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Oh, sheesh! This blog is SOOOoooo dead. Zombiefied! Deader than a dead dog lying by the side of the road without a dog tag!
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I mean, seriously, when I can't even find enough enthusiasm to post something about Christmas - CHRISTMAS! - "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" - then you just know that you can stick a fork in me 'cause I'm done.
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Hell, I can't even find enough interest to answer most of my Email these days, let alone compose new blog bits.
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Yes, my friends, it's true, this blog (as well as my political blog, 'Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends') is on its last legs.
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Yes, my friends, it's true, this blog (as well as my political blog, 'Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends') is on its last legs.
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I should have had a Christmas blog bit posted here a week or more ago, but I'll be honest with y'all: I just don't care anymore.
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As Bob Dylan sang:
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People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
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I've been working on a Christmas blog bit to post here for days now, but I just can't seem to find the spirit, the enthusiasm necessary to write anything worth reading.
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Well, with a lot of luck, I will acquire the energy and the interest necessary to get something new for Christmas posted here tomorrow . . . or the next day . . . or the day after that.
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But just in case that doesn't happen, I'll wish y'all a "Merry Christmas" now, and remind y'all to make a wish for Tiny Tim - you know the gig! [If you really don't know the gig. . . then, well, I'm not surprised . . . and . . . just go on your merry way.]
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Let the zombies win - I'm just too tired and too disinterested to fight the fatigue any more.
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Go ahead, zombies, and take me to yer "leader" :
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~ Stephen T. Whatever
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YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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Tonight, I'll throw back a shot of Jack Daniels in honor of "Stuffs" passing...
ReplyDeleteWas it the head injury to Brett that was the final straw?
Not quite dead yet, my friend. Like any good bad monster movie, the creature needs to come back at least 3 or 4 times after you're convinced the thing is finally dead.
ReplyDeleteHead injury to Brettboy Favregirl? First I've heard of it. (He played last night and got knocked out again? I didn't watch even 5 seconds of the game.)
~ D-FensDogg
'Loyal American Underground'
Hi Stephen,
ReplyDeleteThis comment has absolutely NOTHING to do with the content of your original post. I have been searching for about an hour to find an alternate way to contact you to find out: I am interested in reading your essay titled, "The Short List Of Reasons I Am Not A Christian." If you could please let me know how to locate it, I would greatly appreciate it :)
Also, I truly enjoyed your reviews and flaws of the Christmas specials :) You are very entertaining.
Thanks,
Melissa
Part 1 Of 2:
ReplyDeleteMELISSA ~
Hello! Thanks for your comment, and thanks especially for showing an interest in what I’ve written! I’m not even certain how you learned of my essay “The Short List Of Reasons I Am Not A Christian” as I don’t recall having mentioned it anywhere on this blog. Did I refer to it on the Amazon site at one time?
At any rate, the good news is… Well, I’m afraid there isn’t any. The bad news is that “The Short List Of Reasons I Am Not A Christian” is an essay I wrote a lot of years ago, before I had access to a computer, and so it exists solely in paper form; I have never retyped it into a computer file to post online. The title was meant to be somewhat ironically humorous in that my “Short List” consisted of 13 single-spaced typed pages. Pretty lengthy for a “Short List”, and it would be a lot of work to retype it all.
Back in the very late 1990s or very early 2000s, I wrote three essays pertaining to my spiritual beliefs, with the idea of perhaps writing more in the future and then maybe attempting to publish the collected essays in book form. I never did write a fourth essay though, and just kind of abandoned the idea and left the three essays to collect dust in a paper folder.
However, because it was so kind of you to enquire about it, I will retype here the first three and the last three paragraphs of the essay, just to give you some idea of what I was attempting to say in it:
Because of the widely divergent organizations and the varying personal viewpoints and the fluctuating moral standards all flying the “Christian” banner, the person who says, “I am a Christian” has not told me much more about himself than had he said, “I drive a blue car.” He may be a Christian, but which Christian? The Christian who tries to love his neighbor as himself, or the Christian who loves his neighbor’s wife as he loves his own? Is he the one who tries to resist judgment, or the one who tells me he doesn’t like the 49ers quarterback “because he’s a Mormon”? Are we talking about the Christian who attends a church which believes in the sanctity of the traditional marriage, or the one who is numbered among the congregation of a temple that honors marriages or vows between two people sharing the same gender? Some Christian churches preach the importance of the event known as the Resurrection of Christ, while others insist that one need not accept this as a literal fact, for the resurrection can take place in the heart and mind of the individual seeker. And while Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven … Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it”, still, a great multitude of Christians would agree with the popular songwriter who sings, “There’s a Man on a cross and He’s been crucified for you / Believe in His power, that’s about all you have to do.”
