funny Archives - Page 9 of 21 - Lisa Colón DeLay

It’s time for Weird Santa

I had a viral post last week and that was fun! Check it out.

I don’t watch my stats much. It gives me a brain bug. But a few times per week, sometimes, I take a peek and it was cool to see the huge spike upward. Stats used to get me on a roller coaster of moodiness. No more.

A special thank you to Ray Hollenbach and David Fitch who shoved the Myth of Ordinary Time post lovingly into the Twitterverse and also to everyone else who liked it on Facebook and read it and shared it. Was that you? Thank you!

Want a little holiday humor?

Search this site for Weird Santa Photos.

There’s a trove you’ll love.

(caution: Santa appears to be Caucasian in these photos.)

Here’s one to get you started:

The Myth of Ordinary Time

Do you have time to read this?

That may depend on what language you speak.

Have you ever felt like when you’re creating or otherwise “in the zone” you pass into a strange pocket in the space-time continuum (or whatever) where the passage of time appears to almost be standing still. Then, when you’re jolted from your pocket, you find that time has actually moved along far faster than you would have guessed.

That is likely what it’s like (all the time) for someone living near the equator. More on that in a moment.

There’s something about relativity here and we’ll unpack it.

Consider too, the other side. Sometimes you are very conscious of time maybe because you’re in a bad meeting or you’d rather be somewhere else and the hands on the wall clock seem to barely move. That is because you are perceiving time in relation to other things and not experiencing is as it passes.

So, it seems experienced time works in an eerily timeless way (having no easily determinable passage of time), and referred to time (Ex. “That man spoke for 20 minutes.”) is a measurement or qualifier of time, but not at all a direct experience of time. It refers to only a memory of certain period, but one that was not recognized necessarily in the moments in which it truly happened. Time is marked outside of itself. So…

Time is never really ordinary.

Perception is powerful. Here’s some potent proof.

Time near the Equator:

Residents of places near the equator experience time completely differently than people who live in temperate climates. You already know this to be true.

Maybe you’ve heard of “island time”…

…if you’ve ever vacationed on a warm tropical island, things just mosey along. Maybe things will get done and maybe not. People get to things when they do, or whatever. “Hey, Relax Mon”. It can be a hassle when you’re not used to it. However, time is literally experienced differently.

It’s not the heat bringing a lack of motivation. They are used to the heat. It’s not a mere lack of a work ethic. It’s not simply enjoying the weather too much to be bothered with revving up to tackle hectic things.

It turns out that the passage of time is harder to discern because markers are missing.

Most often, for humans, change punctuates time in our awareness.

An event (accident, holiday, birth, death, full moon, dawn, solar eclipse, victory, loss, etc.), or a change in weather are the most common markers. With more changes–especially ones that involve rain and snow, brilliant leaf color changes, or a blast of Spring blooming–that means that our perception of time’s passage are further clarified. Our memories are literally shaped differently and therefore our brains are, at the cellular level, wired differently. Perception is relative. Variety, repetition, and influence change the brain’s capturing of data which determines the comprehending of time. It affects the awareness people have and the activities people undertake.

Seasons, and the things that are attached to them (growing of food, for one example) make the ability to plan more perceptible and pronounced. Need to buy wheat seed for Spring in a few months? Better save now. Plants grow all-year-round? Then, nevermind.

Residents of equatorial climates do not experience the massive change in seasons, plus they do not experience the great shortening of daylight either. For them, unless they’ve been influenced by outsiders, the passage of time happens in the present. Right now, or it’s not really real.

For pole-dwellers (people living in the northern and southern regions of the globe) time is usually experienced two ways:

1. through remembering past events

(A locked down thing that doesn’t truly exist except in the mind)

2. through planning (projecting to the future to a not yet real time and place).

Pole-dwellers spend far less time–“Zen-like”–in the here and now.

In fact, being “stayed in the present” can be discredited as somehow wasteful by those who like to plan. Interesting argument of which is wasteful, and why, right?

For pole-dwellers it’s an ironic thing too, because if your mind is not attached to the present, you essentially are not fully aware of living at all in real-time…Instead you are aware of life passing in relation to something else. Time perhaps is more like a point on a map–over there–more than an experience. Perhaps a counterfeit experience compared to the real thing or real-time? I’m not sure.

Or on the other side, near the equator, planning might seem pointless or amorphous. A sort of figment.

