I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.
I'm so sorry.
That was my teapot.
It momentarily hijacked this blog.
'Twould seem it's still recovering from the latest tempest that engaled it's innards. But at least the chai-stained vessel had the good taste to borrow a line from the late Paddy Chayefsky in expressing its outrage. (Why is it that when people are dead we call them late. I know lots of late people who are very much alive.)
But enough of mildly-ineffective, caffeine-delivery devices. Let's talk about something more interesting. Me.
I took a cheap shot yesterday. At least that's the opinion of my dear friend, S. Knight Blogmailian - who holds me in the highest regard, of course.
A little background. Out of Ur.
Need I say more?
Well.
Yes.
I do.
Need to.
Say more.
That is.
In my not humble but accurate opinion (a line unceremoniously ripped from the lips of that Piper-peeving, New Perspective on Paul preaching, Panic at the Disco listening, head pastor of the Bishopric of Durham, Nicholas Tom (Almost Always) Wright - and I doubt he listens to P-at-the-D, I just used them for meter), Out of Ur is all about page views. More pages, more filthy lucre from ads that envelop their Out of Url page like the visual diarrhea of a Vegas street scape. (I guess that ends any chances of me ever being a guest writer there, eh. Oh well. Life goes on. But maybe I could still sell them Missional Tribe or shape some form of partnership, at least. The rest of the 'gators might not be happy, though.)
What better way to generate page views than to scour the purple-prosed corners of Christian blogdom for the latest miniburst of rage. Yesterday, it was village-emerged TJ Bookwriter and his marvelous upset at how badly a future president (or at least that's what the young man's name would suggest) had been treated in being denied ordination by the PCUSA. (I thought they were bankrupt. No. Wait. That's CompUSA. You can understand my confusion. Oh. BTW. The young, future president clarified in the comments that he was only having some difficulty in the process - he hadn't been outright denied ordination. Doesn't that kinda wreck the whole story. But. I digress.)
In the midst of that outrage, TJ Bookwriter apparently wrote how in his church, which is called Absalom's Back Deck or something like that, they ordained everyone and anyone. Even Chauncey Gardiner.
I found this confusing. If they held ordination in such low estate that anyone could be so dained, shouldn't TJB have been pissed with the future president for deigning to seek such recognition. Rather than being ticked with CompUSA for denying the future president his mess of pottage, er, rightful blessing.
True hipsters that they are, Out of Ur asked whether "Denominational Ordination had jumped the Shark?" What a killer turn of phrase, "jumped the Shark." (To those of you confused by the etymology of the phrase, it's what happens when Ron Howard leaves a '70's hit TV show and begins directing bad films that attack the Catholic church, while leaving Henry Winkler, who kinda looks like he could be Tom Hanks' brother, to carry the show on his own.)
Cheap shot artiste that I am, with tongue planted firmly in cheek (which made it difficult to talk on that phone whilst composing my response), I asked whether it was Brother TJ who had jumped said Shark. (Hey, I loved TJ in that series with Heather Locklear Trucker Frank.) I was totally offended that only one person took umbrage. The aforementioned S. Knight Blogmailian.
For is that not what blogdom is all about. At least the Christian wing of the floating pixel universe. UIUO - Umbrage In, Umbrage Out. In our Everything-Must-Change™ microworld of blogdom, our garden littered with bath-soaked babies and the stinking carcasses of sacred cows, where would we be without our umbrage.
Come on, common people. Follow my teapot. More tempests. Or at least miniscule facsimiles thereof.
