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Generally speaking, I disagree with everything The Annoyed Librarian writes. I often think he’s a curmudgeonly old man who never has anything nice to say about anyone. But in the wake of Lady Gaga’s recent column in V magazine where she claims to be a librarian, I think his comments are hilariously apt.

1) She can’t possibly be a librarian because she doesn’t have an ALA-accredited MLS. How dare she make such a claim! We all slogged through tedious courses with lots of group work for an entire year to make that claim, and she thinks she can can make it without that? People without MLSs saying they’re librarians are like people who aren’t God saying they’ve written the “bible” on something. It’s just not right.

2) She makes a lot of money, and is successful at a young age. Librarians never make a lot of money, and at the age Lady Gaga was winning Grammys, most librarians are still failing in their first career.

3) She’s young and thin. These aren’t typical librarian traits. As evidence, I suggest you compare the video for “Poker Face” with this librarian parody. The difference is pretty obvious, isn’t it.  She also surrounds herself with young, thin people, as also evidenced by the video. The only time librarians do this is during children’s storytime.

4) Librarians would never write this: “Everything from vintage books and magazines I found at the Strand on 12th Street to my dad’s old Bowie posters to metal records from my best friend Lady Starlight to Aunt Merle’s hand-me-down emerald-green designer pumps were sprawled all over the floor about two feet from my bathroom and four inches from my George Foreman Grill.”

First, keeping your library collection on the floor, near both a restroom and near food? This is a librarian’s nightmare. Vintage books and magazines should be in climate controlled stacks, no food or bugs allowed.  The posters should be stored flat in drawers; better yet, they should be digitized to make their content more accessible to the world. I don’t actually know what to do with the pumps. Maybe an acid free shoebox.

Second, the sentence  is ungrammatical. Reduced to its basic elements, the sentence says, “Everything were sprawled.” Librarians wouldn’t achieve the Kerouacian fluidity, but darn it they would be grammatical.

5) Librarians don’t care about fashion. You may reference the Lady Gaga parody video of librarians to confirm this fact, or you can just walk around your library. Librarians are the only professionals I know of who would consider wearing sweatshirts to work, except maybe professional house painters. On the other hand, they also wouldn’t wear meat dresses.

I’ve wondered, though, if one of the reasons we fail to acknowledge the brilliance of life is because we don’t want the responsibility inherent in the acknowledgment. We don’t want to be characters in a story because characters have to move and breathe and face conflict with courage. And if life isn’t remarkable, then we don’t have to do any of that; we can be unwilling victims rather than grateful participants.

But I’ve noticed something. I’ve never walked out of a meaningless movie thinking all movies are meaningless. I only thought the movie I walked out on was meaningless. I wonder, then, if when people say life is meaningless, what they really mean is their lives are meaningless. I wonder if they’ve chosen to believe their whole existence is unremarkable, and are projecting their dreary life on the rest of us.

This was the first of many passages in Donald Miller’s new book that caused me to dog ear the page. At first I was hesitant to read this book, considering where I am in my faith, but I’m so glad I did.

This book is Don’s attempt to find meaning in life while editing his story for the Blue Like Jazz movie. And I see myself in the pages. He talks about taking the easy route – sitting in front of the tv and typing words on a computer, rather than going out and creating your own story. This is what I do. This is what I need to change.

And once you know what it takes to live a better story, you don’t have a choice. Not living a beter story would be like deciding to die, deciding to walk around numb until you die, and it’s not natural to want to die.

Pretty much. I’ve certainly been walking around numb. It’s time for a better story.

He also talks about how a character is what he does. A person is what he does – not what he thinks. This was a prevalent thought in the book, since the driving force behind the memoir was converting Blue Like Jazz to a screenplay. Part of what makes that book so great is the reader’s inability to get inside Don’s head. You can’t do that in a movie. You have to show it. A character is what he does. And the same is true in real life. You don’t know what I think or feel, only what I do. This is why he wrote, “The story we tell ourselves is very different from the story we tell the world.”

Perhaps one of the reasons I’ve avoided having a clear ambition is that second you stand up and point toward a horizon, you realize how much there is to lose.

…

It’s true that while ambition creates fear, it also creates the story. But it’s a good trade, because as soon as you point toward a horizon, life no longer feels meaningless. And suddenly there is risk in your story and a question about whether you’ll make it. You have a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Let me just take a moment to testify to the truth in those words. I was fired 2 months ago, through no fault of my own. And that led to some of the most intense depression I’ve ever felt. I felt useless and worthless. Not finding a job increased those feelings, and with each unanswered application I sunk lower and lower.

Then one day I set a goal.

And it was like the weight of the world was lifted. My circumstances hadn’t changed. I’m still unemployed and I still got fired. But my perspective shifted. Because I set a goal.

Of course, setting that goal isn’t the end. Now we have to see if I have what it takes to attain that goal. I have to get off my ass and move. And it’s going to be hard. But it’ll be worth it.

But that goal is the beginning of my better story. The good news is that this happened before I read this book. This book is affirming what I want to do, rather than telling me to do it.

There are so many more passages I’d love to quote here, but really… you should just go read it yourself. It’s inspired and brilliant and life changing.

I bought a mattress set today. And it was delivered an hour later.

What amazing service!

Total cost, including mattress, box springs, delivery, and bed frame: $374

Total raised from amazing and generous people: $250

Really, you guys amaze me. I’ll never forget your generosity and kindness.

