Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Holy Sonnet XIV
This poem by John Donne is one of my favorites, and one that I've been thinking about lately. The times I think I am free, when I do my own thing and think I don't need God's direction, I am actually in bondage, and in slavery to the devil. Donne's prayer in the form of this poem comes to mind when I remember the fact that my freedom in Christ is only found in being His slave. It is a paradox of unimaginable beauty.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Christian Prototypes by Andy Fletcher
There are many different types of Christians. There are Catholics and Prostestant, Baptists, Presbyterian, Lutherans, Four Square, Full-Gospel, Pentecostal...and so on.
I have come to realize that these denominational divisions don't mean very much, mainly because there are many types of Christians within each denomination. There are Catholics who act more like Baptists, and Baptists who act more like Episcopalians...and so on.
There is really only one way to divide people up meaningfully into Christian prototypes: Darn Christians, Damn Christians, S--- Christians, G--D--- Christians, and F--- Christians. Let me explain...
A Darn Christian will use words like darn, shucks, shoot, heck, gosh... and so on. A Damn Christian will use words like damn and hell. That's about it for Damn Christians, because it is a short hop from there to S---, along with prefixal forms like B--S---. It is from there a large jump to G--D--- Christians, who tend to be Catholics or bourbon drinking Southern Baptists. The lower forms of Christians view G--D--- Christians with distaste, generally because of using the Lord's name in vain and stuff, as in, "What in God's name are we doing in Nicaragua?" (a paraphrase of "What the hell are we doing in Nicaragua?")
The end of the line is, of course, F--- Christians, also known as the F-Word Christians. They are found writing for magazines like The Door and in politics, where using the F-Word in clever ways is part of the entrance exam... as F-Word Christian James 'Secretary of State' Baker did when he said "F-Word the Jews," the saying of which, as a general policy, is neither good politics nor good Christianity, not to mention not very thoughtful or nice. He did do this in relative private, which means he was only in front of the journalists he trusted to not print the quote. (Oops, I would say something here about journalists in general being F-Word heathen pagans, but I don't want it to get back to them.)
Using the appropriate form of these words defines what kind of Christian one wants to be. I knew a woman once who chastised me for using the Word darn in front of her college-age daughters. She later on committed egregious sexual sins with another woman's husband (though she did marry him, eventually), and her college-age daughters, apparently grossly affected by my language, also had rather more fun with boys than one would have expected from Christians who weren't even Darn Christians... or Damn Christians, to be consistent with our thesis.
All of this is to say the Darn Christians can be pretty downright legalistic about their beliefs, putting lots of stock in keeping one's filthy mouth cleaned right up and using liberal amounts of soap to clean those filthy mouths. (Excuse me, by the way, for using the word liberal right there. It means 'lots and lots' in this context, not 'commie pinko.' When it means 'commie pinko,' it will be capitalized like all the other Words.)
Darn Christians feel that in order to present a good religious front to the world at large, one should not swear, drink, smoke, wear two-piece bathing suits or show your navel at any point in life (except, maybe, childbirth), swim in the same water with people of the opposite sex, dance, think about dancing, vote Democrat, drive faster than 55 mph (even in Europe where it's legal), go to movies that might include scenes of passionate handholding or dancing or any words stronger than (you guessed it) darn, read books without 'Jesus' (or near relative) in the title, listen to Amy Grant (who sometimes sings secular songs, which is just like using some of those really bad Words) or to any non-Christian music written after 1956... and so on. Darn Christians are very, very moralistic, and their daughters tend to get married and have babies about six months later. It's a miracle.
Darn Christians are the ones who get to help translate the Bible, which is why, when the darn Christians helped King James (who was a little gay, if you want to know the truth) translate the Bible into the King James Directly From God Version And The Only Version Of The Bile That Any Of Us Will Ever Need, they left the dirtiest verse in the Bible clean out so as not to offend any of the Darn Christians who might someday read it and fall from grace. Let it be revealed here for the first time that the dirtiest verse in the Bible - the verse that will never be read from a pulpit, the verse formally omitted from the real Bible - is Ezekiel 23:20. The only place you can read it in its fullness is in the New International Version, which is translated by S--- Christians. Obviously. The Damn Christians translated all the other modern editions, which include the dirtiest verse in the Bible, but only in a non-offensive sort of way.
Even the S--- Christians wouldn't put the word S---, which the apostle Paul said not infrequently, into the Bible, preferring to use the word Dung. Or dung, I guess, since it doesn't seem to be a Word. Also, when Paul the apostle told those Damnfool circumcisers to go ahead and emasculate themselves, the S--- Christians chickened out again and said emasculate instead of what it really says...which I can't say since I am a S--- Christian. Only F-Word Christians would put the Word S--- in the Bible, and none of the Damn Christians are going to let them try.
