Totally Unspiritual Post of the Week, #8

It's been awhile since I did a totally unspiritual post, so the content has been building up...

First off, I've had several laugh aloud moments taking a look the "Top 100 Facts About Chuck Norris" site. Among my favorites are:

- Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad Chuck Norris never cries.
- The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
- Someone once tried to tell Chuck Norris that roundhouse kicks aren't the best way to kick someone. This has been recorded by historians as the worst mistake anyone has ever made.
- Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas.
- It was once believed that Chuck Norris actually lost a fight to a pirate, but that is a lie, created by Chuck Norris himself to lure more pirates to him. Pirates never were very smart.
- There isn't a chin beneat Chuck Norris' beard. There is only another fist.

More Pranks
Next, we're going to spend some more time on great pranks. Although I'd like to say that I have been the perpetrator in all of these examples, I'll start off in one story where I was the perpetratee, often referred to as a perpee.

This prank was played on me by Michael Houston, a coworker (who you might remember as the perpee in one of my earlier pranks, the "diploma swap.") I came back to my office after a meeting to find a box on my desk. Boxes are always exciting to receive, as they often contain presents, office supplies, or werewolves. Excitement turned to suspicion, however, when I noticed this particular box had some peculiar corners. Specifically, the corners appeared to be burned, and frayed wires were visibly protruding from the packaging.

Now, if you're like me, you check the New York State Police site on suspicious packages every other day, just in case something like this happens. Because I had checked the site, and had posted their very helpful diagram above my desk, I knew that packages with "protruding wires" should be examined by a professional bomb squad. After reading so much about these types of packages I knew exactly what not to do: "don't let anyone touch it, call safety officials immediately, don't attempt to carry it outside," etc.

Instead, we decided it would be safest to shake the package (it felt light inside, although there was definitely something in it), and then take it outside for further examining, just in case it was a bomb. We first threw a baseball at it (which is a technique I saw on the TV series: "Bombsquad Crewz"), and after it didn't explode, decided it was certainly safe to open. Despite the fact I did not think it was a bomb, it was a little disappointing that it didn't explode. Instead, I found a mug inside, and a $50 gift card to Starbucks! Michael fessed up that he had intercepted the package, had been bored, and decided wires and burnt edges would give us a few minutes of entertainment.

(Follow up: Michael has been fired. Please keep his pregnant wife and unborn child in your prayers).

#2: Computer Pranks
I have a new coworker: Chris Collins. Chris has an irrational fea... I mean love of snakes. Whenever he sees a snake, he immediately lets it crawl around inside of his clothes. He wants everyone to e-mail him a picture of the coolest snake they can find on the internet (literal snake, not figurative) to his e-mail address. Anyway, instead of e-mailing him my favorite snake, I just made it his desktop background so he would see it right away.

To thank me, he made a slight modification to my autocorrect feature in Microsoft Outlook. In order to save me time, every time I typed the word "and," Chris set my computer to autocomplete "and by the way I'm brokeback gay." This proved to be extremely convenient, and all those saved keystrokes kept me from getting carpal tunnel syndrome.

In order to thank him back, I decided it was time for a little game called "Remote Havoc." This is a "computer program" of sorts, that you can "install without another user's knowledge" and that "allows you control of their computer." It's a blast. You install it to their computer, and then, from a control panel on yours, you can "say hello."

I started off with a normal sounding information message that read, "Windows has automatically synchronized your computer clock to Greenwich Standard Time (GST)."

I had people planted to watch Chris as these messages started popping up, and after staring at his screen for a few seconds, he just clicked, "ok."

Then, I decided to flash up one of my favorite websites, called "XXXchurch.com". Don't worry- it's not a porn site. It's a great, unconventional ministry. Conveniently, one of the founders is speaking at Pepperdine in just a few weeks, and Chris is in charge of that program - so it seemed normal that maybe he hit a key that would accidentally pop this site up.

