Divine dissolution

"Wild claims to be an atheist largely for musical reasons, having at age ten asked his mother how there could be a God when the organist at their local church in Pittsburgh was so lousy." (more on him in this article)

Snerk. Reminds me of my distant youth when contemporary Christian media was, if not the only thing on the menu, certainly a staple of consumption. My mother was more likely to actually purchase Godly^TM books, for one, making it rather worth my while to browse the Christian book store or that Christian book catalogue. I read a fair number more dull, repetitive and hamhanded books than I would otherwise have done (I think that otherwise the Baby-Sitter's Club books would have filled this niche by themselves, which would have been more than sufficient). I also did not discover any form of popular music (hereby defined as "anything other than hymns or, and I shudder to think upon them, praise and worship choruses") until I was fifteen, so I have by and large given up hope being familiar with all the music everyone else is.

Somewhere along the line I had the same epiphany, although I was neither so precocious nor so flippant about it, at least not at the time. I have been known to use "Christian music made me an atheist" line more recently. It's just so bone-crushingly bad...

Not before I had written many, many pages of highly dull, formulaic and derivative juvenile Christian mysteries, and I mean all of those things in the worst possible way, unfortunately. Sadly, I think if I had finished them instead of eventually dumping them in a box that they would be publishable in the Christian fiction market. Incidentally, one of my main frustrations was that, dull and lifeless as they were, one thing my characters were quite spirited about was their refusal to enter into any spiritual subplots. "Shut up and let me get back to looking for counterfeiters," they kept saying. I could hardly blame them, and yet I still harbored a lingering concern over their souls, even though, properly speaking, they did not actually have any.

Divine dissolution

"Wild claims to be an atheist largely for musical reasons, having at age ten asked his mother how there could be a God when the organist at their local church in Pittsburgh was so lousy." (more on him in this article)

Snerk. Reminds me of my distant youth when contemporary Christian media was, if not the only thing on the menu, certainly a staple of consumption. My mother was more likely to actually purchase Godly^TM books, for one, making it rather worth my while to browse the Christian book store or that Christian book catalogue. I read a fair number more dull, repetitive and hamhanded books than I would otherwise have done (I think that otherwise the Baby-Sitter's Club books would have filled this niche by themselves, which would have been more than sufficient). I also did not discover any form of popular music (hereby defined as "anything other than hymns or, and I shudder to think upon them, praise and worship choruses") until I was fifteen, so I have by and large given up hope being familiar with all the music everyone else is.

Somewhere along the line I had the same epiphany, although I was neither so precocious nor so flippant about it, at least not at the time. I have been known to use "Christian music made me an atheist" line more recently. It's just so bone-crushingly bad...

Not before I had written many, many pages of highly dull, formulaic and derivative juvenile Christian mysteries, and I mean all of those things in the worst possible way, unfortunately. Sadly, I think if I had finished them instead of eventually dumping them in a box that they would be publishable in the Christian fiction market. Incidentally, one of my main frustrations was that, dull and lifeless as they were, one thing my characters were quite spirited about was their refusal to enter into any spiritual subplots. "Shut up and let me get back to looking for counterfeiters," they kept saying. I could hardly blame them, and yet I still harbored a lingering concern over their souls, even though, properly speaking, they did not actually have any.

Natural selection

I saw the cutest, funniest, and yet most mind-boggling thing earlier this evening, and sadly could not find my digital camera to share it with you all.

In our backyard we have a deck, and behind that we have a hill, and under the deck we have some baby rabbits this year, who have gotten rather older but are still pretty small. I was sitting on the swing on the deck with my laptop and my brother, who just got back from camp, was sitting out with me, and we were watching a baby rabbit casually nibble some grass, which one assumes was particularly tasty or tender or something, to distinguish it from all the other grass in the yard.

Then the rabbit lies down in the grass, with its front paws stretched out in front and its back legs stretched out to the side, the way rabbits do, working with the constraints of their anatomy.

Now, rabbits don't fucking do this. Seriously. We have a rabbit, and have had for a good eight years now. She has the run of the house, loves to lie upside-down in our arms with her paws in the air and her stomach exposed, lets us (mainly my brother, the rest of us don't go in much for this) hold her curled up in a ball balanced on one hand, all sorts of things. Only very recently, as in this summer, did she become so casual about lying down that she would do it next to our feet, more like a puppy, or in the vicinity, more like a cat. Normally she would only do such a thing in a safe space like her cage or right near it, under a low end table, etc.

And this is our utterly tame house rabbit. Outdoor rabbits are supposed to spring off into the treeline whenever we make any sudden moves, not lounge around while we squeal and point and go back and forth opening the squeaky atrium door looking for cameras.

My fear is that, cute and engaging as this batch of rabbits is, they are destined to be eaten soon if they go on in this way.

Natural selection

I saw the cutest, funniest, and yet most mind-boggling thing earlier this evening, and sadly could not find my digital camera to share it with you all.

In our backyard we have a deck, and behind that we have a hill, and under the deck we have some baby rabbits this year, who have gotten rather older but are still pretty small. I was sitting on the swing on the deck with my laptop and my brother, who just got back from camp, was sitting out with me, and we were watching a baby rabbit casually nibble some grass, which one assumes was particularly tasty or tender or something, to distinguish it from all the other grass in the yard.

Then the rabbit lies down in the grass, with its front paws stretched out in front and its back legs stretched out to the side, the way rabbits do, working with the constraints of their anatomy.

Now, rabbits don't fucking do this. Seriously. We have a rabbit, and have had for a good eight years now. She has the run of the house, loves to lie upside-down in our arms with her paws in the air and her stomach exposed, lets us (mainly my brother, the rest of us don't go in much for this) hold her curled up in a ball balanced on one hand, all sorts of things. Only very recently, as in this summer, did she become so casual about lying down that she would do it next to our feet, more like a puppy, or in the vicinity, more like a cat. Normally she would only do such a thing in a safe space like her cage or right near it, under a low end table, etc.

And this is our utterly tame house rabbit. Outdoor rabbits are supposed to spring off into the treeline whenever we make any sudden moves, not lounge around while we squeal and point and go back and forth opening the squeaky atrium door looking for cameras.

My fear is that, cute and engaging as this batch of rabbits is, they are destined to be eaten soon if they go on in this way.