Category: Slice of Life

You might need to do this again after Thanksgiving.

The only change that I might suggest for this comic: reverse the order of the last two panels.

I like looking in our neighborhood’s “little free libraries” — those little boxes that community-minded people set up where the rule is “take a book, leave a book”.

While taking a quick break from my daily bike ride to check out the river, I decided to see what was in the Patterson Park little free library, and wow, did they have a particularly heavy book: Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying.

It’s a far cry from the usual selection.

I feel Todd’s pain.

Morten Rand-Hendriksen, whom I met during my time as a Microsoftie, has a brilliant “ice-breaker” question that’s perfect for those group intro sessions, where everyone’s trying to get a feel for all the other people in the room.

The question:

A museum calls you and says they want to feature you in their permanent exhibit. But there’s a small catch: They only have room for one artifact, and you only get to choose once. What do you send them?

The answer for me would seem obvious — an accordion — but the question then becomes: Which one? The answer to that question is “The first one”, pictured at the top of this post. It’s the one I took out onto the streets of Toronto on May 1, 1999 and started this whole thing rolling.

What would your artifact be?

(Be sure to read Morten’s article on the topic!)

I’m a graduate of Catholic school and grew up going to Catholic church, so my first visit to a Hillsong-style megachurch left me deeply unimpressed:

• The ministry felt less like the lives of the saints and more like The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,
• There was a strong “making up as we go along” feel to the preaching,
• The Jesus they presented was most certainly not an itinerant Israeli carpenter who was intentionally homeless, apolitical, friend of prostitutes and told religious leaders to pay their dang taxes, but some kind of weird amalgam of Ronald Reagan, Rambo, Tony Robbins, and “Karen”,
• My Asian appearance led a couple of congregants to ask if I would denounce the false teachings of Buddha (they asked no such questions of the other strangers, who were white), because they knew jack shit about the Philippines or that thing about “the stranger in your midst”,
• and as for the music, I’m 100% behind Hank Hill:

So when Cracked posted their latest video, If Megachurches Were Honest, I had to watch:

One of the reasons that it’s so spot-on is because it was written by Jordan Breeding, who writes:

Cards on the table I (the guy who wrote this episode), was a Music Director at a (non-mega) church, and, in fact, my wife and I still lead music there regularly FOR FREE as well as attend. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe there aren’t things deeply wrong with the way megachurches and possibly just America generally have twisted things.

If you found the video interesting, you’ll probably enjoy the podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.