• Living solely in the present has disadvantages too. It comes packaged with a (undetectable) lack of impetus that can help us make all manner of changes or improvements possible. The checkpoints are missing. Our interaction with time movement is different. It passes like “being in the zone” or perhaps like standing midstream in an ever-changing flow of water. Motion. Life is in real-time and un-captured.

• Living in the future or past (as I have been trained to do) is like staring off at fixed but ultimately untouchable points. Triangulation.

I mainly live in the “trigonometry of time”. Do you?

Certain cultures actually have no form of future tense.

(Did you absorb that?)

For them, there is no language or solid way to truly express or encapsulate something ahead of this very moment.

BOOM. That’s crazy different.

Sicilian and ancient Hebrew are just two examples.

Now brace yourself. If you haven’t guessed already…

Yes, that means anytime you hear the words “shall” or “will” in Jewish/Christian scripture you are hearing the imposition of your own cultural and linguistic bias placed onto the original text and meaning.

(Thinking of the implications could just blow your mind, right? Now, go ahead, open your Bible and find a few misleading verses and re-understand them.)

Note: New Testament Scripture was written in (ancient) Greek and does contain a future tense. It was however based on beliefs and texts of people who did not have a native reference to an equivalent future tense option nor the applied meaning future tense indicates, necessarily or at all.

Binary vs. the not yet
Often in equatorial geographic regions, there literally is no way to really say “I will work.” Instead it’s “I work.” Binary. Sometimes inflection is used to draw a sort of distinction or a qualifier, like referring to a (future) month or day. That’s a watered down communicative incident compared to the full use of future tense we take for granted in English, and the closest language to English: German.

The language difference has even been studied scientifically to see if things like breaking habits (like smoking), or the activity of saving or spending money, or gaining weight are different because of language. Click the link to see the results.

What are some of your thoughts on the passage of time, future tense, or living right now?
Whew. Ice pack for my brain, please.

IF this post was interesting, please like or share it…now. (In real time.) :)

Something about a Labyrinth and Surprises

This time the weather was the coldest I’ve ever experienced in Wernersville. Until now, my times of retreat at the Spiritual Retreat Center were during Spring or Summer.

Stripped of leaves, color, and warm weather, the place seems monochromatic outdoors, but is still restful and precious to me. There are many prayer room options, a beautiful chapel, plus rooms for things like creating art, music, reading, or for meeting with others. Each place seems to wait for your arrival. Anyone can go there for the day without notice. I love that about it. That’s true hospitality. You are always received and welcome. You don’t need to be Catholic either. God is there in a special way and it’s a sacred place created solely for the purpose of divine communion and renewal. To me, that sounds just like Heaven.

Unless you get run over by a jet-powered lawn mower, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

The Center has recently added a prayer labyrinth (shown above). Many people aren’t familiar with labyrinths–their purpose or their gifts. They create the opportunity for reflection and spiritual awareness. Some (Evangelical) Christians bristle at the copious statues, candles, prayer mazes, and other unfamiliarities about a Catholic environment. I suppose I’m post-Evangelical: the richness of the Christian history and the solidifying sense of the sacred draws me toward the transcendent in a place like this. Every time in an unexpected way.

That’s what happens when you go there. You find God. You find God at the center. The center of you…in your core where he’s always been, because he’s everywhere-present and boundless in love. He’s been whispering things of love to you and smiling but you thought it was just bad pizza leftovers or something you made up to make yourself feel better.

Life is like a puzzle. A labyrinth is a puzzle. It’s a tool too. You can study a labyrinth before you walk the path through it, but while you are walking through studying it can make it far more confusing. Usually, you stop being stupid and cease trying to decipher the pattern precisely and just follow it like a child might do. This way, a labyrinth can be a lovely stilling and spiritual experience, not because of its own woo woo mystical powers (it doesn’t have that), but because it invites a traveller to concentrate and focus–to place her steps carefully. Most importantly, it forces one to slow down.

We don’t realize how fast our thoughts buzz until we get these sorts of opportunities to be careful. If you walk a labyrinth things mentally wind down and simplify to, “Stay on the path. Follow this narrow way. Pay attention.” Some enjoy walking very slowly and praying as their heart grows hushed.

