Blog or Article?
Blogs often focus on personal opinion, experiences, views, anecdotes or advice. Blogs tend to have a relaxed and conversational feel, such as in storytelling and are generally 300-500 words.
Articles aim to deliver well-researched, informative content with solid evidence to back up the points made. Articles are usually more formal, organized and frequently range 500-1000 words.
(Since X-mas 2010 is 2 months away, I thot I wud post last year's letter. My x-mas blog following is growing. I think there might be 2 of you now. Thank you, and Merry Christmas just any old time. Luv, m)
December 2009
Felix Navidad,
I’m Felix the Cat, the Wonderful Wonderful Cat. My friends call me Felix or Flea for short, and people who don’t know me usually just say, “Hello Kitty.” This has happened so often that I started my own company. You may have heard of it. It is my assignment this year to write the Shirley Christmas tail. It should come as a relief to you since hair-brained Harry wrote it last year.
President Obama and I have a few things in common. We are both black, although I am not an African American. I am simply American. My heritage is also sketchy, but I do know my mother was an unwed mother, just like Obama’s. Unfortunately, my mother was homeless, and I ended up at the pound where my family chose me because something just clicked between us right away.
Not so with the dog. He is a constant annoyance, sniffing me every single time we pass like I might smell different after 14 years. I think he just forgets how I smell no matter how many times he reminds himself. He probably doesn’t even remember that he’s sniffed me before.
Last Christmas Harry referred to me as a “dirty hairball.” Well, genius, you, sir, are the one with poodle hair while I have fur. And folks, would you rather hug a hairball or a furball? I personally hock up hairballs. Harry is a walking dirtbag. They named a hand-held vac after him. I bathe myself every single day, but he thinks he smells great. Harry lives for disgusting smells. At 14 he’s nearly blind, deaf and has always been dumb, but his nose, on the other hand, just keeps on sniffing. And if winning was about how much you smell, Harry would win hands down. Why, just his breath is blinding. I’m not complaining. His addiction to bad smells keeps me alive (along with my uncanny ability to land on my feet and my nine lives.) I’m the only outdoor cat in the neighborhood because the coyotes have eaten all the others. When I want to go outside I throw Harry out the door first. He goes bumbling along, nose to the ground, and at a distance could be mistaken for a mutated white rabbit. The coyotes start licking their chops. Meanwhile I slip out, black like me, and slip into the shadows. By the time the coyotes have figured out that Harry is so disgusting they would get food poisoning if they managed to choke him down, I’ve caught my dinner and am in the dining room safe and sound.
Dogs truly are the inferior species. Harry is so dumb he doesn’t know he’s supposed to obey commands, and I’m so smart I know I don’t want to. Also, dogs age much faster than cats plus they only have one life compared to our nine. Harry got sick this year so I gave him one of my lives. That’s because I’m Felix the Lionhearted. I figured he earned it by diverting the coyotes for me. I almost never get sick, but if I do I call my friend the Itch Doctor and he tells me what to do.
But enough about the flea circus. Let’s talk about me. I am a devoted member of the Mickey Mouse Club because I’m passionate about mice. I’m also passionate about catfish (heck they’re all cat fish!), catnip, catnaps, bird watching, fishing, and recently Twittering. I love to play Cat and Mouse. My favorite drink is a Cat-a-tonic. My best friend? Man-doo. Cat Man-doo. On Halloween I always go as a Black Panther. Pink Panthers are just plain pussies. Did I mention I was engaged to Cat Woman. But she dumped me after she found out I ate Batman. He was hard to catch but was purrfect with a side of fish sticks and a catnip kicker. I love musical theater and once played Tevya in “Fiddler On a Hot Tin Roof.” I also had a roll in “Cats.” Duh. If you ever see it, I am the cat in the hat. The only time I was employed I worked in an office as a copy cat. I worked for Chairman Meow. Favorite movies are The Aristocats, Moby Dick and Finding Nemo. I read a lot of cat-a-logs.
Harry lives in the doghouse and I live in the cathouse. Ask any man where he would rather live. I continue to share my cathouse with the fam. Not much to say about them except that their new reality TV show will air this fall called “Surely, It’s the Shirleys.” Bryce is opening up his own law practice January 4, 2010. He got hair plugs for the show and will portray his true inner self, a dragon slayer who saves the world from real estate mega disasters which is, of course, a little late. Marilyn, the mermaid queen, will be his office manager who socializes with the royalty of the OC to bring in big clients. She got big fish lips like all the movie stars do these days. Bobby is still an accountant at UCI, and may help Bryce with the business side of the practice, cooking the books. He will play his real self which is a fast-talking schmoozer/gunslinger, popular around the Hollywood jet set in order to cash in on their peccadilloes. Jimmy graduates from law school this May. He is contemplating practicing with Bryce which would make for a catchy firm name of Shirley, Shirley & Shirley. On the show, Jimmy will represent Bobby after Bobby shoots his first outlaw. Jimmy plays his true self on the show, which is of course a geddi knight. Jimmy prosecutes evil dark lords and sends them to Guantanamo Bay. That leaves the lovely Emma, a freshman at UCI, who will play her true self, a forest wood nymph who speaks a strange tongue and wears beautiful gauzy but torn dresses to glam up the show. She does battle with balrogs and such, slays them by speaking mystical stuff and emerges from battle disheveled but beautiful The series will also showcase family hobbies like hot air ballooning in which Harry will really get in the basket and fall out somewhere between here and Idaho. In this show we will never see him again. (I wrote that script.) Frodo comes over now and then, and they all play baseball with the vampire family down the street. On one episode the family cans jellyfish after a day at sea. I, of course, am the producer and director. If you would like to be on the show, just come by the house and the cameras will be rolling. We will all soon be celebrities crashing White House parties.
On behalf of the family, I would like to wish you catfish and catnaps and warm woolen mittens; snow balls, no hairballs and darling black kittens. Wild fish that fly and some birds on their wings; these are a few of my favorite things. We also wish you a merry Christmas, a figgy pudding, wonder and joy and heavenly peace.
Love,
Your friend, Felix
Since I have been involved in a number of projects and teaching assignments and other activities, I have not been able to respond to any of the comments posted to my initial blog regarding Pentecost as the birthday of the Church. Certainly I have read them and reflected upon the various views expressed. In light of the controversy that my comments generated, I wanted to respond more extensively, and so I’m posting another blog which includes some additional images and a YouTube video at the end.
I must admit that I should qualify and modify my statement to indicate that the Day of Pentecost is in reality “a birthday of the Church, not the birthday of the Church.” “So, Pentecost being the original outpouring and the new birth daily it looks to me like every day is a birthday in the church of the body.” I heartily concur with Michael’s comment.
Just as every year we celebrate another year of life on the date that we were born, but who we have become each year is vastly different from who were on the day of our birth. So is the Church remarkably different than it was on the Day of Pentecost, which as it turned out was another period of progression in its unfolding to become all that God had in mind when He first “conceived” the idea of this glorious masterpiece of creation. Perhaps we could say that the idea of the Church was first birthed when God “thought” of it and implemented His plan to bring it to pass in the fullness of time. Of course, the Church is one aspect of God’s plan for the redemption of humanity after the Fall. As I think about it, this whole idea is “too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain unto it.” Who has known the mind of God, for His ways are not our ways. Romans 11:33-34 puts it this way:
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
For who has known the mind of the LORD?
Or who has become His counselor?”
A most enlightening book regarding the Church is Kevin J. Conner’s The Church in the New Testament which reveals that the Church was unfolding throughout the Old Testament. Last year, I coordinated a small group discussion of this remarkable treatise, lasting several weeks. I could by no means do the work justice in this response. Among the many notable distinctions regarding the Church as it unfolds throughout the Bible is that the Church is a reflection of “the pattern and the glory of God.” God has a pattern, a divine design for the local as well as the universal church. When all has been built according to the pattern, the glory of God descends to seal or establish the pattern. From Noah’s ark through the Tabernacle of Moses through the Tabernacle of David and Solomon’s Temple on through the Book of Acts and the New Testament Church of which we are presently members, in whom dwells the spirit of the Living God whereby we recognize that “it is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
That familiar expression, of course, relates to the riches of the glory of this mystery, which I believe was in evidence before the fullness of God’s intent was revealed to Paul years after his conversion. I, hence, disagree with Karl (respectfully, as well) that the mystery was not known in the Book of Acts. The mystery was foreshadowed and made know in the Acts 13 in Antioch where followers of the Way were first called “Christians,” a derogatory descriptive label that has stuck over centuries of time. What did the citizens of Antioch see in Saul (not yet called Paul), Barnabas, a Cypriot, Simeon called Niger (whom I along with others believe to be Simon of Cyrene, the “brother” who bore Christ’s cross), Lucius of Cyrene (“another brother of another mother”) and Manaen, the foster-brother of Herod the Tetrarch)? What caused those who saw this culturally and ethnically diverse group interacting together to speak of them as “those ‘Christ-in them’ folk?” Jesus had declared earlier, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one to another.” Years ago I did a teaching centered on Acts 13, and I believe I entitled it “The Mystery Movers”, as I made the point that the principles of the Great Mystery were alive and well and demonstrated in Antioch. I may have included this discussion in the New Testament History classes I taught at The Way College of Emporia way back in the day. So you see, Karl, why I respectfully disagree…Hey, that rhymes. Indeed, I have been known to wax poetic, as I pen a poem or two. In fact, I wanted to close my comments with a poem that relates to Church of the 21st Century of which I am a part and so are we all.
A couple of years ago my wife and I visited family and friends, some of whom were former followers of The Way International, in San Francisco and Los Angeles. During our stay in the City by the Bay, we enjoyed a most enlightening experience at the Asian Museum where we saw a special exhibit from the Ming Dynasty. One of the pieces on display was a stationery box which is similar to this one.
Although the final product reveals what the designer had in mind, we do not see how the object looked at the various stages of development. So it is with the Church which is still a work in progress, but I believe that God is putting “the finishing touches on His crowning achievement.” No, technically the Church of the One Body was not born or did not start on the Day of Pentecost, but what transpired there was of great significance in its unfolding. Without a doubt Pentecost was a watershed moment whereby the world was forever changed. This poem “Exquisite Exhibit” conveys in part my thoughts regarding the Church and my part in this amazing masterpiece of God’s creation.
Exquisite Exhibit
Viewing a Ryoshi-bako (stationery box)
Power and Glory: Court Arts of China’s Ming Dynasty
Asian Museum--San Francisco, California
For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew
in Christ Jesus so that we can do the good things
he planned for us long ago
Ephesians 2:10
God's purpose was to show his wisdom in all its rich variety
to all the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.
They will see this when Jews and Gentiles
are joined together in his church.
Ephesians 3:10
Sublime thoughts never diminish, only increase,
As I marvel at this ancient masterpiece.
The designer sees the end long before he starts
And envisions intricate details of the parts
And fashions a wood box inlaid with jade and gold,
Lacquered vessel for deepest thoughts the mind can hold.
Beyond all that I see, God formed and fashioned me
With precise measure of each scroll and filigree.
Displayed by the skillful hands of the Master craftsman,
Beyond the finest design of any artisan,
The Church, exquisite exhibit now on display,
Treasures from the hand of God take one’s breath away.
With the eyes of our heart now opened, we find
We are the masterpiece Jehovah had in mind.
Lonnell E. Johnson
August 27, 2008
Here is a sweet treat to end on a glorious note of possibility, as we listen to powerful lyrics to “Let the Church Rise” in the video performed by Jonathan Stockstill below:
