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Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Dec 2, 2012
Take the Christmas fruitcake. Please. Take it. Nobody actually eats that thing anyway. Yet all across our country are thousands – dare we even consider tens of thousands – of ovens being cleaned in preparation to keep this holiday tradition alive. Some die-hard fruitcakers have theirs already baked and aging – a thought that chills the fruitcake-adverse among us.
In case anyone of Scandinavian descent missed the memo, we now have refrigeration. I mean really, pickled fish? “Here Johnny, have a candy cane and one of Grandpa’s pickled herrings to go with it.” I’m convinced you have to be born Scandinavian, or at least first generation, to appreciate a holiday platter of pickled fish staring back at you.
Then there is the haggis from Scotland. Loosely explained, so as not to frighten the children, a haggis is a type of sausage made from the parts of a sheep not likely to be found in the meat department of a grocery store. It’s then boiled for about 72 hours and served with mashed turnips and potatoes. It’s just my guess, but I’d be willing to bet more people eat the turnips and potatoes than actually eat the haggis.
Times change and taste buds change. Deep fried Twinkies are no more, and some other gastronomical traditions may need to go that same route. Happy eating this holiday season and pass the haggis. . .right out the window.
Nov 22, 2012
Fall arrived with colorful leaves,
crispy apples – and mice. On the farm, battling mice without a good barn cat is
like trying to lose weight on an ice cream diet. I almost got used to seeing
the little rodents zip across the beams and dart around corners. At least I
stopped jumping each time I saw one. Then one morning I reached into a feed bin
and a mouse ran up my arm. After executing a dance never seen before or since,
I got in the truck and headed to town.
Still rubbing my mouse scaled arm, I
told the nice lady at the animal shelter I wanted to adopt their most ornery
cat. She looked at me like I was nuts. (I get that a lot.)
At their floor-to-ceiling cat cage
and she pointed out a Siamese wedged in one corner with her ears pinned to her
head. “That one has bitten everyone who works here.”
“I’ll take her.” (I got that look
again.)
I learned long ago that ornery cats
do better in a barn setting than timid or lackadaisical cats. They aren’t
afraid to stand up to the occasional raccoon or opossum, not to mention the
farm dogs and an equally ornery ram or two.
“Will you get her out of the pen?”
the nice lady asked me, casting a wary eye between the growling cat and me. I’m
not sure who she was more worried about.
I grabbed a pair of leather gloves
from the truck and gathered up the hissing cat. The ride home was punctuated by
a variety of pointedly unhappy feline sounds. It occurred to me that I might
have bitten off more than I could chew. I’ve tamed a lot of critters, but this snarling
Siamese spitfire might prove my undoing.
Miss Kitty fit in our barn like a
turtle in its shell. She pressed herself up under the eaves and poked her nose
out just far enough to hiss at me. Earning her trust would not happen
overnight. Even though I was the person who freed her from the cage, she didn’t
look at me as her savior. If she could have spit in my eye, I’ve no doubt she
would have. Fortune was on my side since cats can’t actually spit.
At chores both morning and night, I
climbed the side of the barn – it was a single-story structure – and talk to
her up there under the eaves. At first I’d just talk until she stopped making
threatening noises. Gradually she allowed me to stroke her face, then her neck,
and then her back. Each new inch was a victory in trust. It took weeks before I
could pull her out from her hiding place and hold her. Finally the breakthrough
day came when I heard her purr.
Trust came hard for Miss Kitty. Life
had knocked her around a few times. Once she learned it, however, she never
looked back. For years she greeted me at chore time with a head-bump against my
leg. Safe, happy, and full of mice, she became a valuable partner on the farm. Never
again did a mouse run up my arm – not in Miss Kitty’s barn.
Nov 10, 2012
In the obscurity of our human past, someone brave – or foolish – held one of those rugged roots and thought to himself, “I wonder what this tastes like.” If you’ve ever put a chunk of raw horseradish in your mouth, you know his thought processes slammed shut with the first crunch. It’s hard to think while gasping for air and mopping the flood of both eyes and nose.
While I have no evidence, historical or otherwise, to back this up, here is my imagining of what happened next:
Pranksters being nothing new, this individual probably dared another poor soul to take a bite. The process doubtless repeated itself as more unsuspecting people wandered by. After an unknown number of prank victims spent their time gasping and draining, one of them had a light bulb – or flint flash – moment.
This nasty looking root proved useful for clearing out the sinuses and exercising the lungs. Being humans, they undoubtedly foisted a vile concoction of the root on their children for “healthful” purposes. But somewhere along the line, one of them discovered how good it tasted smeared on a grilled burger, and the rest – as they say – is history.
When we accept Christ as our savior, we are washed cleaner than the white core of the horseradish root. He peels off the twisted, gnarled, sin-encrusted parts and leaves us fresh, sharp, and clean. We’re transformed into something useful for seasoning our world for His glory.
Oct 17, 2012
There comes a point in each
parent’s life when their precious little boy or girl becomes – a teenager. It
should be pointed out that “teenager” is not necessarily a chronological age.
It can be more correctly defined as a growth-induced attitude. Everyone who has
experienced a teenager under their roof understands this.
