Calvin can be funny!

Explains so much.

But admit it, you were expecting Calvin and Hobbes.  Sorry about that.

HT: Regina!

Dog Day Summer Meme

Mary in London tagged me for this, and it's summer--we've haven't had a meme in a long time--so here we go! My five favorite devotions:

• The Sacred Heart of Jesus
• The Jesus prayer
• Novena to the Holy Spirit before Pentecost
  
• Eucharistic adoration
• Just calling upon my saint friends for prayers

And I tag:
Adoro
Korrektiv
Transcendental Musings
Happy Catholic
Chocolate for your Brain

When The Saints Go Marching In

Quick: New Orleans Saint or Catholic Saint? quiz.

(I'll be honest--I flunked this one. But it's fun.)

HT to Neatogeek.

Rick-rolled...by the Bible?

Yes, the verses to 1987's "Never Going To Give You Up," by Rick Astley, Bible-styled.

The whole song treated here, the actual song here (oh right....), and an explanation of the phenomenon here. And a big HT to Bismuth!

Never gonna give you up
John 10:27,28 - [Jesus Said] My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.

Never gonna let you down
2 Timothy 2:13a - if we are faithless, [Jesus] will remain faithful

Never gonna run around and desert you
Judges 2:1
The angel of the LORD ... said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you,

Never gonna make you cry
Revelation 21:4 - He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Never gonna say goodbye
Hebrews 13:5b - God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
1 Samuel 15:29 - He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind.

What did YOU do this Monday of Holy Week?

First, you woke up, and got really excited about...
a. Traveling with the other diocesan faithful to participate in the Chrism Mass
b. Guessing who was going to throw out the first pitch
c. Wondering if UNC deserved a single digit or double digit point spread over Michigan State

Then, upon reflection, you thought the piece you looked forward to most this week is...
a. The baptism and confirmation of all the RCIA candidates
b. Seeing whether the American League or National League gets busted for steroids first this season
c. The big honking celebration parade in Chapel Hill, y'all

All psyched for the day, you got dressed in...

a. Your Sunday attire

b. The home team's shirt and sweatpants

c. Facepaint

Your favorite part of the festivities Monday was...
a. Well, of course, the Eucharist. But then the reaffirmation of priestly vows
b. Eating the first overpriced hot dog

c. Waiting and watching for a slam dunk this game. You have a 10 spot on it

The most thrilling line was...

a. The Lord be with you!

b. Play ball!

c. #$&%$^%! (probably from Coach Tom Izzo)

Saturday Fun: Happy First Day of Spring!

You Are Blooming Flowers

You are an optimistic person by nature. In even the darkest times, you are hopeful about the future. You feel truly blessed in life and can sometimes be overwhelmed with emotions. You have an artist's eye. You are always looking for beauty in the mundane. You have a good sense of aesthetics, especially when it comes to shapes and color.

What Part of Spring Are You?

That's a nice result, although I don't know that it is true.

Saturday fun: Don't want to be a theologian?

You Are a Calculator

No matter what someone tells you, you're likely to focus on facts and data. You're a highly analytic person. You are only concerned with what you can know for sure. (Yikes.) You look at situations objectively, and you have no problem approaching problems from multiple angles. You would make a good analyst or investment banker. (Again, yikes!!!) You are confident enough to make tough calls and hard decisions.

What Office Supply Are You?

Suddenly being a theologian and thinking about deep mysteries sounds peachy.

Sadly, my blog is a wanton floozy

Meyers-Briggs testing has made its way into the blogosphere. Try it out here.

However, a warning: the Ironic Catholic blog came out as...

The analysis indicates that the author of http://ironiccatholic.blogspot.com is of the type:
ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

Well, OK. First, the image communicates straight off that my blog is a wanton floozy. And why is that drink bubbling? Are we talking alcohol mixed with alka seltzer, love potion, or what?

But secondly, I've taken the Meyers-Briggs recently, and I came out as an INTJ. That's right, my personality is the EXACT opposite of my blog.

The mind boggles.

But have fun. You know you want to check out your blog's personality type. Go...don't mind my existential crisis here....

(HT: Stella Borealis)

p.s. Praying at NaPraGoMo may make me feel better.
Or these Meyers-Briggs prayers (a joke) may help.

Tuesday fun

The undergraduate grading is done. Whew. Now I just have to catch up on everything else to be ready for classes this week.

So, to wade back in to posting here, a depth issue: which kind of condiment am I?