It must be said some Darn Christians sometimes say Damn or S---. These are the Darn Christians who live in farming communities. When they say these Words, they are not making a Theological Statement or adopting a Philosophical Position. They live on a Damn farm, and they are always stepping in S---. It's environmental.
Damn Christians are the Liberal Darn Christians. The say damn every now and again, but they always feel a little wicked when they do. It's a good wicked though, not evil wicked. They are striking a blow for Male Bonding. When Damn Christian men get together to Bond Male-ly, it is necessary to say damn, play some golf, and maybe smoke a big see-gar. Damn Christian men wear suits, work in offices, and have expense accounts. They are not quite so worried about dancing, swimming with ladies, or drinking an occasional beer. They won't talk about these things in church though, where they are usually deacons and pretend to be darn Christians. The stuff they do when Bonding Male-ly is like a hobby. Sort of adolescent.
There are no Damn Christian women. Damn Christian men are married to Darn Christian women. A woman who dares to be a Damn Christian would cause so much talk, we'd have to have the deacons meet with her and cast that Jezebel out.
S--- Christians are my favorite. They use the word S--- to impress everyone with how open-minded they are. They will wear bikinis, drink white wine, see R-rated movies, and read D.I.I. Lawrence. Abortion makes them squirm, as does homosexuality, but they might vote Democrat, and they like poverty programs. They think too damn much and talk too damn much, usually use the S-Word with discretion... but only with like-minded S--- Christians because Damn and Darn Christians will wonder whether or not the S--- Christians are really saved. It is dangerous for a S--- Christian to marry a Darn Christian. Unequally yoked and all that. S--- Christians study foreign languages, want their kids to speak French, refuse to watch Geraldo or Oprah, listen to National Public Radio, and would die to be published by The Door... but can't because you have to be an F-Word Christian to do that. S--- Christians buy Rich Mullins and Eric Clapton. When they drink a little too much white wine, they use the S-Word more than they really should and feel guity later. All things in moderation. They are uncomfortable around Darn Christians and G--D--- Christians. Very occasionally, when they are totally alone, S--- Christians will use the F-Word in a moment of pique. They feel bad though.
G--D--- Christians make me uncomfortable. The Catholic ones are OK because they don't know any better. Somebody told them that the surest way to get to heaven was to let the Pope worry about it, not to use birth control, and to not worry so much about swearing, drinking, smoking, sex, dancing... and so on. As couples, they tend to live in sin together and not feel guilty except about using birth control, and they swear like sailors but don't really mean it. They can be pretty great Christians apart from this thing with Mary, a few saints, the priest bit... and so on.
It's the Good Ol' Boy G--D--- Christians that make me squirm. The bourbon thing is not the issue. It's the racial thing that gets to me some. They're living 1850, some of them. With their opinions about their 'wimmen' and politics, it's 1950. They watch Hee Haw, read Danielle Steele and Stephen King (if they read at all), and spend all day Saturday watching football and drinking beer. American beer. Six-packs. Got the National Enquirer on the coffee table, under the beer cans. Belong to the National Rifle Association. Cherish their God-given right to own guns. Put on white hoods for Halloween... and other festive occasions.
Last but not least, the F-Word Christians. These are the angry young men and women of Christendom. They could give a S--- about impressing anyone with how Liberal and open-minded they are. They are all upset over hypocrisy in the Church, rich Christians in fancy cars with attitudes about migrant workers, and global warming... plus nuclear energy, inner-city poverty, western economic imperialism, and the insistence some Darn Christians have on prayer in schools, flag burning, and the evolution thing... not to mention abortion, homosexuality, AIDS, measles, bloody-minded legalism, and a bunch of other stuff.
All the other Christians have significant problems with F-Word Christians because it's a pretty radical Word, after all, which people like Eddie Murphy have grown rich and famous using. It's not a Word one finds in the Bible, for instance.
Most of the other Christians would have trouble believing that F-Word Christians are really... well... Christians. I myself am not sure it is the unforgivable sin - or even the unforgivable Word... but I am not a Greek-and-Hebrew-speaking theologian-type. If I ever use a Greek word, it's most likely to be within a story I like to tell about watching Star Trek in English once in a crummy restaurant in Corinth. (That's in Greece.) So I may not be a good source of F-Word Christians. I have this feeling though, that Jesus is maybe a lot more impressed by their passion than He is upset with their language.
But what do I know? My greatest contribution to theology, so far, is to find and publicize the dirtiest verse in the Bible. Ezekiel 23:20. You heard it here first.
