I was listening, listening to the rain...

...I was hearing, hearing something else.

A cartoon for your Sunday afternoon.
It's even biblically accurate.

Throwback Tuesday

You've probably figured out by now that I more or less just post old drawings as I find them, without regard to the day of the week.

But seriously, you need to watch this movie.

Last Day of June

You'd think I'd have better things to do than to post old cartoons mocking students...
but you'd apparently be wrong.

Throwback Sunday

Looking through old notebooks, I found this and realized I hadn't posted it before. 
I tell people how, when I was in seminary, I gave up on taking "regular notes" after the first semester, and just drew cartoons in class. Usually, that's followed up with something to the effect that, when I look at the cartoons, I get a larger sense of what was happening in class, what the relevant theological point was, or something to that effect.

Not with this cartoon, though. I just like Bowie.

Samstag - with no sermon tomorrow!

At long last, a Saturday that I can more or less enjoy!

The phrase in the punchline, by the way, was a "googlewhack," and completely unintentional. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't stealing a phrase from George Herbert Mead, or someone like that.

Did I mention that I was a hospice chaplain?

Freitag

I'm not sure which is more absurd, my wife learning German, or her somehow turning it into a contest. I suppose I need to start soon, but talk about slow and steady...

Also, things at the hospice are coming along, but not quite what I'd hoped for. Maybe next week will be better.

Thursday night

...which is kind of like Friday night around here.

Anyhow, I think Waldo is the ultimate 5 with a 4 wing, dressing in a unique fashion and yet somehow able to get lost in a crowd.

Mr. Miro is a fan.

Born to be... Part 8

I'm assuming this is the final cartoon in this series.
The sermon will have to wait for another day, but hopefully soon.

Born to be... penultimate post

Just thought I'd let you know, this can't go on forever.
I'm not sure that "wiled" is a word, but I like thinking of Mai as a sort of Wile E. Coyote. Also, "xyled" isn't a word, and no one complained about that yet.

Married life is going well: yesterday we had a good "day off," of sorts. Both of us preach this week, so today is more sermon writing and less driving around and hanging out watching "Sherlock."

I'll post my sermon when I'm finished with it, I think it will be good.

Born to be... part 7

I still don't feel entirely settled (just starting a new job, still unpacking in a new house...) - but I can see it coming along, slowly. I haven't had that feeling in years, and it's really nice.

Unscheduled

 I was looking for something important in my stacks of papers, and found these from last year. I need to get back to finding what I was looking for, but thought I'd share.

The "Born to be..." series will continue tomorrow!

Born to be... part 6

Obviously this series can't go on forever, but I still have a few left, and then some cartoon ideas that I've squirreled away that I still need to draw (and scan and post). 

I can't spend all my "free time" working on my blog, but I hope to be posting more regularly again, now that I have a scanner, decent and reliable internet connection, and a shorter commute. 

Born to be... part 5

Grief group tonight, perhaps I'll be more prepared this time.

Born to be... part 4

It's nice not to have to drive so far this morning to go to work!

Born to be... part 3

Last day before I start my new job - wish me luck!

Born to be... part 2

Busy weekend, more cartoons to come!

Born to be...

First in a series, be sure to check back for more!

Before Grief Group

Old cartoon for this evening, but I'm on my way out the door to co-facilitate a Grief Group.

The cartoon is more relevant to last night's meeting, but I'm sure I'll say more about that later.

Beginnings and Endings

I am somewhat nervous about what comes next - that's probably for another post. But I'm happy to be finished with my previous job as of this afternoon. I'm tempted to complain about all the things that bothered me up through even the last few weeks, but you know what?
I'm done.

More to come...

but not this week. I have a backlog of cartoon ideas, but nothing is going to happen for a while.

Another day...

There's lots more where these came from.

Like it or not!

Half Day

It's been a hard morning at work. Well, not really. I'm leaving anyhow - I deserve it!

Hard Day's Night

In class at the hospital today after a night of being on call... well, home for lunch at the moment, which makes it difficult to contemplate going back, even if I don't have to see any more patients today.

On the plus side, I'm reminded of seminary, in that I'm using a break from class to post cartoons that I've drawn in class. Woo hoo!

Back at work again

Obscure? Wouldn't be the first time

Happy Easter!

So, not the cheeriest Easter cartoon. 

Sue me.

Holy Saturday

As my regular readers know, many of my cartoons are not just based in real life, but use actual quotes. This one is from a student I had a while back. It was disappointing at the time, since I thought they'd like Nietzsche.
I've since learned.

Good Friday

Well not as good as it might be, since I'm on call tonight. "Holy Saturday" will probably feel about right - all day at the hospital.

