Rules of the Church Potluck

God may have rested on the 7th day but I’m pretty sure that the night before he told the woman, “hey, we’re havin’ a potluck tomorrow!”
Having been to a few potlucks in my short 40 years I have decided to lay down some essential laws pertaining to the potluck…
1. Children should be highly supervised by experienced adults (preferably the crotchediest woman on the church serving committee. Potlucks are invariably a feast for the eyes as well as the belly. Filled with the legends of potlucks dancing in their heads children are liable to take much of the precious potluck food which will sadly go to waste once they have sat down and return to their normative gustatory peculiarities.
---Corollary: Parents whose children do not finish their plates are obliged to finish their children’s plates also... even if they did take the mystery meat by mistake.
2. Two meatballs is an acceptable serving size at a potluck. ‘Overachievers’ will be prosecuted by the church board at the next meeting.
3. When considering which dish to bring to the potluck BANISH any thought of what might be the healthiest or most weight conscious entrée to prepare. Make your food as rich and full flavour as possible. Remember that Church Potlucks are intended to bring parishioners closer to their Maker so do your part by clogging their arteries as much as possible so that they might meet Him sooner.
4. It is critical to recruit a threatening tactical unit which will ensure that the youth of the church do not sit closest to the desert table. These young ones are just clever enough to have figured out the benefits of potluck without having the courage for the restraint needed to ensure the safe potlucking for the whole congregation.
5. THERE SHALL BE NO PREFERRENTIAL TREATMENT in allocating place in the line. The end of the pastor’s prayer shall be considered the starting gun – at which point it is the right and responsibility of each individual to make their way to the food line.
---Corollary: Some might suggest the pregnant women and the elder be given advantages in the line. This is potluck heresy. Consider that the elderly can make full advantage of canes and walkers to secure their place in line and pregnant women are ornery enough to get to where they need to be without some special jump-ahead-in-line pass.
6. Remember that your plate has a finite surface area and will snap when loaded in excess of 14lbs of food. You will be asked to clean up your own mess and there is no excuses acceptable that contend that food items have “run together on my plate!”
7. If you can skip out of the church gym there must not have been enough food – ask the pastor to preach a message on the topic.
8. If you waddle out of the church and barely make it to your couch for meddah shlope - You shall send an encouragement note to the evangelism committee telling them how good a job they are doing.
9. Potluck Serving ladies (and these days more and more men are attempting to take on this role) shall be nominated by the deacons and shall present their testimony to the membership meeting. Any evidence that the serving crew has intentionally reserved or orchestrate the placement of the food dishes to advantage their own repast shall be excommunicated (unless of course it can be proven that they always bring meatballs).
10. In-experienced potluckees (those who bring the potluck meals) shall not be compensated for improper labelling of their own cookware.
11. There is a proportional responsibility on the part of the potluckees who bring the most popular dishes to share their recipes given an appropriate compliment is given followed by an equally appropriate incredulous, "is it alot of work to make?"
---Corollary: Having had a wildly popular dish's recipe shared with you - YOU SHALL NOT bring it tot he next potluck and usurp the position of favor afforded to the reigning champions of previous potluck.

a little help here...

