:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

Staring at a dryer and two baskets full of laundry to fold, I cursed the curse of laundry. I hate folding laundry, even if I must confess my love for neat and orderly drawers of the stuff.

I began to ponder how laundry is like some kind of terrible affliction. And then I considered the fall of humanity into sin and the ramifications of Genesis 3:21:

“The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”

It’s as if God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden and into a laundry mat. While handing over the animal skins, I imagine God saying, “This is going to annoy you a whole lot more than it’s going to annoy me.”

Oh, for the days of the fig leaf.

In the end, the stubborn rebelliousness of humanity, our penchant for seeking power and control ensured that we would spend countless hours washing, folding, and putting away our clothes. How ironic it is that one residual effect of the fall into sin ensures we have one more tedious thing to do.

While standing in the garden last night in the cool of the evening, checking on the progress of our tomatoes, lettuce, and swiss chard, I sensed so much peace and comfort. It was as if Eden had come again to our yard, with blossoming irises, cosmos, marigolds, and pansies. And then I looked down at my mud-smeared jeans and thought of those cursed laundry baskets waiting for me.

(Gibberish warning: “parts” of this article may be complete gibberish)

There are lots of New Years resolutions that are, frankly, really rough to follow up on. Losing weight, eating less sweets, exercising more, and kicking any number of vices can really drag down a new year.

Thankfully, I have a fun new kind of resolution that is easy, fun, and profitable—for me at least.

Your New Year’s resolution should be to help me sell more books. And believe me, you can be a big part of making that happen. Here is a simple guide to what I’d like to call the Face Out Challenge. You can make the face out challenge your New Year’s resolution with my book Coffeehouse Theology!

Step One

Go to your local bookstore and make sure they are carrying Coffeehouse Theology. If they don’t have it on the shelf, demand to speak with a manager immediately and make sure they have it in stock.

Step Two

Once they have several copies of Coffeehouse Theology on the shelves, take some time to observe the shelves and the religion section in general. Ask yourself, “Is Coffeehouse Theology in a sufficiently prominent location?”

Step Three

Move Coffeehouse Theology to the most prominent place on the shelves, ensuring it is as close to eye level as possible. Alphabetical order is of no consequence for

the Face Out Challenge.

Step Four

Position Coffeehouse Theology in a face out position so that the cover of the book is visible. While the spine is very attractive, books are far more likely to sell if they have a face out in a prominent location.

And that about does it. In a matter of minutes you can make a new year’s resolution to take the Face Out Challenge and then fulfill it. There now, don’t you feel better about yourself? In fact, why not reward yourself with a cookie or high calorie coffee drink?

And if you can’t make it to the book store, a nice substitute is reading the book and posting a review online at sites such as Amazon.com and Christianbook.com.

And as always with these bits of gibberish, I’m kidding… mostly.

Theology should permeate every aspect of our daily lives. Sports are no exception to this.

Ever mindful of the importance of being relevant and connecting theology with our culture, I have decided to adapt a special edition of Coffeehouse Theology to address the beliefs of baseball fans. I’m calling it Coffeehouse Phillieology.

It’s a bold, fresh, contextually sensitive look at whether or not rally caps are effective, whether beards help players hit better, and even digs into the lucky glove and lucky shorts superstitions. We’ll look at the curses afflicting certain baseball towns and whether or not God really does have it out for certain fans and teams. Particular attention will be paid to Philadelphia and its quarter-century championship drought. 

Issues such as pitching inside or brushing back batters and the morality of certain sliding techniques are explored from a strictly biblical perspective. The nature of truth as related to the strike zone will be addressed specifically. Readers will learn if there really are such things as balls and strikes.

By the time you’re done reading Coffeehouse Phillieology, you’ll have a clear picture of the triune God’s place in the baseball diamond and the Biblical perspective connected to everyday issues players face in the batters box, on the field, and in the dug out.

And if this sounds too good to be true, too delicious a pun to pass up, you are absolutely right.

Another fine piece of gibberish from the author of Coffeehouse Theology…

What could be more important than truth?

Without truth, our words are meaningless. Relationships would crumble. Criminals would run free without witnesses to testify. Poker games would grind to a halt since everyone’s bluffing. Injuries would sky rocket with everyone taking the dare. Tom Cruise wouldn’t know what he wanted and Jack Nicholson wouldn’t know what Tom Cruise can’t handle.

Language, people, games, movies, and society itself rely on truth. Logically, it is no less the case with religion.

Christianity relies on truth in order to survive. The word “truth” comes up 228 times in the Bible, making this very concept a pillar to Biblical revelation. Without truth we wouldn’t know what to believe in. Without “truth” 228 verses would cease to make any sense.