Counting the days!

Premium Subscribers Get Better Cartoons!

Well that's just a lie, and you know it. 

You always get my best.

Sorry?

Woden's Day

So why is there no "Loki's Day"?
Not writing anything more today, just a cartoon - with the promise of a cartoon tomorrow.

Snow Day

I probably ought to write more, but for today you just get a cartoon - based on actual events!

Maybe

I've heard various versions of this story, but they're mostly associated with the Chinese (because horses weren't introduced into the Americas until relatively recently). Anyhow, here's a version, and that's the reference for the first cartoon.

In any case, I have a lot of cartoon ideas that I'm jotting down but not completing cartoons for - hopefully I can get back in the habit of drawing again soon. As always, there's a lot more I could say, but you know, whatever.

Just another Thursday...

 I've been trying to stop saying, "Today was odd..." - because the truth is, every day is odd in its own way.

Today you get two old cartoons from last year that I ran across while digging though old papers and wishing I had a shredder.

"Holy Moly!"

I don't usually - well, ever - write about my patients. I won't write the personal details of this fellow, except to say that I spent maybe a half hour, maybe forty five minutes with him this morning. We didn't say much; he's been in the hospital for over three weeks now, and hasn't wanted visits from the chaplain - which is also to say, I've been by to see him a few times.

Today, I stopped in because I hadn't seen him in a while, and he's still in the hospital. When I say I spent some time with him, I don't mean we talked: I sat with him while he was in pain, trying to regain his composure, hoping the pain would pass. It didn't, not today.

I saw again him before I left work this afternoon, after his family had arrived, talking about hospice. I'm a big fan of hospice, as some of you know. I wish I could have ministered more to his family, though. Mostly I'm just sitting here this evening with his pain: I don't think you could identify him from this sketch, but this is what's in my mind's eye this evening (the Cartesian Theater, for the Dennett fans out there; I could write about the tiny robots, but I've written about this before.)

That's not what I was thinking about this morning, or this afternoon with his family, or this evening. Mostly I'm just picturing his eyes. Another day, I might draw several pictures and combine them into a horrible gif - the piercing pain, the exclamation, and then the dullness as he waits, waits for it to pass. But not this evening. Now, I still see those eyes, trying not to catch mine, but still in some small sense appreciative that I was there, with him.

Quarterly cartoon

we didn't sing, and I didn't have a hammer...
but I did have a pen, and doodling kept me (more or less) awake through a lengthy discussion of a ramp.

Thursday night

It's been a long week, and I'm ready for the weekend. This is an old (well, oldish - I haven't been posting regularly after all) cartoon that I discovered while going through my weekly reflections.

Apparently, the Beastie Boys have replaced the Pixies for my classroom days.

Cartoon Tuesday

It's funny how a scanner seems to have re-opened the cartooning gates of my mind. With no further ado...

Carolina on my mind

I started to write a post about stuff in my head this morning, but then I realized that I had already written some of this before. I had trouble sleeping last night, partly because it's getting warmer - too hot in my apartment, like SC - but also because I've been trying out new recipes (even though I don't like my kitchen), and some of what I was thinking about was when I first started cooking Indian food. Also, I'm anticipating moving again, which is both exciting and intimidating. 

But I was also thinking about books. If you'd asked me what books I liked when I was living back in Columbia (besides philosophy, where I was mostly reading Foucault and the Frankfurt School) - but, I was also reading fiction at the time. I might have referred to something vaguely contemporary and international - Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being, or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in Time of Cholera (I think these are the books John Cusack's character mentions in High Fidelity, which is either embarrassing for me, or shows that Nick Hornby really captured the zeitgeist, or both). Or something vaguely pretentious, like Tom Stoppard's play Travesties, or John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse. Or something more classic, like Stendhal's Red and Black; and I had spent a semester devouring most of Kafka (not Amerika, but everything else) - and that's continued to have a big impact on me. I hadn't yet read Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, although I knew about it from listening to Laurie Anderson. 

I hadn't yet heard of Michael Chabon, and he was years away from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which I still name as my favorite book. But the book he'd already published at that time - The Mysteries of Pittsburgh - makes me think of Portland (as does Lucky Jim). And that's something for another post, maybe.

Finding Ourselves in the Story

On the plus side, I now have a scanner, so I should be able to post cartoons of reasonable quality once more.

On the negative side, I seem to have more or less stopped writing sermons. I make an outline, jot down bits and pieces, and talk my way through my notes in the same way I would if I were teaching class. The congregation appreciates this, but I no longer seem to have sermons to post here.

But maybe that's not a negative thing after all.

