the parable of the pizza crust

A father had seven children of which two were step-children from his second marriage.

He decided to take them out for a meal and so they went down to the local restaurant. He told his oldest son that he could pick anything off the menu. His son decided to go for a giant steak with a baked potato on the side. He ordered it and they watched him thoroughly enjoy himself wolfing down his meal.

Then the father invited his oldest daughter to do the same and she chose a seafood platter. Again, they all watched as she really enjoyed her food.

This continued down the line until his five children had all eaten. 

Instead of turning to his step-children, the father then turned back to his oldest son and invited him to choose something else off the menu. The son chose a steak kebab this time with a gourmet salad on the side. His daughter went for a three meat pizza. And so it continued down the line.

After the five children had eaten, the father turned to his children and asked them if they wanted dessert. His two step-children were looking a little hungry as well and so he made sure that their water glasses were replenished so that they had something in front of them. He then proceeded to buy ice-cream and cake for his five children. 

As they were about to leave, one of his step-children asked if they too could get something to eat. Moved by compassion the father asked his daughter if it would be okay with her if the two of them shared the bits of pizza crust she had left behind on her plate? She enthusiastically agreed and so everyone left having eaten something. A great night out.

THE IMMORAL OF THE STORY

I mean that would be fine, right? You would have no problem with that if it was an actual story? We would be able to make statements like ‘Well the five are his real children and the two should be glad that they got something, right?’

Or not? Would we be absolutely disgusted that five of the children got to pig out and two were left with the remains of the meal? Would it not be okay that there was enough money and resources to give everyone a good meal and yet the decision was made to give some people a great meal while some had hardly any meal at all? 

I think if this story was an actual situation where you knew the people, it might be a lot different. The reality of the world where rich and poor live very much like this is a lot easier to turn a blind eye to or even celebrate sometimes, perhaps because the situation of the poor seems so metaphorical [until we actually start to meet them and they become ‘real people’] that it isn’t actually real [as long as we can keep them out of sight, right?]

‘The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.’ [Gandhi]

I can’t do anything personally about sports and movie stars ludicrous salaries. But maybe I can start with my own greed. And that of those who I am in close relationship with. Through conversation [it’s not guilt that is going to win this battle, but imaginative creativity might get us places] and wrestling over these things. Mutual accountability. Goal setting and experimentation. Living better.

For people in America in particular, one way of starting to align yourselves to something better might be joining a Common Change group and, together with a group of friends, start meeting some of the needs in the lives of the people you know.

For others of us it might be taking on board the stories of people around us who are doing inspirational and creative things like the Albrecht family in the UK, or Nigel and Trish and their family in Hillbrow, South Africa and asking how that might look for us in our context. For parents of young children, it might be reading some of these stories and seeing if there is anything in there we might be able to take on or whether they inspire us to figure out how our story might look.

It might require us taking a moment to stop and do a stock take of our lives and ask if we are currently living out the values that we profess to have or should we be taking a leaf out of Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson’s book and simply walking away from the place we currently find ourselves to have landed and being more intentional about choosing the place where we decide to set up camp.

Maybe a small part of not feeling overwhelmed by what is happening in Syria right now could be by being intentional about the things I have the ability to change in my life and context right now?

I mean it’s just step-kids right? They’re not even his real children… 

Invent your own life’s meaning [a Calvin and Hobbes inspired life lesson]

I am a big fan of Calvin and Hobbes!

…or i used to be before the creator Bill Watterson gave it all up and went into hiding… or something like that.

Like all really great cartoonists before him, such as Gary Larsen from ‘The Far Side’, Scott Adams of ‘Dilbert’ fame and ‘Pearls before Swine’ creator Stephan Pastis and off course such classic cartoonists such as Charles M Schulz who created Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the ‘Peanuts’ gang and others, Bill managed to have a complete grasp of funny while at the same time interjecting it with a serious view or commentary of life. All the greats were able to combine the two. Take you from a moment of complete laughter to ‘Wait one minute’ – Boom! Right between the eyes.

It was no huge surprise then when i stumbled across this brilliant cartoon strip that was done as a homage to Watterson using a quote taken from a graduation speech Watterson gave at his alma mater, Kenyon College, in 1990, which began with the words: ‘Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your souls is a rare achievement’

The reason the words jumped out at me is that recently our friend, Mark Scandrette, released a new book called ‘Free: Spending your Time and Money on what Matters Most’ and we are having a book launch party on the 19th September in the Lake Merritt area [which if you’re close enough to attend, you should totally come to]

This homage cartoon finishes with the line ‘To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy… but it’s still allowed… and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.’