Searching for the puzzle
I saw a photo of this newly constructed prayer walk inside the Center and I started to search for it outside. It was actually in plain sight but I hadn’t been looking for it, so I didn’t see it. (In case you haven’t figured it out by now, this true story doubles as an allegory.)

When I spotted it, a man driving a zero turn radius lawn mower was zipping and roaring around it, back and forth; expertly, but fast enough for me to wonder about his judgement. Crisp leaves shot into the air and the wind whipped them into little showers of bullets.

“That won’t work,” I said. “What am I suppose do? Have a peaceful prayer time as Zippy here shoots me with leaves and the mower engine drives me to distraction?” I crossed past the paved puzzle a small stretch to a gazebo with park benches set in a circle.

It was still noisy there, but the mower sounded duller. I would wait him out. I tried to settle my mind. Maybe I could do some warm-up praying. No. My thoughts swam. “Who’s Zippy now?” I thought.

Instead of waiting, I went on a short walk in the wood nearby over a little ridge. The path looked to have been crudely bulldozed recently and massive tree parts and 4 inch thick vines were crammed in piles. It was other-worldly–so many thickets covering whole sections like umbrellas, even though most of their foliage was missing. Surreal yellow leaves on the ground seemed day-glow bright. I felt like a zombie putting one foot in front of the other as I made my way around the wet earth and wild terrain. The humming mower served as a beacon to orient me. It was comforting and ironic.

Then a church bell snapped me back. It chimed 11, and I recalled how church bells were auditory calls to prayer and attention. It felt like a call to go home…to something. I immediately wanted to get my bag from the gazebo and look at the church more carefully in a peaceful and maybe prayerful environment. I managed a shortcut straight up a bank after a brief bout with prickly plants. I got my things and trekked toward the church. When I got there, guess who was on the grounds too? Zippy, or some other diligent lawn guardian, was tooling around the church grounds. The noise was worse now because it was bouncing off the stone structure and echoing off the parking lot asphalt.

I decided to double back and sit on a bench near a garden path that featured the Stations of the Cross. (If you’re wondering about the Stations of the Cross, visit again soon, because I’ll be detailing that in a future post.) I munched on some snacks, journaled a few things, prayed some (kinda-sorta), and enjoyed a few sunbeams that momentarily bested the clouds. It felt nice to be there, but, then I started to feel really cold. My nose had a ice cube quality and the sun had ditched me.

I headed toward the large main building. An ancient woman was being rolled toward the main entrance in a wheelchair. Rather than getting in their way, I decided to walk through the covered colonnade and flank out to the door on the right. I passed the prayer garden on my left. It was filled with statues, fountains, and newly manicured hedges and remembered how pretty it had been in full bloom that Spring. It was much warmer then too. I was getting colder by the second. But, then I got to the door–relief.

Except that it was locked. The metal handle sent a shiver to my backbone straight through my arm. But, “No matter,” I said to myself. I’ll just continue around the building and try the next door just around the corner. There are probably no fewer than 25 exit doors to the place. I’ve exited a number of them and try to find a new one to some surprise new part of the grounds whenever possible. It’s all part of the fun.

No. Locked too. Things were getting interesting.

It turns out that there’s just one way into the place. There are plenty of ways to exit outdoors, but the main entrance is referenced on each locked door. I came to this realization by the 5th door. I’m not sure if the cold was my dulling my mind or if I was too distracted laughing to myself. I had just realized I was literally following a footpath around the structure. It wasn’t just a path but a puzzle. I could have turned back and saved myself a lengthy walk, but I thought, “Oh! Okay God, this is the labyrinth you wanted me to take.”

Then out loud I said, “Stop being so funny.” At that exact moment, a black helicopter hummed overhead and I briefly thought the things were going to end in waterboarding or an unpleasant government website experience and arbitrary fees. Maybe, I was on the psycho path. I pushed my icy hands into my coat pockets, stopped trying to open locked doors, and made my way counter-clockwise to the main entrance–the long way around. This was probably the intended journey in the first place so I might learn something. I was starting to pay attention. Finally.

No, it wasn’t the labyrinth I set out to do. It wasn’t the one I picked to walk or the one studied as I walked by with Zippy swinging his mower wildly nearby, but eventually it would get me inside if I kept going around and circled the place.

As I got most of the way around the complex I could smell lunch cooking from the kitchen. “The kitchen help probably don’t have to go through the main entrance,” I thought. (It was my first useful notion all day.)

