Author: Glen

seen today on campus

While at our contact table, I spotted a student wearing a shirt sporting the word Juventus. Alan Asbeck and I speculated as to its meaning, finally deciding that it was a composite of juvenile and momentous and was used to describe events of cosmic significance to young people–such as a prom theme. Alas, it turns out to be an Italian soccer team.

An Unfortunate Mental Blank

As I was working our contact table today on campus, a freshman gal walked up and asked if we were a sorority (which makes me think I should wear something less frilly tomorrow).

As we are not, in fact, a sorority I tried to muster the necessary words to communicate that we welcome both males and females.

The obvious word is coed. What I should have said is, “No, we’re a coed Christian ministry.”

But I had one of those sudden inabilities to remember the appropriate word. My brain frantically raced up and down the halls of my mind to seize a word that would help her understand that Chi Alpha was both male and female.

I settled on transgender.

As in, “No, we’re a transgender group.”

Not my finest verbal hour.

As my brain slowly began to process the words that had come out of my mouth (which, distressingly enough, appear to be the overflow of my heart) I become less and less coherent as I tried to throw more words into the ensuing silence, not unlike trying to repair a bullet wound with more rounds of hot lead.

In the end, I think she understood.

I suspect she also thought I was a sad, strange little man.

the inimitable Terry Pratchett strikes again

If you’ve never had the pleasure before, you owe it to yourself to read something by Terry Pratchett. He’s a humor fantasy novelist who actually makes me laugh out loud on a fairly regular basis.

I just finished his most recent book and stumbled across these two little snippets that tickled me.

Thud! (Discworld, Book 30)

[Nobby said,] “There’s a lot that goes on that we don’t know about.”

“Like what, exactly?” Colon retorted. “Name me one thing that’s going on that you don’t know about. There–you can’t, can you?” (page 42)

And later…

“War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?” he said.
“Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?”
“Absol–well, okay.”
“Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor?”
“All right, I’ll grant you that, but–”
“Saving civilization from a horde of–”
“It doesn’t do any good in the long run is what I’m saying, Nobby, if you’d listen for five seconds together, ” said Fred Colon sharply.
“Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge?” (page 50)

The Big Tent

Freshman arrived on campus today, and so we were there as well.

There’s an event sponsored by the Office for Religious Life called “Frosh & Faith.” It’s actually more for parents than for students. It happens within a few hours of parents bringing their children to campus and is meant to reassure them that there is at least a remnant of students who strive for righteousness. At least, that’s my take on it.

Anyway, we always set up a table there along with the other groups and try to meet freshmen like crazy.

Today the weather threw us a curveball.

It rained.

In Palo Alto in September.

It rained.

I was stunned.

I was also dry, having had the foresight to bring a canopy. I was also soon alone, as all the other groups had neglected this crucial bit of preparation.

At first the other groups struggled through. We invited those at adjacent tables to shelter within our tent, leading to the never-before-heard statement from an ordained Assembly of God minister (moi) to an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister (Dean Scotty McLennan), “Come on in–the Assemblies of God tent is big enough for you.”

Heh. That made me happy.

By the end it was us and one or two other groups. Even the Office for Religious Life bailed.

A rather auspicious start to the school year–all the frosh have been baptized and now we just need to get them to show up.

Rat Redux

We thought our rat problems were over.

No such luck.

Like the Sith, our rats come in twos. We have slain the apprentice, but the master is still at large. Lurking. Waiting.

We found strong scatalogical evidence that the rat had spent some time browing around our bedroom, and Paula was so freaked out that I thought we were going to have to pack up and move into a new apartment on the spot.

We hereby declare a state of war on any and all rodents which have the misfortune to be found in our apartment. And to all “bystanders” just remember–you are either with us or you are with the rats.

Dembski Does Daily Show

William Dembski was on the Daily Show tonight for a panel discussion on evolution. He did much better than I expected, although it was obvious that Jon Stewart didn’t really understand the differences between old-school creation science and the intelligent design camp (or perhaps he simply didn’t care about those differences). In addition, I found it interesting that Dembski and Edward Larson were basically agreeing with one another on most of the points and that Stewart didn’t seem to pick up on it.

Redesigned PreachingToday.com is Sweet

The redesigned PreachingToday.com is really nice. The new media section is especially good (although it’s a bit hard to find the media browsing page–it’s http://preachingtoday.com/media/browse.html–and there are a few glitches they still need to work out).

Overall, I’m quite happy. I’m an annual subscriber and I’ve always gotten far more than my money’s worth. Now it’s doubly true.