If the towel dispenser is empty...

1
If the towel dispenser is empty...

... please use your clothes.

There's nothing quite like putting your hands under an electronic soap dispenser, hearing a motor whir, and nothing comes out, and repeating the process from sink to sink until you reach the electronic paper towel dispenser that is out of paper towels.

The old days may have had more germs, but at least you knew when you were out of soap and paper towels.

[2012-10-04]

2
When you discipline a child...

... it's to help them grow up into a responsible adult.

When you discipline an adult, it's because they never did.

The first sort is hopeful and loving and exhausting.

The second is just exhausting.

[2012-10-03]

3
Say something else in that ear.

 

The best advice comes through example.

Do you get up every morning saying "I'm going to be human today. I'm going to walk on two legs and eat and talk and admire the daisies" ? Neither do I get up every morning saying "I'm going to be an angel today."

If you are really one thing, you can't be another.

-- Clarence 0

c0

Fictianity

1
Fictianity

At approximately 8:20am ET on a nationally syndicated Christian radio network, I heard a regular host and guest, a woman and a man, commiserating over photo ID voting laws (supporting them); the woman ended the segment by saying she would go one step further and make the ability to speak English a requirement to vote.

Is this an aberration or truly the depth to which fundamentalist Christianity has sunk?

I can only imagine she was pulling an Ann Coulter and being hyperbolic to make a point (so over-the-top that you know she's not drinking her own Kool-Aid but she won't step out of character because that would end the illusion).

I don't need to mention names. Tune around the dial and drop in on some fundamentalist Christian programming. It'll only take a few hours over the course of a week to get earful of thinly veiled racist and homophobic and sometimes just plain mean-spirited Christianity.[1]

Which is IMHO not Christianity at all.

What to call it?

Howabout Fictianity

(Although I just invented it, I Googled it and it's not new with me; it appeared in 2008 on a blog called "A Single Denarius"; I have no connection with that blog and only read that posting.)

I also like Simtianity, sim-chee-anity (as in Sim City, simulation, etc).

At any rate, when I hear hateful speech, though I cannot tell what's truly in the heart of the speaker, I can say for certain I do not hear the love of Christ.

c0

[1]
I don't believe this is always conscious. Certainly it often is, but I can't believe a Christian would say something like this and mean it. How could you on the one hand support bible translations, missionaries to foreign lands, etc, and on the other deny the same folks, if they happen to be American citizens, the right to vote?

It makes no sense to me. I understand the English-only sentiment; the threat to homogeneity is frightening, but we all live with it every day. Every person and culture does and always will. The Apostles faced it immediately with the influx of Gentiles into a new Jewish cult called "Christianity."

[2012-10-03]

2
The best weather forecast I've seen in months...

c0

And a nuther thing...

1
A Friend's Facebook Reply

My friend Adam commented on Facebook on my post here:

"Adam Kenyon Very nice, Charles. My reaction?:

I especially like the cigarette as a sacrifice, which on one hand is comical, but on the other, a touching gesture; a confrontation of how subjective are our sensibilities and not because of our religious systems as much as our geography.

Wherever they touch, all cultures and systems taint and refresh one another. They bleed and breath into each other. They live and thrive and die not independently, but tied together.

All that said, you had me at "nuther."  "

I like the juxtaposition of "taint" and "refresh." There's a sense that Western culture is always and everywhere an invasive species, or a violation of the Prime Directive, or ugly or shallow or unrefined or ill-mannered. And it is often those things, but it is just as often (and hopefully more so) just the opposite, and I think other cultures can be equally tainted or refreshing. It's up to a discerning populace to decide what's worth adopting and what's not.[1]

[2012-10-02]

2
Full-Proof

I learned the origin of the word "full-proof" from Prof Thomas Madden in Heaven or Heresy - A History of the Inquisition. It was coined during the Inquisition and meant that evidence in capital cases (which could result in the death penalty) must have at least two witnesses; ie, the proof in the case must be complete or full.

I've been looking for an etymological connection between full-proof and foolproof, but haven't found it; I checked my Compact OED to no avail; they are in any case similar in meaning - eg, infallible, unbreakable, complete, final.

However, sometimes an etymology "sounds right" but is very wrong.

Example: I heard a tour guide at Mount Vernon (George Washington's home) say that "toaster" came from toe+stir because toast was prepared in those days in an iron device suspended over a fire that you turned by the toe of your shoe.

As interesting as that sounds, it's very wrong.

-er is an English suffix indicating agency (baker, reader, writer, etc). The etymology of toast is here.

[2012-08-28]

3
Old Joke

A man approaches his minister and says, "I'm not sure I buy that whole Jonah and the whale story, pastor. I mean, how could Jonah survive in the belly of a fish?"
Minister: "I don't know. When I get to heaven, I'll ask him."
Man: "What if he's not there?"
Minister: "Then you ask him."

--Bishop Fulton J Sheen; heard on the radio 2012-09-30

[2012-09-30]

c0

[1]
I know it's not that simple; I struggle with the colonization of native peoples and terrible atrocities they endured. Every nation powerful enough to impose its will does just that. I'm referring here to the inevitable encounter all cultures have with each other in a digital age and the personal (and corporate) responsibility that entails.

c0

Can't I just have a burger?

1
Can't I just have a burger?

The choice between Obama and Romney is like being given a choice between pâté de foie gras and bananas flambées when what I really want is a hamburger but the waiter is sneering at me and laughing with the chef in the kitchen.[1]

The first presidential debate is Wednesday October 3, 2012 at 9pm ET.

[2012-10-01]

2
Addendum to "My Impressions of Christianity in Mainland China"

Home church Chinese Christians do not have denominations. They don't see the "government church" as legitimate; the government church, as I understand it, is more or less the Catholic Church in China (probably less, though not officially schismatic).

(See my post on "My Impressions of Christianity in Mainland China" here.
Also see these Wikipedia articles: Christianity in China and Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association )

If you were to ask, "What Western denomination is the Chinese home church closest to?", it would be hard for me to say, but: it is primal, genuine, non-confrontational, tolerant, sincere, and very iconoclastic. It comes closest in my (limited) experience to being Amish or Mennonite.

It reminds me of what I think the earliest Christian churches may have been like in the 1st Century. If there ever comes a time when China allows free and open worship, this rare and beautiful moment will quickly splinter into a million formalized heresies. There are already Chinese versions of televangelists traveling and raising money outside China. Something they understand that their American counterparts don't is real persecution.

Bear in mind however that, in today's China, this persecution is often invited by layering civil disobedience over religious self-determination. Both have their place, but they are not the same thing.

[2012-10-01]

c0

[1]
I first wrote this: "Choosing between Romney and Obama is like being given the choice between vanilla or chocolate ice cream when you really want strawberry." It has an unfortunate racial subtext, so I put it here in a footnote where I could consider it in that light; but what's more interesting to me is that I wrote it without consciously considering the subtext. Did the layers of meanings weave themselves into my analogy because they're part of my socio-psychological makeup? Or did I discover them only AFTER writing and reviewing the connections the words subsequently made upon leaving my fingertips?

Maybe a little bit of both.

c0

My Impressions of Christianity in Mainland China

I am married to a beautiful Chinese woman, now a Canadian citizen and US permanent resident. She grew up in Shenyang, China, very north, very east. I visited for 3 weeks last year and saw only 3 white people the whole time I was there, and they were together, and lost (businessmen, I suppose). The only English I heard was from my wife and some very nice girls at a Starbuck's who enjoyed the opportunity to practice words like "coffee," "thank you," "you're welcome," etc.