You Are Barbeque Sauce

You are a social person. You enjoy cooking for other people. You are both skillful and competitive. You enjoy mastering hard tasks. You appreciate complexity more than simplicity. Your taste in food tends to lean toward interesting flavors. You appreciate exotic spice combinations. You tend to like cutting edge, fusion cuisine. You get along with all personalities from a distance. Except salsa personalities, which always seem to annoy you.

Which Condiment Are You?

Hat tip to Happy Catholic.

Monday fun

Ever have a really bad Monday? Well, its not like I live in Galveston. But welcome to me today. So some mindless fun for all of us:

Apparently I am a...large colorblock.



Feel better now?

100 Books meme

I last saw this at Adoro Te Devote.

Bold--I've read it.
Highlighted--I want to.
Nuttin'--I don't care.
Dripping with blood--you give it to me, I'll burn it instead.

1.Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (I actually performed this as part of High School Forensics. All humility aside, I was really good at it.)
6. The Bible (duh)
7. Wuthering Heights --Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (even though I was taking high school lit classes in...1984....)
9. His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (Read half of it. A real page turner.)
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (- well, not all of them.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (again--just not impressed.)
19. The Time Traveller's Wife -
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot (My grad school apartment-mate's favorite novel, and she was doing a masters in English Lit. It still isn't enough to tempt me.)
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (despite my husband's pleas)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll –
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres –
.38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (because I don't read airport novels)
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
51. Dune - Frank Herbert
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (I would never, never read this again, simply for the haunting character of the first fifty pages [a young teen describing herself getting raped and killed]. I literally couldn't sleep that night after reading it.)
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding (Well, started it. Realized it was claptrap. Dropped it.)
68. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (This is the most overrated novel of American literature. In my humble opinion.)
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (One of my favorite books a a girl.)
73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses - James Joyce
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath Not for the faint of heart.
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal - Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession - AS Byatt
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte's Web - EB White
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (believe it or not. Haven't read it.)
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (well, portions of it)
91. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (I know people who adore this, but I don't really get it.)
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
93. Watership Down - Richard Adams
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (once again, portions of it)
9. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
100.The Outsiders

I feel like a flunky now. Could we have a theological and philosophical texts list?

I tag whomever wants to play.

Catching up from vacation

1. St. Lawrence Church in Fairhope, AL appears to be one kickin' parish. It's also my mom's. I am pretty dang impressed by the spirit of the place--traditional and "modern", reverent, and very involved with the local community--every time I attend. I wish I had pictures of the interior of the church: beautiful and theologically thoughtful.
   
2. Memphis style BBQ is great. But not exactly ideal "eat and run" airport food.
3. Does anyone else call a day trip to the oceanfront with three kids, none of whom are great swimmers, as "7 hours cheating death"? (We survived and had fun.)
4. I came back to find fellow blogger Meredith Gould's new book, The Word Made Fresh: Communicating Church and Faith Today, in my mail. Thanks for the copy, Meredith! And congrats. It looks like a fantastic book on communication for pastoral ministers (the spiritual and practical combined, with Meredith's flair for writing).
5. Also: Paul at Alive and Young passed his exams and received an M.A. in Theology from Notre Dame. Congrats!
   
6. The "6 quirks meme" that Deacon Scott, Korrektiv, and Alex tagged me with: Look, I have no quirks. None, I tell you! Whatever qualifies as a quirk, I've confessed elsewhere on the blog, and I' would have to start adopting quirks to do this meme. I haven't sunk to this point. Yet.

But if I were to adopt quirks, I'd whistle Gregorian chant in the elevator, start each class with liturgical dance, start each morning with a V-8, alternate my southern accent (which I can recall in a flash) with a cockney accent every other sentence, refuse to read theologians unless their names contain the letter K, and sign my name in Greek. That would be fun.

Peace, IC

Not to brag, but...

You Are Incredibly Virtuous

You're so good that you may end up a saint. You do the right thing a lot more than most people, even when it's near impossible. You put a lot of thought in to every action you do. You always try to make the right decisions. And that's all it takes to be a truly virtuous person. Where You Are Virtuous You have the virtue of Sincerity. You are not deceitful, and you always have the best intentions. You have the virtue of Humility. You don't boast or brag. You have the virtue of Moderation. You don't do anything at excess, and you avoid extremes You have the virtue of Temperance. You don't eat or drink excessively. You have the virtue of Silence. You avoid frivolous conversation, and you use your words carefully. You have the virtue of tranquility. You do your best to keep your life peaceful and calm.

