Annual re-post: The Grinch returns

Yes, it's that time of year again!

How the Grinch Stole Back Christmas

‘Tis a tale often told, and every Who knows,
How the Grinch first descended from Mount Crumpet snows
And stole away Christmas (its trappings, at least)
Then had his heart changed, and came back for roast beast.
Not everyone knows what has happened since then;
How the Grinch came to think he must steal it again –

For Grinches are grinchy, and grinch-genes will tell –
And in some ways, he wasn’t adjusting too well.
Though his heart grew three sizes, his brain had not shrunk
And he tired of buying up masses of junk
And dealing with hassles and hustles barbaric
For “holidays” swiftly becoming generic.

The customs traditional, which the Grinch loved
Were watered-down, fluffed-up, or “new and improved”.
Why, at one Christmas feast, by one misguided Who,
The roast beast itself was a glob of tofu!
And the songs which reformed him with simple Who joys
Were increasingly drowned out by “noise, noise, noise, noise.”

And deep in his heart, underneath his green fur,
The Grinch knew that things weren’t right as they were.
His ponderer once more was sore as could be
In the checkout line near the HDTV’s,
When the half-hearted clerk with a faraway gaze
Blandly muttered to him, “Happy Holidays”.

Well, the Grinch’s lips curled in a most Grinchy smile
(More grinchy, perhaps, than he’d been in a while!)
He remembered his heritage, cunning and sly,
He thought, “I was made this way – p’raps this is why!”
Then he fixed his eyes on the unfortunate knave,
And regarded him mildly, and told him, “How brave!”

“Brave?”, asked the clerk, “Why, what did I say?”
“My good man, you have wished me a fine Holy Day!
“I thank, good sir, and return it sincerely;
“For you wished for me, sir, not a merry day merely,
“But a day blessed with favor from our Lord divine –
“I return it; may your Holy Day, too, be fine!”

“No! I just said ‘holiday’,” stammered the clerk,
“For that is the policy here where I work…”
“Delightful!,” the Grinch interjected with glee.
“Such corporate boldness – it overwhelms me!
“A spiritual awakening – that’s what it means!
“Now, sir, sell me some cards with nativity scenes.”

There were no such cards, for he’d sold his last few
But he did have a Santa. The Grinch said, “He’ll do,
“That old Bishop Nicholas, merry and stout.
“He once punched the heretic Arius out!”
And the clerk looked about – and no bosses he saw -
“Merry Christmas!,” he whispered, and shook a grinch paw.

The Grinch strode from the store and out into the street,
“Merry Christmas!”, he said to each Who whom he’d meet,
And he said to himself, “Why, this really is nice!
“A good deed which has gained all the thrill of a vice!
“This holiday season need not make me blue;
“For with each ‘Merry Christmas’, I break a taboo!”

Some heartily answer, returning his greeting;
And others more shyly, ere swiftly retreating –
Some say “Happy Hannukah” back with a grin,
Which the old Grinch returns, and calls that a win/win.
Some never quite notice; too stressed and engrossed.
But some look offended – and these he likes most.

“Now, don’t kid a kidder,” he tells such a one –
“I stole Christmas once, and I know how it’s done.
“But I stole it with style; I stole it with flare.
“You aren’t that clever, or else wouldn’t dare;
“To my exploits, your Christmas theft can’t hold a candle –
“You’re not even a thief – just a wannabe vandal.”

For a Grinch is a Grinch, at the end of the day
(And as he observed, Someone made him that way)
As wise as a serpent (and almost as green)
And not really worried if folks think he’s mean.
He stole Christmas once, but he made his amends –
Now he’ll steal Christmas back, for his more timid friends.

So when you’ve the chance (if, that is, you’ve the guts)
Please join me and the Grinch, driving PC-folks nuts.
Reclaiming the Holy Days, joyous and rightful,
From the purely commercial or pettily spiteful.
Co-conspire in this bold holiday counter-crime –
Committed one “Merry Christmas” at a time.

— Joe Long

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!"

The Thanksgiving comedy classic!

File under: They think we still care

The Noth American Clown Quartet speaks. They actually think somebody is listening.

We are united as Christian leaders in our concern for the well-being of our neighbors and of God’s good creation that provides life and livelihood for all God’s creatures. Daily we see and hear the evidence of a rapidly changing climate. Glaciers are disappearing, the polar ice cap is melting, and sea levels are rising. Incidents of pollution- created dead zones in seas and the ocean and toxic algae growth in water supplies are occurring with greater frequency. Most disturbingly, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising at an unprecedented rate. At the same time we also witness in too many instances how the earth’s natural beauty, a sign of God’s wonderful creativity, has been defiled by pollutants and waste.

