The difference between baptists and fish.

I tried to find a great theological explanation of the difference between Baptists and Fish, but all I could find was this cartoon from the Baptist Times.

Check out more cartoons like this at http://cakeordeathcartoon.wordpress.com/

What fish believe

What exactly do fish believe? I am obviously an elightened, 21st Century fish with a strong understanding of church liturgy and the holiest order for lighting the altar candles, but sometimes the simplest of fishy faiths can be an inspiration to us all.

A recent comment on this blog leads me to share this poem, Heaven by Robert Brooke.

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! -- Death eddies near --
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.

Red Letter Day

As some of you probably already know, I fancy myself as something of a writer. In fact I have an entire blog dedicated to me as a writer. Sad but true.

What you will also have picked up is that I love writing by hand. In the past two years I have written two entire novels by hand, and I do most of my poetry and short stories in a notepad before I even turn on a PC.

I love paper, I love pens, I am a nerd like that.

So one of the things I have been wanting to do for a while is to start writing letters again. You remember letters, right? I even got my bible study group writing short notes to each other one year that would be delivered at the end of the year.

But I just haven’t got around to actually sending the thank-you and thinking of you notes I have been planning for a while.

Then I read Learning as They Grow: A Few Ideas at Kristy K’s blog, and she is talking about a Weekly Letter Writing Challenge. Her plan is to “write one encouraging letter to someone each week in 2010. As a way to hold myself accountable, I'll write a short post each week telling who I wrote the letter to and if I get any letters in return”


So I have decided to try and follow this. It might just give me the impetus to do some letter writing, and use up all the notepaper and envelopes I have horded.

So on Thursday (yesterday) I wrote my first letter. It was just a short one page not to my friend Stanleigh and her husband for letting us have a social at their house on Wednesday to begin our year of bible-study. Since Stanleigh and hubby live just down the road from me, I went and dropped it in their post-box last night. I hope they find it soon. They just got married and moved in less than a month ago, so they might not be checking their post-box yet.

Going around late at night to drop off a letter reminds me a little of a time in my youth when I drove over to a girl’s house on Valentines Day to leave chocolate and flowers on her front step, and then ran in panic when the security light came on, the dogs started barking, and her father came to see what the fuss was all about. But that’s a story for another day I think…

Sorry for you

To the guy(s) from Saudia Aribia who came to my blog by googling "women'sbreef", I don't know what you were hoping to find, but I'll bet it wasn't a talking fish.

Sorry for you.

I'm not like you.

I find this blogging experiment rather interesting. As much as I sometimes feel like it's possible to fit into online communities better than the 'real world', there are also times where I feel very different from most of my online contemporaries. Particularly in the Christian Blogging community.

1. I think I'm a fish.

Okay, let's get this one out the way right up front, so it doesn't become the elephant in the room so to speak. I pretend to be a fish. All the time. My blog posts and comments often have fishy overtones, and sometimes even bad puns. In fact, I am so into my fishy persona that only a handful of you readers even know what my real name is. Sometimes it feels like I'm hiding myself away, even though it also gives me a lot more freedom to say things. Sort of like a mask.

2. I am a boy who thinks he's a fish.

Strange as it sounds, this is a big deal. Most of the blogging circles I find are almost exclusively women. I don't know whether women are taking over the blogging world, or if they just make better bloggers. Probably both. Seriously, what guy is going to sit down at his PC everyday and share his feelings with the world. We don't even do that with each other. DUDE!! But I noticed that often I would be following a blogger for a while before realising that she assumed all her readers/commentators were ladies. She would call us ladies, or some such, and I would notice the distinct absence of males on her blogroll. I don't mean the 'single mother' or 'homeschooling' type pages, but jsut general Christian blogging. I was even once given a 'shout-out' for being "not our usual commenter, he's a guy."

3. I am a boy from far away who thinks he's a fish.

So maybe you think the boy thing is not so unusual, but the living far away is. Almost without fail, the blogs I follow and people I interact with fall somewhere on the North American Continent. (With one or two Aussie and UK exceptions) It might not seem like a big deal to you, but sometimes it is a little isolating. The fact that I will probably never actually meet any of yuo guys. The fact that I have to watch conversations like "Who's going to (insert cool church gathering) in July, it will be awesome.", "My friend Mindy finally came to Portland for a visit, and we got to hook up.", "That was a great sermon you preached on Sunday, and all the other bloggers at Smallville Community Church agree." Not to mention the fact that half the videos my friends post on their blogs are "restricted to US only", as are many of the special offers, giveaways and "join our network (not yet in foreign countries)" opportunities.

And don't get me started on the fact that I don't understand most of the sports, TV or product jokes. Why is Walmart funny? I have no idea.

4. I am a single boy from far away who thinks he's a fish.

Okay, this one's kind of my fault I guess. No one forced me to still be single in my 30s. And to be quite honest it doesn't really bother me much. (Being a single blogger I mean, the single part does suck a leetle.) It just seems that many of the blogging communities I interact with have families and children. So sometimes I just smile and wave when I see the cute post about your kids. Seriously though, I do love them. I love kids, I love the insight into your family. It just sometimes feels like I have nothing to contribute, because I have no one to tell you about.

So here's my question...

What makes you feel different?

Is there some way you sometimes feel like you don't fit in with others?

Let me know I'm not the only freak out here, swimming in unfamiliar waters.

I'm back, or not.

As much as I would love to pretend to be all super-spiritual and say I have been on a digital fast for the whole year, the truth is that I have just been too lazy and uninspired to post anything for three weeks.

So I thought I would drop in and tell you I haven't forgotten I have this blog.

I'm just ignoring it right now.

Faith like Potato salad

I am a pretty good cook, if I do say so myself.  My chicken and pasta dishes are quite tasty, and don’t get me started on my Lamb Chops in Garlic and Butternut.  Mostly I am self-taught, finding recipes and adapting them to my tastes; but one thing I did learn from my Mother – Potato Salad.

My mother never sat me down and told me “This is the recipe for Potato Salad” for the simple reason that she has no recipe.  Instead I watched her for thirty years as she added a little of this, and a little of that until it ‘looked right’.  Not the easiest thing to learn, trust me on that.  I helped to peel potatoes, and boiled eggs and gradually did more and more until now I can make a decent potato salad. I never asked her to teach me, but it tasted so good, I just couldn’t keep away, and one day had to try it for myself.

Of course my potato salad is slightly different.  I prefer to grate the onion with a serrated steak-knife rather than cutting it, and my pieces are smaller.  It’s just the way I prefer it.  So I learned a great deal from watching, stuff that could be explained, but can only be learned by watching, tasting what works for you, and making mistakes.

My Mother is also probably the reason I am a Christian today.  It wasn’t only her potato salad that she showed us over the years, and she made her faith so tasty, that we all chose to try it for ourselves.
(Although I am the only one who can make Potato Salad.)

Are you making Potato Salad for your kids, and those around you?