That’s one of my favorite Alistair Begg quotes. I’ve repeated it many times, it may have spent a week or two on our church sign a few years back. Recently I saw a nearly identical quote (Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian) attributed to A.W. Tozer. So who said it? Very possibly both pastors did. Tozer was an American pastor, magazine editor and spiritual mentor to many. He was given honorary degrees by multiple institutions. He passed away in 1963. Begg was born in 1952 and continues to pastor the same church he has been at since 1983. You can find the quote attributed to either man probably because Alistair Begg was quoting A.W. Tozer when he said it. Lots of people quote Tozer to this day. Imagine I were speaking on the political and social divide in our country right now and said “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” That’s a direct quote from Abraham Lincoln. It is also very similar to Matthew 12:25, not the whole verse but an obvious reference to it. We are a lot more conscious about citing material than in times past. The Apostle Paul would string together three sentence fragments from three different Old Testament books and simply cite “the Prophets” or “the Fathers” as reference.

After citing Begg all this time I may attribute those words to Tozer in the future. The truth is worth repeating. Maybe someday someone will quote something I said. I’m still waiting for “God is near” to catch on.

Does pineapple belong on pizza? I’d rather have pineapple than anchovies or that mayonnaise and green pea monstrosity that was famous for about 15 minutes. I take a seriously pragmatic approach to pizza toppings: since I’m not eating your pizza, you can put whatever you like on it. Personalized license plates have to be approved by the issuing state. In Iceland there is an approved list of baby names that parents have to choose from. The president of Iceland, by the way, said that if he could make pineapple on pizza illegal he would. But there’s the rub. There is no office of approving what toppings you or anyone else adds to pizza. Here comes this week’s history lesson: Hawaiian pizza was first created by adding pineapple to pizza in 1962… in Canada. That’s right. Panama hats are made in El Salvador, in France they call it English kissing and Hawaiian pizza did not originate in Hawaii or any other American state. It’s from Ontario. Read more about it here. Aloha.

Speaking of what goes on pizza and where it comes from, Mexican Pizza is back at Taco Bell. When this item was dropped from menus two years ago, it had already been several years since I ordered one. It’s a novelty item, they don’t eat Mexican pizza in Mexico, and let’s be honest about Taco Bell: it’s all the same stuff. It comes in different shapes and sizes but everything from Taco Bell tastes like stuff that comes from Taco Bell. It’s not authentic Mexican food (but neither is most of what Americans get at Mexican restaurants either). It’s American fast food with a Mexican theme. Similar to McDonald’s it started in California in the early 1960’s. Whatever it is, I happen to like it. I can also slowly smoke a Boston butt for 10 hours to make pulled pork and still enjoy McRib every time it comes back. “That’s not real food.” “Taco Bell isn’t real Mexican.” “That’s made of imitation crab meat.” It’s real something, I didn’t just imagine these things. You know what’s not real? Food police so quit pretending to be one.

Speaking of Hawaii – These pics are from this week in 2016 which I designated Hawaiian shirt week. I have never been to Hawaii but the two shirts on the left my mother-in-law brought back from Hawaii for me. The shirt all the way on the right (speaking of pineapples) I bought in California… at Walmart.

This story out of Atlanta looks at stats in Georgia but represents a similar trend nationwide. A third of workers surveyed admit to drinking on the job during the pandemic. Alcohol and substance abuse increased by 9% in 2020 and 26% in 2021. Read the full article here.

Here’s your feel good story of the week. I’m not going to link anything but no children or animals were harmed in the making of this headline. I don’t know about the entire metro area but I can tell you that in Smyrna geese families are definitely a thing.

At their spring concert Thursday night the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at our daughter’s middle school all met together for one final number. This concert was originally planned to be outdoors but they moved into the gym because it was still 90 degrees at 6 PM. Georgia in the summer, who knew? That picture may not look like much to you but I can pick out my kid. I hesitate to post any video because of copyright, public performance license issues; I’ve been on WordPress since 2008 and don’t want to lose anything, including my account.

Haikus are easy
but sometimes they don’t make sense.
Refrigerator.

I have some more things in the folder but feel like we need to wrap it up. If I don’t manage to collect anything this next week I’m guaranteed to have something in the tank for next Saturday. If Jesus comes back before then, I guess it just won’t matter anyway.