We recently had a wonderful visit with an old friend. We laughed and tossed around the obligatory reminiscences after a few months of not seeing each other. Inevitably as it seems most conversations seem eventually come around to talking about “Holy Things” (Nacho Libre ref.). Religion, church etc seem to crop up a lot in conversations that we have with people in general. My friend it would be fair to say has wandered around a bit spiritually – disillusioned by so much of the institutional expressions of church but certainly not abandoning faith at all. This is a smart talented person. One statement that my friend made caused me to extra intrigue in our conversation about God. In the course of our conversation my friend said something like this, “As far as faith goes, I pay attention to my heart and not my head. I’ve had so many questions lately and if I would have paid attention to my head I probably would not be a Christian right now.”
There is a lot to take away from a statement like that. First of all, it is a good reminder that we all approach the concepts of faith in nuanced pathways that involve both intellectual arguments and appealing emotional tones. It makes me wonder if sometimes there has been too much of a focus on thinking the right way or feeling a certain way in order to fully identify with the believing community. Modernity has served the church well in raising the requirements for thinking the right way as a measure of the suitability for participation in the body.
Second the statement is also a reminder of the fact that faith is far more complex than it used to be. I suppose this is due to the influences of a post-modern culture. Engaging with faith is not as simple as cognitive assent to 4 ‘spiritual’ laws or a codified catechism. There are significant questions that affect morality, doctrinal position and the like. This is not your Mom and Dad’s church/religion anymore. And if you still face the requirement to ‘think the right way’ you could be in a rough shape for a long while – trying to wrap your head around big issues like homosexuality and violence…
Third this statement teases out a rather scathing indictment on the body of Christ. Consider that there are numerous scriptural references that speak to the simplicity of following after the Rabbi from Nazareth (we are to be like children quickly springs to mind). Could it be that the church has complexified the essence of faith in all of its theological and doctrinal discussions to the point where it really remains out of reach? What I mean is that perhaps the church is guilty of the same folly that earned the Pharisees Jesus’ sharpest criticism, by making faith unnecessarily complicated for the average individual to engage with. Here I wonder if the disconnect is at the point where the actions of the church do not match what it is claiming to teach.
On the other hand perhaps this statement is also fairly revelatory about the mode of engagement that at least a certain group of people are inclined to pursue. Maybe this statement is a self-condemnation of sorts that reveals the instant-ness that we have all come to expect out of in our culture – a lack of willingness to engage with the deep thing of God, if you will.
All of these wonderings are significant if one supposes that the statement above is somehow indicative of the way (some) people are feeling/thinking. Some of Reg Bibby’s work (Restless Gods) tells us that more readily identifying as religious people and that the trajectory of secularism projected by the doomsayers of years ago are out to lunch. However even though people are identifying themselves as religious they are typically staying away from attendance and involvement in local institutions in greater numbers than before. Could it be that my friends statement is a least a contributing factor in these trends? I think it is worth exploring.
Ruminating on this statement has left me in a melancholy frame. It serves as an interesting mirror to reflect on the years of ministry that lie behind me. I am also prone to wonder if churches are paying attention to stuff like this and if they might be interested in taking the role of the presumably spiritually mature agent in this faith engagement. What I mean is that the church should take the burden of responsibility in addressing any stumbling blocks which might lie between apparently interested individuals and the faith in Christ that they claim to be purveyors of…
Here’s my goal to look for places where the body of Christ is doing this well – removing obstacles…(Humming: Arcades Fire's Intervention)

Salsa Exchange and Competition

The food not the dance…
Salsa is best condiment known to human culinary experience. This is largely due to the fact that the best salsas are the homemade varieties. Recipes are guarded. Secret ingredients are often hidden even in one’s own kitchen. Based on this I submit a proposal to all who might wander across this blog. A contest and an exchange…
No recipes need to be revealed but here is how it works… In Fall (closing date to be established) you may send in exactly one cup of salsa in a well sealed container (shipping instructions will follow). your salsa sample will be judged by a yet to be determined set of independent judges. There will be a prize for the winner in a few different categories. Regular, Hot, Wacky. Criteria to be posted.
In addition if there is enough interest I would like to also orchestrate a salsa exchange (a la cookie exchange). I will send more details about this will work but I will be in charge of coordinating the distribution. What to do?
Comment below and let me know that you are interested…

Swine Flu

So hey the travel advisor against trips to Mexico has been lifted. That means that we can all keep rehearsing our important Spanish phrases like, “Donde esta el bano.” So how did it feel to be swept up in panic that was Swine Flu? Did you enjoy your springtime fear fix or was it a bad trip for you?

How to make a baby

I knew it!
This will be very helpful for the marriage preparation stuff I am doing this summer...

Tourism: the seed bed of all evil ;)

Ryan commented on a few conversations that he had regarding the idea that people who faced tragedy or poverty got what they deserved due to their lack of faith in God.

What We Deserve « Rumblings

Comments I made on that post elicited a few questions and I will try to support my comments here rather than derail Ryan’s thread.

Leisure travel is by nature a function of wealth and an exercise in subjugating a place and people. Poor people cannot afford to travel for purposes of leisure. Poor people also are locked into service ‘industry’ (that keeps them poor) through several capitalist mechanisms. The first of which is the system of transnational capital practiced by the IMF and WMF whereby local countries provide free trade zones where foreign companies can come and set up shop without having to pay much of any kind of tax back to the host country. These companies use cheap local labour to extract significant profits while putting very little back into the local economy. Most importantly they locate and fix the indigenous population in place – drawing them to employment in these FTZs. The wages people receive are not enough to support them and they often must work many jobs to survive and they remain in poverty.