Are You Virtuous?

Saturday Varia

I'm officially horrified.

HT Catholic Vision....

AND...Prayers for sic appreciated. He's on a weekend retreat.

The Saturday Meme and Quiz

I got tagged (lo, in LENT by one!) by two great folks (Mulier Fortis and Meredith Gould) to name yet more quirks about myself. The guilt has caught up with me. I'm running out of oddities to share, but I've saved a few (true) whoppers for this one. Here we go:

• When tagged place the name and URL on your blog.
• Post rules on your blog.
• Write 7 non-important things/habit/quirks about yourself.
• Name 7 of your favorite blogs.
• Send an email/comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged.

1. When I was a child, my family was gassed by a person robbing our house. (We were are fine afterwards.)

2. I work in an office that used to be part of a chapel on our campus. The bishop at that time was shot and wounded by a mentally unstable priest in that chapel. So I can honestly say: a bishop was shot in my office (decades ago! and not by me!).

3. I play, badly, three stringed instruments.

4. One of my colleagues from grad school? His wife was Garth Brooks' manager.

5. I finished my dissertation at a monastery (St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, MN).

6. I'm a Catholic Worker.

7. I used the Bradley method for all three times I gave birth. (Think the super organic hippie no painkillers crowd--but it really worked.)

I tag anyone who wants to play. I think this one has really gotten around by this point.

And for fun: When people ask, What kind of nut are you? ...now I know...

You Are a Walnut

You are down to earth and genuine. Responsible and practical, you are a grown up in all aspects of your life. You probably eat a healthy diet and get enough exercise. And while you're not wild, you're not boring either. You're actually very deep and interesting.

What Nut Are You?

The Saturday Meme

This rather cool one is called The Parable Meme, and I was tagged by 50 Days Later.

Here we go:

1. You name your five favorite parables
2. You tag one blogger per parable.
3. It would be nice if you linked back to this post.

I love the parables that focus on mercy and totally giving oneself to God. I mean, they're ALL good, but...

1. Selling all you have for the pearl of great price
2. The Pharisee and the Publican
3. The 11th hour workers in the Vineyard
4. The Prodigal Son
5. The rich man and the beggar Lazarus (which I find hard to call a "favorite," but it challenges me more than any other)

I tag anyone who wants to play--let me know in the comments and I'll give you the link.

(I'd love to do this meme with healing stories from the Gospels...maybe after Easter!)

Church Applies Rorschach Screening Process to Catechumens

San Diego, CA: In a controversial move, St. Polycarp Church downtown has decided to screen catechumens--people discerning to enter the Catholic Church--using the psychological tool of interpreting Rorschach blots.

"Really, I think this can be a welcoming moment. All this is, honestly, is a formative tool in the RCIA process," argued the parish Pastoral Associate Jean Webber. "We're not throwing anyone out based on one weird reading. We just wanted an opportunity to provide feedback, areas within the Christian life they should work on as they move to full communion with Christ through the Church."

A sample of the test follows.

What do you see when looking at this picture?
Please choose the answer that most closely matches your impression:

a. a dead bat
b. some Flannery O'Connor character being raptured
c. the Angel of Death from the Exodus, and he's coming after me
d. the ink smudge I'm going to throw on the liturgical music as soon as I infiltrate the ranks

a. two people in love, gazing
b. a man and woman saying wedding vows, witnessed by a holy butterfly
c. a person seeing into the mirror of his soul, questioning why he should not strangle any given priest for this bizarre RCIA process
d. liturgical dancers wearing red feathers, baptizing a red bird aflutter over the font

a. two elephants kissing each other
b. a contemporary white church escaping the evil earth by shooting up into outer space at night, reaching for the heavens.
c. somebody being martyred by black Satanic puppies
d. animal sacrifice. I want some of that action.

a. an eagle in flight carrying a turtle
b. an abstract representation of the Trinity: three sets of wings, one body. Like the shamrock, but more goth.
c. the Pope, flying straight for my head. He wants to pluck my eyes out.
d. a perfect template for a felt banner I want to create for the ambo for Pentecost!

The suggested scoring is as follows:
Mostly a answers: Welcome to the Church!
Mostly b answers: You have your heart in the right place, but a few more CCD classes for you.
Mostly c answers: We welcome you as a brother or sister in Christ, but warmly recommend psychotropic meds before Easter Vigil.
Mostly d answers: You know, the greatest saints come from the greatest sinners. So, um, welcome, and let us refer you to our awesome anger management classes!

