It's Nacho Cat: Yummy Shower Water

Every morning, if she is not yet outside, Nacho hangs around our bathroom when we take showers. I have to wrestle with her as I get out, because as I'm coming out she wants in.

Nacho does not like to drink the water that we put in her water dish. The only water that she wants to drink is the water left over on the floor of the shower when we're done showering. It must be the smell of the soap or the shampoo or something, but she will drink as much of it as she can possibly get away with. (She's been known to do that in the toilet a time or two, but we generally keep the lid down to prevent it.)

Since I fight her and won't let her in the shower, after I walk away, she goes and licks all the water she can from around the crack of the shower door. Yes, it's gross, but I can't get her to stop doing it.

Now I've Seen Everything: Worship Mascots

My good friend Russ sent me an e-mail about what some churches have started doing to energize their worship services: Mascots.

You can read the whole article here.

I personally am comfortable with the need for churches to use marketing to make people aware of them. I think it's helpful in reaching the younger generation to have a good website, podcasts, and maybe even a nice logo. Using slides and powerpoint can really help connect with people who are visual learners. I'm also a fan of having upbeat, joyful singing and energetic speakers. We should be able to leave a worship service feeling like we worshiped.

But having people in costumes in the worship assembly jump around, raising the roof, and dancing to the music definitely makes me feel like a line is being crossed. Worship in so many congregations continues to try and compete with our entertainment-driven culture. I'm always left wondering, "What's next?"

In talking about the argument of how to interpret silence in scripture, I always mentioned using soda and cheeseburgers at communion as an example of something so absurd that everyone would agree it was improper. But now, what I thought was an absurd idea doesn't sound that far out. I can totally see these churches using grape soda and fresh hot cheese bread to make communion more exciting. Obviously, they've decided that the Scriptural ideas for worship aren't good enough.

I kind of hesitate to even make this post, because the last time I pointed out something I thought was utterly ridiculous in a local denomination, I started getting angry e-mails and messages from them, trying to argue with me. I'm not looking for a fight. I'm just saying that this is totally contrary with how Paul said assemblies are supposed to be.

Those who disagree with me are welcome to think whatever they want to think.

New PC Add

The first couple of adds with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld were received with mixed reviews. This seems to be the new direction the PC adds are going. I found it interesting and entertaining. What do you think?

Use Your Allusion: Penelope

Penelope is a key figure in Homer's Odyssey. Her husband Odysseus had been called away several years ago to fight in the Trojan War. They have a son together, Telemachus, who is with her. Because Odysseus has been gone for so long, many presume him to be dead. Penelope has numerous suitors who pester her day and night, wanting to marry her.

She comes up with several brilliant ways to delay them. One of which is that she claims that she cannot marry any of them until she finishes weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus' elderly father. This holds them off for three years, because every day she weaves on the shroud, but then every night, she unravels all the weaving that she had done that day. Eventually, her means of delaying them are discovered, and she is forced to come up with other ways.

At the end of the story, her husband returns home at first in secret, but then fights off the other suitors, in a display of his manliness involving stringing a bow that only he could.

Penelope is a great symbol of fidelity, as she refused to give up on her husband, and remained faithful to him. Penelope also makes a nice allusion when you speak of how she managed to delay her suitors by means of her weaving and unraveling the shroud.

Recently, a movie came out titled Penelope (2006) where Christina Ricci stars as a girl, born with a pig's snout, who has many potential suitors, but who has trouble finding one, because of her family's fear that she will be rejected because of her looks. She meets them secretly, behind a two-way mirror, trying to find a person she trusts enough to let see her face. Honestly, it was a great movie, that I thought communicated the importance of learning to love yourself, and not being so caught up in what society judges as beauty.

That's a huge cat

I was looking for pictures of cats to use as illustrations for a teen devo, and I saw this one. This is the biggest cat I've ever seen. Is this not terrifying?

It's Nacho Cat: Oh, How I Love DVR

At night, Carolina and I always sit together on our bed and watch the news. Nacho likes to come sit in between us and get attention. The other night I managed to slip the remote into her paws.

The greatest things that have happened to me in my life:
1. Christianity
2. My Family & Friends
3. My Job
4. Guitar
5. DVR

Being able to record, pause, and fast forward through TV has changed my life in meaningful ways. I don't think I can ever go back to not having it. I love having DVR.

Use Your Allusion: Madame Defarge

Madame Defarge is a fictional character from Charles Dickens' work A Tale of Two Cities. She is arguably the main villain of the book, and is a tireless worker in the French Revolution. She is a picture of scheming and bitterness.

She's used as a representative of the Greek Fates. The Fates would cut an individual string that represented each person's life. A person could not live longer than the Fates had determined, which was represented by their own string. Madame Defarge would always be knitting, and as she knit, in her mind, she would be knitting the names of those she wanted to die into her work.

In the story, she seeks the lives of Charles Darnay's family out of vengeance for the lives of several of her own family members.

Madame Defarge shows up as a character in Mel Brooks' movie A History Of The World: Part One. Humorously, in his version, she has run out of wool, so she just sits there rubbing her knitting needles together.

Most people who allude to Madame Defarge will be alluding to her scheming nature, and will most likely reference her knitting.

It's Nacho Cat: Beijing Gold

We keep the blinds slightly up in one of our bedrooms so that in the morning, Nacho can lay on the carpet on the spot that the sun has heated up.

You might notice her collar and name tag. Our friends were over a couple of weeks ago with a 3-year-old son. He saw Nacho's gold medal name tag and excitedly told his mother that Nacho had gotten a gold medal in the Beijing Olympics, which had been going on. I guess she's a world champion cat.

Use Your Allusion: Hester Prynne

Hester Prynne is a character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In it, Prynne is a woman who comes to the United States to live in a Puritan settlement in Boston. Her husband, who is much older than her, came ahead of her, but somehow never arrived and was presumed lost at sea. But Prynne has a daughter named Pearl, who is undoubtedly the product of an adulterous relationship. Hester Prynne is forced to always wear a red (scarlet) letter 'A' on her chest, which stands for her sin of adultery. Though the people insult her, mock her, and pressure her, she refuses to give the name of the one she had cheated with. If you haven't read it, I would rather not reveal how it all unfolds. But I will say that her husband shows up, concealing his identity from all but Prynne under the name of Chillingworth. He is driven to have his revenge on the one who committed this sin with his spouse.

It's a tough story, but the book was one of my favorites that we read in high school. Hester is really a good natured person who does many philanthropic things, but because of her mistake she is always scorned by the other settlers. Though she has made a bad decision, the book really evokes a lot of sympathy from the reader. This story is a good one in reflecting on the need for forgiveness and grace toward other people. It's also a powerful picture of what guilt can do to a person when sin is not brought to light. Though Hester is scorned, at least she has confessed. Her partner in adultery is widely respected, but is emotionally torn up every time he sees her be mocked. He knows he deserves it as much as she. Much of the story is him trying to gain the courage to confront his own sin.

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With a lot of high profile affairs and unwed pregnancies in the political realm lately, Hester Prynne is a name that might be alluded to a lot in the near future.

It's Nacho Cat: Majestic

Our friends the Millers were over at our house to get some leftover packaging materials we had, as they are getting ready to move. Nacho was in entertainment mode, as she frequently is when we have company. Once the kids stopped petting her and we made our way outside to the car, Nacho went around back where she uses the deck rail to hop on top of our house. She showed up around front and several times acted like she was going to jump all the way down to the porch. But then she walked up to the corner of the roof. Nathan remarked, "That would make an awesome picture." I whipped out my cell phone. Here's the result.