Christianity is such a schizophrenic philosophy that the term itself has lost almost all sense of meaning, and I find it a useless label. About all we can really know about the person who categorizes himself as a Christian is that he believes something about the historical figure Jesus.
There are many reasons I choose not to be thought of as a Christian, despite many reverent beliefs I hold about the Man, Jesus; and there are many reasons some Christians would likewise not consider me a Christian. Some of my reasons for disavowing the term in respect to my own belief system have to do with the history of the organized Christian Church, and others pertain to personal observations and considerations. Following is a brief list of both types:
Continued Below...
Part 2 Of 2:
ReplyDeleteMelissa, 12 pages later, I conclude the essay with these 3 paragraphs…
It has been my purpose with this writing to point out the hopelessly broad definition of the Christian label. It is a term far too encompassing to provide any appreciable meaning. If a person tells me they own a dog, I immediately understand that the person has a carnivorous, domesticated mammal of the canis familiaris. It has four legs, some sort of tail, and is covered in hair with likely an elongated snout. The animal is also probably one of their very best friends. But the person who tells me he is a “Christian” has told me very little. About the only thing I would feel safe in assuming is that if I respond that Jesus was a good man, he would not contradict me (ironically enough, however, Jesus would! See Matthew 19:16,17).
Because of some dubious assertions maintained by the contemporary Christian Church, which I believe to be un-Biblical, and because of some heinous acts perpetrated by that religion’s ancestors and the wide ranging moral variables found in the adherents of the Christian Church, I choose to disassociate myself from it.
Based on the book of Acts in the Holy Bible, it appears that the very first community that formed upon the teachings and ministry of Christ, prior to being called Christianity, was referred to simply as “The Way.” Because I believe that Christianity began to move away from its roots when it organized under Roman rule, and because I suspect that many of my beliefs may be closer to what Jesus instructed His first disciples than what is currently being taught in the Christian Church, I have hearkened back to that earlier moniker. I refer to myself as just A Follower Of The Way. With gratitude in my mind for the forgiveness of my transgressions, and hope in my heart derived from the work of my Savior, I pray never to forget, in my efforts to follow The Way, that it was Jesus Christ Himself who said, “I Am the way.”
Melissa, I hope that gives you a basic understanding of the purpose and tone of that old essay.
Incidentally, when I wrote “there are many reasons some Christians would likewise not consider me a Christian”, one of the several reasons that I had in mind was my firm belief that not only does reincarnation occur, but that it is actually a Biblical concept. If you have any interest in reading my essay on references to reincarnation in The Bible, here’s a link to that: “Reincarnation & The Holy Bible; Part 1 Of 4”.
Thanks again, Melissa, for your comment and the compliment.
Bless And Be Blessed.
~ Stephen
You can do Christmas anytime. And Plan 9 always works. That was not only an enjoyable and creative post, but the comments were pretty cool as well. I haven't forgotten the reincarnation post and full intend to one day go back to read it. At the same time I look forward to many reincarnations of the "dying monster".
ReplyDeleteLee
Tossing It Out
Stephen,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for taking the time to re-type your excerpt from the essay that I was inquiring about.
I must say that although I do not have the intervening content, it certainly seems as though we are of like-mindedness.
I stopped calling myself a Christian many years ago because of the same reasons mentioned. It has become such a watered down term that means whatever to whomever. I then started referring to myself as a believer in Jesus. Although I realized that is ambiguous as well, because even Satan "believes" in Jesus. So, now I am a follower of Jesus, like his disciples and apostles.
I will read "Reincarnation and the Holy Bible" as I am curious about your take on what I consider to be a New Age and Hindu belief system. I believe in the resurrection of followers of Christ...I'll take a look at what you have to say.
~melissa
MELISSA ~
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, my friend. Glad to do it for ya.
Since the time that I wrote that essay, I have ceased even referring to myself as "A follower of The Way", and now don't really refer to my spiritual walk in any particular way.
If someone asks about it, I usually make it a point to inform them that I do not consider myself a "Christian", but that I simply study The Bible (and if pressed, I will add that I try to live according to how Jesus instructed us to live).
Sadly, I have known too many self-proclaimed Christians who seemed to me to be consciously living more according to worldly principles than to the principles articulated by Christ.
I don't wish to judge much, as I fall far short of the goal daily, but I think one ought to at least be TRYING to live up to the standard He set for us if one is going to refer to themself as a "Christian".
~ Stephen
"As a dog returns to his own vomit,
so a fool repeats his folly."
~ Proverbs 26:11