This Week in God
First off, I’d like to announce the proud winners of my iPhone Giveaway!
Natalie was the first to claim the empty can of Guru, so she’s now the proud virtual owner of an empty piece of metal! Congrats, Natalie!
Bethany wins the empty bottle of SmartWater, and has graciously offered a trade: I get to keep the bottle (the possibilities!) in exchange for adding a link to her blog. Done and done.
Kara, who lives in New Zealand, wins the passes to Equinox Gym in New York City! Hooray for Kara and the useless passes!
And Felicity wins the t-shirt, which she may or may not share with Serenity.
Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks for playing. Kara and Felicity, could you send me your addresses?
Moving on.
The New Yorker stirred up quite the controversy this week with its recent cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama in traditional Muslim garb, burning an American flag, presumably posing as terrorists. The cover cheesed off Muslims and pretty much everyone else, and though the magazine maintains the cover is meant to be satire, my copy of this week’s magazine is going straight where it belongs: Into the pile with all the other unread New Yorkers, where it will stay until I get stressed out by the stack and throw the all in the recycling bin. Take that, terrorists.
Boy was I glad that I was out of town and therefore not trying to walk anywhere near my office on 34th Street on Monday. I somehow managed to escape the Hugging Saint. Mata Amritanandamayi, who claims to have hugged 27 million people, made a stop in New York this week, where crowds of people waited in line for hours on 34th street and didn’t even get an iPhone at the end of it all. Apparently they just lined up to get hugs. Makes perfect sense.
Serenity Prayer (“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…”) is under attack! Or, actually, just the authorship of it is. Apparently there’s some doubt that the theologian who is said to have written the prayer actually did so, which ruined the serenity of people who care about such things this week.
And Yoko Ono, haven’t you done enough already? I didn’t think it could get worse than breaking up the Beatles, but her lawsuit over the use of John Lennon’s song “Imagine” in Ben Stein’s movie Expelled, (we talked about it here), about Intelligent Design, meant the film had to be pulled out of theaters. Thankfully (?) the case has been dismissed, the movie is being re-released, and Yoko Ono can go back to being the one who ruined it for all of us.
By the way, I saw Kirk Cameron this week. Sadly, I didn't have enough time to stand in line for his autograph, and I somehow missed Tootie from the Facts of Life as well, but to even be in the same room with such greatness...
14 comments:
First you take on a perfectly harmless Holy Land Experience and now Kirk Cameron? Really, Anne, I don't know if the blasphemy can get any worse! :)
I'm emailing you my address. Thanks!
Hey! I find that insulting to my hard won gym pass.
PO Box 10509
Wellington 6143
New Zealand
And yes I realise everyone can see that but seriously, if you would like to come all the way to New Zealand to stalk my PO Box, please feel free.
Actually, while you're there would you mind clearing my mail? Since I'm plainly too lazy to send a separate email with my address in it, I'm sure you guess how often that gets done...
Thanks for the shout out!
OK. My Kirk crush has no bounds. There is nothing he can do, no matter how nutty, that will make me forget kissing his poster. I am still a little dissapointed he married someone else...
I blogged on the Obama cover (www.cooperationcrisis.blogspot.com) and plan to blog once more this weekend after having numerous discussions with friends about it. The talk and thought it's generated has been astonishing...
And Kirk Cameron. Dear me. The poor, poor man. As is true with many Christians (including myself), once we become Christians, we go through this strange period where we're zealously, even offensively, about converting others, smugly and childishly high on our own having "gotten it" - and then our faith matures, we settle in, we change, we grow, as does our faith. And Kirk, unfortunately, never wiggled his way out of that post-conversion stage. Or so it seems to me. Alas...
It would be so awesome if you did a video blog with an interview of Kirk Cameron. You could ask him all kind of out of the box questions like Chelsea Handler or Stephen Colbert ask their guests. It would be too funny. Anyhow...good links.
You SAW KIRK CAMERON???? And you didn't take a picture with your new iPhone???? I've had the Kirk-crush since about 6th grade. A few years ago I saw a shirt with his face (from the Growing Pains years) on it, and I kick myself all the time for not buying it.
