Ya know, the world continues to surprise me every day. And by "surprise," I mean "make me want to bang my head against a wall." Not in a violent way, but more like a wanting-to-get-dizzy-enough-that-this-makes-any-sense-whatsoever way. The ridiculous thing is that many of the things that surprise me actually surprise me on a regular basis, so I pretty much shouldn't be surprised by them, and yet when they happen, there I am standing around with my mouth hanging open, going, "Whaaaaa?"
Not Hannah's List of Surprising Things That Shouldn't Surprise Her Anymore:
- Christians who are confused by non-Christians who think Jesus was way cool. It's weird to me that folks who worship a deity don't seem to believe that deity is worthy of any sort of consideration by anyone other than those who worship him. I mean, Jesus is a fairly influential person by historical standards, being that he is pretty much responsible for a Jewish sect that has shaped the world. That aside, many of his teachings in the Gospels are both universal and sound: take care of your neighbors, worry about your own soul instead of somebody else's, don't run around judging folks. I would say that those are bits of advice that all people on the face of the planet would do well to live by. In fact, I would go further and say that if every person on the face of the planet truly lived by those rules, then the crap we have to deal with (from the failing economy to abortion to war to a compromised food supply) would not exist. How could it? The truth is that most people (at least the onesI know) don't choose a non-Christian path in life because of problems with Christianity's central deity. The problems arise with the leaders and believers who choose to willingly be hypocrites while practicing a religion whose central deity had nothing but contempt for hypocrites. Please note that I'm not making a blanket statement here; clearly, not all Christians are hypocrites. Unfortunately, the ones who are seem to have the loudest voices and biggest wallets.
- The jelly on processed meat products. I mean, it's just gross, right? Where does that jelly come from? No, don't tell me. I really don't want to know. I'm going to pretend that it's nature's way of protecting it from alien invasion. (OMFC, what if it IS an alien invasion?)
- Christians who don't believe that non-Christians pray or believe in prayer. A connection with a deity or entity worthy of worship, be it Yahweh or Allah or Ra or Brigid or the Filing Cabinet, pretty much relies on prayer to forge that connection. Linguistically, one can find prayer that existed tens of thousands of years ago. Over a million years ago, people used stones as prayer objects. People, it would seem, are born to pray. Of course, not all non-Christians pray, but many of us do, and we do so with the idea that our prayer will be heard by an entity who will do something with the energy we are directing at it. Otherwise, we'd all just be talking to ourselves or wasting our candles. And you KNOW how we feel about misusing petroleum products.
- The Georgia Bulldogs not being able to correct the same problems they've had all year long. This season has been disappointing, to say the least, and yet every game I'm THERE, wearing my red and/or black, making finger foods, telling the players that I believe in them. (We have a psychic connection.) But by the second quarter, I'm usually surfing the internet or curling up for a nice long nap to get away from the horror of interceptions and eighty million penalties. We're going to the Kentucky game with Jeffrey and I swear, I don't think I can bear it if we lose. Seriously. It might require therapy.
- Conservatives who believe that liberals want to take away rights. This is insane to me. I just have no idea how this idea came around. The only "right" that liberals want to take away from people is the "right" to deny other people rights. If somebody else can come up with a right being removed by liberal legislators, I'd love to hear it. While you're at it, please let me know what "rights" conservatives are protecting.
- Carrie Prejean continuing to play the shameless victim. The girl got her boobs paid for, posed for semi-nude photos, and apparently made a video of of herself masturbating and yet she's still rocking the "the liberal media is so mean to me" angle. The things she did are not, for me, particularly disturbing. However, I'm thinking they SHOULDN'T jibe with the religious right wonks who are using her as an example of all things good and holy. EXCEPT--the wonks keep using her, which is even more surprising. You can almost hear their thought process, "But she's so prriiiddddyyyyyy. She looks like an annngggeeellll. And she doesn't like gay people, so WOOHOO!" Frankly, those folks ought to consider leaning a little harder on Kirk Cameron's shoulder. He's been in "Tiger Beat" AND knows Alan Thicke AND apparently is good at playing firemen. Everybody loves firemen.
- The number of applications I have to keep hiding on Facebook. I mean, I am thrilled that you saved a cow or bought a fish or received a heart or killed a dude in Cuba. Rock the frick on. Follow your bliss. But I don't want to know about it every time I log on and I swear, there is a new application I'm hiding every day. Today, I hid some kind of wedding thing, a God Wants You to Know (Really? God is using FB now? Can you FAN God? Add him as a friend? Can you send God a sparkly heart?) thingy, and another frickin' fish application. How many fish applications are there, for the love of Pete? WHY are there so many? (If you use these applications and love them, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings. I still think you are a SUPER person and hope that you become the ruler of Farmville--which is totally a communistic game. Just saying.)
- Stinky mushrooms. What the hell, Mother Nature? Not only do I have to worry about River eating them, I now have to worry about Jeffrey getting them on his shoes and then losing his ever-loving mind over the smell. And washing his hands. And sniffing his fingers until I want to fall down in a heap and moan a bit.
- Glenn Beck.

