Socialist Sushi

I’ve always been a book nerd. When I was in elementary school my parents discovered I loved to read. So they bought be books. Lots of them. They figured, hey, good habit, let’s encourage it.

When I was in my teens my mom bought me a book about World War II. I was fourteen, maybe fifteen, and had never really learned about this thing called the Holocaust (hooray, public school). Even though I don’t remember the name of this book, I credit it with what has become a lifelong love of history.

It wasn’t a book of generalities. It contained stories of individuals and families: “This is what happened to my parents.” “This is when I watched my brother die.” It wasn’t possible to look at the victims as a group. It was extremely personal, and painful.

We forget that things don’t really happen to groups; they happen to individuals. The poor in America aren’t a homogeneous blob. They’re people: mothers, fathers, kids. I fear that the American church has largely lost sight of this.

Painful as it is, we need to break out of this. We need to take the time to meet people who need help, get to know them, invest in their lives. If we claim to follow Christ, we can’t get away from the fact that he didn’t send a representative to give a handout. He came himself and paid the cost himself. We need to do likewise.

Last night two guys from a local church came by. They were friendly enough; after I told them we attended a local church they didn’t have much to say, except to invite us to a special event at their church that’s coming up in a week or two. All fine.

Before they left, though, one pointed to my doormat and said: “Is that German?”

“Um, no. It’s a joke, really.”

“Oh. Well I don’t get it.”

I considered asking “Have you ever heard of a guy named Snoop Dogg?” But, considering their church and age, figured it would be best to just leave that out. Instead I replied, “Well, it’s one of those things. If you get it, it’s funny; if you don’t, there’s really no point to explain.”

A couple of hours later we ordered a pizza. After we swapped a check for pie, the delivery dude pointed to the same mat and said, “That’s the coolest doormat ever. I wish I had my camera phone.”

I told him about the previous visitors. He thought that was funny, too.

The mat in question:

Tried to leave a comment on this blog post. Even though it asks for my name, email, and url, it tells me I can’t enter a url and have to log in, anyway. So why not say that before I type my comment?

Here’s what I wrote:

regarding people being anonymous “as cover for saying things you’d never otherwise offer”: Do you think newspapers should stop using anonymous sources, or do you at least think anonymity can sometimes be useful?

For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.

Romans 15:8-9

Busy day today. Easter service, of course. Then we had about 15 people over for dinner. Easy to lose focus of what today is supposed to be about.

As seems to be normal for American churches, most of the focus is on us: How God loves us so much, how our guilt can be thrown on Christ. Which is true. The problem is these things are not the end, but one of the means. They’re meant to point to God, not to some intrinsic value in us.

The end is not us, the end is bringing glory to Christ.

Jesus fulfilled the myriad promises of God regarding salvation. That salvation — available to all — should cause us to look beyond ourselves to God.

Easter is a great time to remember that it’s not all about us.

Activist arrested while feeding homeless:

Eric Montanez, 21, a member of Orlando’s Food Not Bombs, violated a city ordinance against feedings in the park Wednesday evening, police said. Each group is allowed to feed only 25 people, but undercover officers saw Montanez feed 30, police spokeswoman Barbara Jones said.

It almost saddens me that Florida isn’t having to arrest pastors and church members is droves on this one. I guess it’s because we normally don’t care too much about feeding people, anyway, contrary to the opinion of some.

Wednesday night Amber purchased and downloaded a song from American Idol. It was in WMA format, and required an activation code. No problem — the code was on the download page. Just copy and paste.

Only it didn’t work. It kept giving her scripting errors. I played with it a bit, and on about the third try the little browser window gave that warning, the “Do you really want to run this ActiveX control?” warning. I clicked yes, and everything worked.

Is this how easy all DRM will be now? Where a competent computer user like my wife will be stumped? Where Internet Explorer will only give you the actual error after several tries?

It’s so nice to spend money and then be treated like a thief.

Wednesday I met with a friend for our weekly book discussion. I drove to his house to pick him up and go to a local coffee house to sit and chat.

When I got the where I’d turn on 17 toward his house I was behind a mustang waiting to turn. So I sat patiently, and watched a gap form in the traffic which the driver before me did not take advantage of. And then another, larger, gap.

It was at this point that I realized the brake lights were not lit on the car.

After this I realized no one was in the car at all.

It was just sitting there, in the turning lane, no emergency flashers, nothing. Just blocking the way.

I went around it, drove to the house. After a few minutes’ chitchat with my friend and his wife we drove away. Two guys with a trailer were there with a trailer to get the car. Broken fuel pump, apparently. We helped them push the car up — and easy thing for four people to do.

Just rather… odd.

My friend Wade, when told this story, responded: “That situation was tailor-made for a Mentos commercial.”