Many have reacted to these changes with grief and anger. In their outrage some have understandably focused on the neglect and carelessness, both in private industry and in government regulation, that have contributed to these changes. However, an honest accounting requires a recognition that we all participate both as consumers and investors in economies that make intensive and insistent demands for energy. In addition, as citizens we have chosen to support or acquiesce in policies that shift the burdens of climate change to communities that are most vulnerable to its effects. People who are already challenged by poverty and by dislocation resulting from civil war or famine have limited resources for adapting to climate change’s effects.

While an accounting of climate change that has credibility and integrity must include our own repentance, we find our hope in the promise of God’s own faithfulness to the creation and humankind and in the liberation that comes from God’s promise.

God, who made the creation and made it good, has not abandoned it. Daily the Spirit continues to renew the face of the earth. All who care for the earth and work for the restoration of its vitality can be confident that they are not pursuing a lost cause. We serve in concert with God’s own creative and renewing power.

Moreover, we need not surrender to political ideologies and other modern mythologies that would divide us into partisan factions — deserving and undeserving, powerless victims and godless oppressors. In Christ we have the promise of a life where God has reconciled the human community. In Christ God sets us free from the captivity of blaming and shaming. God liberates us for shared endeavors where we find each other at our best.

While the challenge may seem daunting, the Spirit’s abundant gifts for service empower us to find common cause with people who exercise countless insights and skills, embodied in hundreds of occupations and trades. We have good reason to hope in all the ways God’s grace is at work among us. We can commend ourselves to the work before us with confidence in God’s mercy.

Opportunities to act imaginatively and courageously abound in all our individual callings. The Holy Spirit’s work in us leads us as faithful consumers and investors in a global economy to make responsible choices to reduce energy use, carbon emissions, and the wasteful consumption of water and other natural resources. As citizens, we have voices to use in educating children about the climate and in shaping public and corporate policies that affect the environment. The Spirit has also given us our voices to contribute our witness to public discussion of just and responsible use of natural resources.

We also have the resources and responsibility to act together for the common good, especially for those most vulnerable to the effect of climate change in the spirit of the seventh Millennium Development Goal, “to ensure environmental stability”. World leaders will meet this month in New York for a Climate Summit, and in December in Lima, Peru, to discuss global cooperation on climate change. Working under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), participants in the UNFCCC’s negotiations hope for an agreement in 2015 that will move toward reduction of carbon emissions, development of low carbon technologies, and assistance to populations most vulnerable to the effects of a changing climate.

We encourage you to take the initiative to engage decision-makers in this godly work in all arenas of public life — in government and business, in schools and civic organizations, in social media and also in our church life.
We are not powerless to act and we are not alone. “We have the power of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling Spirit of Christ to give us hope and courage.”

The present moment is a critical one, filled with both challenge and opportunity to act as faithful individuals and churches in solidarity with God’s good creation.

Bishop Elizabeth Eaton
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

The Most Rev. Fred Hiltz
Primate
Anglican Church of Canada

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

Bishop Susan Johnson
National Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

Bill Cosby responds to Victoria Osteen

Bill pretty much says all that needs to be said.



And here's another appropriate response.

Day 8: Judge Goodstein lowers the boom on lawless TECSC attorneys

Was this supposed to be TECSC's "expert witness?" Hey, anything's possible with this bunch!

It's hard to imagine what kind of "expert" testimony a legendary stand-up comedian could have provided, but the lawless tactics of the attorneys for The Empty Church in South Carolina (TECSC) were no laughing matter for Judge Diane Goodstein.

ST. GEORGE, SC, JULY 17, 2014 –A normally unflappable South Carolina Circuit Court judge stopped the trial initiated by the Diocese of SC to prevent the seizure of local diocesan and parish property, to scold the defendants for their intentional disregard of three court orders dealing with disclosure of expert witnesses. The defendants, the Episcopal Church (TEC) and The Episcopal Church in South Carolina (TECSC) tried to present an expert witness, Robert Klein, into the trial without having followed court’s orders.

After reminding TEC attorneys that she had bent over backwards to provide them ample opportunity to identify expert witnesses, Judge Diane S. Goodstein said, “You have violated this court three times with regard to experts and now you think you’re going to bring in his (Klein) testimony through the back door? This is not a game! Court’s orders are to be followed! You are an officer of the court. I trust we will not have any more discussion about this witness.”