Here is a recap of the questions presented in Ryan’s post…

are you suggesting that tourism is evil because it encourages people to migrate to coastal regions where they could be killed by a tsunami? should we perhaps move these hotels inland provided they are not near a fault line or a volcano? or is it evil and selfish because it removes them from their subsistence way of life? is it evil to travel because you might indirectly influence someone to change their current vocation from one of farming to one in the service industry? should we barricade western culture from other cultures in order not influence them?

Answer to the first question:

Tourism is not intrinsically evil but the practice of tourism has significantly subjugating consequences one of which is that due to tourism there were generally more people in the areas affected by the Tsunami than there would have been otherwise. We also know that in the aftermath of the Tsunami wealthy foreigners were significantly advantaged in accessing help – but this is just obvious. We know that the poor suffered more than the wealthy did in this tragedy…

Answer to question two:

As I have already stated the damaging effect of the leisure travel/tourism are evident without them being in the direct path of an impending disaster. Moving the location of the hotels only transplants the problems.

Answer to three and four:

Like I said earlier, the economic systems that drive the tourism industry lock people in place and reduce the options available to them in order to provide for their families. This is what is so insidious since on the surface it seems that people are making a decision between subsistence and service industry employment. But let us not forget that it was not the locals decision to have foreigners come and lounge on their beaches and traipse around on their ancient ruins. And local peoples do not have the power to kick transnationals out of the country.

Answer to last question:

There are aspects of western culture and values that have created significant problems globally. There are other aspects that have the potential to provide significant opportunity to improve the well-being of people around the world. Barricading western culture from the rest of the world is not only impossible but just silly. Cultural exchange is valuable when reciprocity is mutually available and balanced. But when the cultural values of one dominate another problems exist (Unless it is somehow possible to prove that Western culture is just that much more superior to other cultures – in which case subjugate all you want!). Western cultural values hold a place of privilege and authority in the world. As such it is important to address aspects that might be damaging.

Finally, (to try to connect this back to Ryan’s post) when western ideological perspectives and consequences are endorsed through faulty logic couched as Christian values – then repentance is needed. If western Christians think that their advantaged position is somehow an endorsement by the Almighty - they are getting it wrong. If they think that poor heathen people get what they deserve when disaster strikes – they are getting it wrong. If westerners can’t recognize that their practices bear significantly harmful consequences, both overtly and covertly, they are getting it wrong.

I think that there are ways to enjoy the marvels of God’s creation in different countries. I’d be glad to entertain ideas from any of you who bother to read this as to how this might be possible…

Shveen Flew

Back out of retirement

Proof Texting the Second Round

A.K.A. Benny Hinn does the playoffs!

Seeing as the prophesy discerned for round one of the playoffs proved more or less correct (My sincere sympathy to my Flames loving readers). We here at the pickle have decided to press on with the word which cometh from on high and predict the next round outcomes – using the tried and true method that most prophet employ the ubiquitous proof text.

Boston and Carolina

According to 1 Kings 19:11 “the Lord was not in the wind” on the other hand in 2 Kings 2:24 “two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths”. Obviously, this can only mean that Carolina has blown their last gust and just think if two bears can wipe out 40 youth a whole team of them should be able to handle John Torterella – oh shucks those guys are out of the playoffs…

Bruins in 5

Detroit and Anaheim

Friends Leviticus 23:40 makes this very clear. “On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice…for seven days.” Many might look at this passage as the inauguration of one of Israel’s feasts – they would only see half of the meaning. The number seven is important here as is the reference to palms since it seems that Pronger and the gang from the city of palms are destined to rejoice over the Red Wings in Seven Games… Who’s mounting up with wings now Osgood? See its in the name right there the goalie thinks he’s good and he’s not. Don’t you know pride cometh before a game seven loss…

Vancouver and Chicago

Now follow along with this. We know that the Black Hawks were named after a revered First Nations group – in fact they bear a ‘likeness’ of one of these valiant warriors upon their jersey. However, as we all know the Canucks have drawn from Haida First Nations imagery in their logo as well. So how to tell the difference? Well once again obscure historical passages that once only served to put you to sleep in those night time devotions is useful in delivering predictions…

Consider 1Chronicles 12:1&2 Here is clearly says that, “…the men who came to David…were among the warriors who helped him in battle;” (and we all know that David was the winner in battle) Who were these men? Well, “they were armed with bows and were able to shoot arrows or to sling stones right-handed or left-handed (an obvious illusion to scoring ability from the left or right wing); they were kinsmen of Saul” An of course we all know that Jonathan (as in Jonathan Toews) was Saul’s premier kinsman. So there you have it…

A dandy little verse that proves that the NUCKS will face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…and lose in 6.

