a little tasty morsel

We get all kinds of church supply catalogues in the mail nearly every day. Indeed, it's practically the only kind of mail we get aside from bills--just piles and piles of catalogues full of church stuff. I always page through them with the utmost attention and care and sometimes I am wonderfully rewarded.

Look at this clever and fabulous invention.

And look! It is available is three convenient pack sizes.

Just think, all the fun with none of the hassle! No refrigeration required. Disposable no-leak construction. Prepackaged wafer and juice in one single container. All we need is a little drive thru window in the parking lot.

hardy har har

From Rudyard Kipling's Captain's Courageous:

Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all his life received a direct order--never, at least, without long, and sometimes tearful, explanations of the advantages of obedience and the reasons for the request. Mrs. Cheyne lived in fear of breaking his spirit, which, perhaps, was the reason that she herself walked on the edge of nervous prostration. He could not see why he should be expected to hurry for any man's pleasure, and said so. "Your dad can come down here if he's so anxious to talk to me. I want him to take me to New York right away. It'll pay him."
Dan opened his eyes as the size and beauty of this joke dawned on him. "Say Dad!" he shouted up the foc'sle hatch, "he says you kin slip down an' see him ef you're anxious that way. 'Hear, Dad?"
The answer came back in the deepest voice Harvey had ever heard from a human chest: "Quit foolin', Dan, and send him to me."

faith the size of a small plastic bead?

So some of you might have seen on Facebook that Gladys did indeed put a plastic bead in her nose on Friday. This, in case any of you are wondering, is one of the two reasons why I generally don't welcome and delight in the acquisition of beads--that ubiquitous pink vat of beads available in a thousand craft stores across this great land. The other reason is that babies crawling around like to try to swallow them.

So Gladys came into the kitchen on Friday and said, "A wittle bead wolled up off the table and wolled into my dose."
"Oh really," we all said. "It just rolled up? Might it also be that you picked it up and put it in your nose?"
"No!" she posited, "it weally weally weally wolled up."
"Well, maybe we can try to get it out."
"No," she said, "that's ok. God will get it out in a while."

So, we tried some things.
We tried suctioning it out with the blue bulb thing you get every time you go to the hospital to have a baby. We tried rubbing pepper on her nose to make her sneeze. I tried shouting at the bead. But overall we didn't panic because we have two nurses staying with us, and my Great Aunt who is a doctor. None of them seemed to be freaking out, so I opted not to freak out. And every time we had a go at getting the bead out, Gladys said, "That's ok, God will get it out in a while."

And I said, "That's true, sweetie pie, and one way that God does things is by using his people and it might be that he wants to get that bead out by using me or daddy to help."
"Well," she said, "God doesn't need help. He will get it out."

As I fed the baby her second large bowl of cereal in the parish hall during the eight o'clock service, sorting Catechesis Album pages and refereeing a volatile checkers game between Elphine and Alouicious, I asked Gladys about her bead, which was causing her nose to run a lot all over. It was still there. She said it was fine. From which point on I didn't give it another thought, careening through the morning trying connect with people, getting replacement acolytes, doing whatever it is I normally do--I already can't remember.

At the very end of the morning, after Sunday school and church and everything, as I stood around trying to resist coffee hour cake, I was brought the bead by the person sitting with Gladys in church (my kids sit with whoever will pay the most attention to them, usually not me). And then Gladys twirled up and confirmed that indeed it was her bead. Later, at home, she explained, "God made me sneeze during church and my bead came out."

This Fisk Wasn't for Me but I'm taking it anyway

One Phyllis Strupp, of whom I have never before heard, thinks that Father, and by that I presume she means God, doesn't always know best. Father, by whom we assume she means God (I'm kidding, I know she doesn't mean God, I'm  just messing with her), needs the Holy Spirit, whom it's clear she assumes is "female" to get it right.

Jesus was loud and clear on this point: God has both masculine, left-brained qualities in God the father as well as feminine, right-brained qualities in God the Holy Spirit.