Goodstein then asked the TEC counselor when Klein was hired as an expert witness. The defense attorney admitted they had communicated with Klein prior to the last court order in June. Judge Goodstein, waving a sheet of paper without Klein’s name on it, said it was “unbelievable,” “remarkable” that his name was not on it and therefore ruled Klein’s testimony excluded. Further, Goodstein said she believed the many efforts to postpone and delay the proceedings of the trial had been a tactical decision by the defendants.

Attorneys for the defense argued at length about the propriety of excluding their witness and threatened to appeal her ruling. Goodstein finally ended the discussion by saying, “I want the courts to assume that I have done what I have done because the defendants failed to comply with not one, not two but three of this court’s orders.”

After the judge’s scolding, TEC presented another expert witness, Leslie Lott, a trademark attorney from Coral Gables, Fla., who had a portion of her testimony excluded because she had based her opinions on the work of Klein, the earlier excluded witness.

Lott was ill prepared to testify because the defendants had only provided her with their side of the case. She had been given no information, factual or legal, about the plaintiff, Diocese of South Carolina. It was apparent through cross examination that Lott’s defense attorney had only presented their side so that she could not render an informed opinion and she simply lacked the necessary information to testify credibly.

Her testimony was interrupted when an irritated Judge Goodstein adjourned for lunch after she realized during cross-examination that Lott had not brought her documents to court.

The other witnesses were parish witnesses who had left and formed other churches, and are now part of TECSC. Each witness testified that proper notice had been given to the congregation to vote as to whether their church remained with the Diocese of South Carolina or go with TEC and its newly formed TECSC.

Another D.D. for Madam Oven Mitt

Brilliant satire from Alan Haley, a.k.a. the Anglican Curmudgeon.

The Good Samaritan School of Church Canon Law in Corvallis, Oregon announced at yesterday's convocation that it, too, will award the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (USA) a D.D. degree honoris causa -- only in this case, the initials stand for "Doctor of Deposition."

"We certainly are not trying to compete with the likes of Oxford," the School's Dean, the Very Rev. Dewuntoo Others, explained. "Instead, the faculty decided that the Presiding Bishop deserved recognition for the achievement that has made her the most famous primate in the Anglican world: no one else has mastered the skill of deposing bishops and clergy to the degree that she has."

"For that very reason -- that she has taken the techniques of episcopal deposition to a new level, never before seen in Church history -- this is our first such Doctorate degree ever awarded. But we feel certain that the award will ensure that other primates will be inspired to emulate her accomplishment, and so we expect to make this award a regular feature of our School," Dean Others continued.

"Indeed, thanks to generous funding received from law firms who have greatly increased their revenues due to her actions, we have been able to establish a wholly new department here at our school. It is only fitting, therefore, that we extend an open invitation to the Most Rev. Dr. Jefferts Schori (as she will now be known) to be the first occupant, upon her leaving her current position, of the Chancellor's Chair of Depositions, Defenestrations and Purges. Having mastered her skills in the field, so to speak, she is better qualified than anyone else now living to impart those techniques to future generations of Episcopal Church leaders."

The Presiding Bishop has not indicated yet whether she will accept the School's offer. There are unconfirmed rumors that the bishops of the Episcopal Church (USA) are desperate to keep her for a second term, because (it is said) they despair of finding any candidate among their ranks who could even approach, let alone attain, her track record. Apparently, they are afraid that the Church will be unable to fall apart without her, and they do not want to risk experimenting with its demise at the hands of an unknown.

A bizarre element was added to this background a week ago, when Spain's Roman Catholic Cardinal Tomás de Torquemada announced that he would be stepping down at the end of 2015 from his position as Grand Inquisitor, and that a search committee had already begun its task of finding his replacement. His announcement contained a sentence which was little noticed -- until now:

... The committee has no prerequisites or limitations, other than to find the most qualified candidate: it will accept Catholics or Protestants, and will recognize degrees the world over -- from Calcutta to Cordoba, and from Oxford to Oregon.

Close observers at the Vatican had never considered even the possibility of appointing a female to the position of Grand Inquisitor, but now several expressed themselves as no longer quite so certain. "Although the position has always been occupied till now by clergy ordained in the Catholic Church," one of them noted, "the original decree establishing the post by Ferdinand II and Isabella does not specify any such requirement. It could be that the Roman Curia wants to let another denomination take up the torch, so to speak."

Inquiries to ENS (the Episcopal Nonsense Service) were brushed aside with no comment.