Next, I sent Chris a warning from the "Pepperdine Content Filter", which apparently thought XXXchurch.com was a naughty site:


Chris immediately got up from his chair, and walked to the front of the office. We casually strolled out there, and made up some question to ask. He said something to the effect of "Hey, do you guys know anything about a Pepperdine Content Filter?," to which we said "I seem to remember the President mentioning something about that in his address to the Student Government Association...". He said he was going to visit IT Engineering, to find out what was going on. He also accused us of messing with his computer. The fact that I was smiling when I denied it didn't help him to believe me.

He came back, and what do you know, the IT guys were busy. While I was in his office, I was asking him to describe to me what had happened - we even searched for a malicious program that might be running on his computer together. Instead, the same xxxchurch.com site and warning message popped up! (my coworker, Michael Houston, was in my office on the control panel).

I left, and people started congregating in his office, some aware, and some oblivious to the joke. Then, the warning messages started getting a little odd:


Chris bolted into my office, realizing that it must be me. He's a clever one!

You can download Remote Havoc here. Among other favorites on the control panel, you can open and close the cd tray, switch the mouse buttons, minimize windows, run programs, and send any warning message you want.

...and that's all for this week's totally unspiritual post. I'll have some more videos posted in the bathroom that people have been sending me - quality stuff. Peace in!

Parable of the Servant Who Became Son

There was a certain servant in the King’s court. Although he was technically not "free" to leave the King's service (since he was a servant), he actually loved the King very much. The King had taken him in as a young man, when his family and parents had passed away, and cared for and supported him. Even when he made mistakes, the King never raised his voice toward the servant - in fact, he would usually just smile, and thank him for his help.

Because of his admiration and love, the servant took great delight in serving the King. Upon completing a task, he would return almost immediately to ask, "Master, speak your will, and I will do it." In response to this, the King would usually say, "Why, come sit with me," and they would enjoy long hours in one another's company.

As he grew to be a young man, the servant still came to the King every day saying, "Master, speak your will, and I will do it." He realized that the King's responses to this request became increasingly difficult. The King began sending him on long journeys, which often took weeks or months of difficult and dangerous travel. The boy began wondering if the King was growing tired of him, or wanted to keep him occupied so that he would not be able to remain in the palace. He almost never invited him to simply sit with him anymore; every time the boy asked what he should do, there was always some task to be completed.

Finally, the boy asked, "Sire, have I done anything to displease you?"

"Why do you ask?" said the King.

"It's just - I wish only to do your will and bidding, but it seems that these past few years it has always been something...difficult. I am happy to serve you, Master, but I also noticed that you never invite me to sit with you anymore. I thought maybe I had done something to disappoint you, or to upset you."

"And now it is time for me to ask you a question,” said the King. “Do you love me?"

"Why, of course, Master. You know that I do.”

"And have I ever treated you as my servant?" said the King.

"No, Lord - you have treated me as, well, as a son. And..." he added, gulping, "Even as a friend."

The King responded as if he had been waiting for him to speak those words. "Then when will you stop asking me what my will is for you, as if you were bound to me as my servant?"

"I don't understand, Master," said the servant. "I only wanted to please you by following your commands, and by accomplishing your will."

"My will has already been accomplished," said the King carefully and slowly, "because you love me as I love you. That is all I have ever wanted. Though you have remained determined to be my servant, I have, and do call you my son."

Overwhelmed, the servant asked, "Then... Father... what am I to do now?"

"My Kingdom, in all of its fullness, is yours," said the King. "What would you like to do, son?"

And the son realized for the first time... he had absolutely no idea. He didn't know how to live his life without relying on the King – his Father – to tell him what to do.

"I don't know. I guess it was much easier when I was a servant," said the son. "I think for now, I'd like to just sit with you for awhile."

Holy Hand Grenade

Every once in awhile, I'll come across something that lobs the proverbial hand grenade into my quaint theology, causing extensive kidney damage and adding to the collection of shrapnel I carry in my left butt cheek. This particular hand grenade came in the form of a book recently given to me by a friend and scholar, Ezra Plank, titled, "The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics," by Ched Myers.

