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Why does the woman change her last name when she marries? I in general like to see the big picture and how things all fit together and this is a case where that works.

People just blame traditional patriarchy, but there’s more to it than that. Let’s back up and look at more than just the people involved as husband and wife.

Big picture: what is marriage supposed to represent?

Marriage represents the relationship between God and the Church. The best example is in Ephesians chapter 5. Rather than trying to establish this statement, I’m just going to proceed as if we all agree that’s true – Jesus is the groom and the Church is the bride. Marriage is a physical representation of this spiritual concept.

If you look at what happens in the spiritual union, what happens when people believe? They then call themselves a Christian. In other words, they take the name of the groom. They are now identified as belonging to Him.

It also has implications for why marriage should not be anything other than one man and one woman. The spiritual meaning of two men would be saying that people are the same level as God, and the spiritual meaning of two women would be saying that there is no God.

Another thing: why does the man propose to the woman? I don’t know that it was meant to tie in spiritually, but it does fit in nicely, as God calls people to Him.

Last note on this topic: my belief is this also shows us that there is no life outside of Earth. Some people spend a lot of time and resources looking for intelligent life out in the universe, but that would not fit the picture that marriage shows of one God and one people.

Here is a guest post I wrote for SCL back in the day (2011 in case you’re wondering). It wasn’t run because I didn’t actually write a full blog post for Jon, I just sent him an outline of ideas. But I decided to fill it out and present it to you today.

Wondering What to Think of Mel Gibson

It seems that celebrities can fall in and out of favor with Christians. Or rather with Christian media or culture, I haven’t figured out who decides the correct opinion on people.

In general, a celebrity is embraced by Christians once news gets out of his conversion. “Hey, we got So-and-so now!” But since he’s human, and in the spotlight, he will mess up somehow and then will no longer be the trendy poster-boy for American Christianity. We shouldn’t be so fickle, and I hope that in general any new Christian can find a local church that will support and encourage new believers through whatever problems they have.

In this particular case of Mel Gibson though, it seems his popularity within Christianity has had more ups and downs than anyone else.

It starts out with his background: a movie actor who was raised Catholic. Okay, we’ll take that.
Wait, he makes R-rated movies? Never mind, that’s bad.
But he’s making a movie about Jesus. And it’s faithful to the source material? Ok, that’s good.
Did you see he got a DUI? That’s not good.
And he made disparaging remarks about Jews? That’s not good either, what’s wrong with this guy?
He apologized for that though. Well, apologizing is a Christian trait, so that’s good.

Mr. Gibson may have been in and out of the news in the decade or so since I wrote the first draft, but I haven’t kept up. If he has, it’s certainly not been to the level it was back then.

Here is a guest post I wrote for SCL back in the day (2011 in case you’re wondering). It wasn’t run because I didn’t actually write a full blog post for Jon, I just sent him an outline of ideas. But I decided to fill it out and present it to you today.

Other religions have official pilgrimages, and the Jews in the time of the Bible had to go to Jerusalem for certain annual festivals, but Christianity is a little more decentralized, so it has multiple unofficial pilgrimages. I’ve been on a couple of them, keep track and see how high a score you get (one point per destination).

• Israel – tying into the Biblical pilgramages to Jerusalem, this is the most spiritual of the Christian pilgrimage options. Most people opt for a Bible tour – seeing the places mentioned in the Bible, and hopefully learning something in the process. I’ve experienced this only vicariously, by watching videos. That method is worth half a point, by the way.
• Colorado Springs – this is a close second because of all the ministries there. You can visit headquarters for Compassion International, Focus on the Family, and the Navigators.
• Northern Kentucky – this is a close third because only an hour apart from each other are both the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. Get your fill of Genesis in this part of the country.
• Vatican City – this is a controversial one, because hard-core Catholics are probably considering this an official pilgrimage and hard-core Protestants are probably considering it heresy to give any attention to the Vatican. There’s a lot of church history there, and in surrounding Rome as well, so you can get something out of it no matter your affiliation.
• Up North – I used to think “going up north” was a Michigan thing, but people in southern Minnesota go north to relax/escape/vacation also, so I’m just going to apply the term to everyone. Since the location of the temple changed from Jerusalem to each believer’s body, you are holy no matter where you go. And thus anywhere you go could be a pilgrimage. You could push it and say anywhere anywhere, but I prefer anywhere that’s not work.

That last one may have been a stretch, but lists are required to have either 3, 5, 7, or 10 items. I had only 4 and that was not going to cut it. Any places I forgot?

This is a guide for how to play the game Fluxx.

1. How do I win?
By being the first person to meet the goal.

2. How do I meet the goal?
By playing Keeper cards that match what’s shown on the Goal card.

3. How do I play a Keeper card?
Each turn, you draw a card and play a card. Well, that’s not exactly true – that’s how the game starts, but it changes.

