Monday, March 22, 2010

Easter Is a She

And how, you wonder, do I know that?

A bright youngster at worship passed this info along to me.

The family had gone to one of the local fairs and, while there, had won (or purchased, I'm not quite sure which) a HUGE white and green balloon dog one and 1/2 times the size of its owner.

As the dog was being drug through the sanctuary, it's owner proudly proclaimed that the dog was named Easter. Grandma piped in with "Someone mentioned that it was getting near to Easter, so that's how it got it's name."

As to being a 'she'? Well, d'oh! Easter had on a pink shirt, so it must be a 'she'.

Then my brain flashed onto this, mostly unrelated, thought: I wonder how it would affect our understanding of Easter if we thought of it as a 'she event'.

Some people envision the Holy Spirit as the feminine aspect of God. Certainly the Spirit was involved in Christ's resurrection, so how might a feminine understanding of the resurrection affect our understanding of Easter and Christianity?

I haven't gotten any further in my own thinking than the question, so don't have anything further to add. But I think I'm going to do a but more pondering in this Lenten season.

And a little child, dragging a HUGE white and green dog balloon named Easter, shall lead them.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

The Hassle

I love the internet! I hate the internet!

I have several email addresses. Who doesn't? It helps me keep stuff separated so I can find things quicker. It keeps the inboxes less cluttered. And it allows me to let different kinds of information be available to different groups of people.

So guess what I'm spending today doing.

Setting up a whole slew of new email addresses through my gmail account because some scuzzy individual has hijacked one of my email addresses and is sending out "buy stuff" emails to my contact list.

What's even more irritating is that I reported the email to hotmail and got even more spam-mail sent under my email address.

I know I'm not responsible for what's happening and that there isn't anything I personally can do to eliminate the carp that's being sent, but I can't help but feel uncomfortable that people I know are getting these excreable emails under my supposedly safe name. Gmail seems to do a better job of dealing with these miserable trolls, so I'm ditching the compromised hotmail address.

In the process, though, I have a whole bunch of emails saved for various reasons and now have to transfer all of them to new addresses. It has taken me more than four hours to change the stuff I really want to keep over to new accounts. Now that I've transfered the saved emails, it's time to change ALL of the contact emails that I have directed to that address. Problem is, I can't remember all of the sites I've done that with. *sigh*

Back to repairing my internet id.

*leaves the page muttering imprecations against the miserable, excreable trolls who spend their time violating the internet identities of others*

Monday, March 08, 2010

As If ..

it wasn't already quite apparent, I'm not cut out for the medical profession.

This past week, my mom had her defibrillator replaced with a newer model. So far, so good. I didn't have to be anywhere near needles being poked or iv's started or any of the other ooky medical things that can be done to help another human being become healthier. Outside of my encounter of the dorky kind with a hospital sliding door, the trip to the medical center was pretty uneventful.

I even did quite well when Mom decided to do things too quickly and the combination of pain meds, antibiotics, and not quite enough food made her light-headed enough to nearly pass out. Disaster averted, healing continues.

Then came the 48 hour point.

Forty-eight hours after the surgery, it was time to remove the gauze that had been attached with industrial strength tape and slightly imbedded in the staples used to close the incision.

EEP!

We did everything suggested to get that darned gauze removed without pulling on the staples, and there was still a 1/2-inch by 4-inch strip enmeshed. *cringe* Not wanting to encourage an infection or having the gauze become a part of the healing skin, I convinced my mom that a trip to a minor emergency clinic was in order.

An hour later, the physician's assistant came into the room, put on some gloves and ... voila ... three gentle motions later, completely removed the stuck gauze.

The medical profession dodged a bullet when I decided to become a pastor!