The barmiest piece of unsolicited mail ever

Back when I worked in a faith-based family charity we had an elderly guy write to us pitching his book. His basic premise was that the church was dying out because Christians weren't having enough children. He felt this was an urgent problem that he could do very little about because, as he explained, he was 89, as was his wife who had been severely incapacitated by a stroke.

It was my job to write back to him and decline the pitch. The other thing I remember was he felt contraception was one reason Christians didn't have large families any more. The chapter title for that was "And the Devil Waved a Condom".

That was probably the craziest piece of unsolicited post I've ever been sent, until today, when I got this.

It's 16 pages of unconnected ramblings about God that seems to think it's proven the existence of the Almighty. The key 'proof' is that human beings have evolved and sources of food have evolved and the likelihood of both evolving is so unlikely there must be a God. Convinced, yet? No, me neither.

Here are some sample bits from the document. This is a very odd introductory semi-disclaimer.

Yes, why did you invent it? Well, anyway, I'm sure your Mum and Dad are proud. Then there's this non-sequitur...

Yes, you've dismissed the equation of God and so we need the electric chair. Huh? Next up there's some quality scientific reasoning.

It's about science! And then we have this last bit which has the most bizarre concluding sentence ever.

So, cats getting thirsty is evidence for God. I think. Who knows what he means there?

Anyway, the whole thing concludes with a plea for assistance in getting this published and given to every schoolchild in the land. Tempting as it is to get back in touch and see if there is any more laugh out loud nonsense to read, I don't have to (unlike devil-waving-condom guy), so I think I might let this pass.

Disconcerting texts

Got this text from a friend yesterday:

"We've received a notice in work from the [workplace name] christian fellowship offering dream interpretation to quote 'please send it (dream) with as much description as possible. Email it & I will ask God for the interpretation'. That's a little odd, surely!"

To which a sensible person's answer would be. "Yes. Yes, that is a little odd."

(My answer was "Awesome! Make something up and send it to them!")

I had a dream that I relished the fray and the screaming filled my head all day

I don’t often blog about my dreams but here was a strange one that may tell you more about me than you already knew. Or not.

Anyway... I dreamt that a friend of mine from Uni days called John was coming to visit Cathy and me. I was quite excited because I hadn’t seen him for about 10 years and since I had saw him last he had gotten married, and this would be the first time I’d met his wife. (Up to this point the details in the dream are true – I haven’t seeing John for about that length of time and he has got married and I have yet to meet his wife.)

Our house in the dream looked strangely like my parent’s house, particularly my childhood bedroom and the stairs into the lounge. (It’s weird how in dreams you can be in a place which you know is a, but looks like b.)

One thing I really wanted to show John was the new Millennium Falcon I had for Christmas a couple of years ago, with the working ramp and headlights and whatnot. (It’s a FAB toy!) I knew that John, fellow Star Wars geek and all, would want to see it.

I had to manoeuvre it carefully through the door of the upstairs bedroom to bring it downstairs. (Also true, as it’s so big you have to turn it on its side to get it in and out of rooms.)

What I hadn’t accounted for in my dream is that John and his wife had had three children since getting married, and they brought the kids with them – as you would. The oldest was about six and very hyperactive.

For some reason that freaked me out. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to hide the Millennium Falcon so that the kids didn’t play with it and break it. But I couldn’t think of a way to move it without the kids noticing it.

Fortunately I didn’t have to find a solution because at that point my alarm woke me.

I am not sure what that dream says about me apart from I don’t want to share my toys. Randomly I remember John telling me once that when he was a kid he had an original Kenner Millennium Falcon but insisted on taking it back to the shop because the cockpit hatch wouldn’t close securely and that meant Han Solo and Chewbacca would die when they were in space. But I’m not sure that had anything to do with the dream.

The title of this blog post is the opening couplet from a Tragically Hip song called Nautical Disaster about troubling dreams.