4. How does it change?
You can play different types of cards. There are Goal cards (you can change the goal) and Keeper cards (that are for attaining the goal) and there are also Rule cards, that change the rules of the game like how many cards you draw and how many you play.

5. Wait, how can I win the game if someone can change the goal? How does that even make sense?
That’s what makes Fluxx different – some people think it’s more fun, and some people think it’s less fun. Yes, the goal changes, the rules change, someone can just take the cards in your hand, etc. That’s why it’s called Fluxx.

It’s not a difficult game to learn, but it can be difficult to play because you have to always re-learn the rules (when they change). Also, there are a variety of versions. We have the original Fluxx (which is fun) and Chemistry Fluxx (which is even more fun). They have even more versions, which we haven’t tried, but might be worth it depending on your interests.

There, now go play Fluxx.

So this one didn’t turn out as well as I was hoping , but I’ll show it to you anyway. I thought it would be fun to combine Drew Carey and Drew Barrymore and see what the result would be – of course named Drew Caremore.

First up – starting with Drew Carey and adding some Drew Barrymore, mainly her hair and lips.

Not the best combination, but just wait.

We now start with Drew Barrymore and add in some Drew Carey.

But why just his glasses?

Here, I’ll show you her picture with his lips, and you’ll see why it just doesn’t work.

And there’s no point putting his hair on her – by the time you put Drew Carey’s glasses, mouth, and hair on anyone you just have another Drew Carey.

Here are some thoughts I jotted down that aren’t quite sufficient for their own individual blog posts. If you’re the type of person who likes Twitter, pretend each of these is a tweet.

• The opposite of sweet is savory. So why isn’t someone who has a sweet disposition called “an unsavory character”?
• I thought I’d make my wife happy and take her shoe shopping. It turns out it only makes her happy if the shoes are for her, not for me.
• In golf, you want to shoot under par. So why is something bad called “sub par”? Shouldn’t it be “super-par”?
• Life is too short to keep using worn-out non-stick pans. We got a new set recently and why didn’t we do that earlier?
• A lesson I learned from raising kids: “many hands make light work” does not apply when trying to loosen knots in shoelaces. I need space (not extra help) if you want me to fix your shoes.

With a variety of travels during this summer that recently concluded, I was able to read some books.

First up: The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly

This book was written about 100 years ago, and it’s interesting to note how the story seems simpler. I haven’t figured out if it’s the choice of words, the storyline itself, or what, but what would have been a middle-grade book 100 years ago now seems more suited to younger elementary. I couldn’t find anything definitive about the target audience, so I don’t know specifically that it was intended for a slightly older audience, but the subject matter leads me to believe that it was.

Also of note: the main characters are driven from their land in the Ukraine by Russian forces, so it’s a timely topic for today too. The setting is the 15th century, so it, sadly, seems like a story that’s always relevant.

The book is fine, I’d recommend it for whatever the book equivalent of a PG movie rating is.

Next up: Mighty Jack and Zita by Ben Hatke

I thought I had already mentioned these books in this blog before, but it seems that I have not. This is the 3rd book in the Mighty Jack series, but it’s a crossover that brings in the Zita the Spacegirl story, so it’s also the 4th book in the Zita the Spacegirl series.

I have read some of the Zita books and all the Might Jack books, and they’re good. They are graphic novels, so they go quickly. That’s actually the main downside – I wish they lasted longer. But the story is engaging and fun.

Last up: The Tales of Alvin Maker by Orson Scott Card

There are 6 books in this series, but I’m just showing the cover for the first one.

I found this series in a roundabout manner – I read the short story The Yazoo Queen and it piqued my interest enough that I checked out Seventh Son from the library.

Note that The Yazoo Queen takes place in the middle of the series, so if you don’t like spoilers then consider it book 5 and a half and read it then.

But this series suffers from the same thing I wrote about in my last review, and it’s a flaw that OSC shares with Ryan Reynolds – things are done well but they add just enough bad/risque/offensive material so that I can’t recommend it.

In the first book, there were just a couple sentences that were a problem. But the third book (Prentice Alvin) turned up the raunchiness. Why did he feel the need to have the plantation owner do that? And tell us all about it? It doesn’t get too graphic, but you definitely understand what the bad guy is doing bad.

Overall, well-written good story but with awkward parts about how badly men can behave. Some would argue that’s what life is like. But when I’m reading I want a story that’s better than life – it’s not a very good escape otherwise. There can be bad guys in the story, doing bad things, but it doesn’t have to bring down the story – it depends on both the nature of the immorality and how it’s presented. In this case, I felt it detracted from the story. Read at your own risk.

That’s it for this review. More book reviews coming up probably next year.