Sure enough: I spotted an inconspicuous point of entry, sheltered with an overhang and a coffee can full of sand and cigarette butts sitting outside the door. Maybe it would be open. It was. As I pull the door a blast of warmness greeted me and behind it the smell of comfort food. I was back. I had almost gone full circle, but I had an insiders’ access point to put things to rights.

Just before I left the place for home I took my friend–who had carpooled with me there that morning–to see the new prayer puzzle up close. I walked through slowly but it wasn’t prayerfully. The symbolism had already done its job. I was just canvasing the design and saying my goodbyes. I got to the center of the circle and I knew I was ready to leave for home.

I did a little spin with my arms out because I think if it was a movie that’s what would have happened right at the point, and then I stepped straight through the center to get back out.

The surprise is that you don’t get to ever really pick your own labyrinth. It is picked for you. You can decide how to walk it and how meaningful it will be. You can be frustrated by it and worry about the turns or you can slow down, put one foot after the other, and get to the center. Then you’ll be home.

# # #

Evangelized by a Rat Terrier: Communicating Faith with a Bared Belly

Today is Halloween and this book is a murder, thriller, in the religious dramatic fiction….hum.

Spook-tacular!

Today’s post is part of a blog tour Erin McCole-Cupp!

Erin is a talent writer and a helpful friend of mine. I got a copy of her new book that has done amazingly well on Amazon!

I was thrown back to the 80s—like in a totally awesome way.

(ya catch that!)

She’s stopping by today on her interweb book tour with a great story about her doggie superstar Sigma and a bit about her new book.

View her bio here.

Now–Enter, Erin…

Thanks for hosting me, Lisa! See, dear reader, Lisa and I go way back—way back to the 1990s, when the internet was something viewed on a black screen in tiny pinpoints of green light. Lisa knew me through my first conversion, the one where I became a Christian, but I’m not sure she knows about my second, far more recent conversion: that from cat person to dog person—and more specifically to a small dog person.

In Lisa’s latest (and wonderful) book Dog in the Gap, she wrote a chapter called “Taming,” in which she discusses how we humans are tamed by dogs. She writes that the mutual process of caring and being cared for by a dog, “…can, if we let it, carry over into our other relationships–this sacred act of taming each other. Instead of tolerating each other, we go further in.”

I experienced this, more specifically what Lisa identifies in that same chapter as “mutuality,” starting this past Spring. We were thinking about getting a second cat…

…because this one doesn’t like us.

When we arrived at the local shelter, we were shocked to find their cat residence virtually empty. Apparently we’d arrived before the bumper crop of abandoned kittens was due.

“Well, let’s go say ‘hi’ to the dogs,” my husband said. We went through the kennel and one of the residents made our youngest stop in her tracks. She pointed and shrieked with delight.

“Tiny dog! Tiny dog!”

Ugh. I’d always called small dogs “hors d’oeuvres” or “light snacks,” good for nothing but barking at all hours. And who on earth would want a tiny ball of noise called a rat terrier? No. Thank. You. Still, for the sake of the kids, I gave in to a “visit” with the little guy, assuming he’d annoy them so much that they’d see some sense and we’d come back in a few weeks for our kitten.

When the shelter volunteer brought him in to us she warned, “Now don’t expect too much, because he’s pretty shy and takes a long time to warm up to–“

The little blur dashed in, threw himself down in front of us all, belly up for scratching. His tongue lolled out. He was smiling.

“—new people,” the worker finished. “Wow! Look at that!”

We did not choose Sigma. Sigma chose us.

What did he do next that won me over? Funny enough, it was the barking. He barks less than I expected a little dog to bark, but when he does bark, it’s because he is trying to protect our pack. Stranger at the door? Get away! Stranger approaching while the kids walk him? Stay back! Is a friend yelling near me, his Mommy? Yowwowwowwowwow! You’re not allowed to bark at her! Rat terriers are known for being wary of strangers and protective of their territory. We belong to him.

The most precious example of this I can give is the time a relative stranger accidentally tripped over my middle child’s feet. Before he could apologize, Sigma jumped up, tapped the guy’s shins with both front paws, and gave a low warning bark. Do not hurt her! She is under my protection!

As I apologized, the perceived “offender” said, “Don’t apologize. That’s the kind of dog you want taking care of your kids.”

