At a press conference Tuesday, God Almighty, our Lord and Heavenly Father, gave his strongest indication yet that he might soon step down from his post as the supreme ruler of all things.

Don’t miss the rest.

“Normally, I don’t go for political jokes ”” too many of them are getting elected.”

—Bob Hope

This is one of those minor Internet classics which you may not have seen; if not it really is a lot of fun–KSH.

Listen to it all (about three minutes).

Google employees once known as “Googlers” should now be referred to as either “Topekers” or “Topekans,” depending on the result of a board meeting that’s ongoing at this hour. Whatever the outcome, the conclusion is clear: we aren’t in Google anymore.

ROFL–read it all.

Leaders of the Evangelical Laodicean Church in North America last week announced the publication of a new hymnal. “This is truly a hymnal for the new century,” said Presiding Bishop Luke W. Arm. “This collection of hymns really captures the essence of our tradition,” Bishop Arm explained. “At the core of our belief is the motto, ‘Moderation in all things,’ and that applies to our faith life as well. We just don’t like to get carried away.”

When asked if the new hymnal will help the Laodicean Church attract new members, Bishop Arm replied, “People in today’s society get kind of uncomfortable with too much talk about things like commitment and dedication. They’d much rather have a religion that they can turn on or off at will. Our church seeks to meet that need. This hymnal will help with that, I think.”
Editor in chief of the new hymnal, Priscilla (“Presh”) S. Moment, explained some of the difficulty the committee had in choosing hymns. “Many of the old favourites just won’t cut it among Laodiceans,” said Moment. “We had to change a lot of the wording to make them fit with our style. We tried to incorporate some new songs into the book, but we had trouble finding Laodiceans interested in writing new music.”

The title of the new hymnal, Church Songs, was chosen very carefully, explained Moment. “We didn’t want to turn anybody off with threatening words that no one understands any more like ‘Worship’ or ‘Hymn.'”

Here is a partial list of titles included in the new Laodicean hymnal:

A Comfortable Mattress Is Our God
Above Average Is Thy Faithfulness
All Hail the Influence of Jesus’ Name!
Amazing Grace, How Interesting the Sound
Be Thou My Hobby
Blest Be the Tie That Doesn’t Cramp My Style
Go Tell it on the Speed Bump
He’s Quite a Bit to Me
I Lay My Inappropriate Behaviours on Jesus
I Love to Talk about Telling the Story
I Surrender Some
I’m Fairly Certain That My Redeemer Lives
It Is My Secret What God Can Do
Joyful, Joyful, We Kinda Like Thee
Just as I Pretend to Be
Just as I Am, with Lots of Excuses
Lord, Keep Us Loosely Connected to Your Word
My Hope Is Built on Nothing Much
My Faith Looks Around for Thee
O, God, Our Enabler in Ages past
Oh, for a Couple of Tongues to Sing
Oh, How I like Jesus
Onward, Christian Reservists
Pillow of Ages, Fluffed for Me
Praise God from Whom All Affirmations Flow
Self-Esteem to the World! The Lord Is Come
Sit Up, Sit up for Jesus
Special, Special, Special
Spirit of the Living God, Fall Somewhere near Me
Spirit of God, Descend upon Their Hearts
Take My Life and Let Me Be
There Is Scattered Cloudiness in My Soul Today
There Shall Be Sprinkles of Blessings
We Are Milling Around in the Light of God
What an Acquaintance We Have in Jesus
When Peace, like a Trickle
When the Saints Go Sneaking in
Where He Leads Me, I Will Consider Following

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. As they lay down
for the night, Holmes said: “Watson, look up into the sky and tell me what
you see”.

Watson: “I see millions and millions of stars”.

Holmes: “And what does that tell you?”

Watson: “Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies
and potentially billions of planets. Theologically, it tells me that God
is great and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it tells
me that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?”

Holmes: “Somebody stole our tent.”

Most of us have now learned to live with “voice mail” as a necessary
as part of our daily lives. But have you ever wondered what it would
be like if God decided to install voice mail?

Imagine praying and hearing the following:

Thank you for calling Heaven.
For English, press 1.
For Spanish, press 2.
For all other languages, press 0.

Please select one of the following options:
Press 1 for Requests.
Press 2 for Thanksgiving.
Press 3 for Laments.
Press 4 for all other inquiries.

I am sorry; all of our angels and saints are busy helping other
sinners right now. However, your prayer is important to us, and we
will answer it in the order it was received. Please stay on the line.

If you would like to speak to:
God, press 1.
Jesus, press 2.
Holy Spirit, press 3.

If you would like to hear King David sing a Psalm while you are
holding, press 4.

To find a loved one that has been assigned to Heaven, press 5, then
enter his or her social security number, followed by the “pound” sign.

For reservations at Heaven, please enter J-O-H-N, followed by the
numbers 3-1-6.

For answers to nagging questions about life on other planets, how to reconcile God’s existence with evil that occurs in history, and where Noah’s Ark is, please wait until you arrive.

Our computers show that you have already prayed today. Please hang up
and try again tomorrow.

The office is now closed for the weekend to observe a religious
holiday. Please pray again on Monday after 9:30 am. If you are calling
after hours and need emergency assistance, please contact your local
rector.

Thank you, and have a heavenly day .

Pictures guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct….

“It’s just an illusion,” a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. “Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless.”