And yet truth is very much cast in doubt in today’s world. Some people say that you can’t be 100% certain about truth. In response to these concerns, the Total Truth Index has been established to track the progress of truth in our world. It has been a rough time of late with Colbert’s introduction of “truthiness” to our vocabulary, to say nothing of his allegation that reality has a liberal slant. In many quarters, truth has been on the retreat, and the Total Truth Index has been on the decline.

In a world with a truth shortage, leading theological thinkers have been working on a truth stimulus package, but so far have only met with meager gains. Recently, a relatively unknown theologian named Ed Cyzewski has offered a book that may in fact turn our truth crisis around: Coffeehouse Theology. In fact, recent studies have proven that since Coffeehouse Theology’s release on September 15^th, 2008, the Total Truth Index has skyrocketed to a 736 rating. This is a leap from its previous stagnation at 672, a number perilously close to 666 and the cause of much doom-saying.

Analysts are divided in their opinions on just how Coffeehouse Theology has managed to create more truth in the world. Some say it’s rooted in truth speculation in Europe, causing an inflation of American truth-backed securities. The inflationists believe the bubble will burst sometime after Christmas and the market will level out.

However, there are many theology bloggers claiming that the emphasis in Coffeehouse Theology on listening to other theological perspectives, especially in the historic and global churches has generated genuinely new truth shares. This sudden influx of truth shares, according to the perspectivists, is a righting of the truth market to where it should have been all along. Most assert the TTI will never reach the perfect 777 mark, but they believe the gains made by Coffeehouse Theology will hold for the time being.

Ed Cyzewski, the author of Coffeehouse Theology, states, “The only way we can guarantee the steady rise of the TTI index away from its complete meltdown is if consumers act without delay and purchase Coffeehouse Theology no later than this Friday.”

GIBBERISH ALERT: Dear reader, any time you spy the “gibberish” label on a blog post here, be forewarned that it’s just something I made up. It’s not true. There is not Total Truth Index, which means buying Coffeehouse Theology will in no way assist in shoring it up. I’ve warned you. Now go buy yourself the book!!!

GIBBERISH ALERT: From time to time I’ll be posting anecdotes that will be pure gibberish. There is no truth value whatsoever (which some conservative critics may say about my book!!!). I’m just having some fun with the release of Coffeehouse Theology (Sept 15th by the way). I hope you enjoy my first round of book-related gibberish.

Are you troubled by our consumer society? Do you simply buy items to make yourself feel better? Is your spending out of control? Do you make foolish purchases on impulse?

If any of these descriptions fit you, then you need to rush over to Amazon.com right now and place your order for Coffeehouse Theology!

Coffeehouse Theology has a proven Biblical method for counteracting the negative effects of our consumer society. But it won’t help you unless you buy it right now and read about the importance of sound contextual theology.

If you’re feeling down about your out-of-control spending, then the best solution is found in purchasing Coffeehouse Theology. Simply looking at the cover will put a smile on your face. What doodling! What cleverness! Why, even the spine is attractive!

And you can’t judge this book by it’s cover. Once you open it up you’ll find a virtual smorgasbord of ideas about contextual theology that will make you feel guilty about your compromise with today’s consumer culture and move you back onto the straight and narrow toward God.

And if that doesn’t cheer you up, you can always purchase the Bible Study Guide and the Contemporary Issues Study Guide. Both will increase your contextual theology aptitude and rid you of those nasty consumer habits once and for all.

Remember, you won’t start to feel better until you purchase my book Coffeehouse Theology. You’d best do it today if you want to beat consumerism once and for all.

About a month ago I reviewed Matthew Paul Turner’s book The Hokey Pokey: Curious People Finding What Life’s All About. I wasn’t a fan of the title or cover, but the book is an entertaining and insightful read. Shortly after that I looked up his blog.

If you like Purgatorio, then you need to swing by his blog Jesus Needs New PR. It’s a fantastic collection of Christian oddities, reflections on Christian sub-culture, and thought-provoking posts. I especially enjoyed his post on “Jesus Hates.” The image of White Republican Jesus is worth the trip over.

Turner is churning out books and has a nice narrative style. I think you’ll find his blog is a fun read and well worth adding to your blog reader or bookmarks.

I was getting kind of nervous that a Boston team hadn’t won a champsionship for like… oh, eight months. I mean those poor Patriots lost to the lowly Giants. How would Boston ever get over it?

The Bruins? No, they only made it into the play offs. Poor guys. They didn’t even make it to the conference finals.

No, it’s the Celtics who brought a championship to this poor town deprived of a winning team for lo these 8 months. Maybe they can make until October when the Red Sox win ANOTHER World Series.

