Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Guest Blogger: on "Christianizing" Our Lives

My guest blogger is Scott, an old friend from college, and also the husband of my best friend from Indiana. Coincidentally they are also the couple going to Disney with us next week to take care of our child while we - errr.... I mean.... to have a great time with us! Scott wrote a great post about Christian stores and it is hilarious. You have to read it! Then check out his blog for more funny and inspiring thoughts.

Alright, I know what I’m about to say is a common complaint people have, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Why in the world do Christians have to Christianize everything? I was in a Christian book store with my church small group last night to pick out a group bible study. Once that was achieved, we started wandering around the store and happened upon some kind of entertainment section. And do you know what they had? Praise Ponies! Awesome! Now you may not be familiar with Praise Ponies, so check out this link for an explanation (hint: think My Little Pony, but definitely check the link - it’s funny!).

They also happened to have a Bible version of the game Apples to Apples - because the non-Bible version of the game is notoriously satanic you know. There’s also that satanic game Scattergories where you have to list words that begin with a certain letter; thankfully they now have a Christian version of that as well so you aren’t forced to list words in faith-crushing categories like “food” or “types of transportation”.

I was also fortunate enough to happen upon a dvd player that automatically takes out bad parts in movies - like their demo where they showed how they took out a clip in the kids movie The Spiderwick Chronicles where a kid gets his leg bitten by an invisible goblin. Unfortunately, they showed a comparison of the movie with the clip still in there, so it was pretty traumatic for me when I had to witness the two seconds of the kid getting bit. Fortunately for you, you can buy their dvd player and not have to live through that harrowing experience of watching it in it’s unedited PG-rated version.

They said it works with thousands of movies and listed a few as an example, including Black Hawk Down (”Rated R for intense, realistic, graphic war violence, and for language”). So in addition to making the movie more Christian, they’ll save you time because I’m sure the edited version of Black Hawk Down is somewhere around five minutes!

All in all, it was a good trip to the store. I learned a lot about how to be a better Christian by making sure I only use the second-rate Christian version of any popular item I may want (like Bibleopoly [aka Monopoly] where you can buy cities of the bible and place churches on them! You can’t win by competing, only by helping! Oh how the spiritual awakenings just keep coming!)


My comment to him was that he clearly doesn't see the value in such parenting tools. Like the DVD player, for example. Obviously he doesn't understand what these "children's" movies (if you can call them that) do to the young psyche. Like teaching them about their imaginations, for one. And how to separate fact from fiction. And dare I say, have fun? And the games! Sure, it sounds harmless, a little monopoly never hurt anyone. Well, we all know what competition leads to.... accomplishment and self-confidence! Obviously giving them a false sense of pride (which is one of the deadly sins you know!). And don't even get me started on the heathen My Little Ponies and their lustful ways.

But... Scott's not a parent yet, so we'll forgive him.

The 3 Kings Brought What?

We celebrated 3 Kings Day yesterday. It is a big holiday in the Puerto Rican culture, so we've integrated it into our family. Normally you are supposed to put grass in a box under your bed for the camels that the 3 Kings ride, but Mateo is so young that we didn't bother this year. We just gave him a present and said, "Happy 3 Kings Day."

Actually, I had planned an open house for friends and family and was going to make Puerto Rican food, but the weather forecast looked bad so I canceled. Turns out it didn't start sleeting till 10pm. Oh well.

So we took an extra gift we had for Christmas (since he got SO much) and gave it to Mateo last night. It was a garbage truck, which Mateo loves. In an attempt to put some meaning to the random gift, and because Mateo pretty much thinks we go to church every week to worship Santa, Dave tries to explain about the story of the three kings. I'm "working" on the computer at this point because....well....I know better. Here is the conversation they had.

Dave: Mateo, when baby Jesus was born there were 3 kings that brought Jesus presents. They brought gold, frankencense, and -

Mateo: Garbage!

Dave: (enter defeated sigh) Yes, we celebrate 3 Kings Day because the kings brought Jesus garbage.

See? I told him. I know better. In Mateo's defense, we did give him a garbage truck for 3 Kings Day. It kind of makes sense. The 3 kings obviously brought Jesus garbage if we were giving him a garbage truck, right?

So here's to the new nativity story. Gold, frankincense, and garbage!

****** Correction: Dave was actually contrasting the disparities between the myth/tradition of Three Kings Day (i.e. 3 members of some royalty arriving on camels 12 days after Jesus' birth) and the Biblical version of an unspecified number of "wise men" arriving an unspecified time period "after" His birth using an unspecified mode of transportation. Of course, the subtleties were lost on Mateo (and me).