And then there's this

Is the idolatry of male power in a patriarchal society preventing us from seeing the Trinity more clearly -- and receiving the wisdom and aid of the Holy Spirit? Do we grieve the Holy Spirit, as Paul warned us not to do in Ephesians 4:30-31:

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Is that right? Men are filled with all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice? Whereas "the ladies" are not?

Father doesn't always know best. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. He's only human, after all. Sometimes mother knows best. No one person is the only source of grace in a family, congregation, diocese, business, or society -- and no one person should shoulder all the blame for failures. Let's give father a break and put our heads (left brains and right brains) together and find new ways to welcome the Holy Spirit and satisfy the spiritual hunger of our times!

To which I reply
Phyllis, Know Your Limits!

Now in the fading light of day

Romulus came weeping down to the laundry room. "They're not letting me have FUN!" he shouted.
"They're not letting me destroy anything," he wept.
"I am so so sorry to hear that," I said, "did you ask them for a turn?"
"I did but they wouldn't."

Which is really, if you come right down to it, not very far off from my daily interaction with the Lord Most High.

Hee Hee

From Charles Williams Decent into Hell

"Don't you think so?" Watteau, whose actual name was Myrtle Fox, asked, "It's what I always feel--about trees and flowers and leaves and so on--they're so friendly. Perhaps you don't notice it so much; I'm rather mystic about nature. Like Wordsworth. I should love to spend days out with nothing but the trees and the leaves and the wind. Only somehow one never seems to find the time. But I do believe they're all breathing in with us, and it's such a comfort--here, where there are so many trees. Of course, we've only to sink into ourselves to find peace--and trees and clouds and so on all help us. One never need be unhappy. Nature's so terribly good. Don't you think so, Mr. Stanhope?"

Which obviously brings to mind a brilliant Wodehouse quip which I've lately been using on my children,
"If it isn't too much trouble, would you be so kind as to stop driveling."

Hope you have a very pleasant Monday and take a moment to thank God and pray for our troops. Thank you Grandpa!

a little something for a Sunday evening

I'm sorry but this is So Funny

And Because I Just Can't Stop Blogging

(What is my problem today!!!)
This is my new favorite thing ever.

h/t Et Tu Jen

Quotes from the Week

I was sorely tempted to do a Saturday on the Links: Highly Infuriating Blogs that Make Me Want to Jump Out of My Own Skin and Run Away Screaming but that seemed awfully negative. So instead I offer you

Quotes from the Week
Me: What is Promised in the Covenant of Works?
A: (thoughtfully) A Turkey

Much Later, Picture in Hand
A: This is a picture of Columbus. He's crying because his shirt is on the wrong way and his tag is scratching him. He is on one of his trips and he is sitting in a chair next to a table. What does he look like?
Me: I'm not sure.

And finally, Matt, in frustration: Anne, you're your own Pharisee. You tie up heavy burdens for yourself and then refuse to carry them.

Sunday Conversations

Anne in a sleep laden effort to sort out the implications of the Don Armstrong/Grace Church imbroglio (that's right, I've given up reading anything but PG Wodehouse): So, let me try and understand. If you commit tax fraud, its the IRA that would care and come after you. The bishop might care, but really, its the IRA that would prosecute? Is that right?
Matt: The IRA?
Anne: Yeah. And you would have to have intent to commit fraud, right? You would have to really be trying to embezzle money. Right?
Matt: The IRA?
Anne: Is that right?
Matt: The IRA? Do you mean the Irish Republican Army or the Internal Revenue Service?
Anne: Oh, I guess not the IRA. Although, that would make things even more interesting wouldn't it?
A: Why is mommy crying and laughing?

A: I waaant some meooook.
Anne: I waaant some meoook.
A: I don't like that sound.
Anne: Well, that's what you sound like.
A: I want to stop whining and say may I please have some meok.
Anne: That's a good idea. Why don't you do that?
A: Okay.
(All speech by A several pitches higher than the average human being can stand.)