According to witnesses, Finance Committee members sat in thunderstruck silence for several moments until Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) finally shouted out, “Oh my God, he’s right. It’s all a mirage. All of it””the money, our whole economy””it’s all a lie!”

Read it all.

Watch the whole video.

The courage I have needed to prepare and present this address would not have been possible without help from John Calvin and Jürgen Moltmann. In his only recently discovered book, Second Thoughts from Geneva, Calvin wrote, “Theology should be serious but not solemnly without humor.” And in a recent issue of Theology Today, Moltmann said, “Critical faith has achieved a reflective and free relationship with its basic traditions.”

Guided by such considerations, I want to make a plea for a genuine examination of the bonsesquilistic theology of Guido Buonofunacci as of peculiar importance to the ecumenical potentialities of our time. Rightly understood, I believe that Guido anticipated the work of Luther, Calvin, the Council of Trent, George Fox, Jonathan Edwards, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Harvey Cox, and Sam Keen, among others.

Until the great modem scholarly study of Buonofunacci by J. C. Smith, and some much more modest unpublished writings of my own, it is remarkable and reprehensible that Guido has simply been ignored by both Catholics and Protestants ever since he completed his twelve volumes in the fourteenth century. It is true that the slow development of printing in his time delayed for years the publication of his works in the modern book sense. And his writing Campanola and became Bishop of Pizza, be found time for his potential reading public. His was a relatively tranquil time. After he left his long pastorate at the Church of the Holy Buttons in Campanola and became bishop of Pizza, he found time for his voluminous writing. And by the date when his series was actually published, Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, Ciuto, Gebovitz, von Gliesbar, de Tuil, and others had entered the theological front stage. Without close examination, Protestants wrote him off as a Catholic. Catholics ignored him because he disliked Latin and Italian. Italians neglected him because he had written twelve books.

What a lot of fun–read it all.

It was Palm Sunday and, because of strep throat, four-year-old Stephen had to stay home from church with a babysitter. When the rest of the family returned home carrying palm branches, Stephen asked what they were for.

“People held them over Jesus’ head as he walked by,” his mother explained.

“Wouldn’t you know it,” Stephen fumed. “The one Sunday I didn’t go, He showed up!”

Wonderful stuff–read it all.

Take a look at this years entry–my favorite is stanza number two.

Listen to it all–a superb example of how to read a story.

Watch it all.

A boy was watching his father, a minister, write a sermon.

“How do you know what to say?” he asked.

“Why, God tells me.”

“Oh, then why do you keep crossing things out?”

I caught this this morning on the way to the dentist–very funny.

This is just a gem, especially the section on the spider. Make sure to find the time to listen to it all from NPR (over 14 minutes in all).

There was an elderly lady who had great faith in God, and also was very exuberant about expressing it, and it was her practice that every morning she would go out on her front porch and raise her arms to the sky and shout “praise the Lord!”

Well, it happened that her next door neighbor was an atheist who would shout back “there ain’t no Lord!”

So every morning this little routine went on, and it came to pass that this woman of great faith was experiencing financial difficulty, going through very hard times, so one morning she went out on her front porch to do her normal routine and said: “Lord, you have to send me some groceries, I don’t have enough money to buy the food we need. Lord, send me some groceries, and praise the Lord!”

So the next morning she went out on her porch and lo and behold there were two big bags of groceries, all the food that she needed, and of course didn’t hesitate to say “Praise the Lord!” But her neighbor had been hiding in the bushes, and he jumped out and said: “Ha! I put those groceries there! There is no Lord!” Well, that didn’t stop her for a second, she jumped up and down with even more Joy than ever and yelled: Praise the Lord! The Lord bought me groceries and even made the someone greatly resisting your goodness pay for them!”

Elizabeth caught this one in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Do not just drive by the blog entry and miss it–it is simply hysterical! KSH.

Our worst fear has recently come to pass: the dementia ward of the veterans’ home where my father had been living transferred him to a psychiatric hospital. But when I met my mother there on the day they brought him over, I wasn’t really surprised to see her waving from across the hall with a big smile on her face, about to laugh. We’re a family of laughers. We laugh when we’re happy, when we’re angry and, most of all, when we’re frightened.

“That’s him,” she said, chortling and pointing to the ambulance in the bay. “He just arrived, and he’s mad as a wet hen. But the ambulance driver said he didn’t slug anyone, so that’s an improvement.”

Read it all.

My sister-in-law, a professional storyteller, was in Europe speaking at various libraries. Later, she called her mother and told her that she’d just given a speech for 250 librarians.

“Great,” said her mother. “How much is that in American money?”

–David Rumpeltin in the July 2009 Reader’s Digest, page 175

They were singing without accompaniment. You know–Acapulco.

–Richard Lederer, Anguished English (New York: Doubleday, 1987), page 104

When I was ill, my husband and I were stuck in the house for months.

But I made a complete recovery and was so happy the day he bounded into the kitchen and asked, “Would you like to go out, girl?”

“I’d love to,” I replied immediately.

We had a wonderful meal, culminating with my husband making a confession. “Remember when I suggested going out tonight?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I was talking to the dog.”

–Anita Saunders in the May, 2009, Reader’s Digest, page 133

After my four-year-old and I turned the department store upside down looking for a bathing suit for me, we finally found a black-and-white one-piece that we both liked. I tried on the suit and modeled it for her. It was a hit.

“Mommy, you look so pretty,” she squealed. “You look just like Shamu the whale.”

–Lori Rhodes in the May 2009 Reader’s Digest, page 192