This time of year we love to make soup for supper; tonight's menu was cream of acorn squash. While the flesh of 2 baked squash was turning in the blender with chicken broth and spices, I thickened milk, margarine and chicken broth over the stove. I glanced back at the blender just in time to see the glass pitcher begin to spin and unscrew from the base – like a barber shop pole gone berserk. In a dive that would have made a John Madden highlight film, I grabbed for the cavorting cylinder of cultivar mere milliseconds after it launched from the base and cartwheeled after contacting the whirling blades of the blender base, thereby turning the pitcher into a spinning shower of succulent slurry. Again I grabbed for the cartwheeling cannister but the splatter from lift-off covered my hands and I succeeded only in batting the pitcher back up in the air for another slathering of squash. Finally, the pitcher came to rest on the counter top, next to the blender base. Squash covered my hands, face, hair and clothing, the lazy susan, countertop, cupboard doors, drawers and floor. Clean up took 30 minutes.

Unlike Catalyst ( Dishwasher: 1 Catalyst: 0 ), I did not need stitches after cutting my hand on the spinning blades. 30 minutes later, we enjoyed a DiGiorno's pizza for supper.

Sam

Locutus sends in these two articles on the Prosperity Gospel.

Locutus writes, "Nothing we haven't all read before, but this guy seems to be a couple of steps ahead of Frank in milking "business opportunities" from the church."

Here is a key section from one of the articles that discusses how the Pastor of a local Denver church uses the prosperity gospel:

While many of his church members live on the edge financially, Leonard enjoys a luxurious lifestyle, living in a $1.4 million home in the gated golf community of Castle Pines Village, driving luxury vehicles and vacationing at a condo in Mexico. The bishop also flew across the country on a multimillion-dollar church-owned jet, angering some church members, before it was sold.

I certainly hope those angry church members approached their pastor in a Biblical way. You know, because it's okay to use the Gospel for personal riches, but you accuse a pastor of being greedy, well… that's just going to far.  

And please read both of the articles. They'll make you feel better about the faults in your own church.

According to a recent AP article on pre-marital sex, most Americans "get busy" before they "get hitched".

More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study.

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people – about 33,000 of them women – in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.
Even among a subgroup of those who abstained from sex until at least age 20, four-fifths had had premarital sex by age 44, the study found.

Now, I don't want to tell you that we are all going to burn in hell, but… can someone explain to me again why "we" are so much "more deserving" of heaven then homosexuals? Kinda sounds like the Pot calling the Kettle gay, if you ask me.

"The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds," Finer said.

Under the Bush administration, such programs have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
"It would be more effective," Finer said, "to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active – which nearly everyone eventually will."

Sex-Ed… this reminds me of a family story. While it's true that I did pass out once and piss my car (and self), my younger brother Joel once passed out during Sex-Ed. Apparently, he couldn't handle seeing a condom being wrapped around a banana. Joel if you are reading this…penis…STD…vagina…and he's out.

Moving on:

Horn said he found the high percentages of premarital sex cited in the study to be plausible, and expressed hope that society would not look askance at the small minority that chooses to remain abstinent before marriage.
However, Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America, a conservative group which strongly supports abstinence-only education, said she was skeptical of the findings.
"Any time I see numbers that high, I'm a little suspicious," she said. "The numbers are too pat."

I've never been one to put too much stock in statistics, but it sounds about right (not in our churches of course…).

The NYTimes has an intruiging opinion piece about teaching Religion to college students. The professor writes about the difficulty in teaching Students how to think about Religion.

For years, I have begun my classes by telling students that if they are not more confused and uncertain at the end of the course than they were at the beginning, I will have failed. A growing number of religiously correct students consider this challenge a direct assault on their faith. Yet the task of thinking and teaching, especially in an age of emergent fundamentalisms, is to cultivate a faith in doubt that calls into question every certainty.

Any responsible curriculum for the study of religion in the 21st century must be guided by two basic principles: first, a clear distinction between the study and the practice of religion, and second, an expansive understanding of what religion is and of the manifold roles it plays in life. The aim of critical analysis is not to pass judgment on religious beliefs and practices — though some secular dogmatists wrongly cross that line — but to examine the conditions necessary for their formation and to consider the many functions they serve.

As someone who grew up in a Christian School and was never encouraged to question my Faith, I think he's right here. Questioning something only serves to make your beliefs stronger. You can tell the Christians who just spit back what they've been taught, from the Christians who have geniune questions and know what they believe. I prefer the latter.

Just to help show that we are not above mocking ourselves (and since my posts are boring ever since I turned over this new leaf)  I’d like to play a game. I call this game Match the Morton (btw, the "t" is only silent if you are living in Corsica)

First I will list a Morton moment and and then underneath I’ll list some Morton names to match to the Moment. Let's play MATCH THE MORTON.

First the Moment:

1. Thinks the closet (or dishwasher) is the bathroom

2. Passed out and pissed pants (and car)              

3. Nickname is Jona-not-so-thin                           

4. Fainted during sex-ed class                              

5. Grew up thinking he was cow (named Besse)       

6. Also pissed pants (while trying to puke)               

 Then the Morton: 

A. Jesse

B. Sharon

C. Justin

D. Johnpaul

E. Jonathan

F. Joel

Yes, there are a lot of passing out and pissing one’s self (or closet) stories in the Morton family. None of us will deny how trashy this really is. My apologies to Sharon…you really don't deserve this.

My friend Sister Paula and I were discussing gays in church a couple of weeks ago. As a follow up, she forwarded me the thoughts of A RETIRED GAY MCC MINISTER.

I thought they were interesting enough to share.

Here are my thoughts today on Ted Haggard and his confession: