If there’s one phrase in the whole world I love to hear, it’s this:

“Experts were surprised…”

Good thing I love that phrase, because I get to hear it a lot these days. Just google those words. You will literally get 29 million results. That’s a lot of surprises. Whenever the news reports on some new surprise that experts find, they like to dress it up with phrases like, “Experts are reeling over the new findings.” I just want to find the expert that told the news reporter, “I am reeling over these new findings.” No one says that. Except maybe this expert to the left, who’s getting ready to eat a big mouthful of crow.

A few years ago, ‘experts’ predicted longer, more intense hurricane seasons because of the evils of mankind. Which sounds a lot like how ancient people explained everything from eclipses to droughts. The gods are angry with us, find a virgin to sacrifice! Anyway, we were told we could expect a lot more ‘Katrinas’ in the future and face doomsday unless we sacrificed a bunch of oil executives on an altar. Since then, the experts have been surprised by record-breaking calm hurricane seasons.

The current list of things that surprise experts includes, but is not limited to hurricanes, unemployment, Antarctica, Orangutans, swine flu, Iran, the Royal Bank of Scotland, earthquakes, Cash for Clunkers, the Chinese, Prince Charles, Komodo Dragons, teen birth rates, experts’ rates of being surprised, obesity, and surprise birthday parties.

If you love surprises, now is a great time to be an expert!

I’ve got a five things to say to the experts of the world.

How do I become an expert?
You make being an expert look so easy! With just that title, people line up to interview you, buy your books, plagarize your words in their high school research papers. Is there a class I can take, perhaps at my local community college or online that will teach me how to be an expert? What certification board do I need to apply to for my Expert Degree?

Oh, there is no Expert School?
Then how do you become an expert? I can’t see you calling yourself an ‘expert,’ ‘guru,’ ‘virtuoso,’ or ‘wizard,’ with no qualifications, because that would be incredibly egotistical, and would kind of set you up for a huge, surprising failure. No, a real expert would never make this mistake. It wouldn’t be wise to call yourself an ‘expert’ when you really aren’t an expert…and yet, I can’t shake a sneaking suspicion…

You don’t know what you’re talking about.
The more you say, and the more authority you use to say it, the more times you have to eat your words. It’s evident to me that we have a bunch of people running the world, our nations, our banks, our schools, our churches, writing books, being published and quoted who don’t have a gat-dang clue what they’re talking about. They don’t know history; that’s why they’re reliving it. They don’t know economics; that’s why they’re trashing it. They don’t know science because big business pays for science. If an expert says something, I can make a pretty sure bet, something else will happen somewhere in the world. Besides that…

Expert is just another word for ‘nerd.’
Nicholas Butler, an expert on, ironically, experts, said, “An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less.” In other words, expert knowledge is so deep and so narrow, that almost no one else cares unless your expertise in in Star Wars. Such a level of nerd-knowledge makes it even more ironic that a bunch of super-nerds can be surprised so often.

I’m not an expert.
Just kidding, I’m an expert at being awesome. But really, I can’t afford to be an expert. I have precious little capital to spend on getting people to believe me. I can’t be throwing it around like an expert. I’ve had enough failures and shortcomings already, I don’t need to fall from the ‘expert’ pedistal.

If you really are an expert, people will notice it and call you an expert. Don’t look like a tool and set yourself up for failure by putting it on your resume. I see ‘expert’ and immediately smirk. That goes for Christian experts too. Your reputation precedes you. You don’t have to tell us you have a reputation. Maybe you really are an expert. Fine, but think about what your fellow experts are doing to give experts a bad name.

What say you? Do you consider yourself an expert at anything? If you could call yourself an expert at something, what would it be? It’s okay to call yourself an expert here. We’re all laughing with each other, not at each other here.

Christians have to get stuck poo-pooing everything.

We just have to be the wet blankets. If it’s cloning, gambling, gay marriage, abortion, or Harry Potter, there’s probably going to be some Christians getting all up in everyone’s grill, raining on the parade…especially if it’s a gay parade.

Well maybe you can take an item off your list of ‘don’ts.’

A lot of Christians don’t like the idea of gay marriage. Some stuff about how it degrades the institution and whatnot. I think I heard ‘Bible’ and ‘Steve’ and ‘hell’ being shouted all at once, but it was hard to hear. Everyone’s got different reasons for hating.

But what if we just allowed gays to formalize what they’re doing already? What if we allowed them to go through all the legal channels that heterosexuals go through to be married? You know, go to the courthouse, pay their $52 in cash, no checks, obtain a license, have a ceremony and then merge all their complicated legal, tax, and financial matters in a convoluted web of legality. Sounds romantic!

For the record, I think that’s the fair thing to do. Call it a ‘civil union’ or whatever. We get our thing, they get theirs, and in the eyes of blind lady justice, we’re all equal and eligible for tax breaks. We live in a free land where gays are shacking up anyway. Can’t stop that. Aren’t Christians against shacking up anyway?

Speaking of shacking up, I think dogs should start wearing pants and getting married. There’s been a lot of casual sex going on among the dogs in my neighborhood, right out in the open! They have no shame. The males are all going around chasing booty rather than staying at home being dads.

Anyway, what would happen if we allowed gays to do all that? They’d live happily ever after in wedded bliss for the rest of their lives…

…until they started getting divorced.

And just like we let them go through a big glorious legal proceeding to get married, they can go through the fun of the legal divorce proceedings! Divorce Court has been getting kind of ho-hum lately anyway.

One of the big reasons gays tell us they should be able to adopt children is because homosexuals are supposedly as loving and dedicated to their monogamous relationships as heterosexuals…not that that’s really setting the bar very high.

Actually, we’d find out officially what people have already started to figure out. That gays would get divorced at least as much as heterosexuals. That would kind of take the wind out of that argument.

And while I’m busy being a genius, let’s think this one out. Some egghead scientist is trying to find a ‘gay gene,’ some part of the DNA that makes someone go that way. I don’t know how he can tell if a gene is gay. Maybe it’s wearing a mock turtleneck or can’t keep it’s hands off the Y chromosome. I think the last breakthrough was someone found some ‘gay’ fruit flies. Doesn’t surprise me. Their name is slang for gay already. Gays support gay gene research because if they did find a gay gene, it would mean Christians can shove it permanetly, because gay isn’t a choice, it’s in their blood. Case closed.

But I wonder what would happen…Screening unborn children for potential disorders is very common now because people see no ethical consequences about it. So disposing of imperfect fetuses also naturally follows. Today, 95% of parents who screen their unborn children and find they might have Down’s Syndrome have them aborted. You see where I’m going with this. What are gays going to do with the discriminatory practice of screening and aborting gay fetuses?

See, nothing’s ever ‘happily ever after.’ Gays hoping for a fairy tale ending can wise up and find out what the rest of us have already. Even when you solve one problem, you usually create another for yourself. That’s what keeps the economy rolling. Everyone has to buy something else to solve their new problem.

What say you? Can we have a civil discussion, or have I opened a big can of worms? Can you think of any other solutions that just led to more problems?

This blog post is in no way political.

Except there’s a new Gallup poll. Apparently, a bunch of people in this country identify themselves as ‘conservative.’ In fact, so many label themselves in this way, that they outnumber the ‘liberals’ in every state.

Hmmmm…

Some people will ask, “Where were these guys in the last election?” Some people will ask if the study is even valid, since each person has a different definition of “conservative” and “liberal.” Maybe they should’ve studied the percentage of people who have been called “liberals” by Mark Levin. The number would be approximately 100%. If you have never heard talk show host, Mark Levin yell at you, you’d think you’re on a different planet.

My question is when did this happen? Since when do conservatives outnumber liberals?

The study goes on to report that the number of conservatives is highest since 2004.

Which tells me one thing. A bunch of people have no flipping clue what they are at all. Most Americans take politics seriously and personally, believing they’ve found their political opinions on moral principles. That, and our hard-working Dads raised us to be good conservatives/liberals, and would’ve tanned our hides if he’d found out his kid was running around with those dat-gum lee-bertarians…whatever those are. Many of us live our lives on one side of the political fence, from birth to death, and can’t imagine what it must be like to be on the other side, much less imagine actually switching sides. It’d be like switching religions!

Then there’s another group of people, the group of people who are now conservative, who seem to base what they believe not on principles or logic, but on whether or not the President is giving them the goodies they want or not. I really hope the flip-floppers are just pot-smoking hippie college kids who don’t vote anyway, and would really rather just be ‘anarchists.’*

*Anarchy is the most amateur, tired, and cliche of angst-filled teen and college kid beliefs. Yeah, they like the idea of utopia, until they realize that no utopia would include In-A-Tub, and they’re all too lazy to make utopia work anyway.

So, during the Bush years a bunch of people say, “Agh! I don’t like George W. Bush! Everything’s his fault, so I’m a liberal! Keep your laws off my body! Grrrrrr!”

And now that Obama’s President, a bunch of the same people are saying, “Well, I don’t like Barak Obama at all! I’m a conservative! Sign me up, NRA! Yeeearrghh!”

It kind of reminds me of September 12, when everyone was saying, “Terrorists! Those are bad! And I’m an American! And a Christian! Where’s the nearest church; I need to pray for America! God bless America! Play that song on the radio again! Give me that bumper sticker! We will never forget! Jeeeesus! Bleeeeargh!”

And three weeks later, all those people who believed they were Christians/Patriots felt better about themselves and the world and forgot their little God hobby.

Ah, but they shouldn’t feel bad. That’s what people have been doing all along. If the Bible wasn’t full of stories of people treating God like a little hobby…well, we’d have no Bible!

If you’re a flip-flopping hobby Christian, I highly encourage you to make your hobby a full-time occupation. With macrame or scrapbooking, you can just do it once in a while. With Jesus, it’s got to be full time to be worth it. I know, I’ve tried…all of them.

I’m curious if we’ve got any political flip-floppers out there, even though I just gave you a hard time. There are plenty of good reasons to switch sides…like realizing you were a stupid uninformed college kid! I’d rather you don’t tell us what you are, because then I’d know which of you I’d have to start loathing with the intensity of a thousand suns, despite the fact that I love you as a brother or sister in Christ. But how long have you been what you are? From birth, or since college? Do you feel strongly attached to your political leanings? Have you ever flipped sides? How hard was it to tell your parents?

Me? Life long political leanings, evaluated in college (along with faith beliefs) and strongly attached. I will die the way I was born…perfect.

Hey, don’t forget to place your entry in the giveaway on Monday’s post! You have until Thursday night to get five chances at food, books, or a T-shirt!

People today like to talk, stay in touch, touch base, have face time, drop a line, hit up, holla back, or whatever stupid thing kids like to call it…a lot.

Since the telegraph, we got telephones, the radio, the television, emails, instant messenger, pagers, cell phones, blogs, Blackberries, Facebook, and Twitter, all allowing us to talk more quickly and frequently than ever.

And yet, I can’t help thinking that for all the ways we can communicate, very few people are able to communicate. As someone who tries to cultivate conversation skills, I notice that it’s a lost art.

And teenagers who are growing up with IMing from the convenience of their phones? I lose all hope seeing a bunch of typeractive textrovert teeny boppers having textual intercourse. Yes, those are all real terms in the urban dictionary. NFSP! LOL!

I broke up with two girlfriends partly over our instant messenger conversations (on our primitive computers.) IM was supposed to save our long distance relationships! We could talk all night while studying and not rack up huge phone bills! But I discovered that it really is tone and body language that makes up most of communication. Let’s just say our feelings were shared through many vulgar emoticons. :0 >:[ :/ :’(

Though I’m resolved to keep it out of this blog, I love politics. I like to follow the news, debate it with friends. I can get pretty passionate. Yet for all my interest in politics, I find most politicians to be extremely boring…and that’s at their best.

It used to be when someone wanted to get elected, he’d go on a whistle stop train tour, giving impassioned speeches. Winston Churchill practically won the British half of WWII with pithy speeches! These days, politicians are so careful about their words, so worried about their self image that they never get excited about anything! They never say anything worth getting excited about! The last great Presidential quote I can think of off the top of my head is, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Our standards for what passes for good communication have lowered from “Ask not what your country can do for you…” to, “Malaise…”

And I’m tired of hearing official ‘statements’ from ‘spokesmen’ when anything happens. Doesn’t matter if someone dies or some tragedy happens or something great happens, every statement is the same generic buzzwords. Someone dies and every last public figure issues a statement saying, “Our thoughts and prayers go out to their family…blah, blah, blah.” Well I can really tell you care based on that Hallmark quality statement your intern wrote for your press secretary to say. The only reason ‘statements’ are made is to make sure everyone knows they care, All they care about is that we care that they care. Well we don’t care.

And people say they don’t go to church because the sermons are boring.

Well many of them probably are. And it shouldn’t be that way. Maybe it’s just one more way that the culture is shaping the church. Some pastors settle for being poor communicators. A lot of pastors who don’t want to be boring seem to feel like they’re trapped by only having one boring book to use, so they have to go exploring other topics. Or they feel the gospel is too offensive to a seeker’s delicate ears, so he softens it with vagaries and platitudes like a politician trying to please gullible voters.

Many people don’t pay attention to current events or political goings-on because the people are boring, and their words are vague, generic, or outright lies. I’m no great preacher. No one records me to listen to dozens of times. No one will quote me when I’m dead. But if I can just speak clearly about what I believe and why I believe it, and sound like I believe what I say, I’m doing better than most politicians.

If you aren’t a pastor, you can help your pastor. If he gives an impassioned sermon, be sure to encourage him afterward. Pastors don’t always get a lot of personal encouragement. And not every pastor is equally gifted or funny or handsome, so go easy on him. You don’t have to switch churches just because your pastor’s sermons don’t always ‘feed’ you. Coming from most people, that line is baloney too.

And everyone can help by being able to clealy articulate your own beliefs. Don’t put it on your pastor to articulate to your children or your friends what your faith is. The church needs to be the best communicators in the world, not the best side shows or comedians, and certainly not the best politicians.

Most people at a funeral would rather be in the casket then giving the eulogy. What about you? Do you feel like you could communicate in most contexts if the need arose?

The information age has brought about an unfortunate side effect.

Everyone feels they have the right, nay, the duty to be up in everyone’s business.

Now that information is so easy to come by, we’ve got an odd paradox. People don’t like to read a lot. We’ve got shorter attention spans than rats on speed. But we think we have to know every last bit of dirt that’s being churned out by the news, magazines, and yes, even Twitter. We’re like that horde of ants trying invading your home looking for every bit of food in your house.

I have a theory, and it’s kind of timely, so I’m proud of it. Right now, a bunch of money is being pumped into our toilet of an economy. A undisputed side effect of so much money being available is that the money is worth less. Of course, economics is about the last area of information that most people don’t care to mine, so I don’t know if that’s lost on people or not.

Anyway, the more information we’re bombarded with, the more advertisements, the more news, the more gossip, the more mundane, inconsequential information we try to fill our pudding-like brains with, the less valuable it all becomes. Someone needs to tell this to ad firms. They’re paying way too much money for ads I don’t give a rip about.

There is a lot of information that just doesn’t matter. And because people strive eat it up, it makes all our knowledge worth less.

Here’s some things that people miss the point with too much information.

People Who Don’t Know Us
This is an obvious one, and a painful example of people not having real friends. Two million people care what Ashton Kutcher is doing right now. I don’t. I care if he entertains me or not, which he doesn’t. If he can’t be entertaining at work when he’s getting paid, how entertaining can he be in real life when he’s not? And let’s not forget the old fashioned celebrity Twitters you still find on the magazine rack. Jon and Kate? Classic example of ‘too much worthless information.’ They would’ve been fine if they had kept their lives to themselves, but they saw dollar signs, and thought people would care about their ordinary family, and thus they destroyed it. Which is probably the best thing that ever happened for the show…

The Government
I don’t usually comment on current events, and definately not politics. But this week there was some story about the CIA and a secret plot to kill some terrorists after 9/11. Everyone wets themselves when a story like this comes out and starts throwing around words like ‘cover up’ which is a phrase that makes me want to hurl, it’s so cliche. “Whaaaat? You mean that a government agency which everyone knows takes part in every facet of national security actually had a plan to kill some bad guys after 9/11? I smell a cover up! Squawk, Squawk, Squawk.”

It’s like people haven’t gotten used to the fact that WE DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING THE GOVERNMENT DOES. Every President has done things without the direct approval of you. If we did know everything, they couldn’t do their jobs. Now I am all about accountability, especially in this day and age; I’ve read 1984. But does the government keep you accountable for your job? Do they come to your cubicle and ask if you have any secret projects? Hmm? Did they spellcheck the new office newsletter you wrote? No? Then deal with the fact that other people can’t do their job if they have to tell you every move they make.

A lot of people like believing in conspiracies, which I think is cute. Cute in the way the pitiful way a one legged dog would be cute. A lot of people also like ‘questing.’ I suspect there is some overlap in these two groups. X-Files nerds just have waaaay too much faith in the government’s abilities. Everything the government does comes out eventually. It always does. People can’t keep secrets. Look at how quickly Watergate fell apart. Someone has to talk, or get a book deal or some shallow thing. That’s proof that there is no conspiracy. There is always a leak! The reason they’re called conspiracy theories, is that the leak hasn’t come out yet, and the fact that there’s no leak proves there’s no conspiracy. I win!

And if next week our government overlords rain down on us with alien technology from Roswell and enslave us all, I will graciously retract this statement and hail our new masters and you can throw it in my face from your post in the salt mine.

God
No matter what God says, it isn’t enough. We’re just never satisfied. We feel like we have to pick his brain, break him down, and box him up. He has to fit in our little theory. We want answers, and now! God has to be a Calvinist, or whatever, or we’re not happy. Like it’s any of your dang business if God’s a Calvinist!

Some people look at the Bible and they say, ‘That’s it? Isn’t there another chapter? Is this the abbreviated version? Did some pages fall into my hat?’ They get to the end and just can’t believe God would leave things so open ended (which is one of the universally known best literary devices ever, so it turns out God’s a pretty good author.) But people like things tied up like a Hollywood movie, and like any movie that makes money, it’s got to have a crappy sequel that ruins the whole franchise.

Here it is. You aren’t going to figure God out outside of what He’s said. It’s impossible. If you really think about what God has told us, it’s possible to understand in your mind, but to fully grasp it isn’t even possible. So study what He’s said, and don’t obsessively defend theories that He hasn’t spelled out. Your theories, your 5 step plan to figuring out God, your plans to have ‘effective’ prayers are so short of all there is. Concentrate on what God has already said. You’ll never reach the depths of it all.

What’s your favorite thing to obsess over? What do you think we should cut down on?

I told you I had a couple of stories from my vacation. Here is one of them.

Eureka Springs, Arkansas is a thoroughly Christian town. They’ve got the Passion Play, a giant Jesus, churches everywhere, and lots of Christian establishments.

It’s also a gay town.

And by ‘gay’ I mean homosexual, not the derogatory use of the word. Half the town seems to be, support, or affiliate themselves with gays. We walked down the main street and every other business was waving a rainbow flag in front of it. Bookstore: gay. Art gallery: gay. Funnel cakes: gay. Year-round Christmas store: gay (probably.)

It wasn’t like I’ve never been in a gay part of town. I used to live near the ‘alternative’ part of Kansas City. It’s not totally gay, but it’s pretty gay. Still, this was different and I was a little nervous.

Here’s why: I don’t know what the rainbow flag means, or why it’s necessary or profitable. Does that mean that a business ‘supports’ gays? What support is required in a town that’s already half gay? Does it mean that the business is gay-owned, or gay themed or all the customers are gay? Are Christians, supposed to think twice about going into the gay bookstore? Would all the books be gay, or would there be some hetero books too? What about that gay coffeeshop? Coffee can’t be gay in the way a book can be gay. Maybe no one is gay; they just want to try to get gays to patronize their store.

Is there even a standard for the meaning of a rainbow flag? Could I fly a rainbow flag in front of my business though I’m not gay and I’m a Christian? Or would that be offensive?

Once, a group of friends and myself (all of us ‘breeders’) went to a restaurant in a ‘cultural’ part of town. We noticed the Maitre’d was gay, but didn’t think anything of it. About halfway through the meal, we noticed him greeting incoming patrons with a kiss on the cheek. Then we noticed we were the only…mixed group in the place. We had unknowingly gone to a secretly gay restaurant. No advertising, that’s just the power of word of mouth. The food was great and the service impeccable too, though none of us got a kiss from the wait staff.

So my wife and I wandered around and then stopped at a coffee house that didn’t appear to be gay. While standing in line, I noticed the four other customers: three men, without rings (at least on their fingers), and a woman who used to be a man. I looked back outside like a dork. Did I miss the sticker on the door? Was I supposed to be here? We gladly ordered our drinks anyway and sat down and for the next half hour, the coffeeshop was only two-thirds gay. Who knew that two whitebread straight suburban Christians could actually make a coffeeshop more diverse?

Was I supposed to feel uneasy, as a Christian, giving my money to a ‘gay’ business? I get the feeling some people would look at a gay coffeeshop and act like it might as well be a coffee/extremely-deviant-pornography shop. Is it any worse than going to any other business where you don’t know if the owner is gay or a wife beater or a crack head?

In the middle of our drinks, I noticed my wife had that morning inadvertently put on a necklace of little rainbow colored beads! Agh! We supported gays without even knowing it!

I’ve also found myself unsuspectingly in a gay bar. It actually took us a couple of visits on kareoke nights to realize it was a gay hangout. My roommate got some digits…from a very successful looking man in a suit. He also found himself unwittingly on a gay date. He thought they were just being new friends over dinner, until the end. He was always a heartbreaker.

It’s kind of funny that all kinds of people are suspicious of Christians, and they set up these little bastions of ‘acceptance’ and ‘inclusiveness’ and ‘free thinking’ that can sometimes end up being intimidating to the people they’re suspicious of. Is that exactly the point? Or is that just unintentional? Because say what you will about all your ideals about inclusiveness, people like to be around others who are like them, and many people in the ‘alternative’ side of society are suspicious of Christians, just as Christians are likewise. I noticed ‘Diversity Week’ in Eureka Springs doesn’t exactly celebrate the Christian heritage of the town. It celebrates gays.

Here’s the question that puts all this into perspective: Would a gay guy hesitate for any reason to enter a shop with a Jesus fish on the door? Would it be a wise business decision for an accountant to put a giant Star of David outside his door? Probably a double edged sword.

Who makes their group look worse to outsiders: annoying evangelicals passing out tracts door to door, or annoying gays parading down main street in leather and body paint?

I feel like I have to make a disclaimer that I am in fact asking honest questions, not being rude, because that’s the state of things today. Every Christian is supposedly a ‘homophobe’ who needs ‘diversity training.’ Actually, I don’t think I should have to make a disclaimer because it’s my blog and I can say what I want. But while I welcome even comments that call me out, I don’t want a bunch of comments accusing me of being a bigot. That’s a popular word these days. So consider this your disclaimer.

What’s your perspective on the relationship Christians should have with non-Christian gays? I didn’t really make any points, but I think all my questions show that there’s a lot to be worked out, so feel free to fire away on any or all of them.