I have come to realize that these denominational divisions don't mean very much, mainly because there are many types of Christians within each denomination. There are Catholics who act more like Baptists, and Baptists who act more like Episcopalians...and so on.
There is really only one way to divide people up meaningfully into Christian prototypes: Darn Christians, Damn Christians, S--- Christians, G--D--- Christians, and F--- Christians. Let me explain...
A Darn Christian will use words like darn, shucks, shoot, heck, gosh... and so on. A Damn Christian will use words like damn and hell. That's about it for Damn Christians, because it is a short hop from there to S---, along with prefixal forms like B--S---. It is from there a large jump to G--D--- Christians, who tend to be Catholics or bourbon drinking Southern Baptists. The lower forms of Christians view G--D--- Christians with distaste, generally because of using the Lord's name in vain and stuff, as in, "What in God's name are we doing in Nicaragua?" (a paraphrase of "What the hell are we doing in Nicaragua?")
The end of the line is, of course, F--- Christians, also known as the F-Word Christians. They are found writing for magazines like The Door and in politics, where using the F-Word in clever ways is part of the entrance exam... as F-Word Christian James 'Secretary of State' Baker did when he said "F-Word the Jews," the saying of which, as a general policy, is neither good politics nor good Christianity, not to mention not very thoughtful or nice. He did do this in relative private, which means he was only in front of the journalists he trusted to not print the quote. (Oops, I would say something here about journalists in general being F-Word heathen pagans, but I don't want it to get back to them.)
Using the appropriate form of these words defines what kind of Christian one wants to be. I knew a woman once who chastised me for using the Word darn in front of her college-age daughters. She later on committed egregious sexual sins with another woman's husband (though she did marry him, eventually), and her college-age daughters, apparently grossly affected by my language, also had rather more fun with boys than one would have expected from Christians who weren't even Darn Christians... or Damn Christians, to be consistent with our thesis.
All of this is to say the Darn Christians can be pretty downright legalistic about their beliefs, putting lots of stock in keeping one's filthy mouth cleaned right up and using liberal amounts of soap to clean those filthy mouths. (Excuse me, by the way, for using the word liberal right there. It means 'lots and lots' in this context, not 'commie pinko.' When it means 'commie pinko,' it will be capitalized like all the other Words.)
Darn Christians feel that in order to present a good religious front to the world at large, one should not swear, drink, smoke, wear two-piece bathing suits or show your navel at any point in life (except, maybe, childbirth), swim in the same water with people of the opposite sex, dance, think about dancing, vote Democrat, drive faster than 55 mph (even in Europe where it's legal), go to movies that might include scenes of passionate handholding or dancing or any words stronger than (you guessed it) darn, read books without 'Jesus' (or near relative) in the title, listen to Amy Grant (who sometimes sings secular songs, which is just like using some of those really bad Words) or to any non-Christian music written after 1956... and so on. Darn Christians are very, very moralistic, and their daughters tend to get married and have babies about six months later. It's a miracle.
Darn Christians are the ones who get to help translate the Bible, which is why, when the darn Christians helped King James (who was a little gay, if you want to know the truth) translate the Bible into the King James Directly From God Version And The Only Version Of The Bile That Any Of Us Will Ever Need, they left the dirtiest verse in the Bible clean out so as not to offend any of the Darn Christians who might someday read it and fall from grace. Let it be revealed here for the first time that the dirtiest verse in the Bible - the verse that will never be read from a pulpit, the verse formally omitted from the real Bible - is Ezekiel 23:20. The only place you can read it in its fullness is in the New International Version, which is translated by S--- Christians. Obviously. The Damn Christians translated all the other modern editions, which include the dirtiest verse in the Bible, but only in a non-offensive sort of way.
Even the S--- Christians wouldn't put the word S---, which the apostle Paul said not infrequently, into the Bible, preferring to use the word Dung. Or dung, I guess, since it doesn't seem to be a Word. Also, when Paul the apostle told those Damnfool circumcisers to go ahead and emasculate themselves, the S--- Christians chickened out again and said emasculate instead of what it really says...which I can't say since I am a S--- Christian. Only F-Word Christians would put the Word S--- in the Bible, and none of the Damn Christians are going to let them try.
It must be said some Darn Christians sometimes say Damn or S---. These are the Darn Christians who live in farming communities. When they say these Words, they are not making a Theological Statement or adopting a Philosophical Position. They live on a Damn farm, and they are always stepping in S---. It's environmental.