Representatives of the Diocese said that the process was currently under review.
--I.C.

Humor-Blogs.com is a Flannery O'Connor character being raptured, every day.

Catchin' Up Saturday

Let's call this the meme/award/plug/update on life blow-out post of the year.

Awards
A number of blogs (just another day of catholic pondering, the mommy memoir, Nunblog, We Belong to the Lord) named me as an E for Excellent Blog. How sweet and cool is that. I thank you and return the link love! But I just can't choose 10 blogs to pass this along to: I nearly broke into hives nominating solitary blogs for the Catholic Blog Awards categories. So I am like those people who break a chain letter: courageous, or stick-in-the-muds who can't have a good time. Your choice, folks.

Maddy McEwen, Catholic ex-pat living across the pond and commenter extraordinaire, named me a Blog Friend Forever on her autism blog. Awww. Thanks, Maddy. But see the comment above. I can't handle the blog friend pressure!

Meme
Chased by Children chased me down me with a meme a few weeks ago, asking me to expose my quirks to the world. Gee, I've always wanted to do just that! Let's rename them...charming idiosyncrasies.

The rules for this "6 quirks" meme are:
(1) Link to the person that tagged you.
(2) List the rules on your blog.
(3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
(4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
(5) Let each random person know they have been tagged.

Ok, here goes, 6 unimportant things/habits/quirks:

1. I save Diet Coke bottle caps like talismans of my addiction, spreading them wherever I go.
2. I have a weird laugh. People pick me out in a crowd through my laugh.
3. I can play a mountain dulcimer.
4. When I write on the board (I'm a professor, remember?), I tap the word I am about to discuss three times. Some subtle trinitarian influence popping out, I think.
   
5. I aspire to shop at the town co-op for entirely local food, when I can afford it. Now that's irony.
   
6. I really despise pork. God knew what He was doing on that dietary law.
   

The world can rest in peace now that this knowledge has been made public. Play along if you need public therapy as well.

Plug

Yes, some of the Humor-Blogs.com clan are gunning for The Onion. This is a brand spanking new online humor magazine, and some of the articles are quite good, in my opinion. Definitely PG-13 stuff (you've been warned). If you enjoy the Onion, you want to give this a look.

Update
It's been a bit of a rough month with family illnesses and a few challenges in my immediate surrounding world, but at the moment, everyone in the family is well, and those challenges have come out better than I could have expected. Even if everything had flopped and we were still sick, God is good. But to have a space to breathe and say, Thank you, God, you are so very good! is such a blessing. I love sabbaths.

Plus I get to go to see one of my favorite humorists--Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion--today! He's doing the show three blocks from where I live! So listen in for the woman with the weird laugh in the audience.

On that note, one of my favorite "smile and enjoy our good God" songs...and a really fun Christian adaptation from the Doobie Brothers' song of my youth. Plus, Take 6 is completely awesome. If you are registered (it's free!) on Imeem, go there and listen to the whole song. You cannot listen to this song and not smile. Here's the clip:

The Saturday Meme

Tagged by the dastardly bunch at Korrektiv.

Rules: Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Book: Fighting with Gandhi, by Mark Juergensmeyer.
(...in a chapter where Gandhi fictionally speaks with Freud, the conversation is about if Gandhi represses anger, like all those other saints and penitants.)

Gandhi (pleased at the comparison): Such company! But surely I don't belong.
Freud: You belong.

OK! Well, if you want to have fun with it: I tag Adoro te Devote, Stella Borealis, Julie the Happy Catholic, Chased by Children, and Sr. Susan at Musings.

My Personal Top Ten Posts of 2007

Tagged by the Crescat. I'll stick to the original written pieces, maybe not the best ones, but ones I liked writing nonetheless--and sorry, I liked eleven and didn't know which to cut.

1. The Catalytic Converter Conspiracy Unveiled
2. If JK Rowling Converted to Catholicism and Wrote Book 7
3. "Monday Morning Homiletics" Show Draws Calls, Criticism
4. Dirtyness Is Next To Godliness
5. Liturgists Flood Rehab Post-Easter Triduum
6. Catholic College Scores Slip One Letter Grade After Warm Weekend
7. A Catholic Knows Its Humid When...
8. Talk Like A Pirate Getting Baptized
9. Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? An abysmally cute kitten responds.
10. Luther's Theses That "Didn't Make The Cut" Discovered
11. RBCU Professor Interviewed on "Preferential Option for the Poor"

I tag whomever wants to play....