During this time of
teenagerism, thoughts enter the parent’s head, swirling in previously uncharted
gray matter. “Is this what the human race has been reduced to?” “Our future is
in the hands of. . .this?” “Perhaps humans should no longer be allowed to
reproduce.”
Such thoughts – rest assured –
are completely normal. They are a healthy response to the particularly annoying
stimuli introduced during teenagerism. After all, when we were that age we
never. . .(fill in the blank and stuff your memories in the drawer).
When we are forgiven our sins
and washed clean by the blood of Jesus, we are adopted into the family of God.
We become His children. His children. Not His adults. And every child must
progress on into teenagerism.
When God asks you to step up
and clean the church, do you whine about taking out the garbage? When God asks
you to help a neighbor mow their yard, do you whine about how hot it is? When
God asks you to take a meal to a hurting family, do you whine about the
afternoon spent cooking instead of relaxing? Or do ignore His voice altogether?
Ever wonder if God looks down and yearns for the day when we no longer
reproduce?
When our teenagers behave at or
above our expectations – how our parental pride soars! Make your Heavenly
Father’s pride soar this week. (Don’t make him count to three!)
Oct 3, 2012
Have you ever asked a
teenage check-out girl at a convenience store for directions? I did recently
and it went something like this:
“You like, go down
this way and like, no wait. Let me think. You can go that way and. . .I don’t
know, like I haven’t been there in ages. Wait a minute, now I remember,” she
flapped her hands erratically around her head. “You don’t turn, just like, go
straight until you see this old building.” She stopped and stared at me, as if
to discern my ability to comprehend.
“Which old building?”
I asked.
“You know.”
“If I knew, I
wouldn’t be asking.”
“But, like, everyone
knows that one,” she said with a huff and an Olympic 10.0 roll of the eyes.
Defeated, I walked
out and spied an older gentleman in worn denim jeans and work boots. He leaned
against a faded blue pickup truck, filling it with gas. I asked him for
directions. He pointed down the street and said:
“Two blocks down,
take a left, and it’s half a mile past the fire station.”
Simple. Clear.
Helpful.
The ways of the Lord
are impossible for us to understand. His ways are higher than ours ways in all
ways. So Christ made it simple. He pared down His sacrifice and gift of
redemption into something our finite minds could comprehend. Bread and drink.
We understand that without bread and drink we can’t survive. His body, His
blood. . .without these we can’t survive for eternity. What a simple way to
explain the unexplainable.
Sep 26, 2012
After acceptance as a
resident dorm advisor during my second year of college, I attended a class on
empathy training. The class was taught by senior RAs in bell-bottom jeans with
perhaps an entire year of authority under their hip hugging belts. We sat cross-legged
on the grass and contemplated how we’d use our new empathy skills to further
world peace.
A common phrase we
collegiate sages tossed around back then was, “What does this mean to you?” It
was a handy tool for helping those struggling to “find themselves” on campus.
Screaming that same
phrase at a drunk and belligerent hockey player bent on gaining access to the
girl’s dorm by beating down a locked steel door. . .accomplished very little.
He had already found himself.
Meanings of things
are interpreted by the personal filters we view them through. A warm and fuzzy
kitten means comfort and love for one person, while the same kitten represents
sneezing and watery eyes to another. A chocolate malt with whipped cream is
comfort food for some, and seen only as a hip widener to others. The same
tow-headed little boy is viewed as a surrogate grandson by one neighbor and a
potential window breaker by the next.
But the Bible is very
clear that no prophecy of Scripture is ever open to personal interpretation. We
don’t have to worry about what it means to us because the meaning is immovable.
We can beat on that door all day and it won’t change a thing. Rock solid.
Take-it-to-the-bank reliable. Praise God for His unchanging truth in a world
full of variables. . .and reoccurring fashions.
Sep 19, 2012
At
a recent wedding ceremony, the bride’s aunt read from a portion of scripture.
In front of family and friends gathered behind the young couple, she stated,
“God is not for immortality.” Oops. I had to elbow my chuckling husband, who
swallowed a laugh that resulted in a rather loud snort. The type that echoes in
a chapel filled with wooden pews. I can’t take that man anywhere.
The
difference on paper between immortality and immorality may be one single
letter, but the difference in meaning is enormous.
I
almost fell off my chair one Sunday when the pastor starting talking about
David’s continence. The first time he
said it, it was shocking. People in the congregation looked at each other, half
grinned and shrugged. The second time it was funny and people smothered their grins
behind hastily clasped tissues. The third time I had to elbow my college age
son who was noisily holding back laughter to the point of needing oxygen. He
gets that from his father. The fourth time the pastor said continence I almost
needed resuscitating myself.
Continence
and countenance may look a lot alike, but you just don’t talk about the former
from the pulpit on a Sunday morning. Not unless you want to hear to your
congregation strangling on suppressed laughter.
God
tells the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4:2, “You shall not add to
the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep
the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”
He’s not talking about the linguistic gymnastics of the English language, but
rather the purposeful twisting of the scriptures. God’s commands are crystal
clear. After all. . .what part of “thou shalt not” is open to interpretation?
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