Damn Christians are the Liberal Darn Christians. The say damn every now and again, but they always feel a little wicked when they do. It's a good wicked though, not evil wicked. They are striking a blow for Male Bonding. When Damn Christian men get together to Bond Male-ly, it is necessary to say damn, play some golf, and maybe smoke a big see-gar. Damn Christian men wear suits, work in offices, and have expense accounts. They are not quite so worried about dancing, swimming with ladies, or drinking an occasional beer. They won't talk about these things in church though, where they are usually deacons and pretend to be darn Christians. The stuff they do when Bonding Male-ly is like a hobby. Sort of adolescent.
There are no Damn Christian women. Damn Christian men are married to Darn Christian women. A woman who dares to be a Damn Christian would cause so much talk, we'd have to have the deacons meet with her and cast that Jezebel out.
S--- Christians are my favorite. They use the word S--- to impress everyone with how open-minded they are. They will wear bikinis, drink white wine, see R-rated movies, and read D.I.I. Lawrence. Abortion makes them squirm, as does homosexuality, but they might vote Democrat, and they like poverty programs. They think too damn much and talk too damn much, usually use the S-Word with discretion... but only with like-minded S--- Christians because Damn and Darn Christians will wonder whether or not the S--- Christians are really saved. It is dangerous for a S--- Christian to marry a Darn Christian. Unequally yoked and all that. S--- Christians study foreign languages, want their kids to speak French, refuse to watch Geraldo or Oprah, listen to National Public Radio, and would die to be published by The Door... but can't because you have to be an F-Word Christian to do that. S--- Christians buy Rich Mullins and Eric Clapton. When they drink a little too much white wine, they use the S-Word more than they really should and feel guity later. All things in moderation. They are uncomfortable around Darn Christians and G--D--- Christians. Very occasionally, when they are totally alone, S--- Christians will use the F-Word in a moment of pique. They feel bad though.
G--D--- Christians make me uncomfortable. The Catholic ones are OK because they don't know any better. Somebody told them that the surest way to get to heaven was to let the Pope worry about it, not to use birth control, and to not worry so much about swearing, drinking, smoking, sex, dancing... and so on. As couples, they tend to live in sin together and not feel guilty except about using birth control, and they swear like sailors but don't really mean it. They can be pretty great Christians apart from this thing with Mary, a few saints, the priest bit... and so on.
It's the Good Ol' Boy G--D--- Christians that make me squirm. The bourbon thing is not the issue. It's the racial thing that gets to me some. They're living 1850, some of them. With their opinions about their 'wimmen' and politics, it's 1950. They watch Hee Haw, read Danielle Steele and Stephen King (if they read at all), and spend all day Saturday watching football and drinking beer. American beer. Six-packs. Got the National Enquirer on the coffee table, under the beer cans. Belong to the National Rifle Association. Cherish their God-given right to own guns. Put on white hoods for Halloween... and other festive occasions.
Last but not least, the F-Word Christians. These are the angry young men and women of Christendom. They could give a S--- about impressing anyone with how Liberal and open-minded they are. They are all upset over hypocrisy in the Church, rich Christians in fancy cars with attitudes about migrant workers, and global warming... plus nuclear energy, inner-city poverty, western economic imperialism, and the insistence some Darn Christians have on prayer in schools, flag burning, and the evolution thing... not to mention abortion, homosexuality, AIDS, measles, bloody-minded legalism, and a bunch of other stuff.
All the other Christians have significant problems with F-Word Christians because it's a pretty radical Word, after all, which people like Eddie Murphy have grown rich and famous using. It's not a Word one finds in the Bible, for instance.
Most of the other Christians would have trouble believing that F-Word Christians are really... well... Christians. I myself am not sure it is the unforgivable sin - or even the unforgivable Word... but I am not a Greek-and-Hebrew-speaking theologian-type. If I ever use a Greek word, it's most likely to be within a story I like to tell about watching Star Trek in English once in a crummy restaurant in Corinth. (That's in Greece.) So I may not be a good source of F-Word Christians. I have this feeling though, that Jesus is maybe a lot more impressed by their passion than He is upset with their language.
But what do I know? My greatest contribution to theology, so far, is to find and publicize the dirtiest verse in the Bible. Ezekiel 23:20. You heard it here first.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
My First Post
Ok.... my first post. Numero un. Egy. (That's Hungarian... it's pronounced 'edge'.) Perhaps we're all wondering why I named my site 'Sometimes I'm Funny at Night.' It's because sometimes I am, and I couldn't really think of anything clever when put on the spot to choose a name. Doesn't it suck that we can be so witty at normal times of the day, but when forced to think of something good, all cleverness flies out the window. That's why I can be funny at night, because I don't feel pressure to be funny... it just happens naturally. See, this all ties in together...
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