Ms. Crankypants

Is it possible that an entire month has gone by without me posting anything new on this blog? I guess I’m guilty of serious blog neglect.

Before you think that perhaps I’ve had a cheery month without crankiness, let me assure you that my cranky opinions are still alive and well. Actually, the past two weeks have probably been two of the crankiest on record … I just didn’t have time to sit here and share it all. Plus, I was still trying to get my mind wrapped around some of the new cranky things that were starting to eat at me.

If I can see my way clearly how to talk about some of these newer issues, you can probably expect an influx of new posts soon. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The following three questions are from WriterChick (the person from whom I originally discovered Alabaster Crippens Five Questions … see previous post on this blog).

1) What historical person would you have liked to spend the day with and how would you spend that day?

I found my mind running through lists of people. Lists of people in the Bible (the apostle Paul, John, King Solomon, Jesus, Simon Peter), lists of people in American history (Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr), lists of people throughout History (Cleopatra, Winston Churchill, John Calvin) … and I found it hard to pick just one.

I also found myself thinking that if I spent a day actually doing something with any of them, it would probably change history in some way (I think I’ve watched too much Star Trek in my lifetime … I sat here worried about Temporal Anomalies … LOL!). Heaven forbid I should ever mess with the space/time continuum.

So after dealing with my temporal problems, I decided I’d like to spend a day with Benjamin Franklin. He was such an intriguing, odd little man. I think his autobiography is one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read. He was brilliant, thoughtful, and very egotistical. In other words, quite human.

I wouldn’t want to interact with him or with his time period, though (because of that temporal thing). I’d just basically want to be a fly on the wall, seeing what he was really like, what made him tick, how he treated people, how he responded to real life, etc.

Can you believe I actually worried about temporal anomalies? I’m so weird.

2) If you could change one person’s life (family members excluded) who would it be, what would you change and why?

Wow. I’m making an easy question tough again. LOL

I keep finding I have trouble getting beyond the idea that people’s lives are the way they are for a reason … and God is sovereign, not me … and if I changed anything to what I thought would be “better” for someone, I’d probably mess them up for all eternity.

Hm … but as I continued thinking about this, I suddenly realized I might have an answer. There are kids living on the streets of Calcutta … the traditional cultural party line there says that those kids are there for a reason (working out some sort of karmic “problem” in themselves). But I’d want to take them all off the streets, feed them, give them shelter, and offer them hope rather than make them feel like they’re simply helpless victims of karma and the caste system.

So I guess I’m wrestling through some of my own “fate” related questions while I’m thinking about this. Hm. I think maybe I’ve just confused myself more. This is more of an off-the-cuff response rather than a well thought out posting. I might spend some more time thinking through this and trying to make sense of it for a future post, but in the meantime, you can just deal with my random ramblings.

I believe that God can work all things together for good in someone’s life. That doesn’t mean those things are good per se, but those very things can be used toward a good end and a meaningful purpose in someone’s life. For example, if I changed my own life, I would no longer be the person I am today. Some of the things I’ve gone through are horrible, but they helped to mold me into who I am today. And somehow I believe the outcome in my life can be used to serve God’s purposes.

Now all that’s not to say that I wouldn’t step in and help someone today. Changing someone’s life today would not only effect their “here-and-now” … but also their future … and maybe even their eternity. Plus, I also find myself getting caught up in that whole temporal anomaly problem again.

So I guess I’d feel like I could step in and offer help and change and encouragement now … but I can’t go back and change someone’s past.

I’d like to bring hope and healing and practical support into the lives of lost and hurting people who feel hopeless, helpless and trapped. I know that isn’t exactly what you asked me, but my mind never seems to go in a straight line or do anything “normally.”

3) If you could be the author of any book ever published what would it be, why would you choose that book and what would be your reasons for having written it?

Guess what? I made this question hard for myself, too! LOL!

I thought to myself, “Which books have had the most profound effect on me and my life over the years?”

Book Number One: The Bible — Well, since I’m not God, it would’ve been more than a little bit difficult for me to write the Bible. LOL!

Book Number Two: Anything by Elisabeth Elliot — But I’m not her. I couldn’t have written her books because I haven’t lived her life and most of her writings are based on lessons she’s learned through life unfolding.

I chatted with my daughter about this briefly, and she said that maybe it’d be easier for me to come up with a novel to have written, rather than a non-fiction work. She’s probably right. But novels don’t usually have such a profound change element in my life so they don’t jump out at me as things I wished I’d written or said.

I think I would’ve liked to have written Anne of Green Gables. It was such a fun book. Touching, funny, insightful. Set in a beautiful place. I always felt Anne was a bit of a “kindred spirit” … She loved learning. She knew firsthand about rejection and life’s difficulties. She discovered true friendship and love from her new adopted family. She was real. And quirky. I think I would’ve liked to birth her from my brain. LOL!

Thanks for your questions, WC.

~Ms CP

I think I was expecting to air cranky posts pretty regularly. Instead I ended up posting a photo of a cute kitty and a list of books. Hmm. You know what? Maybe I’m not as cranky as I thought I was. LOL! Or maybe I needed a change of meds? (Just kidding!)

But I’ll warn you, there’s a cranky post brewing in the back of my mind. Might take it a few days to percolate to the surface, however. Stay tuned.

Instructions:

Look at the list of books below.
*Bold the ones you’ve read.
*Italicize the ones you want to read.
*Leave the ones that you aren’t interested in alone.

If you are reading this then … tag, you’re it!

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. A Movable Feast (Ernest Hemingway)
12. The Shining (Stephen King)
13. Childhood’s End (Isaac Asimov)
14. Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Farenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter — any of the titles (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Too bad there wasn’t an option for “movies seen” based on the books. I’ve seen quite a few movies of books I haven’t read … and tempting as it might have been to claim I’d read them, I knew that was wrong. So they sit there unmarked and condemning me with their unmarked little words … can’t you hear them?

“You saw the movie, and you enoyed it, but you didn’t read the book? For shame, for shame.”

Bummer.  I was trying to edit some of my comments in response to comments (I get a little anal about things looking just right, etc., etc.), but I accidently pushed the wrong button … and deleted several comments all together!  WAH!  If you’ve commented here before and suddenly noticed your comment disappearing into the vast reaches of cyberspace, I’m so sorry!  Nothing personal!  Just a stuttering typing finger.

 And on another note, I’ve discovered that for some reason this particular blog won’t let me subscribe to other blogs without entering in the web URL by hand … so it makes it look like I don’t subscribe to anyone except WriterChick.  But later today I’m going to take a few minutes and add everyone in manually.

Rants and raves about the church, life in general, and where we are and where we’re headed in the 21st Century.

Pull up a chair, settle back, hang onto your hat, and let’s go for a ride in the world of Ms. Crankypants.

Am I angry?  No, not particularly.  I just feel generally cranky about some of things I see in the modern church.  Is this really what Jesus wanted when He left the process of worldwide evangelism to His people? Is this really what He meant by making disciples?

I have an awful lot of questions.  But I don’t necessarily have many (or even any) answers.  But I do have a lot of opinions. 

This is going to be my ongoing spot for ranting, raving and thinking aloud.  I suppose I’ll probably rattle a few cages.