Posts tagged ·

silly post

·...

May 4, 2014 9:30 am

10 ways stripping wallpaper is like getting rid of sin

no comments
by    in Lists

If you’ve ever redecorated, you’ll probably have had to go through the tedious experience of removing the garish wallpaper left by the previous tenants or by yourself. In many ways, this is like getting rid of sin:

wallpaper

1. Some of the wallpaper you remove will have been left as an inheritance: not all of it is a result of your own personal poor taste. However, blaming it on the previous owners/tenants will not mean it’s not there: it needs to be removed even if it’s not there through your own fault.

2. In some spots, the old wallpaper may come away very easily in huge strips. Yet in other spots, you need to use the scraper and work at it more. It would be rather pointless to only remove the wallpaper where it comes off easily. There are some obvious habits that are easier to get rid of than others.

3. In those particular spots where the old wallpaper had been too well glued, it comes away little bit by little bit, through repetitive motion. It’s a slow process and it can be tiring and frustrating, especially when you don’t see the results coming in as fast as they did when that huge pane just came off. But while progress is less visible, it is still there and you gotta keep at it.

4. It is greatly helped by the application of water. But simply applying water, with no resolve to then apply the scraper, is rather useless. This application can come in a variety of forms (steamer, sponge…) which are sufficient to the removal of the stubborn wallpaper.

5. It is easier to do with outside help – friends, family, professionals. Yet this does not mean that you should go into other people’s homes and strip their wallpaper without their say-so, no matter how well-meaning you might be!

6. The whole process is made far more enjoyable with an ample supply of tea. (Come on, this is Ed’s Slipper after all). More seriously, though, removing wallpaper does not have to be sad and solemn: friends, music, conversation: all these can help!

7. Getting rid of the old wallpaper shows the wall to be bare and rough and imperfect. It can reveal some deeply hidden secrets, some glorious, some shameful, and some we weren’t even aware of. If the wall had feelings, it probably would feel exposed and vulnerable.

8. This bare state is not an end in itself: it is preparation for the application of new wallpaper – for a new identity. But it is necessary to remove the old – and to remove it thoroughly – before the new can come in and stick. Otherwise it’s no more than a facade!

9. Once the old wallpaper is removed, there is no point in keeping the strippings as though you were going to reapply them! The old wallpaper is gone, once and for all: no point being sentimental about it!

10. It is a process that is easy to put off until “you have time to deal with it”, or until “you have the right equipment”. So enough with spiritual procrastination already!

tags: , , , ,
No comment?
July 14, 2013 3:26 pm

15 ways cricket is like Christianity

no comments
by    in Lists

Ah, the Ashes. One of the best times of the year for a cricket fan. And an apt occasion for a post about cricket…

cricket

Photo: Andy, reused under CC license

1. It has become associated with a standard of behaviour. Particularly when it has nothing to do with that behaviour. “It’s just not cricket” may not be used quite as much as “That’s not very Christian”, but also conveys an expectation of overall uprightness of behaviour and the following of unspoken rules.

2. It is full of tales of miracles. Such as a window breaking after a cricket bat was simply leaning against it. Or a 19-year-old trumping cricket giants in his first international game.

3. It is English at heart. (kudos if you can guess where the link will take you before clicking it)

4. Its expansion to overseas countries has a lot to do with colonialism. But that doesn’t make it an intrinsically bad thing.

5. It comes with its codes, which make it somewhat impenetrable to an outsider. But these codes also give the fans a common language and (for better or for worse) an identifying mark which facilitates immediate mutual clicking.

6. The Laws that come with it are generally considered dull and in most cases irrelevant; but there is still something exciting in them. It isn’t the silly things such as the fact that a batsman can be timed out, but what it points towards (a pure game where the players aren’t even thinking of playing for time) that makes them exciting.

7. The Laws aren’t what define the play of cricket. As was, ahem, made clear on Friday by Stuart Broad.

8. There are many forms of cricket. Twenty-twenty, county cricket, one day international, and my personal favourite, test cricket. They all have their different flavours, with the former being quicker, more prone to exciting batting; and the latter more prone to careful deliberation and safe batting. None of them are not cricket, but some may identify with one particular form.

9. There’s an American version of it, which has barely anything to do with the original.

10. To the outsider, it looks like an incomprehensible waste of time.

11. When explaining cricket, it may be better not to start with the Duckworth-Lewis method. When a friend tried to explain cricket to me (a long time ago), he started listing the ten ways to dismiss a batsman. I didn’t understand that there was a fielding team and a batting team. In the same way, if you start looking at Christianity by reading Revelation, or by talking about predestination, you won’t be able to understand (and live!) it quite as easily.

12. If you’re doing it properly, you should wear whites.

13. The hats give you information about the role of some players. They aren’t magically conferring higher powers. And it doesn’t mean that the hat-less people are any less important!

14. Even if you’re not in the England side, nothing is stopping you from playing cricket. Even if you don’t have a cricket ball – a tennis ball would do the trick.

15. Tea has a very important part to play in it.

Add your own!

tags: , , ,
No comment?
June 16, 2013 9:57 pm

Punctures and the Spirit: 10 lessons

no comments
by    in Lists

Sometimes, we feel deflated; like the Spirit (1) has left us; and it feels a bit like riding a bike with a flat tyre. In more ways than one, the simile is helpful:

puncturePhoto: SamuraiGhost, re-used under CC License

1. You can avoid punctures easily, by very carefully checking where you ride. The thing is, if you do, you might as well be walking, you’d be quicker.
There is a famous apocryphal story of a person who would engage in contemplative prayer before any decision, including getting out of bed. That sort of behaviour is safe, but not quite commendable.