I’ve had a dog before. I’ve never before had a dog who would clearly give his life for mine and my family’s. I’ve read about heroic dogs before, but part of me always thought those were melodramatic stories made up to fill dead air on morning radio shows. Now that I’ve seen the active loyalty of a dog, I can believe that those stories are real. Siggie believes that we are worth heroic effort.

Sigma chose us. We belong to him. He believes we are worth heroic effort. If “evangelization” means at its root “to bring a message,” Sigma has done just that. He won me over specifically, not because of anything he demanded of me but because of my value to him, just as I am. He was the first pet with which (with whom? hm) I’ve experienced the “mutuality” that Lisa talks about in Dog in the Gap. Yes, we feed him, walk him, rub his belly, anoint him with flea and tick preventative, and throw tennis balls around for him. But he does for us, too.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of “evangelist,” someone on a stage comes to mind. Someone with a podium and a microphone, slathering at the mouth with the Fire of the Spirit, hair gone wild with all the thrashing about he’s done, all in the name of igniting in his listeners the furious love of Christ. Cerebrally, I know that’s not the only way to share the faith, but my tiny human brain didn’t have room for any more concrete image… until a “Tiny dog! Tiny dog!” came into my family and made us a pack. Our “Siggie Baby” is not powerful or smart or eloquent. His evangelization of me was never about him; it was about showing me what I was worth to him.

That’s such a small way of reaching out, but it’s a genuine way that you don’t need a degree or an agent or a microphone to share. We can—no, we must show others that someone on earth thinks they are worth choosing, worth claiming in love, and worth heroic effort. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful, charming way to entice others into seeing that the Body of Christ is a pack worth joining? After all, don’t we Christians occasionally find ourselves perceived as slobbery, barking hors d’oeuvres?

So how do you dash out of your shelter and show others the vulnerable, bared-belly love of Christ? Lisa and I tend to bare the bellies of our imaginations: we write, thus inviting you into the very brains and hearts where we (try, at least) to make a home for Him. I took particular delight in writing the character Cate Whelihan in Don’t You Forget About Me specifically because she espouses so many things that I think are, well, not so good for us.

I love Cate because she’s part of my pack, and, just like so many real humans I love just because they’re loveable, not because they agree with me.

I know I need to do that more in my real life, outside of my head. I need to show, not tell, the people I love that I choose them, that they are part of my pack, and that they are worth heroic effort. If the Son of God can do that for me—for every single one of us—and I’m supposed to be following Him, then I kinda don’t have an excuse to keep it in all my head anymore.

Do you?

# # #

Thanks, Erin!

If you are interested in the book, and gosh, you should be! Purchasing info is here. The Kindle edition is available now. The paperback will be available on November 1st (2013).

There’s also a Goodreads giveaway running now through November 15, so you can enter to win a paperback of Don’t You Forget About Me at this link.

How-To: Take a Break with WHIMSY

Sometimes when we’ve been working hard or spinning our wheels, rest it what we need most.

But, never forget about WHIMSY!

This week I was working on a new project and I could just tell I needed whimsy.

What is it exactly?

Whimsy is caprice. It’s playful or humorous behavior. It’s the opposite of work and taking yourself too seriously.

If you are burned out, give it a try.

Here are some ways:

• Do something you did as a kid (a game, an activity, a piece of art, hopscotch, legos, build a card house, color, whatever you want.)

• Whistle. (People don’t whistle much anymore. It’s a crisis of scarce whimsy. Just pick something and do it.)

• Create something for nothing but the fun of it. No one even has to see it. Exuberance and a no-holds-barred attitude is key!

• Sing or hum or play an instrument.

• Whatever made you belly laugh last time? Do that again.

• Tell a friend or family member a funny (or whimsically embarrassing) story and invite one from them.

Just 5-10 minutes of pure whimsy works wonders!

What did I do? I made something whimsical. I call it a “Whimsy Box”.

(People have said that just looking at this makes them feel a creative burst coming on!)

Each Whimsy Box is one-of-a-kind and tells a story.

It’s part art, part whimsical tale, part conversation piece, and part interactive inducer of creative tsunamis. Some Whimsy Boxes have a bona fide riddle about them or mystery to solve. Others play music, make a noise, have moving parts, or light up somehow–like this one!

whimsybox
(Sorry…this one is SOLD. If you’d like one, though, contact me.)

So, that’s how I took my break.

What will you do?