A little bit of air-time this week has caused me to reflect upon the similarities between going to church and flying:

Welcome/announcements = "Thank you for choosing this airline..."
Scripture reading = safety video (both are usually ignored)
Sermon = in flight movie
Bread = pretzel/sesame puff bag (formerly peanut bag)
Wine = beverage of your choice
Offeratory = trash collection
Priest/pastor = flight attendant
Bishop = pilot
Elders/big donors = first class passengers
Benediciton = "Tray tables up for landing please"

And especially for Roman Catholics...

Purgatory = Standby
Indulgences = Frequent flier milage

Finally... both enterprises require faith that participating will actually get you somewhere.

Don't get ripped-off! Enjoy all twelve days! Merry Christmas season everybody!
Scroll down on the page a bit to discover the secret origins of the 12 days of Christmas Song.

UPDATE: In a related item to the 12 days decoder, check out the secret card code, with a priceless soundtrack... But for the real info on the card deck you'll have to go here.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to take offense at this... but I think it's kind of fun (make sure your sound's on). Merry Christmas everybody.

UPDATE: Looks like disco-nativity has retired for the season. Sorry for those who missed out.

Millinerd does not endorse all nerd activities.

If anyone wants to mess with the minds of crazy dictators... here is one way to do it. Just write them a letter wishing them Merry Christmas, with a P.S... we know who is in your cells. Christmas fun for the whole family!

Funny that both this story, and this one came out within 48 hours of one another.
Nous ne sommes pas en accord avec les francais au sujet de rien!

I said I live in NJ. This is not actually true. I live in Princeton. NJ can best be identified by phat rims (formerly know as shiny hubcaps), Newports (hard-core menthol cigarettes) and parties that serve Vokka (that is how many New Jerseans pronounce Vodka). For better or worse, Princeton does not qualify.

Speaking of Kevin Smith as I did in comments below, living in New Jersey has its privileges. I have actually been to the store you may have heard of named Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Redbank, NJ. There with my bro-in-law we saw all the artifacts from the movies, which included


1. The Bluntman and Chronic mobile from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
2. Ben Affleck's angel armor from Dogma
3. Mooby the idolatry cow from Dogma
4. The Santa Claus illustration from Chasing Amy... (think hard and you may remember)

All I bought there was a sticker.

And the clerk was an actor from one of the movies. When we asked him if that was true he was visibly annoyed.

If you'll pardon a poetry excursus:

I am currently reading (for class) The Poets' Jesus by Peggy Rosenthal. It's a quick sketch of the grand narrative of religious poetry… and a great refresher on Western Lit 101. Just in case of the off chance that you don't have the time to read the entire book... here's the severely simplified cliff notes (which I’m sure Peggy Rosenthal would not endorse):

A 30 second history of Religious Poetry:

Pagan Poetry: Behold the gods! (Homer)
Later Pagan Poetry: The gods may not be real... behold them anyway! (Virgil)
Early Christian Poetry: Behold Christ is God! We are not! (New Testament)
Medieval Christian Poetry: Christ is God! He fills the cosmos! (Dante)
Post-Reformation Protestant Poetry: Christ is God! Christ is in me! (George Herbert, John Donne)
Enlightenment/Romantic PoetryI: Is Christ God? (Goethe)
Enlightenment/Romantic Poetry II: Christ is definitely not God (Shelley)
Enlightenment/Romantic PoetryIII: I used to think that… but sorry, Christ is God. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth)
Romantic Poetry: Christ is God! But might we be too? Nahh...(William Blake)
Later Romantic Poetry: Christ may be God…but I am definitely God! (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Later Romantic Poetry: I am God! (Walt Whitman)
Modern Poetry: Poetry is God! (Baudelaire)
Later Modern Poetry: I used to think that… but sorry, Christ is God. (T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden)
Postmodern poetry: All of the above.

And speaking of Pomo poets... Ceszlaw Milosz has just supplanted Jane Kenyon for the hotly disputed favorite poet slot at millinerd. It was a dead heat for a while too... on the edge of your seats must you be.

Churches have already been calling into Millinerd Dreadquarters complaining that they didn't make it onto the sidebar's churches of distinction. A personal visit by millinerd is one criterion for inclusion - so don't worry, I'm making my rounds. Further criteria are weekly Lord's supper, orthodox doctrine (just believe and teach this - how hard can that really be?), and taking the Bible seriously (which of course does not always mean literally). It is remarkable how difficult this combo is to find today in these United States.