Pittsburgh and Washington

Obviously Jericho the great walled and fortified city of giants can only refer to Washington. And as most of you plainly know instructions about how this city can be defeated are pretty clearly spelled out in Joshua Chapter 6. Circling the city means that the ‘cycle’ will be critical to success against Ovechkin and his pals but it will take seven games to declare the winner and by the looks of things that game might have a few extra overtime periods. But take a closer look at verse 2: “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.” I’ll admit I myself was surprised by this but it seems that not only will Pittsburgh win the series but they will take over the Whitehouse as well. In a move reminiscent of the time when Canada burned the Whitehouse in 1812 – it seems that Sidney Crosby is poised to become president of the United States as well. Some one better tell Barack to hang a red sash out the oval office window…

Prevention Program

Prevent something from happening again.

If you can really prevent it from ever happening again – you’ve actually eradicated it.

In that case it there is no need to prevent it.

You only actually prevent it till the next time it happens.

So prevention never really works.

 

Example:

Dwight Shrute,

That being said, if a pirate does enter a hospital missing a leg, under no circumstances should he be given a wooden peg leg, because that just enables him to get back on his feet. He'll be raping and pillaging in no time.

History and Memory

So say you are an historian. Forget all the rhetoric about history being written by the winners. Forget the limitation of individual perspective. Consider that there is no actual location for the events stored in your brain. There is no cell in my brain for the first kiss or the first time I hit the ditch. There isn’t even a group of cells that you could point to as holding these events. Don’t forget that all that is up there is: chemicals passing between neurons carried by an electrical charge. Somehow out of all that some neural stimulation make it into what we call awareness (a bunch of stuff does not: the feeling of your socks on your feet rarely enters your awareness). That these neurons could produce this thing called awareness is mysterious enough but from that awareness some stimuli get preserved by (not in) the brain. If this information persists we call it memory.

What can we say so far? Your brain does not contain memories – it MAKES memories. The best theories of memory suggest that memory is an association of neurons firing in relatively the same way as when the original event occurred. The deal is that in order to pull up that vivid memory of your first kiss you gotta reconstruct the event – you rebuild it. By definition then the thing you remember is not the actual original event but your reconstruction of it which means of course that it is different (even if in small ways) than the original. Now this happens to be a fairly accurate process – one that we rely on pretty heavily (sometimes too heavily). That first kiss was with Charlene for me! It is not very likely that I will ever tell you Julianna was the first female with whom I passionately shared saliva. This good and keeps my relationship with Char pretty much locked up!

But what about the study that showed people two cars in an accident then they asked the observers this question: How fast were the vehicles going when they ______? (in the blank they substituted the words: crash. collided, bumped, hit, smashed). What they found was that the observers reported the cars as travelling up to 10 mph faster with the most graphic words like smashed than they did with words like bumped. People rebuilt the memory to accommodate the question they were asked. What does that tell us? That things can be (and often are) moulded to accommodate the conditions of a pre-existing state.

So you are historian right? You write down what you remember about a battle, a voyage, an encounter, a personality. What can we say about your account? Well since it was made up (constructed) we can tell you that it is not completely accurate with the original. We can also be confident that what you wrote is deeply affected by the conditions, biases and influences that you held at the time of writing it down. We seem to be pretty comfortable with this situation since we use it all the time.

I think it should makes us stop and think about what we mean when we say that something is reliable. Is BBC News actually more reliable than CNN or CBC? It can’t actually be more reliable since we know that each piece of reporting has taken an event and processed it through the neurons in their brain and reconstructed the event for us to read.

But what about Scripture? Does the idea that the Holy Spirit inspired scripture mean that a new level of reliability is achieved? Does that mean that the writers brains became putty in the hands of the Holy Spirit? Does it change the way we read and use Scripture if we say that human neurons functioned as they normally do in writing these texts? Interesting questions to be sure…

Let me know when your autobiography  is ready to go to print…