The Dark Glass » Enter the Weirdness

How Great Is Your Mess

Anthony Velez — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 04:29:18 +0000

Because I periodically listen to Christian radio, and because I consistently go to Sunday services, I often have various worship songs on my mind. The thing is, I often end up using the melodies of these songs to sing about the frustrating, and perhaps somewhat mundane, circumstances of my life. For example, I will take Chris Tomlin’s song “How Great is our God” the first two stanzas and chorus of which are:

The splendor of the King, clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
All the earth rejoice

He wraps himself in Light, and darkness tries to hide
And trembles at His voice
Trembles at His voice

How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God, and all will see
How great, how great is our God

And, I will convert the lyrics to the following about the mess my four kids often make around the house:

The wrappers on the floor, the crumbs I can’t ignore
your stuff is everywhere
your stuff is everywhere

You can’t put stuff away, and I think that is gay
though that’s not PC to say
though that’s not PC to say

How great is your mess, come sing with me
How great is your mess, and all will see
How great, how great is your mess

I have to confess that when I do this, I am a little concerned that I am being a bit too irreverent. These songs were created by artists to praise God, and here I am taking them to vent my frustrations, and address very ordinary things. On the other hand, God did endow me with all my talents, including this weird one, and I tend to think that God has a sense of humor.

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This video gives both the lyrics and the melody

And this video provides a brief interview with the artist and a nice live version.

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Chris Tomlin’s Website

Vocalizer

Anthony Velez — Mon, 10 May 2010 13:16:29 +0000

What is commonly called the voice box, and technically called the larynx, but was the term Alfalfa used when he felt the need to practice his singing prior to crooning Darla, as in “I need to warm-up my vocalizer.”

Isn’t it funny what pops into your head just prior to waking up?!?

On Cultic Practices and Missing Keys

Anthony Velez — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 23:45:47 +0000

Today, my coworker, Melinda, who momentarily lost her keys, asked the following question: “Why do keys always disappear?”. Before I knew it, my brain discerned the following answer:

Our world coexists with another world, a parallel universe that overlaps but does not, except on rare occasions, interact with ours. The people of this other world use keys (which they call jangly-noumuns) as part of the cultic practices of their various religions, and so keys are in high demand. Led by a prankster daemon who superintends both realms of existence, the people of this other dimension have found a way to cross the threshold and obtain the nearest set of keys in our plane of existence.

The crossing requires them to find someone with a bad case of dandruff and shake that person�s head vigorously until they have collected about a nirm of dandruff (which in our measuring system equals about a gram). After this they add the nirm of dandruff to a flab (approximately a teaspoon) of plantentia oil (a flower similar to our rose), mix it thoroughly and then burn it using a sacred candle, which is formed from the wax of bees (yes, they have bees on this other plane of existence). While burning this solution the people of this other plane then need to sing the following words, “ogau too gah lohmanee, lohmanee, lohmanee, ogau too gah lohmanee lohmah nohmah noo”, to an ancient tune the melody of which is very similar to “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. After the last word has been uttered and the sound of the last note fades, the singer who has sung the song best is enabled to reach out his or her hand into our universe and lay hold of the nearest set of keys.

Once the stolen keys have been used in their cultic practices, the person who took the keys is usually courteous enough to return them to a spot within a donty sparn (twenty foot) radius of where the keys were initially obtained. Unfortunately, however, the person who is supposed to return the keys occasionally gets distracted and forgets to return them all together.

This is the reason why our keys disappear, or why they are discovered in a spot other than where we thought we left them, or why they are occasionally never found.