Author: James Riley - page 43

Shut Up, For Your Own Good…

Being Absolutely Quiet is the Best Thing For You, (And Us..) I need to say a few words about our founder, Felix Perringdale. The 1893 photograph of Perringdale is widely misunderstood, and scandalously misrepresented by his detractors.  Over the course of three years, Perringdale repaired to his parents’ barn in Le Mars, Iowa, where–surrounded by..

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Is That Owl Presbyterian?

My wife and I took an anniversary break out on the Palos Verdes peninsula last week. Is it just me or do the sleek young people who greet you at a fine hotel make you feel something like the newest citizen in Emerald City?  I’ve never really felt worthy of these places.  I love them,..

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The Virtuous Sex Kitten

Disclaimer/Warning:  I write about sex because I’ve found very few people write or talk about it with much honesty. If the topic makes you uncomfortable,  go somewhere else.  This won’t be titillating, but I try to make it honest. Consider the terms: “angelic temptress,”  “holy playmate,”  “virtuous sex kitten.” Can there be such a thing?..

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Axioms For Breakfast

I vow to be dragged, kicking and screaming and laughing out loud into the Brave New World.  What other choice do I have, pondering the spectacle of Bruce Jenner, trying on his tastefully medium-sized boobs, life in a dress, and the search for the ultimate hand bag? A few years ago, my wife purchased a..

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Did you say Class A?

You’ll have to pardon me if my thoughts appear, in this narrative, even more disjointed, and fissured by mental stress-magma than normal. I’ve been through a horrible experience, the sort of thing I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I’m on the annual RV camping trip with the family. Most people love this sort of thing.  I..

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The Half-Strength Jesus

This will not stand.. I’m not just talking about the barbarity of African Muslims killing 147 Christian students in Kenya last week. I’m talking about the escapist, incomplete, pacifist bilge you hear from some believers in its wake. If you are the sort of person who considers what happened here — armed zealots, mentally and..

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Picking the Script

Yesterday, I argued there can be beauty, and even virtue, in tawdry places, but I think I was really wrestling with a more fundamental problem: how to live, when to speak, when to shut up, which jokes to tell, what life-script to pick. God certainly seems something like a playwright.  He gave Pharaoh a role..

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Cowboy Abraham

You won’t hear scripture quoted very much, over Sashimi in Santa Monica or among biscuit nibblers at the Yale Club in Manhattan; the words of the Bible make the well heeled and the hip look away, awkwardly, as though you were trying to sign them up for a multi-level marketing program.  They see scripture as..

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