As a follower of Jesus, the line of ‘inventing your own life’s meaning’ takes on a bit of a different context, as my pursuit in life is to follow Jesus and see His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven [a place where Love God, Love people and look after the least of these does not sound like the worst life’s meaning to have] but the line, ‘Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul’ completely resonates as I see far too many people who call themselves ‘christian’ yet are clearly not living the free and abundance-filled life that Jesus clearly calls us towards.

Take a look at the rest of the homage cartoon and read the post below to see just how Bill Watterson was able to achieve that. The one useless fact I know about him is that no Calvin and Hobbes merchandise is ever legal as he intentionally held the rights to those so that he could maintain control and care of his characters. This post takes you into a little bit deeper of the why.

Would you say that your life reflects your values and satisfies your soul right now? And if not, what are you prepared to do about it..?

Pastis before Swine…

so yesterday i got to meet Stephan Pastis, creator and draw’er [i guess] of the greatest cartoon strip alive, Pearls Before Swine… [more importantly, he got to ‘meet’ No_bob, the world’s most famous stuffed dolphin]

The Far Side, on it’s good days [and when it was good it was great, and it was usually good] is definitely up there.

so is Dilbert [Scott Adams who draws Dilbert got me started on Pearls Before Swine and i never looked back, don’t tell him, sh! no seriously cos i used to buy a bunch of Dilbert annuals and now i exclusively buy all of the Pearls books] and Garfield… but with less good days less often… and then Calvin and Hobbes was also definitely up there.

but for some reason, i have come to settle on Pearls. for the moment anyways [or the last ten or so]. i love the characters he comes up with [from innocent stupid Pig to cynical mean and despotic Rat to the ‘outrageously stoopid’ crocs and the exasperated ‘zeebas’ they are constantly trying to eat to the many lesser known or occasional characters such as guard duck Duck [usually seen holding a bazooka] and Andy the god with big plans for his life that are constantly thwarted by the post he is chained up to in his yard, and to the ridiculously silly such as Pastis himself reminded us, Pig’s ‘sea anenome enemy’.

i love the humour – cynical, witty, overly and obviously corny ad punderful on occasion [oh Pastis works for those puns] – the fact that he is the only cartoonist who features himself regularly in his own cartoons and usually about to be ‘taken out’ by Rat for another dreadful pun – the way he is able to laugh at himself, with himself, at us and with others and sometimes all at once.

yes, there is an occasional miss, but even like episodes of Friends, the bad ones are better than most of the good ones of most other stuff. [‘Friends’ is now ‘Parks and Rec’]

i dunno. it’s really hard to say why and do it any justice, i think there is a element of loyalty as i was one of the ones who ‘discovered’ him early on via Scott Adams blogging about him and i am so glad i did – has brought me much fun – and feels like i’ve been on this journey with him from close to the beginning.

[he still hasn’t agreed to create a stuffed dolphin character called ‘No_bob’ who doesn’t in his strip yet, but i think he’s just playing with me… and that the more people who emailed pearlscomic@gmail.com and suggested he do so, the sooner it would likely take place!]

anyways, i was perusing Twitter and saw that Stephan was going to be doing a book signing about an hour away and told tbV and she said we should go and so we headed out. i was expecting it to be a little awkward and stalkery i guess but he gave a brilliant and funny presentation and then he sat and working his way through 100 plus people in a line [i was 46!] posing for photos, drawing a character in each book and engaging in a little bit of small talk with each person. i was really impressed [and i think tbV was too cos she came home and grabbed an old annual and started reading!]. it doesn’t take a lot of effort to not be a jerk and Mr Pastis didn’t do so admirably.

Catch the daily strip here…

Vibing a vibe, vibeously [or how the english language bends to my will]

i like the english language. i like it to do my bidding!

and so for years now i have played around with it, removing most capital letters [except for words associated with God like Love, Grace and Justice when i mean them in a God-related way way], changing nouns into verbs [see “vibe” and “vibing”] and other parts of speech, spelling words in my own unique, often phonetical way [thort for the week] or sometimes just adding in letters that don’t make a lot of sense just because they feel like they make sense in my mind [thankx] and more.

turns out i’m not the only one:

we like me some Calvin and Hobbes…

i also very much like the three dots, and i know they have an official name, but i don’t like that so much [but please do remind me what it is again] so i will stick with ‘the three little dots’ thank you very much… i end way too many sentences with them.

but not that one…

it’s a life to the full thing i think. you do only live less than twice so you might as well have fun with it. is it silly? absolutely. but it’s my quirk [well one of them]. some people wear make-up. i don’t generally wear make up so think of this as the make-up of my speech or at least my written speech. the three dots are my mascara.

what about you? any words you deliberately change or misspell? any conventions you like to cut corners on? do you too like ending sentences a preposition with? cos rumours are you can’t!

however, i am still a bit of a ‘there’ ‘they’re’ ‘their’ stickler so please keep those in Hors d’oeuvre!

that is all…