There is no English TV in Shenyang. I took a shortwave radio with me (Grundig G8) and for the first few days in Shenyang I tuned up and down each band at different times of the day.[1] I heard no English. As you might expect, I did hear quite a bit Russian, Korean, and Chinese.

I say this only to set the scene: I was as far from home as you can get and smack dab in the heart of Communist China.

During that short time, I saw:

• In Shenyang: A man witnessing to another man from a bible in the middle of a shopping mall. I can't say with 100% certainty it was a bible, but I have seen many Chinese bibles, and I know the body language that accompanies this type of encounter, and I believe I saw a Christian man witnessing to another man (who was, BTW, only intermittently interested).

Could he have been Mormon or Jehovah's Witness? Sure, but as far as the Chinese government is concerned, there's no difference.

• Outside Shenyang: A Christian section in a cemetery.

Below is the grave of a wealthy Christian Chinese person; there is space yet for a spouse. It is the largest headstone in the Christian section.

To the right of that is a picture of the same grave with a large globe and cross behind it; that large globe and cross mark the top of the Christian section of the cemetery. The section is still rather small and appears new; there were only a few dozen graves there.[2]

 

Many Christians are buried throughout the rest of the cemetery as well. The red cross indicates the deceased was a Christian. My father-in-law, Shuyao Zhao (shoo-yow dzow), converted late in life and while ill. My wife, Jinghong, was the first Christian in the family. Since then, her father and mother and a sister (IIRC) have converted. The others have not.

Below Left: The grave of my father-in-law, Shuyao Zhao.
Below Right: My wife Jinghong Zhao, in the foreground, and her sisters, at their father's grave.



Below: A lit cigarette left as offering by my oldest brother-in-law at his father's grave.

Below Left: An interesting statue at the center of the cemetery outside Shenyang.
Below Right: My oldest brother-in-law and my wife, Jinghong.

• Beijing: Christian children's programming on TV in a "Western" hotel.

A Western hotel has hot and cold running water, 120V outlets, and a government-run English news TV channel. They often provide fresh towels and soap and other things Westerners expect each day.

You might say, "But it's a Western hotel, of course you're going to see Western programming."

The programs were in Chinese.

Final Thoughts

• My wife Jinghong, who remembers as a little girl wearing pictures of Chairman Mao on her school uniform, and carrying Mao's "little red book" of quotations, says she was able to worship freely and openly in small home churches. Large groups in dedicated buildings were not allowed, but not really desired, either.

Jing longs for the home church environment to this day. Chinese home church Christians do not trust the "government church," by which they mean the Catholic Church in China (which is a whole nuther topic; if you're Catholic, you might not trust the Catholic Church in China either).

• I don't know how Christianity is treated elsewhere in China; there are vast undeveloped stretches between metropolitan areas that no doubt are very different.

• I remember Beijing as clean and delightfully friendly, but a friend who is married to a Chinese girl who also spent some time in Beijing said it was dirty and full of pestering beggars. We traveled after Beijing had been prepared for the Olympics; he and his wife traveled before. We saw a very different Beijing, a very nice one, in fact.

You only know what you know.

c0

An unrelated aside: Guess what, the Chinese don't hate us. They go to work every day so they can eat and stay warm and dry and buy a few nice things.

Go figger.

c0

[1]
I thought I would find shortwave programming up and down the dial and shortwave radios for sale in every store. Quite the opposite. The portable radio section of the biggest mall I've ever been in - inside our outside China - looked like this:

There was no interest in shortwave or radio at all. (Lots of 2-way radios for buses, taxis, etc. They wondered why I wanted one and why I was so particular about it; they didn't understand I needed a license to use the Wouxun 2m/70cm ham radio I brought back with me.)

The Internet has made radio in China nearly irrelevant. TV is largely ignored from what I could see.

[2]
The Chinese (at least in this cemetery) cremate their dead and enclose the ashes in small concrete vaults. The vaults sit above ground and have what you might consider a traditional Western-style headstone.

Started: 2012-09-12

c0