Not of this World

On the way to the office this morning, we saw a Hummer H2 with a NotW sticker. I started cracking up, and my wife said it well: "I'm not of this world, so I can waste all it's resources!" This was, after all, a city Hummer.

A bit later, she said, "Darn those illegal immigrants! They won't assimilate into our culture, and they're using all our resources!"

Then, piling on, she said, "They won't even learn our language! They just speak this weird something . . ."

My wife, the comedienne. The more I try to parse it, the more ironic it gets. They are of this world in investing massive amounts of resources in their home. Oh, I mean their car! (I recognize the sliding scale here.) But driving the H2 with that sticker really says their theology is escapist. We're called to steward this creation well without buying into the corrupt thought systems.

Patriotism

A couple of weeks ago, Susan and I were driving through a new construction zone, and we saw a delightful sign. It was delightful because we were pretty sure there was a mistake, but we weren't sure. It said, "Stores open during construction," and the second screen said, "Thank you for your patriotism." We tried laughing, but we were too incredulous to do so wholeheartedly. What if they actually meant that?

Tonight we drove by, and thankfully our suspicions were confirmed. The second screen read "Thank you for your patronage."

Gales of laughter.

Kelly

I'm sitting at the oil change place getting ready to try to get some work done. (How's that for three degrees' separation from reality? I swear I'll accomplish a lot.)

I have to make the quick note that Kelly Ripa looks extremely bored. She looks utterly disengaged, but on cue, she knows when Regis will ask a question, and she deadpans a sarcastic answer. I know that's part of her schtick, but I've never seen somebody so disengaged in a "conversation."

Leadership and service

Oddly enough, as I was washing the skillet in which I prepared scrambled eggs for our egg and cheese tortillas, I started thinking about leadership vis-à-vis crap jobs. I've also had amorphous ideas brewing for a while about gifting and the utilization thereof.

Then it hit me. In figuring out responsibility within a group, a leader should first see if there is anyone who is gifted at or likes doing a certain thing, say, cleaning toilets. If not, then that is for that group a "crap job" (pun not necessarily intended). At that point, it is the leader's responsibility to do that job.

It's important to weigh gifting before "servant shepherd" leadership. Only when it is clear that there is a dearth of gifting does the leader do the right thing and be the servant in that particular task. It should also be clear that there's no BSing (pun also not really intended) when people are claiming gifts. The leader should not allow any individual to curry favor by taking the crap job. Then gifting and service are both allowed to flourish.

This is idealistic for sure, and there may be situations where it is utterly impractical and totally counterproductive. But I think there's some merit here, and I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Annie Waits

The repeat song of the day has been "Annie Waits" by Ben Folds. Further, Ben Folds has been the repeat artist the last couple of days, since his driving piano and strong vocals have driven me to get a lot of work done. A nice thing these days.

I just turned off the repeat, but only after forty listens. Yikes! It's good.

Refectory

I have to wonder about pretension. Or pretending.

The other day, I was on the intranet for Fuller Seminary, and I saw their refectory was closed or had limited hours for the summer. This begged the question in my head: "What the heck is a refectory?" I had an idea, but I had to check. And sure enough, it did have to do with food. Well, I'll be. I'm a pretty big fan of foody stuff.

Why did my seminary use such a pretentious word for "cafeteria"?

Because they aren't pretending.

My widget tells me that a refectory is a place for communal meals, especially in a religious or educational institution. Fuller's good on four counts. There's food. They're religious. They provide education. And they like to emphasize community.

I'm not normally against big words, but for some reason I thought this pretense was a bit out of line. It's a friggin' cafeteria. But actually it's not. A cafeteria denotes a place where feedlot cattle would eat if they were bipeds and carried trays. A refectory is a place where students or monastics intentionally—self-consciously, in a good way—come together to share a meal in a reflective atmosphere.

Not having been on the main campus of Fuller since I was four, I'm happy to know that they are at least trying to cultivate the discipline of reflective communal supping, even if it may be in name only.

Demonym

When I showed my wife the hilarity of my friend's post, we started talking about Niger, the country where they live. What is a person from Niger called? I had an idea, but I didn't want to make anything up, so I checked Wikipedia. Our friends there introduced me to one of my new favorite words: demonym. Literally, it means "name of the people." It seems a fairly recent neologism, and it's brilliant. By the way, they're "Nigeriens," pronounced with a Freedom accent.