The Hugging Saint is my baby sister's worst nightmare. She seriously hates to be hugged. Weird, right?
But the funny thing was, we grew up Southern. People hug when they MEET each other.
This may be why she moved to D.C....
Okay. I'm disappointed you didn't get Kirk's autograph because then you could have put that on your blog, so I could win THAT. But I understand the time thing. Plus, you're spending enough in shipping from the last contest you ran. I confess though I cannot get on board with the head shaking toward this guy's passion. I'm certainly not going to join him, but that's because I don't like talking about hell and I like the quieter, less urgent, and truthfully probably wimpier form of evangelism where you just try to preach with your life. But, seriously, If the guy wants to spend all of his waking days trying to talk people into Jesus, do we really want to stop him? I mean, maybe the spreading of the gospel is like sports - where some people respond better to the tough love. More power to him, I say. And also, show me that smile.
The Hugging Saint is a kind of walking miracle, to my mind - a vessel of God, really, however overstated that might sound. She was one of a handful of religious leaders and gurus profiled at length in an illuminating documentary called In God's Name which aired awhile back on (I think) CBS. (Others profiled and interviewed included none other than the Pope and the Dalai Lama...) And my wife and I were almost in tears to see this woman who has devoted her life to hugging people who need to be hugged. We live in such an isolationist world. 3/4 into my M.A. program, it dawned on me one morning during our house church meeting (as we discussed these barriers between human beings) that I had never touched or been touched by (hugged, shaken the hand, patted the shoulder, whatever) either my friend Becky or my friend Amy. Almost two years knowing them, becoming friends, even good friends, with them - and never a single touch of any kind, as though I'd been in a glass bubble that whole time. Ours has become such an impersonal world that we feel curious about even brushing up against others. And here is this woman who does nothing but hug and comfort people...sometimes for upwards of sixteen hours a day without a break. People cry on her shoulder, this woman whom none of them had ever met, and I suspect they're often crying on her shoulder because her shoulder, offered as it is, makes them realize no other shoulders offer themselves to be cried on in their busy tunnel-visioned lives. She's a blessing to the world, I think (although squeamishness is understandable, May, as regards your sister - I'm a germaphobe and taking money from the hands of others at the bookstore can sometimes cause me fits of panic)...
Wow. Lots of good points here. Serenity, I really liked your comment. We've done our share of Kirk Cameron bashing here (I mean, did you see his board game?) but you're right, the fact that he's dedicated his life to serving God is worthy of respect, even if he did star in Left Behind.
And Jason, I think you're right about the Hugging Guru, though I still don't want her to touch me.
Lol! The board game? Well, he's just trying to make my defense of him difficult. Believe me, I'm with you on the general feeling. I made a rash comment against the Left Behind stuff at my mother-in-law's once. Turns out she had just bought me the movie as a gift and it was sitting wrapped in her closet as I spoke! Oi, I felt bad about that one. She went ahead and gave it to me. :)
Very interesting about the hugging saint. What ever happened to greeting each other at church with a holy kiss? Anne, this might send you over the edge if you don't even like hugging people you don't know very well. And I suppose some would take it too far (eww...) but just a tiny bit of physical contact can be so nice. One of the things I miss from my French life is greeting each other with the double kiss. You don't even have to actually touch lips to skin--just the cheek against cheek feels so good. I wish we'd get back to doing that at church. It would remind us that we're all kissing cousins in the family of God.
Okay, here's some shameless plugging of my blog, but I think you will appreciate it.
First, you have to be at least a little bit literary to get the pros and cons lists, and being a history fan helps too. You also have to be a tad whimsical and given to fantasy. And having a sense of humor and being Christian helps too. See! You meet all the criteria in leaps and bounds!
PLUS!! The most recent man worth marrying is KIRK CAMERON!!! Cool, huh? :o)
Menworthmarrying.blogspot.com
ANNE! Thanks for commenting on my blog. You rock.
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