The sidebar is serving it up... check out the articles... only the best made the cut. In honor of Advent, the Latin quote is now an excerpt from Virgil's 4th Eclogue (40 B.C.). A pagan poet in honor of Advent? That's right! The Old Testament prophecies are certainly remarkable, but even moreso in my opinion are witnesses to the birth of Christ that weren't already monothesitic insiders. Read more!

For holiday cheer, learn everything you wanted to know about St. Nick... and then some.

Obviously colors have changed, so has some stuff to your left. You are among the first 100 viewers if you are reading this... which is surely an omen of a good day ahead... Too late! Those of you among the first 100 know who you are. Be proud.

Latin quote of the week can be found to your sinister (Latin for "left").

Speaking of "Beautiful Minds," last year at the Princeton coffee shop that I worked at I regularly served this man (a.k.a. Russell Crow) his mocha. I was hoping that he would get the price wrong so I could say I corrected a nobel prize winnning mathematician on his numbers - but that never happened.

Millinerd is growing! It's alive! The folks under minds of distinction to your left are worth your perusal. Susan Howatch is a novelist - reading her six Church of England series (and the two after it) is quite an experience. Can't recommend them enough.

Diogenes Allen is a former professor who has made quite a name for himself. Rhodes scholar (Oxford), Yale Ph.D. in philosophy, etc. etc. A friend recently asked me what book I'd recommend for someone who has legitimate intellectual reservations about faith. The book by Dr. Allen that I've linked to was my immediate reply.

Also... let me display my math skills:
Leading physicist + Anlglican priest = John Polkinghorne. He spoke here last year and was very illuminating.

This is how we know it's Christmas at the "millinerds." We actually have one. No we do not have children. Perhaps you're beginning to see why we call this site what we do.

Once our race hunted wild boar for sport. Times have changed.

For you new visitors - maybe some Blog Orientation is in order: If you haven't been wished "Nappy Holidays" yet then you haven't visited the Dreadlock link to your left. "Knotty boy" is a Vancouver based company - it's fun to see what they do with their site. I have dreadlocks myself, and recommend them. They make people think you're more interesting than you really are.

Furthermore the Online Daily Office is a great way to keep up with the liturgical calendar if you're into that sort of thing.

Jane Kenyon is really an excellent poet. Worth reading - start with "Otherwise." I'll link to some more poets in the future for you to check out.

The gentlemen under "blogs and sites of distinction" are what this blog hopes to be when it grows up. I still have to learn how to do the fancy stuff.

Denise and I recently got back from Boston, visiting the the sis and bro-in-law along with my old Wheaton roommies. We went to two fantastic museums - the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum contains a first edition of Dante's inferno, a personal letter of Napoloeans' and some truly fantastic pieces of art. Well worth the trip.

Also we went to the Museum of Fine Arts, to those in the know: simply the MFA. Much like the Museum of Modern Art in NYC is simply "Moma." Pronounced "Moema," not "Momma." If one has been to the MFA but not enjoyed it thoroughly, perhaps a quick glance at an art history textbook would enhance its appeal. It is incredible how many landmark works of art are on display at the MFA - for example the piece by Van der Weyden that has attained coveted status to your left under "current favorite painting."

A tip on museum visiting: If you're not making the security guard at least a little nervous, you haven't really visited the museum. In our age of reproductions, most great works of art can only be appreciated with your face right up close so you can see the brushstrokes. If a character in the painting exclaims, "Why you all up in my grill yo!" then you've gotten too close.

King of the Hill can be just plain brilliant. Tonight's episode: Bobby runs into a hard-core for Jesus Youth Group and gets piercings and fake dreads and a "Satan Sucks" t-shirt and all the WWJD regalia. Hank (his dad) in the end doesn't let him go anymore. In Bobby's consternation, Hank shows him a box of all the stuff he used to be "into" and grew out of like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc. Hank says, "Bobby, I just don't want the Lord to end up in this box."

What a program. And on FOX no less.

Hank's words to the Christian Hard Core band: "Can't you see you're not making Christianity better, just Rock n'Roll worse?"

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Why pay more tuition when you can get the best lecturers in the English speaking world for free? Well, free if they have them at your library like they do here in fair Princeton. Check it out. Here are two favorites: J. Rufus Fears for Greek and Roman History (his lectures are riveting - you've got to hear them to see what I mean), and Phillip Cary for anything regarding the history of philosophy or theology. Whatever the gift of teaching is, Phillip Cary has it. We listen to them on walks, long car trips, short car trips, while doing the dishes, etc. Perhaps you're beginning to see why this blog is called Millinerd.

testing... 1, 2, 3.