Showing posts with label Truth Is Stranger.... Show all posts
Showing posts with label Truth Is Stranger.... Show all posts

Friday, May 30, 2014

Truth Is Stranger #137: The Biker Bishop Rides On


Watch out, Sturgis!

The New Evangelization arrives on a Harley....

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Blast from the past: Truth Is Stranger and Stranger indeed this Halloween....


Just in time for school fundraisers and Halloween! The "Confections with a Mission": "O Sweet Jesus" candy (from a now defunct company. Sniff)

"The Divine Taste of Scripture in Every Bite". I'll bet it's exactly like Ezekiel eating the lamentations of the Lord and saying they tasted like honey to the mouth.

So picture this Halloween:
Trick or Treat!
--Hey kids. Cute outfits. Here ya go.
(They rip open candy) Hey, this says...if your right hand causes you to sin, chop it off and throw it into the fires of Gehenna! Cool! Great caramel taste, too!
(From 2008)

Friday, May 03, 2013

Truth Is Stranger #136: The Purity Communion Dispenser





And, yes, the minister isn't Catholic, but still.

Behold the Sacred Pez Dispenser...ugh.   I'll take a germ for Jesus, thanks.  I'm martyr-like that way.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Truth Is Stranger #133: It's Friday, It's Lent, Let's Roast a Gator!.

Alligator is considered a "fish" and may be eaten during those abstinence from meat Fridays.

Well, thank goodness, since I have a few pounds of it in the freezer.  You know, unless I get inspired to get a spear and catch one myself.


Or maybe I'll just fast instead.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Truth Is Stranger #132: "I Give God 10%. Why Do You Get 18%?"

A man claiming to be a pastor apparently tried to stiff a waiter on a tip, explaining that his work for God absolved him of having to leave one.

A photo of the receipt, posted to Reddit.com, shows a bill for $34.93 with an automatic 18 percent gratuity (or $6.29) added above a blank space for an additional tip. "I give God 10%," the diner wrote on the receipt, scratching out the automatic tip. "Why do you get 18?" He then wrote "Pastor" above his signature, and an emphatic "0" where the additional tip would be. (The automatic gratuity, however, had already been added to the total.)
While it's kind of funny...not exactly the way to model generosity, Pastor 10%.  Sigh.

More here.

Saturday, December 01, 2012

Truth is Stranger + Caption Contest

...because I can't decide.

Of course there is a logical explanation for this...or an explanation, anyway....

Um.  Ok.  Sure.  I hope there was popcorn.

HT The Deacon's Bench.

And comment away....

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Truth Is Stranger #131: The Sistine Chapel Belongs In America, Darn It! Let's "Can-Do" This!

OK, I just got back from the American Academy of Religion meeting in Chicago, where thousands of academic professionals in religious studies and theology meet and eat overpriced book and salivate in the book exhibit and deliver papers with discussion.

One of the things advertised--which I never saw given the immensity of McCormick Center and my limited time there--was a recreation of the Sistine Chapel ceiling (500th anniversary ya know). I can't help but be reminded of the joke in Nashville about that city's life-sized Parthenon replica, made of sandstone rather than marble but otherwise identical: "Our Parthenon is just like that one over in Greece, only newer!" Anyway, The AAR may be disappointed to know recreating the ceiling has been done already:



Man Paints Sistine Chapel on Living Room Ceiling

(My favorite part?  ELVIS is in the room!  Look closely!)

(Second favorite part?  That ceiling fan, because everyone has thought: if only the Sistine Chapel has a ceiling fan to accent the art!  Ah, but if it were only four pronged--it would be a nice cross image....)

Friday, September 07, 2012

"Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction" segment gives it up for the DNC

(Clap. Clap. Clap.)

I want to open this by saying I am neither a Republican or a Democrat, and have big problems with both parties.  I paid more attention to the DNC just because my schedule allowed it.

But when we watch a political convention under political duress force the word "God" back into the party platform despite not having the votes from their own party, and Caroline Kennedy stand and say with apparently no irony (or logic) "As a Catholic, I take reproductive health seriously, and today it is under attack"* I think I can retire the "Truth is Stranger Than Fiction" segment of this blog.  I couldn't make this stuff up.

p.s. Best "as it happens" FB commentary by two friends:
--Eh, we're watching America's Got Talent.
--Well, I'm watching "America's Going to Hell in a Handbasket"
Ka-boom.


*To try to quell the inevitable argument: Of course we take health seriously.  Including reproductive health.  Contraception on demand is not health care.  Duh.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Divine irony at work

Forgot to mention one insanely ironic comment on our travels abroad:

We were worried about coming home.  Kiev to Minnesota, two connections, car rides, you name it.  With a new child who was at the time kind of freaking out--and too small (and disabled) to sit in an airline seat well, so we had to hold him, which he didn't like, AND he tended to throw whatever he could get his hands on forward into people's faces...I'm going to spare you the details but we were intensely worried that we would never be allowed on a plane again and would traumatize the rest of the passengers.  So we prayed, and asked others to pray, as they never had before for divine intervention for an OK flight for our little one (and us, and other passengers).

We nervously got on our "big leg" of the journey--a 9 hr flight from Munich to Chicago.  First, bulkhead seats, thank God!!!  (Nipped that throwing issue, mostly!)  Next, a nun in full habit came and sat next to us.  Finally, the rows behind us were filled with pilgrims returning from Medjugorje.  (We know because one nice lady tried to evangelize us.)

Now THAT'S divine irony at work.


Wednesday, April 25, 2012

What they don't tell you in pre-Cana

Last Sunday, I was a little stressed.  OK, a lot.  For reasons not having to do with my family.

Had a brisk and grumpy conversation with my husband on the way home from church.  At one point, we're figuring out breakfast prep, and have a conversation about bacon.

We pull into the driveway.  I just sit there.

My husband kindly begins rubbing my shoulders.  I start to relax.

After a minute, I say "So you knew I was that stressed, huh?"

And he responded, "Well, no. I was just thinking about bacon."

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Truth is Stranger #130: File Sharing is a religion...in Sweden

From the BBC, via The Deacon's Bench:

Sweden recognises new file-sharing religion Kopimism

A "church" whose central tenet is the right to file-share has been formally recognised by the Swedish government.

The Church of Kopimism claims that "kopyacting" - sharing information through copying - is akin to a religious service.

The "spiritual leader" of the church said recognition was a "large step".

...

The church, which holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V (shortcuts for copy and paste) as sacred symbols, does not directly promote illegal file sharing, focusing instead on the open distribution of knowledge to all.

It was founded by 19-year-old philosophy student and leader Isak Gerson. He hopes that file-sharing will now be given religious protection.

"For the Church of Kopimism, information is holy and copying is a sacrament. Information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore copying is central for the organisation and its members," he said in a statement.


You know, just when you begin to despair regarding religion's intersection with modern culture, a group of wackjobs creates such an inane definition of a religion that all the major religious traditions' stock goes way (way, way, way) up.

But: is using Creative Commons now idolatry?



More here.

Sunday, January 01, 2012

Kids Still Say the Darnedst Things (Aiii Yah! edition)

During family catechesis on the Solemnity of Mary, Most Holy Mother of God:

Me: See this picture of Mary? We call this one "Our Lady of Grace".

Chic #2 (9 yr old): Oh, look, Mom. She has a belt on in this one, so does that mean she's pregnant in this picture? (She's connecting with Our Lady of Guadalupe, FYI)

Chic #3 (6 yr old): Oh, I don't think so. I think this means she really likes karate!

(The symbolic possibilities abound....)

Friday, December 30, 2011

Truth Is Stranger #129: Let My Angora Goats Go! Or just get into the spirit of things and give birth already.

Animals must have their own interpretive takes on the perennial live nativities. But rarely are they so eloquently expressed....

First: a goat who thought he was signing up for the Exodus story.

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) — A goat that apparently didn't want to be part of a Minnesota Nativity scene has headed for greener pastures.

The 3-year-old Angora goat was supposed to have a supporting role at Bethlehem Church in Fergus Falls. Instead it escaped its leash Saturday afternoon....

More here on the lamb on the lam. (OK, it's a goat, but it should be lamb anyway.)


Second: "Uh Mom, what's that sheep doing?" "Hush, dear, sing Silent Night with us."

CINCINNATI (AP) — A lamb has been born unto a Cincinnati nativity display.

The Krohn Conservatory says that a night watchman oversaw the Christmas Eve delivery for a sheep that was part of the live-animal display. ....

More here. And at least they aren't naming the lamb "Jesus."

Monday, November 07, 2011

Truth Is Stranger #128: So much classier than having the rosary hanging from the rear view mirror


What you never realized you needed--the steering wheel rosary. For sale for just $45.

Complete with the "Forget sorrowful, I'm stuck in traffic hell mysteries".
(No...Joke!)

HT: Ship O'Fools.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Truth Is Stranger #127: Go have the ride of your death

The apocalypse is nigh. I'm not kidding.

"The Euthanasia Roller Coaster": According to Urbonas, the "Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetic euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely -- with elegance and euphoria -- take the life of a human being." [...]

"There is no special ritual, nor is death given special meaning except that of the legal procedures and psychological preparation. It is like death is divorced from our cultural life…" Urbonas writes. "…But if it is already legal, why not to make it more meaningful?"

Link

I'd say this is twisted, but this is so sick that even that pun is inappropriate. Someone please tell me this guy is kidding.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Truth Is Stranger #126: Sentenced to Church Attendance

BAY MINETTE, Ala. (AP) — Authorities say non-violent offenders in southern Alabama will have a new choice: Go to jail, or go to church every Sunday for a year.

WKRG-TV reports (http://bit.ly/qpxXJX) that Operation Restore Our Community begins next week....

More here. I have no idea if this is constitutional, but I think it's kinda cool.

My big question is how many people will choose jail--or be the first convict to quip to the judge "Geez, judge, what's the difference?"