A Challenge from Tig

Here's a pic to grab your attention. I was Lincoln at the Hospital Halloween Web-Design Nerd Party. It was very "The Office".

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So I have this nurse friend. She's got a blog and she's thrown the guantlett down with this challenge:

"Here are the rules:1. Grab the nearest book.2. Open the book to page 123.3. Find the fifth sentence.4. Post the text of the next four sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest!"

So here goes. I had to pass up the bible and a collection of kids poetry (the bible because that would just be too chaplainy and the poetry book because it hadn't 123 pages). So I admit this happens to be the last book I finished and one of my favorites from this year, and granted a little (pseudo-)intellectual sounding, but it literally was closest to match the description.

David Dark, The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-Blessed, Christ-Haunted Idea.

"I hasten to add that there is probably a place for both and I'll try to describe the difference with a story of a viewing experience. There is a moving scene in "Patch Adams" (1998) in which Robin Williams's Hunter "Patch" Adams, a medical practitioner, has painstakingly arranged a dream come true for an elderly woman whose confinement to hospitals has, in recen years, obstructed her pursuit of happiness. She has long dreamt of swimming in a pool of noodles, "Patch" discovers, and as I sat in the dark theatre watching teh slow-motion sequence in which she finally has her fantasy fulfilled, I turned to my wife with tears in my eyes and said, "I hate this movie.

"Please understand, I didn't begrudge the woman her moment or wish that the tale (based on a true story) had never been told, but there was something in teh sequencing that felt a little like an insult, a way of cuing sentiment, and a pressing of certain heart buttons that had me feeling a little tricked."

Boy does Mr. Dark use his sentences. So there, consider the guantlett thrown down upon your blogs' toes.