments — the bulk of which come from the Mosaic law — even at the risk of social awkwardness.
Plus the book is really, really funny.
Day 124. January 2. We’re back in New York. I’m not supposed to make New Year’s resolutions — probably a pagan ritual — but if I did, here’s what mine would be: I have to start thickening my skin. It’s right there in Ecclesiastes: Don’t pay attention to everything everyone says about you; you know you’ve talked trash about other people.
Today I was reading the Amazon.com reviews for my encyclopedia book (I know, not biblical), and I ran across one that was very strange. The reviewer said she looked at my author photo and discovered that I’m not really that ugly. In fact, I’m kind of “normal looking.” Which I guess is sort of flattering. Normal looking.
But she didn’t mean it as flattery. She said that I’m normal-looking enough that I have no excuse to be socially awkward, neurotic, or best with an inferiority complex. So I should shut my normal-looking trap and stop complaining. This is the most backhanded compliment I’ve ever received. It sank me into a bad mood for three hours. The Bible is right; I have to toughen up.
And I must, absolutely must, stop self-Googling. It’s a horrible habit that I still haven’t kicked in my biblical year. …This is alll very unrighteous, very vain. I should think instead of the well-being of my family and my neighbors — and on God.
I should be more like Noah. It took Noah decades to build his ark. Can you imagine the mockery he must have received from doubting neighbors? If Noah were alive today, he wouldn’t be wasting his time checking out what blogs said about him. He’d be down at Home Depot buying more lumber. Starting today, I’m going to be more like Noah. Toughen up. (pp. 151-152)
Read it. ..bruce..
“We are as the army of…Master Chief?”
Sandra and I had two of our grandsons spend the weekend, Ashton (8) and Raiden (5). When Sandra drove them back home (Longmont, just outside of Boulder), she spent a few minutes speaking with their mom, our oldest daughter, Chase. Sandra had noticed Ashton teasing Raiden a bit about the video game Halo during the drive back up; Chase confirmed that Raiden really, really likes Halo. Chase said she didn’t realize quite how much so until Raiden’s Primary teacher (Primary ~= Sunday School for kids 3-11) told her that Raiden tends to relate all of the class lessons to Halo. (The Primary teacher said that her husband plays Halo as well, so she generally knows what Raiden is talking about.)
Somehow fitting for a kid who was, yes, named after a character from Mortal Combat. ..bruce..
(ObExp for non-LDS: the title refers to a well-known Primary song, “We’ll Bring the World His Truth“, better known by the first line of its chorus: “We are as the army of Helaman” — a song that never fails to move me to tears when sung by a group of children and which allows me to excuse Janice Kapp Perry for the rest of her rather ah, bland oeuvre.)
Who gets saved, revisited
From Berkeley Breathed, some observations on salvation:
Click on the image to see the whole comic; I think it’s quite funny. But be sure to check out last Sunday’s Opus strip that the Washington Post thought was too offensive to run. ..bruce..
Nighttime stories
“xkcd” is one of my favorite web comics, and the strip today made me smile and wince at the same time:
True story: after my freshman year of college at BYU (1971-72), I served a full-time mission for the Church. Since I was going to Central America, I first had 8 weeks of intensive language training at what was then called the Language Training Mission (LTM), located mainly in buildings on the south part of the BYU campus. During those 8 weeks, I happen to notice this one sister missionary who is likewise in the LTM, learning Spanish in order to serve a mission down in South America. I never really get a chance to talk with her, but she’s kind of cute and (more importantly) looks intelligent. After the 8 weeks are up, I leave for Central America.
Ah, those troublesome Buddhas
It’s hard at times to distinguish between real news and The Onion:
Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.
“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.
Talking about King Canute commanding the tides…I can hardly wait to see what the ChiComs decree regarding Catholic sacramental services. Hat tip to the Drudge Report.
Speaking of The Onion, I thought this was a delightful article:
NEW YORK—An emergency coalition of deities from several major world religions is still sorting through the wreckage of a tragic bus accident that claimed 67 lives Friday in the culturally diverse Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens….
More than half a dozen gods reportedly responded to the scene within moments of the crash. Because the victims hailed from 14 countries and professed an as-yet-undetermined number of religious faiths, however, the soul-placement process has been laborious, and fewer than a third of the deceased have so far been escorted to their appropriate afterlives.
“What a mess this is,” said Ganesha, the Hindu lord of success and obstacles. “Assuming we ever manage to figure out who worships our particular pantheon, there’s still the problem of divvying up the Buddhists, Jains, and other non-Hindus who worship me, Lakshmi, Vishnu, and about 1,000 other gods.”…
One god, who asked that His name not be spoken aloud, said the theological muddle was a rarity, and that He and the other deities usually have no trouble operating without an official post-disaster protocol.
“We don’t normally have to deal with these kinds of details,” the god said. “If there’s a rocket attack in the Middle East, it’s pretty easy to figure out who goes in to mop up.”
Further complicating matters is the presence of the devil, Beelzebub, who has demanded that the coalition relinquish all souls to him.
“These are all vile, vile sinners, and I’m not leaving until I get them,” the dark lord said, though other gods appeared unreceptive. “Look, my numbers have been way down this month. I’m sure everyone here did something damning at some point, right? Come on.”…
The only thing that would have made the article better would have been for them to refer to Mormons instead of Catholics at the very end, but given the on-going controversy around Mitt Romney, they probably thought it was too obvious a move. ..bruce..
Now I’m worried
Found this photo while using StumbleUpon:
The site where I found the photo is here. ..bruce..
[UPDATED 09-07-1999 0906 CDT — the photo at the site when away for a while; it’s back now, so I grabbed a copy to save locally.]
Top 10 Reasons Why Mormons Should Vote for Mitt Romney
[Inside joke alert — and weak joke/pun alert — most of these will only be funny to a Mormon, and not always then.]
My wife just forwarded this from an e-mail making the rounds in LDS circles:
Top 10 Reasons to vote for Mitt Romney
10. We can do away with these dumb secret ballots and manifest our support
of the candidate “by the usual sign.” And we can get rid of costly
recounts by simply saying “opposed, if there be any.”
9. The Secret Service could be renamed the Sacred Service and would have
dark suits, sunglasses, ear pieces, and CTR rings.
8. The vice president could be replaced by two counselors
7. At inaugural balls, everyone would have to dance a Book of Mormon
apart.
6. NASA could commission a satellite to “hie to Kolob.”
5. All official government prayers could include the phrase “that we all
can get home safely.”
4. The President could not only explain things in Layman’s terms, but also
Lemuel’s terms.
3. At his inauguration he would swear on the Bible “as far as it is
translated correctly.”
2. All foreign policy statements would begin with “We Believe.”.
1. The presidential limo would be a black Suburban with a vanity plate:
“RULDS2?”
[Giuliani is still my candidate, though Fred Thompson looks pretty good, too.Ă‚Â ..bruce..]