Just a cartoon

I'm a little embarrassed that the first cartoon of the year is showing up in February...

No Cartoon, Chapel Edition

I have temporarily lost the ability to post even poor pictures of my cartoons - which is unfortunate because I've been drawing more cartoons lately. Look for them in the New Year!

What Are You Waiting For?

I finally got a decent scan of a cartoon, and that's all you're getting today.

Short Update

I've been busy, but the real hold-up lately has been the cartoons: not that I haven't been drawing any, but I can't get a decent picture of any of them (and you're probably thinking, when has that stopped me before?). Anyhow, I've got cartoons and sermons (and other observations) that I will post at some point.

They Might be Cannibals

I work with Seventh Day Adventists (I think I've mentioned this before). And, as individuals, they're very nice. But many of them also strike me as naive. 

So, I asked one the other day about the SDA dietary restrictions - among other things, they don't eat pork or shellfish. (That should ring a bell for you.) I asked about Peter's vision, in Acts, and she replied, "Well if you read it in context, it's about people, not food." Which is her polite way of saying, you're reading it wrong, and pretty much every Christian since Paul has been reading it wrong. Oops. 

I see two ways to approach this. One would simply be to reply, "you're the one who's not really reading it in context, you're just focusing on Acts 10:28, 'God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.'" I'm not sure what her reply would be, and I really don't care if she eats pork or not: I'm a vegetarian myself. 

But the other approach is more intriguing: what if we do take the larger context into account, but read it as being about people, not food? What exactly does the voice say in Peter's vision in Acts 10:13? "Get up, Peter; kill and eat." 

I think I'll stay away from their food at the next potluck.

Literal and Metaphorical

So many of the things we learn in school, we forget, because we have no context for them...

I'm rereading some things I first read eight years ago, and have largely forgotten, but which are relevant to my current context. It's interesting to read about them (I may talk more specifically about this in a future post) when I'm in the middle of things, rather than seeing it as something abstract, far-in-the-future.

But the other thing I have recently come across was a passage from Ezekiel 28, in a Seventh Day Adventist booklet, about the King of Tyre. (I realize that the Seventh Day Adventists aren't the only ones who look to this passage in particular, but this is how I came across it.) I'm sure I've run across the passage before, and might even have some notes from my Old Testament class, but it doesn't ring a bell (which is to say, it's not what I remember about Ezekiel).

This passage cannot be read literally. Just for starters, it's addressed to the King of Tyre, a mortal, and it says, "you were in the garden of Eden." I know that the literalists want to read the Bible straight through, literally understanding all the passages literally - well, it just can't be done. But even they acknowledge that some passages have to be understood metaphorically. How might we read this? That's where things get strange. They say that this is really - really - about Satan. Well, why in the world would you think such a thing?

Because that means taking the description literally, rather than metaphorically, but taking the identity of the king as (at least partly) metaphorical. And why would you do such a thing? There are various reasons why you might make references to someone metaphorically. The primary one, in this context, is if you're talking about someone who really could just send out troops to kill you, without any trial or anything, maybe while you sleep, and maybe your whole village too, just because he can. And if you're writing about that dude, you might think, "hm, if I refer to this guy as a giant bear with five horns, or a dragon, people will know who I'm talking about - wink wink - but I'll have some deniability." That really makes sense if you're living under foreign occupation. I can almost imagine someone making the counter-argument, "but we are living under occupation - from Satan!" Must our references to Satan be veiled, or coded, somehow? Or are you really a Zoroastrian who wants the Christian Bible to support your viewpoint (and I realize that the actual Zoroastrians don't do this).

It doesn't make sense to be oblique about identity if you're directly calling someone out, though: you want that person's attention. "Hey, you! Knock it off!" But how do you get this guy's attention, without just making yourself into a target? "Well, Mr. Putin, in addition to being handsome, you're a powerful man, someone to be reckoned with. However..." And that's really how I read this passage: Ezekiel has a prophecy against the King of Tyre, wants him to actually hear it, and not get squished himself. But the description is metaphorical, a hyperbolic flattery to get this guy's attention. How is that difficult to see?

The alternative - taken by Ellen White and the Seventh Day Adventists, among others - is to see this as only metaphorically referring to the King of Tyre, but actually referring to Satan - because the descriptions aren't metaphorical, but literal. What? Why in the world would Ezekiel bury condemnation of Satan in the middle of all this other stuff? It's not as though the "King of Tyre" is a made-up designation, either.

Ockham's razor, paraphrased, says that we should prefer the simpler of two explanations, if they otherwise do an equally good job. Satan gets the boot. And I should probably stop reading Ellen White.