Friday Funnies Contest: What's wrong with this statement?

David Brooks
Noted Bible Scholar

In his op-ed for The New York Times yesterday, David "Know Your Bible" Brooks attempts to invoke Messianic sanction for his argument:

In Corinthians, Jesus tells the crowds, “Not many of you were wise by worldly standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”

Okay, folks. Have at it. Brooks makes two (possibly three) glaring errors in introducing the biblical quote.

Can you spot them?

H/T to Sarah Pulliam Bailey via Twitter.

UPDATE: A revised edition of Brooks's column has now been posted, correcting one of the errors but keeping the other two in place.

In Corinthians, Paul tells the crowds, “Not many of you were wise by worldly standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”

What's wrong with this picture?

Hint: It has something to do with the letter in parentheses.

You can't make this stuff up: Bill Clinton named "Father of the Year"

Only in America . . .

 

(Becket Adams) Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is officially 2013’s “Father of the Year” thanks to an award Tuesday from the non-profit National Father’s Day Council.

“Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, was just 12 years old when the family moved into the White House and Bill Clinton and wife former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton worked to keep her out of the limelight,” Reuters gushes.

“One of the most iconic images of the family to come out of that period was when the three were photographed, walking hand in hand across the White House lawn to a waiting helicopter shortly after the news broke of Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky,” the Reuters report adds, perhaps missing the irony of bringing up the president’s infamous sexual appetite in a story about his “Father of the Year” award.

Really makes you long for the "good ol' days," doesn't it?

The Great Physician eliminates all of our excuses

Lutherans parody Rob Bell

Brilliant takedown of Rob Bell, courtesy of Lutheran Satire.

Yep, this makes about as much sense as gay "marriage"

We must also be vigilant in defending the rights of our brothers (and sisters) who passionately believe the sky is green against the bigotry and hatred of those who oppressively insist it is blue.



H/T to Mollie Hemingway, who also offers these astute observations:

Believing — by science, religion or otherwise — that all humans are made male and female and that the regeneration of humans requires the joining together of male and female is — as we all know — grounds for being openly derided, called names and generally marginalized. If you think the foundational unit of society is defined in terms of this reality, you’re basically the Ku Klux Klan. You might protest that you have reason, logic, science, tradition, or any number of things to appeal to. But we all know you’re really a bigot.

Mostly the media and other cultural elites know this. And they’re not afraid to point out that believing marriage is an institution based on sexual orientation like they do — as opposed to sexual complementarity — makes you a good person who believes in civil rights and other things on the side of angels. Not like those bad folks whose arguments can be dismissed without even so much as looking them over (do you give bigots the time of day? No you do not! Ignore them already!). Journalists at CNN and the Washington Post and the New York Times and NPR have all agreed — or at least pondered the approach as legitimate — these monsters don’t deserve fair treatment, inclusion in stories, or airing for their warnings.

Error has no rights, you know. The genders are 100% interchangeable and we will make sure you agree! Are we getting tired of this media treatment yet?

Meanwhile, from the newsroom of NBC (Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!) another example of the utter absurdity of this social novelty called gay "marriage."

It’s been a busy week for NBC’s Jenna Wolfe.

The correspondent and weekend anchor for the “Today” show announced during Wednesday’s show that she’s gay, as well as pregnant. Now she’s announcing plans to marry her partner, NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk.

And one more news flash: They’re expecting a girl. 

“This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to us,” Miss Wolfe said, according to People magazine. “But I don’t want to bring my daughter into a world where I’m not comfortable telling everyone who I am and who her mother is.”

Miss Wolfe, 39, and Miss Gosk, 40, have been together for three years, People reports. They wanted to start a family last year, but had difficulty conceiving.

“We were constantly on the road, juggling a thousand balls at once,” Miss Wolfe said. “It’s a miracle we got it all together.”

But late last year, they prioritized family above career and “embarked on Operation Baby,” Miss Wolfe said. She is due to deliver at the end of August.

Anybody care to venture a guess as to how they were finally able to pull off "Operation Baby?" Three guesses, and the first two don't count -- especially if they don't involve the participation of, how shall I say it, a member of the opposite sex.

When did Joe Biden start giving altar calls?

The Sunday Comics: Why the fuss over same sex marriage?

H/T to Peter Ould.

This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth, Volume 3

We have already noted the latest trend among the Stupid People, namely questioning whether or not Jesus was actually male. That being the case, Paul Oestreicher, the pitiable soul who penned this piece of pseudo-hermeneutical garbage in The Guardian, is a little behind the curve.

Heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual: Jesus could have been any of these. There can be no certainty which. The homosexual option simply seems the most likely. The intimate relationship with the beloved disciple points in that direction. It would be so interpreted in any person today. Although there is no rabbinic tradition of celibacy, Jesus could well have chosen to refrain from sexual activity, whether he was gay or not. Many Christians will wish to assume it, but I see no theological need to. The physical expression of faithful love is godly. To suggest otherwise is to buy into a kind of puritanism that has long tainted the churches.

All that, I felt deeply, had to be addressed on Good Friday. I saw it as an act of penitence for the suffering and persecution of homosexual people that still persists in many parts of the church. Few readers of this column are likely to be outraged any more than the liberal congregation to whom I was preaching, yet I am only too aware how hurtful these reflections will be to most theologically conservative or simply traditional Christians. The essential question for me is: what does love demand? For my critics it is more often: what does scripture say? In this case, both point in the same direction.

Whether Jesus was gay or straight in no way affects who he was and what he means for the world today. Spiritually it is immaterial. What matters in this context is that there are many gay and lesbian followers of Jesus – ordained and lay – who, despite the church, remarkably and humbly remain its faithful members. Would the Christian churches in their many guises more openly accept, embrace and love them, there would be many more disciples.

Sorry, Paul. Your subject matter is so passé. We don't get all bent out of shape over questions about Jesus being gay anymore. We've moved on to questions about his (her?) gender!

Get with the program, man! (That is, if you are a man. Never can be sure these days.)

This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth, Volume 2

Stand Firm and MCJ are all over this side-splitting contribution to the ever-expanding Stupid People File from the Easter edition of the CBS Sunday Morning program. Apparently, it was a slow news day (the death of the legendary newsman Mike Wallace, notwithstanding), so the present-day descendants of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite had to find something to keep their audience entertained.

De Wesselow - an agnostic, originally a skeptic about the Shroud - has just published a provocative new book about in which he concludes it's genuine.

He compared it to artwork depicting the Crucifixion created since the Middle Ages, referring to the Station of the Cross at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City: "If you look at the hands on the cross, the nails go through the center of the palms," he showed Teichner. "That part of the hand is not strong enough to bear the weight of the body."

Meanwhile, the image on the Shroud shows the nail wounds going through the wrists. "That's how they would have done it in Roman times," said De Wesselow, supporting the idea that the Shroud is much older than the middle ages.

He said the Shroud illustrates signs of the events of Good Friday through Easter Sunday. "You start off with the flagellation, and that's very clearly presented on the Shroud, with these very, very distinct marks of the flagrum," he said. "You can then see the crown of thorns. He then is beaten and you can see on his face underneath his eyes there's a swelling. His nose looks as if it's been broken." There is also the mark of a puncture of a spear, with "dribbles of blood coming down."

Just coincidence?

But now here's the provocative part: De Wesselow's take on the resurrection - what he says happened on Easter Day when Mary Magdalene and two other women went to Jesus' tomb:

"They go to the body, they lift off the cloth, and they notice this strange shadowy form on the cloth itself," he said. "Immediately, they would have had this perception of it as a living presence in the tomb with Jesus."

"They didn't see Jesus come alive again?"

"No, I think what they saw was the Shroud," De Wesselow said. "Once they saw the Shroud they understood that he'd not been resurrected in the flesh, he'd been resurrected in the spirit."

According to de Wesselow, each supposed sighting of the risen Christ was actually a sighting of the Shroud. He's convinced it was what sparked the rapid spread of Christianity, as it was taken from Jerusalem to Galilee, then to Damascus, where he believes Paul saw it and became a Christian.

Um, yeah. The "spark" that ignited a worldwide movement which has now lasted for two millennia was the deluded imagination of a handful of disappointed dreamers venerating a piece of cloth. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

Cue the tape. . .

No comment department

It's bad enough to have a POTUS who can't speak without a teleprompter . . .

. . . but when the rest of the world is laughing at his inability to utter an original thought, it's even worse!



H/T to Anglican Curmudgeon, who has even more!

And, yes, this bishop does have talent!

For those of you who think N.T. Wright doesn't have a snowball's chance of getting the Canterbury gig, especially in light of the creative new method for selecting ++Rowan's successor, this photograph should dispel all your doubts.

Canterbury campaign kicks into high gear

Peter Ould leaves no doubt about his choice to succeed ++Rowan.

Check out more of his campaign posters here.