I’m sleeping in a bed tonight, baby!

I love this.

Grace and peace be to all of you! Welcome to this week’s edition of the Christian carnival. There is no overarching theme this week, so I hope that’s not too disappointing. The entries are simply in the order in which I received them.

FMF presents How to Make Sure Your Church is Handling Money Correctly posted at Free Money Finance.

Ariah Fine presents Isn’t It The Churches Job? So, Why Do We Ask The Government? posted at Trying to follow.

Allen Scott presents Can You Hear Me Now? posted at Journey Across the Sky.

Curtis Suuppi presents The Institution of Marriage posted at Midnight Soup.

Doug asks Does the Church have a role in our confession of sins? at Bounded Irrationality.

Annette presents Being a Pastor posted at Fish and Cans.

Chasing the Wind presents God’s Dysfunctional Children posted at Chasing the Wind.

Theresa L. Twogood presents Coming To A School Near You Soon posted at OLIN e-Book e-Publishing.

Dan Seely presents Seeing myself in the Pharisees – Part 1 posted at Whirled Views.

Chad Dalton presents Sharing the gospel – #5 posted at Living Stone Bible Church Blog.

This week at Light Along the Journey, John looks at how focusing on God helps us overcome temptation in this post.

Ali presents Trusting God’s motives. posted at Kiwi and an Emu..

Bruce Alderman presents the church of america posted at it seems to me….

Allen Scott presents Can You Hear Me Now? posted at Journey Across the Sky.

Considering that Proverbs says Wisdom is a Tree of Life, the Weekend Fisher takes a look at how that could shape our understanding of Genesis’ Tree of Life.

Henry Imler presents New Poll: Women in the early Church. posted at Theology for the Masses.

John Hobbins of Ancient Hebrew Poetry takes positive note of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s visit to Messiah College.

Donald S. Crankshaw presents The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil posted at Back of the Envelope.

Casey Petersen presents Extreme Measures posted at The Limitless.

Andrew Tatusko presents Why Would God Let This Happen? posted at Notes From Off Center.

James DeLelys presents Articles posted at WORDS.

Tom Gilson presents The Church of Oprah? posted at Thinking Christian.

Jeremy Pierce presents Open Theism and the Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart posted at Parableman.

Henry Neufeld presents More on the Original Text posted at Participatory Bible Study Blog.

Paul presents Christian Integrity posted at Life is for Living.

Thom presents Finally, Prayer Beads! posted at Everyday Liturgy.

I have to include Thom’s narrative for that last link, because it made me laugh out loud!

Thomas narrates his adventure into making prayer beads, which is a bit scary for a guy.

Now, if I’ve forgotten someone or messed up a link, please let me know!

Tiny Prints is going to donate up to $50,000 to three children’s charities this holiday season! But in order for the charities to get the money, you have to do something. For every person who goes to this site and chooses one of the 3 charities, $0.10 will be donated. As of the moment I’m writing this, only $470.30 has been raised.

The three charities you can choose from are:

• Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation helps seriously ill children and their families cope with their pain, fear and isolation through entertainment, education and family activities.
• Ronald McDonald House at Stanford creates a home-away-from-home and supportive community for families of children with life-threatening illnesses receiving specialized treatment at local hospitals.
• Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay promotes the healthy development of children through the nurturing of continuing, one-to-one friendships with caring responsible adults, supported by trained professional staff.

So get on over there and click! Then spread the word because you can only click once.

Terri ponders evolution today, and I love it!

If humans evolved from primates, was it because of a physical advantage–standing upright, opposable thumbs, stronger immune system–or a mental advantage? For instance, let’s say that a primate evolved opposable thumbs, maybe even a more upright stance, all at the same time. While certainly being physically advantageous, how would that translate into intelligence? Maybe they would survive more easily on a daily basis, but would that lead to them being smarter? Would it lead to them developing concepts about their world and universe which had no immediate impact on their lives, environment, or survival? So, instead of wondering how they would catch their next meal or find shelter in inclement weather they would need to be able to plan how they could grow their own food, make tools, build their own shelters, or keep peace in their social group.

From my Christian perspective, this is what I think is meant by “being made in the image of God.”

What separates humans from animals is not only a biological advantage, but the agility and ability of the human mind. It is safe to say that humans are the most advanced species on the planet. Why is that? If evolution and natural selection are always at work, why is there only one species on the planet that has achieved the same status as humans? Shouldn’t each species be continually improving and getting “smarter” if intelligence is so important to the survival and dominance of a species? Shouldn’t there be more than one intelligent, enlightened species after all these billions and millions of years?

This is, of course, only one of Terri’s points, but it’s the one that stood out to me the most. It fits right in with the kind of logic that I’ve been reading about in Letters from a Skeptic. These are questions that I’ve never seen adequately answered before.

I honestly don’t know where I stand regarding Creation vs. Evolution. I’ve fought hard, in the past, on behalf of Creation. (Let me clarify that “Creation” the way I’m using it here refers to the literal 6-day account of Creation given in Genesis). But now? I have to say I don’t know how it happened. 6 days? 6 billion years? I don’t know. Does it really matter? What I do know is that however long it took, God was in charge of it. Beyond that, I’m not sure I need to know.

And fighting about it is just…silly. Arguing over what God did and how he did it is pretty pointless.