Oh, I’m not bitter. Us Philadelphians don’t NEED a winning sports teams. We’ve given up all hope for that.

Sports are stupid. Just an excuse to put off mowing the lawn or taking out the garbage so we can drink beer and eat greasy food. I’m above all of this sports championship business really. Why if Philadelphia’s, oh I don’t know, hockey team made it to the conference finals I probably wouldn’t follow every detail on espn.com like I did this Spring… I mean, I wouldn’t do it again…

Can anyone figure out a way to curse the Red Sox again?

I’m getting sick of the Google ads on my side bar. I won’t mention what they’re about, lest I encourage them. We’ll just say one of the words in this blog’s title leads to ads for a product you typically find in your bathroom, closet, and bed room. So I’ve tagged on “Theology and Culture” in a half-hearted attempt to train Google to stick with my main subject matter.

Of course I have also blogged about Hillary, and of course an ad for “Hillary Clinton soda” has been popping up. Ack! How stupid. Who would click on such an ad? OK, maybe the curious, but I can’t imagine Hillary Clinton soda. What does it do anyway? What makes it different? Does it taste sweet at first and then turn bitter in your mouth? Does it only appeal to older women and blue collar voters? Does it stand by you even if you’re trying all of the other sodas on the market?

All that to say, if the top of my blog looks a little crammed right now, I’m just working on a little experiment. We’ll see if it works. I’m open suggestions from the designers who may know of a better way to train Google to get ads up there with a slight bit of relevance.

As if this Democratic primary season isn’t weird enough, Hillary Clinton’s latest ad makes the strangest of all statements. Essentially, she tells Obama to get out of the kitchen and to leave it up to her.

With an all-star fear-mongering cast that includes Osama–not to be confused with Obama–bin Ladin, Clinton pulls all of the boogie men from under the bed, waves them in our faces, and then offers her assessment that Obama can’t take the heat. The commercial ends with a tribute to perhaps one of the greatest Democrats of all time, “Harry Truman said it best –- if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

To be quite frank, I’m quite relieved by this.

If Barack has been kicked out of the kitchen, perhaps Hillary has finally realized that politics just isn’t her thing and that she’d like to take a whirl at being a homemaker. With Barack out of the race to see who gets control of the kitchen, he is now free to campaign for president of the United States.

Phew, I’m glad that’s all settled now. And we thought this primary was going to drag out all summer and Howard Dean was going to have to scream or something! No, it was really control of the kitchen that got everyone so worked up. I suppose the folks in Pennsylvania planning on voting for Hillary can just stay home and not bother voting. I heard a rumor that she’s teaming up with Rachel Ray for a special episode… but wait, wasn’t Obama interviewed by her today? Oh, that Barack, always meddling in the kitchen! When will he ever learn!

Now Barack, listen to Hillary and leave the heat of the kitchen to her. You have a campaign to run!

We’re moving at the end of April to little house on the Western edge of Arlington, VT. It’s in a nice little place with a few neighbors dotted about, a river nearby, and the former home of Norman Rockwell two miles down the quiet dirt road. We have plans to tear up the gray carpet in favor of laminate and will certainly take down the funky paneling in favor of paint, using colors that I have appropriately obsessed about for two months now. Will Robert Carter Plum work in the office by the way???

With the exception of finding out the home had been swept away in a flood, I am trying to think of something else that would be as devastating as the news I received yesterday about our new home. Perhaps rodent infestation would be worse, but it’s close. Anyway, I found out that Verizon’s DSL is not available that far out of town.

My heart sank when I heard the news. I didn’t talk too much about it with Julie because this only verifies (in my little suburban mind that is) what I’ve been saying all along and what she disagrees with consistently: we are moving into the middle of no where.

That’s technically not true. We have neighbors. The town has a name. There’s a store three miles down the road. But for me the availability of high speed internet is no longer a nice perk. It’s a birth right. I must have it. And now I’m bitter at the state of Vermont for dragging its feet over high speed internet. 2010 is too long to wait. I feel like I’m on the brink of entering the stone age again.

My salvation took the form of Comcast. Though I despise the term “Comcastic,” my need for high speed internet trumped any other uneasiness about lousy marketing campaigns. I called Comcast, assuring them that cables were sticking out of the walls all over the place. Then the second bomb dropped, doing far greater destruction:

“That may not be a serviceable location for high speed internet,” the Comcast lady said.

“But, there are cables, many of them, at the house,” I replied.

“I’ll have to look into this. I’ll call you back.”

And now I wait by the phone, praying to God and the Comcast lady to make our new home serviceable for high speed internet even if it’s overpriced and poorly marketed.

I’ll do it. I’ll do anything. Just don’t condemn me to dial up.