Somewhere between Charlotte and the state line the little car – its shiny exterior hardly speaking of the things that its owner had put it through in four-some years since purchase – tore along I-85, heading west into the night. It was unseasonably warm, and humid… not like what the storybook Christmas night is supposed to be at all. “We’ll make up for that,” the driver chuckled to himself. “Christmas of ’85 was practically 80… then that winter storm a few weeks later brought the daytime high down to 10! Ahh well… more time to play inside I suppose.”

The driver sipped from a bottle of Mountain Dew and listened as “Weird Al” Yankovic belted out a vintage holiday song over the car’s stereo: “The Night Santa Went Crazy”. “I should have found Weird Al’s ‘Christmas At Ground Zero’,” thought the driver: “Lisa would have laughed her head off ...

“I once complained I had no scarf, until I met a man who had no neck.”

Now go and meditate upon this, dear disciples....

Well, I’ve been wondering: I try my best to render unto God, but how am I supposed to render unto Caesar? Not to sound insensitive but ummm… I mean… the guy’s dead, y’know.

And something else: Jesus taught us to “render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar’s”: He did not teach us to “render unto Caesar everything that Caesar claims is his after lusting for it”. Which to the best of my knowledge none of the serious Caesars (forget Nero and Caligula) back then did that anyway.

Look, if Caesar is alive I’ll gladly yield over what’s owed him, as Jesus told me to do. But if I can’t give Caesar his due, why the Hell should I give a cheap imitator with no real established authority over us a lot more than what’s owed Caesar himself?...

Why must it cost $50 million to lay one’s right hand atop a Bible and repeat an oath to uphold something that is going to be broken anyway?

For that kind of money, it darned well better be a Gutenberg he’s swearing it on....

You know how stores like Wal-Mart and Target and everyone else start putting their Valentine’s Day stuff out the day after Christmas, and how on November 1st everything Christmas is already on full-bore display with all that candy that got marked half-off the only sign that Halloween has passed? And then when Valentine’s is over, the Easter crap is already put up less than 24 hours later?

I hate that.

Life is too short without profit-mad corporate retailers speeding it up even more. I mean, is this how we divide the years of our lives: into Christmas shopping time and Halloween shopping time and Kwanzaa shopping time and Bastille Day shopping time and…? Shouldn’t we be afforded a little space in-between holidays to have a normal life and able to reflect on the things about it that matter, WITHOUT being expected to buy buy buy stuff just to feel like ...

It’s occurred to me – on several occassions – that some people visiting this blog might go away feeling confused, and perhaps even upset or offended, at some of the language that I use here at times. And maybe that it runs wildly afoul of my claim to be a Christian and that must be something I need to bear in mind: my testimony before others, including my mannerisms and speech, should be a reflection of God’s presence in my life so that others might see it. And if I’m not allowing God the fullest sovereignty or at least enough to keep from sounding like a Kid Rock video, wouldn’t that make me out to be a hypocrite?

It really felt weighed on my chest to address this issue, and maybe point toward this post if it should come up again (as one person tonight did pass along a private ...

When it comes to television, you’re reading the words of a man who is only slightly more liberal than the Amish. Meaning: I have to know with conviction that whatever it is on the screen is not going to waste even a few hours of my life to watch. It better be enlightening enough that I’m not only willing, but desiring to invest my time toward viewing it. Heavy emphasis on “enlightening”, too.

Suffice it to say, the number of things that have ever come on TV that I’ve so looked forward to watching as to have it marked on my mental calendar have been so few as to be countable on one hand. And the number of regular television series surpassing that bar have been far, FAR more scarce (yeah huge fan of The Simpsons but even they don’t rate on my scale). There have only been two during ...

…this movie about the Andrea Gail and the 1991 noreaster is a wonderful tribute to, not only the crew of the ship but to all those who have worked the seas to make a living for generations.

Somebody should now make a movie about the Edmund Fitzgerald.

It’ll be 30 years this coming fall since it happened, arguably the most famous shipwreck of the last half-century. I’ve spoken with people who were college students in Michigan at the time: they remembered going to the beach of Lake Superior and crying. There’s a whole different kind of kinship and community along those shores, and something about the Edmund Fitzgerald would be a beautiful way to honor that… and her crew.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies

Doesn’t it seem like too many Christians nowadays have based their faith on the Rapture instead of basing it in Christ?...