Adelle's zoo highlight

We took the girls to the zoo today. Adelle's highlight was when we were in the monkey house and one of the monkeys kissed another monkey's butt. I didn't see it happen so I don't know if the monkey really kissed the others butt, but it looked like it to her. And apparently this was one of the funniest things Adelle has seen in her short life. All the way home she kept saying, "that monkey kissed the other monkey's booty!!" And then she would crack up into hysterical laughter. Oh how I love 2 year old humor.

the Great Big Good News

I've been thinking recently about how big the Good News is. Firstly though, let me say that I prefer the term Good News over the term Gospel, because the word Gospel has lost its meaning for me. We've got Gospel music, Gospel radio stations, Gospel rap, Gospel this, Gospel that. We use it in phrases like, "The Gospel According to the Simpsons" (a real book title). Seriously, the first thing that comes to mind when someone says 'Gospel' is a genre of music that my recently deceased grandmother adored, but that I really don't enjoy. All that to say that I prefer to say Good News.

Anyways, the Good News is big. I mean really big. When I say big I mean it in the sense of it being great. And by great I mean it in the way Webster (the dictionary, not the TV character played by Emmanuel Lewis) defines it: remarkable in magnitude, degree, or effectiveness

The Good News is way bigger than the whole, 'ask Jesus into your heart thing.' Jesus didn't ask people to ask Him into their hearts; He told them to follow Him. Its way bigger than the way we express it in American culture; ours is an American gospel. Its way bigger than any ministry, local church, or even mega church. Its bigger than any group of people, country, and bigger and greater than the world.

Here's how big/ great it is:
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."" Revelation 21:1-5

The Good News is big. Its great. Its cosmic. And I treat it so lightly.

movie pet peeves

I'm currently re-reading Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams. Its the second book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. A movie was made of "Hitchhiker" so you might be familiar with that. Not much to say about that, except that they might be the funniest books I've ever read.

But it leads me to one of my pet peeves about movies - books that are made into movies. As a general rule, the book is better than the movie. Even with some of the better adaptations (like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter) I always love books better than the movies that are made from them. Don't get me wrong because I love the HP and LOTR movies, but in general, I don't like the whole turning-books-into-movies thing. I've never seen a film adaptation film of a John Grisham book that was as awesome as the book. The movies weren't terrible, its just that John Grisham is such a brilliant author and its hard to translate that brilliance to the screen. Seriously, The Firm is one of my favorite all time books, but I could not sit through more than half an hour of it because it paled in comparison to the book. And there are some movies I refuse to watch because the books are so amazing and to watch the movie would spoil the book. Interview with a Vampire is one example. For me to not watch that is saying a lot, because I love vampire movies. And even though Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, films made from his books and stories generally don't compare to how good the books are.

This leads me to even another movie pet peeve: Sequels. I hate them. I'm not talking about Star Wars, LOTR, or Harry Potter, because they are serials. Each was intended at their conception to be a series (thus the term serial). But what I hate are those terrible Hollywood part 2's and 3's and 10's that never live up to the original movie's glory. And since many of the movies being made into sequels aren't that great to begin with, that just means that the sequel is going to be painful. So in general, sequels are never a good idea.

Here are a few categories of sequels that I thought of:
Horror/ Thriller movie sequels: Jaws, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Saw, etc.
Comedy sequels: Weekend at Bernie's 2, Nutty Professor 2, Big Mama's House 2, Police Academy: Infinity
Action movie sequels: Speed 2, The Transporter 2. This category also includes the sub-category of The desperate aging Hollywood star sequels: Live Free or Die Harder-er with Bruce Willis, or Sylvester Stallone in Rocky/ Rambo 19: Cold Cocked

My last movie pet peeve deals with the worst kinds of movies made - movie adaptations of old TV shows. Seriously, the Brady Bunch movie (and don't forget the Very Brady Sequel)? The Brady Bunch was never that good anyway. And The Dukes of Hazard movie? Yawn... Although, I'd personally love for somebody to make a movie out of The A-Team. That's one that I would see.

SYTYCD brought back...

Happy Independence Day!

Uncle Rico

Uncle Rico is maybe the best movie character of all time!

Warner Sallman and Jesus art

This painting of Jesus has to be one of the most iconic American paintings ever. Anybody ever seen this one hanging in a church or at your grandmother's house? How many people think of this very image when they picture Jesus? I do, or at least I did in the past. Anyways, I was curious to find out who painted this. Turns out that this was painted by a believing artist named Warner Sallman. Wikipedia says this about the man and the painting:

"Warner Sallman (1892 - 1968) was a Christian painter from Chicago. He worked as a freelance illustrator. His portrait of Christ, The Head of Christ, of which more than 500 million copies have been sold, is better known than he is, however the New York Times in 1994 called him the "best-known artist of the century". He also created commercial advertising images." (read the rest here).

There are lots of other visual representations of Jesus, some of which are really awesome, and some of which are really cheesy. In the category of 'awesome', a guy named Matt Stone has a whole host of paintings of Jesus and other Christian themes on his blog. They are paintings from many different cultures around the world. Its so neat to see how the rest of the world envisions Jesus.To the right is one really cool one of the baby Jesus and Mary his mother (try to guess what country its from).

There are other things out there however that I just think are cheesy like the paintings at www.art4god.com. The art itself is good, but come on, Jesus as a boxer? Jesus as a greaser? You be the judge.

And lastly (in my opinion), the most ridiculous and cheesiest of all Jesus art is a line of statuettes called Jesus is my Coach. You can get all the regular sports like basketball, football, and baseball, but you can also get Jesus the Martial Art Instructor, Jesus the Ski Instructor and even Jesus the Ballet Instructor. If you haven't seen these yet, you've got to click through and check them out.