Thanks, Michael.
A few months ago, XM was playing a channel that was all Michael Jackson, all the time, for a month, in honor of Thriller's 25th anniversary. I then went on a Michael Jackson binge for a while, which was recently resurged.
I have realized that every single Michael Jackson song eventually devolves into gibberish. Example: the end of "Black or White" finds MJ singingIss Blaa, Is Whii, Iss Blubba doo, yeah yeah yeah.It is practically inevitable. The best example of this, and perhaps the quickest to take that turn onto the incomprehensible highway is the song "Wanna Be Starting Something." This one goes like this:Say you wanna be startin somethin'The first verse goes:
you got to be startin' somethin'
Say you wanna be startin' somethin'
you got to be startin' something
Too high to get over (yeah yeah!)
Too low to get unda (yeah yeah!)
Ya stuck in the middle
And a remby blemba...Took my baby to the doctorThis is brilliant. The man has no need for coherency to sell a record. I mean take even the lyrics that are distinguishable, like "Thriller":
wit a hee dimba dumba da he dumb.Cause this is Thriller!What? Why does Michael want to scare girls? Like if it was, "Hey this is scary, but you can cuddle with me," that would be a pop song that makes sense, but this is is a plain enigma! That goes against the very equation of pop!
Thiller night!
Girl, I can scare you more than any ghoul would ever dare try!
Why, Michael?
And yet, when we listen to it, why does it make such sense to us?
Here is one more gem:Beat It! Beat It!My conclusion is that Michael Jackson hyp-mo-tized us all with his gibbery lyrics and sweet dance moves. I am still not immune to the infectious jammin' on the one grooves of 80's and 90's MJ. I am not afraid to admit it, and I think most if not all of you know exactly what I'm talking about.
No is the heed a heed it!
Tell them hot hocky
Tell them no bites
It doesn't matter
who's wronga right.
Wit a hee dimba dumba da he dumb.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Walking on the Moon
Monday, June 22, 2009
Devil's Food Cake

I have been thinking a lot about food lately.
Adrien is pregnant, and is doing a great job of eating healthy, not too many cravings for bad things, but obviously eating more than she used to.
In all the predictions of the baby's gender, miscellaneous well wishes, and words of advice, I have been repeatedly told about how I will also gain "sympathy weight."
Sympathy weight sounds great. That sounds like, if I am going to be a good and loving husband, then out of solidarity to Adrien, I need to match her gain pound for pound. It's expected and no one can blame me. After all, it's sympathy weight.
So I have rather subconsciously allowed myself to eat more for the past six months, feeling like it was the inevitability of being an involved and sympathetic father to be. However, as Adrien has been eating fruit and salads, I have been eating cheeseburgers and Chinese food.
The end result is that I am back in the land of the 200 pounders.
Like I said, all of this got me thinking about food. Why we eat so much of it, why we love it when we eat it, but we talk about it with such a sense of shame. We know what food is bad for us. We know what food is good for us. We know when we've had too much. None of that changes our eating habits, though. None of it changes our lifestyle.
Much of my view toward food is a guilt ridden sense of bondage. I bargain and rationalize with myself about how it's okay to eat this food in a way that I know that I shouldn't.
"Christmas is only once a year!"
"You have to have an Easter feast!"
"My friend only comes into town every few years, and we need to eat wings like we used to!"
"It's a graduation party - I need to eat some of their food to show to be a good guest."
"I love Devil’s Food Cake, and nobody makes Devil’s Food Cake like Francis! I have to have some!"
I know that eating the kind of food that I do in the amounts that I do is bad for me. It makes me tired. It makes me feel lousy. It makes me feel out of shape. It makes me have less energy.
And yet I still do it.
The short term thrill of eating things that are bad for me outweighs my clear knowledge of what will happen to me in the long term.
Not only that, but I sometimes get inclined to blame the food for me acting this way.
"What do you mean a Klondike bar is 50% of my total recommended fat intake for the day?!? Why would they do that! They should make that writing bigger!"
Each week, I make a resolution for this to be the day that I start eating right, start exercising, and get better control of my eating habits. Sometimes that lasts for a few days, sometimes only for a few hours.
A few years ago, it lasted for about 9 months. I started eating better, started walking almost every day, and I lost 40 pounds in about 2 months, going from 215 to 175. As soon as I got to 175 (what I was shooting for), I let up a bit, allowing myself treats here and there. I immediately gained 15 pounds back, and eventually working back up to 195. And just last week, I finally jumped back over the edge of 200.
My relationship with my weight is in a lot of ways a parallel to the relationship we have with sin.
We know the things that are bad for us, and yet we still do them.
Food is not inherently bad – it’s inherently good.
Our behavior with it is what leads us to take what is good and twist it to harm us.
Too much food, our misuse and abuse of it, is what leads us to harm.
The same is true of most sins:
Romantic Love is good, but can lead to lust.
Genuine Pride can be good, but can lead to arrogance and self-righteousness
Loyalty is good, but can lead to prejudice and intolerance.
We have our minds set on pleasing ourselves, even when we know that our behavior is hurting us.
Romans 8 says that "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," and that the Spirit of God "lives in us."
The Sprit of God lives in us. We are in Christ.
Do we live like we are in Christ though?
What is our response to our freedom from sin, freedom from condemnation?
More sin?
Freedom from sin doesn’t mean that we don’t ever sin anymore. It means that we are free from our bondage to it. We don’t have to live that way anymore.
We have no excuse. We know better.
We know what sin is. We can recognize it clearly. We are set free from it.
Is our response then to live with our minds set on pleasing God or pleasing ourselves?
Do we have the strength to look beyond our own selfish motivations?
Or do we simply want to have another piece of cake?
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
I knew it.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Thinking about G-Ma.