2. Even without a puncture, tyres go flat. They’re porous. Therefore, they need regular top-ups. Just the same with our spiritual life: being baptised, or giving your life to Jesus, or whatever you did at the start of your Christian journey is still there. But on its own, it gets weak. Get praying.

3. A puncture needs repairing. You can try to bike on a flat tyre. It will be exhausting, especially uphill; and you won’t go quite as fast. Don’t rely on your own steam to get stuff done; make sure that you are relying on the Spirit. If you don’t, you may still get it done – but it will be far less pleasant.

4. Repairing does not need to be immediate. Especially if you have it in the middle of oncoming traffic. In order to carry out the relevant repairs, you need to stop and take the time to do it properly… and you can’t always do that in the middle of our busy lives. Don’t get me wrong, the repairs must happen, but it’s alright to finish off urgent tasks before dealing with the repairs. Get out of the oncoming traffic. But don’t use that as an excuse to keep on putting off the repairs.

5. Repairing requires the appropriate tools. If you carry them with you, it will allow you to have a speedier answer (I remember how a tour guide in Amsterdam carried around spare inner tubes). Biblical knowledge, prayer discipline, routine – all these are tools that can support your spiritual life. Find the ones that work with your type of punctures, and keep them around with you, even when you don’t need them. If nothing else, they can be of service to someone else with a puncture.

6. Having a friend with the adequate know-how can help. Someone to talk to, someone to support you in prayer, is always beneficial.

7. You need to deflate the inner tube a fair bit before you can get the tyres off. If you just keep on going at full steam, you won’t manage to fix the punctures. All you’ll do is pump air back into your tyre, and that will last every time less.

8. Most punctures are invisible. That’s why you do the whole inner-tube-in-a-bucket-of-water thing. If no matter what the amount of prayer you do, no matter your willingness to get closer to God, you keep on drifting away, there might be something holding you back. Find the hole in the inner tube, and fix it.

9. If you don’t make sure the inside of the tyre no longer has any glass shards in it, your inner tube will perforate quickly, although not necessarily immediately. Some punctures come from our daily habits, others from our environment, others from part of our identity. If we manage to repair, through prayer for instance, our inner tube, but go back to the same routine, we’re going to get another puncture quickly.

10. Even when a tyre seems to be flat, there’s still some air in it. Just because we don’t feel it quite as strongly as before, or even not at all, it doesn’t mean the Spirit has left us altogether! On the contrary, the Spirit is always with us, even when we don’t feel it.

Do you have any to add?

—

(1) Fittingly, the Greek for Spirit is πνεῦμα, which also means breath!

tags: , , ,
No comment?
April 14, 2013 5:05 pm

Christian heptathlon

4 comments
by    in Lists

We like sport. We just put our own twist on it. Here’s what the Christian heptathlon looks like (with links to the event that was the inspiration for it).

athletics

Photo: AdamKR, reused under CC License

  • Bible hopping: quote as many separate and short Bible verses as possible to support an argument. Bonus points for quoting non-standard verses, especially genealogies or the minor prophets. In this contest, speed is of the essence: you do not want whichever passage you’re using to support your argument to actually speak to your listeners directly. Careful, some passages may trip you up, so never stray far from your usual turf.
  • Triple point: write any talk or sermon in a three-point structure. Bear in mind that these points should not be considered in any way that would allow anyone to continue after your work; and that if a four-point or two-point structure were better suited to your argument, such a work would be disqualified.
  • Javelin: use your talk, sermon or other document as a way to attack The Others – be it in terms of theological viewpoint, or in terms of societal issues. Current issues are disqualified, particularly shortly after schisms, where such attacks are far too easy. The Baptists made a commendable effort in 1689, but this effort was not homologated due to the circumstances at the time. You may wish to train by defending your church as opposed to other churches, and move on to a dissing of low/high churches (delete as appropriate) before mocking other doctrinal points.
  • Conceptual hammer throwing: talk about predestination, transubstantiation, cessationism or any other particularly heavy theological topic without explaining what it means, and with no other reason than that you like the sound of your own voice on that matter.
  • 1500s run: only use one theological reference from the 16th Century to inform your thinking – usually the Puritans. Also exists in other eras (100s run is particularly popular these days)
  • Sermon throw: make your sermon as far removed as possible from the text from which you’re meant to be preaching. This sport is commonly confused with the practice of throwing the sermon as far as possible from any form of relevance to the audience’s lives.
  • Service marathon: make sure everybody is keeping their Sunday holy by keeping them in church a minimum of 6 hours. Techniques include: readings which span many chapters; repeated verses and/or instrumentals and/or wo-ohs in hymns and worship songs; organ voluntaries put in the middle of the service; and, most easily, sermons with a minimal length of oner hour. Fringe improvements can be made by making sure that no one knows when their part is – this technique is particularly helpful with dramatised tellings of Bible stories.

Athletes competing in these will be checked for inhalation of incense.

—

In these especially, the first will be the last.

Add your own!

tags: , , , ,
4 comments!