If you're ever in a Christian bookstore, you might miss this one, as it wouldn't look out of place wedged inbetween "Let Me Touch Him" and "Joel Osteen's: Follow God, Win a Ferrari." The title isn't "catchy" in the traditional sense, and the fact that it looks like an oversized pamphlet on pesticides or tree pruning doesn't help. However, if you listen to Mother and don't judge a book by its cover, then you're in for a tasty treat.

Ok, so I haven't read the whole thing yet. But the chapter that has kept me thinking is a re-read of the in/famous "Parable of the Talents." You know the story: three slaves are given some 'talents' by their master - one gets five, one gets two, and one gets a single talent. The master takes off for a trip to Vegas or something, and the action heats up when he returns and the slaves have to give an account for what they've done with the cash. If you're like me, you've probably heard two main interpretations of this parable:

The Warren Buffet
The master is God, but this is a story about stewardship - primarily economic stewardship. This interpretation always starts with something like, "One talent, in biblical times, was 6,000 denari - which was the modern day equivalent of a trazillion Japanese yen!" God doles it out freely, but he didn't give you all that cash to blow on iTunes and Starbucks - he wants a return on his "investment." Life is life, and not everyone gets the same amount of money to handle. The important thing is that you use it, and make a return on what is given to you. Specifically, this parable would point to God expecting about a 100% ROI, which you don't need my MBA to tell you is nuttier than a squirrel with elephantitis. The jerk in this story is the humanities major, who slept through econ and buried his money in the ground. The lazy humanities major, not only a financial idiot, also has the audacity to accuse God of being stingy and greedy - a crime for which he is cast into the "outer darkness, where there is weeping, gnashing of teeth, and explosive diarrhea."

The Network Executive
This one is a little more of a stretch - but I've heard it preached boldly in churches. A talent isn't money... it's a talent, silly! You know, like being a gifted speaker, or having pipes like Celine Dion (and I mean vocal, not of the plumbing-variety), or being able to make farting noises with your leg instead of your armpit. These are the same people that might read the Judges account of Sodom, ("So the man seized his concubine, and put her out to them; and they knew her, and abused her all night until the morning") and think: "What's the big deal? I know lots of concubines." Anyway, God is sort of like a network executive in this version: the point is, are you using your talents to glorify God? If you're a gifted speaker, maybe you should preach some Sunday. If you are a gifted musician, maybe you should lead worship, and if you are a gifted artist, maybe you should be on parking lot duty. The guy that gets rebuked? You guessed it, the gifted artist, who shuns parking lot duty.

The Problem...
The problem with these accounts is that they are off at best, and wrong at worst. Aren't there some parables you read, and even though you've heard a hundred sermons on them, you feel deep down that we're missing it? There are two big red flags in this story and the usual interpretations. First is God's espousal of "you have been faithful with a few things, you will be put in charge of many things." I once knew a gal who never drove faster than the posted speed limit, because this was being faithful with a "few" things, and meant God would eventually have to reward her appointing her the princess of Quatar, with absolute power over the lives of its citizens, or something like that. Wacky- but I hear this all the time... and is being faithful with a few things really what God needs to see in order to trust us? (Or the reverse- unfaithfulness with a few things means we're screwed... which, by the way, we would be under this rationale.) The second is the infamous, "everyone who has will be given more, and whoever does not have, I'm also going to kick him in the groin." This verse is the reason I only steal from the homeless and impoverished - God commands it.

The Retelling
I won't spoil the whole kit and caboodle (that is the first time I've typed that word, and boy was it fun). But the short version is this: we're retelling an ancient parable in a very modern capitalist framework. The audience of the story heard it the way we read it still - within their own cultural norm. That norm told them that the usury, the fancy bible-speak for "screwing someone with high interest" was wrong- and the idea of a slave actually getting a 100% return on his investment meant he did not some, but a LOT of dirty dealings. This usually took the form of people with money giving loans with exorbitant interest rates to farmers in bad harvest years; the farmers would default, and the landowners would foreclose on the land or make them indentured servants. The master is exactly as the servant described him - a greedy, controlling, and hard man. The third servant (yes, the one condemned to explosive diarrhea), is the 'hero' of the story- he calls the master for what he is, and his act of burying the talent into the ground was an intentional refusal to participate in a system that expected (and demanded) wrongful gain and exploitation. As Myers puts it:

Unwilling to participate in this exploitation, this third slave took the money out of circulation where it could no longer be used to dispossess another family farmer...He has awakened to the rules of the master's world. His repudiation of it is simple and curt: "Here, take back what is yours" (Matt. 25:25). But he admits that through it all, "I was afraid." For good reason, for he is about to meet the prophet's fate.