My grandmother, Lola Christy, turned 96 on May 16th, in great health. A few days later, she went into the hospital with trouble breathing. The doctors diagnosed her with double pneumonia, and essentially that there wasn't much chance of recouperation from that at her age. She died a few days later, on Sunday May 24th.
In a lot of ways, the realization of Gramma's death has been bittersweet. The fact that she was 96 meant that I have been sort of emotionally preparing for her death for about a decade now. In a lot of ways, that has allowed me to appreciate my time with her more, as it was happening, rather than waiting to appreciate her until after she was gone, as we often do at funerals.
She hasn't really had any big health issues in all the time that I knew her, and never dipped mentally at all. A few years back she had a minor stroke, which made her left hand a bit wonky, and she had to occasionally use a wheel chair. By and large, though, she was with it right up until the end. A few years back, she after she had fallen and given us a scare, she said, "Don't worry, I'm going to live until I'm 96." At the time it seemed like a funny Gram thing to say, but turned out to be right on. Gram always seemed to have a great perspective on things, and, in retrospect, her own death seems no different.
Because of her good heath and acute mind, I have had the constant blessing of still having Grams in my life, long past when most Grammas are around, and still really there, not slipping away mentally. She got to know Adrien incredibly well for the last 11 years (and even liked her a bit better than me, I suspect), she got to see me ordained, and was incredibly excited about our coming baby. The greatest sadness that I have is that she didn't make it to October, so that she could see the baby.
Gramma (who was alternately called - Gramma Christy, Grams, G-Ma, or the tabloid ready G-Lo) was a great grandmother, and one that I appreciated more and more as I got older. All of us cousins (three from my mom, and four from my aunt LoAnn) are in our in or around the 30's (save Addie, who is 19), and so having a Grandmother who is 60 years older than you is a bit of a rarity, allowing for what one would assume is a cultural disconnect. That was never the case, though. We all loved Gramma. Many of us even lived with her for weeks, months, or in my & Addie's case in 1997-98, years at a time.

She was always genuinely interested in us, loved and cared for us, but also made us better people. She never spoiled us with candy or typical "grandma" things, but she taught us how to play Mahjong, how to enjoy a good cup of coffee while looking out the window in the morning, and how to love God. She also loved Duke Basketball and hated when people clapped in church, two passions I have inherited.

She cared so much about our lives, and as she entered her 80's, she got the internet and used it regularly to stay in touch with us, and entering her 90's, she got a cell phone for the same reason. She loved the new people that we brought in. In my case, that was Adrien. One day, when I was a freshman in college, about to hop on a Greyhound bus to go to Baltimore to see Adrien, Gramma, who was dropping me off at the bus stop, mused, "Well, it's a beautiful day, and you are off to see a beautiful girl..."
One of the best things about G-Ma was her dry sense of humor. So dry you could easily miss it. One time when I was about 8, I got yelled at for starting to eat Thanksgiving dinner before we had said the prayer. Gramma, who was sitting by me, nudged me surreptitiously, and quickly opened her mouth to revel that she had a mouthful of food.
She was sharp right up until the last as well. A friend relayed a story of how, after she was taken to the hospital after her birthday, she was constantly short of breath because of the pneumonia, and unable to talk. My mom and our friend Karen were there in the room, trying to console Gram and keep her comfortable. A nurse came in and asked Gram if she was experiencing any pain. Gram nodded. The nurse asked where it hurt. Gram pointed at my mom & Karen.
G-Ma was an amazing person, one who truly lived every day right until the last. I am so blessed to have had her in my life and around for all of my 29 years. I am truly a better person because of her, in every single way. Most of what the "good person" in me was directly fostered and nurtured by her. She taught me things that I never would have learned on my own.
This Friday, we are all getting together for her memorial service in New Wilmington.
It is overwhelming to know how many people my Gramma affected. She is still and will always be an influence in my life, as is my Grandpa, Wayne Christy, who died when I was five. They both illustrated how serving God doesn't mean wearing a neon shirt saying "Look at me serving God!" It means being a listener. Someone who truly cares, who shows love through action and dedication, not simply through grand gestures. She loved God and she showed us how to as well, with her whole life.
Gram was a servant, and that's what I strive to be, too.
