Tithing Santa

HT: Steven Furtick

How much?

Can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!

I have some friends and family who I've been begging to join facebook. But they resist for good reasons. Their fear is that they will be found by people whom they don't want to find them. The good news is that facebook has privacy features that allow you to stay as hidden as you like. Here's how to make yourself unfindable on facebook. My hope is that after reading this, my friends & family will join facebook so that we can keep up with each other. Anyway, here's what ya do:

1. Sign up for a facebook account. Provide the bare minimum information necessary about yourself when you sign up. You can provide more information after you've finished reading this post.
   
2. Login to facebook. On the top to the right, there will be a "Settings" menu. Click on it and choose "Privacy Settings"
   -
3. On the page that comes up, click "Search""
   
4. To be completely unfindable, set it like this (If you're having trouble reading what it says, click on the image to make it bigger):
   
5. Here are the other options that you have for how findable you are. This is how mine is set up
   

To my friends & family who are afraid of being found on facebook... does this help at all? I have another post on the subject of facebook privacy, that might also interest you.

Who Knew?

Apparently my non-informative post, was informative to someone. Here's how I import my blog into facebook.

1. Login to facebook
2. Click on "Profile"
3. Click on the menu, then click on import:
   
4. The box will change, click on "Blog/RSS"
   
5. In the form provided, enter the web address of your blog
   

That's it.

Test Post - pardon the interruption

I'm making a test post. I've imported my blog into facebook. My hope was that when I posted something here, it might attract the attention of my friends in facebook who would give me feedback.

But it wasn't working. When I post something here, it gets imported into facebook correctly. But, as far as I can tell, nothing ever shows up on other people's newsfeed indicating that I posted a new note. I test this by looking at my wife's newsfeed.

However, I now think (hope) I fixed it. This post is to help me find out! So, to all my beloved blog readers (all 4 of you), please pardon this non-informative post. To all my facebook friends (90 of you) I hope that you will start commenting on the notes that I have already published and will publish in the future.

A Good Husband

Entertaining story seen on the internet. Quoted in it's entirety:

Jack wakes up with a huge hangover after attending his company's party.

Jack is not normally a drinker, but the drinks didn't taste like alcohol at all.

He didn't even remember how he got home from the party. As bad as he was feeling, he wondered if he did something wrong.Jack had to force himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a couple of aspirins next to a glass of water on the side table. And, next to them, a single red rose!!

Jack sits up and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed. He looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean. So is the rest of the house.

He takes the aspirins, cringes when he sees a huge black eye staring back at him in the bathroom mirror. Then he notices a note hanging on the corner of the mirror written in red with little hearts on it and a kiss mark from his wife in lipstick: 'Honey, breakfast is on the stove, I left early to get groceries to make you your favorite dinner tonight. I love you, darling! Love, Jillian'

He stumbles to the kitchen and sure enough, there is hot breakfast, steaming hot coffee and the morning newspaper. His 16 year old son is also at the table, eating. Jack asks, 'Son,what happened last night?'

'Well, you came home after 3 A.M., drunk and out of your mind and you fell over the coffee table and broke it, and then you puked in the hallway, and got that black eye when you ran into the door.'

Confused, he asked his son, 'So, why is everything in such perfect order and so clean? I have a rose, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me??'

His son replies, 'Oh THAT... Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed, 'Leave me alone, I'm married!!'

Broken Coffee Table $239.99
Hot Breakfast $4.20
Two Aspirins $.38
Saying the right thing, at the right time:
PRICELESS

A.C.T.S.

A friend of mine recently asked me to pray for something going on in his life. So I stopped what I was doing and dashed off a quick prayer in support of my friend. But in the middle of it, I thought, "Well that's rude. You just jumped straight into asking for what it was you wanted. Try again."

My pastor frequently uses A.C.T.S. as a way to help a person organize their prayers. The idea is to pray 4 specific things, and in a particular order.

A = Adoration: Take time to recognize who God is.
C = Confession: Take time to recognize who you are.
T = Thanks: Take time to appreciate all that God has done for you.
S = Supplication: Take time to ask God for blessing.

So that's what I did. But the problem is this. After recognizing who God is, who I am, and all that He's already done for me, it seemed incredibly snotty to ask for anything at all.

And yet the Bible makes it pretty clear that we are to come to God with our requests. Sometimes I don't know how to do that.

I finished my prayer for my friend. But it was, to say the least, really quite hesitant.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

IFC recently showed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I fell in love with this movie the first time I saw it in college. After seeing it again, it remains one of my all time favorites. If you enjoy language and, specifically how imprecise it can be, you might like this movie. Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

Rosencrantz: Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no. Death is not. Death isn't. Take my meaning? Death is the ultimate negative. Not being. You can't "not be" on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.

I love how what was meant could easily be turned into meaning something completely different.

The Player: The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter.
Rosencrantz: Good God. We're out of our depths here.
The Player: No, no, no! He hasn't got a daughter! The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter.
Rosencrantz: The old man is?
The Player: Hamlet … in love … with the old man's daughter … the old man … thinks.

It is so easy for there to be multiple possible meanings in a single sentence. Take this: The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter. The character meant it to mean this:

• Polonius (the old man) thinks that Hamlet is in love with Ophelia (the old man's daughter)

But the imprecision of the original statement had multiple correct interpretations including these:

• Polonius thinks that Hamlet is in love with Hamlet's daughter (which is first way that Rosencrantz interpreted the sentence)
  
• Polonius thinks that Polonius is in love with Polonius' daughter (which is the 2nd way that Rosencrantz interpreted the sentence)
• Polonius thinks that Polonius is in love with Hamlet's daughter
  

What should this tell us about how we interpret the Bible?

Guildenstern: What's the first thing you remember?
Rosencrantz: Oh, let's see. … The first thing that comes into my head, you mean?
Guildenstern: No – the first thing you remember.
Rosencrantz: Ah. … No, it's no good. It's gone. It was a long time ago.
Guildenstern: No, you don't take my meaning. What's the first thing you remember after all the things you've forgotten?
Rosencrantz: Oh, I see … I've forgotten the question.

Or how about this one. What's the first thing you remember?

• Do you mean: what is the first memory that popped into my head the instant you said that?
  
• Or do you mean: what is the first thing that I've ever remembered? Because I know that I remembered things as a kid, but I don't remember what they were now?

There are, of course other quotes in the movie that are just as fun, but not about the imprecision of language:

Rosencrantz: Did you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?
Guildenstern: No.
Rosencrantz: Nor do I, really. It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean, one thinks of it like being alive in a box. One keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like you were asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you. Not without any air. You'd wake up dead, for a start, and then where would you be? In a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it. Because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you? Stuffed in a box like that. I mean, you'd be in there forever, even taking into account the fact that you're dead. It isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really. Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off, "I'm going to stuff you in this box. Now, would you rather be alive or dead?" Naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance, at least. You could lie there thinking, "Well. At least I'm not dead. In a minute somebody is going to bang on the lid, and tell me to come out." [bangs on lid] "Hey, you! What's your name? Come out of there!"
[Long pause]
Guildenstern: I think I'm going to kill you.

Or another favorite of mine:

Rosencrantz: Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occured to you that you don't go on forever. Must have been shattering. Stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it. It never occured to me at all. We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the word for it. Before we know that there are words. Out we come, bloodied and squawling, with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, theres only one direction. And time is its only measure.

All told this is a geek's movie. Hence why I enjoy it so much.