It's so easy to read this parable as an endorsement of fiscal responsibility and stewardship... and to miss the boat completely. Dare we consider our other expectations for wealth and success in light of this parable... and the reality that kingdom principles seem to be radically different from capitalist principles? You don't need an MBA to figure that one out... but if you've got one, I hear Apple's stock is a hot buy these days.

My Belated 12 Days of Christmas

If you're like most people, you too have been duped. See, there is this song that we all know, that talks about "12 days of Christmas." Well, I don't know about you, but I've only ever gotten one stinkin' day of Christmas... which means that since my birth, I'm still short a whole 286 days of presents and nog. If we celebrated 12 days of Christmas, we'd have 50% more days of presents than Hanukah - think of how trendy and popular it would be to celebrate Christ's birth then!

In honor of said song, and since I haven't blogged since sometime before Christmas and New Year's, this will be the (quick) catch-up on holiday going-ons: my twelve days of Christmas...

Day 1: We probably watched several episodes of "Lost," season 2, which we were able to find online at a "significant discount."

Day 2: I probably watched the first and second season of "Arrested Development," which I have become addicted to. You can be my "hermano" any day, and watch it with me... just give me a call.

Day 3: We ate incessantly. This really covers all 12 days of Christmas, but that would be a boring update. It all started with our first annual tradition of making Cornish game hens on Christmas eve... and progressed through several prime ribs, a night of shrimp, beef, and chicken fondue, several Dutch and Arabic forms of dessert, stuffed jalapeno peppers and salmon, a sushi-fest, Fenton's in SanFran, diet Coke, several cases of Snapple, a partridge, a pear tree, and vomit-inducing Jones' "Brussel-Sprout" flavored soda.

Day 4: Time with my side of the family on Christmas day. It was good times, and the start of a lot of eating.

Day 5: Driving up to the lakehouse in NorCal in torrential rain. Said rain continued throughout the rest of the week, virtually non-stop. Bad windshield wipers = driving 40mph most of the way.

Day 6: Presents galore. Among the top, I upgraded my digital camera (reviews forthcoming), and several great books, some very special "Scottish Water" that may have been "distilled" and "stored in a cask for 12 years," and a smattering of clothes.

Day 7: Playing the Settlers of Catan with the Zacharia clan. Corrie humiliated me, but I came back with two decisive victories that guaranteed my title as "Lord of Catan" for many weeks to come.

Day 8: A raging bladder infection. Not mine. Corrie's. It exploded on a 3.5 hour drive back to the lakehouse from SanFran, spraying urine and puss everywhere (almost). This was after dropping her fam off to fly back to Hong Kong. We got to spend 2 am - 5 am in more blinding rain at the emergency room (that might have been dramatized for effect).

Day 9: My cup runneth over, as did the lake. 5 days of rain, and the dock and half of the back yard were underwater. Many fun treasures, mostly of the mud or wood variety, find their way into the once-manicured lawn.

Day 10: New Year's Eve. The most overrated holiday of all. We were halfway through "The Negotiator" when midnight struck, and after a short, "woo-hoo," continued our enthrallment with Samuel L. Jackson's plight. (SPOILER: He IS innocent!!)

Day 11: We drive back to So.Cal, in more blinding rain. I sacrifice my body by falling into a puddle and scraping my knees while desperately trying to get inside an auto shop to buy new wipers without getting wet. Failing, a long, bad mood ensued.

Day 12: Back at home, laundry to do, returns to make, and the smoldering remains of a Christmas tree to take down.

Throw in going to the bathroom once or twice, and my annual shower (even though I usually don't need it), and that was pretty much it, folks!