The We-Wu for December 2025

Yes, yes, I know. How can we have a we-wu for a whole month when it’s only the first week of that month?

I’m just going to be honest with you. It’s named this way because it’s probably going to be the only post this month.

I don’t know if it’s a ‘tism, or if it’s some kind of compulsion, but I have this thing where I have to do some things in a certain order or way. The way Squarespace has their site set up, it can be somewhat difficult to add a page or blog post. Or at least complicated. So I take a shortcut and keep the page open on my work computer at all times. Is that good for the computer? No. Does it always work? Also no. But that’s just how I do things. I can’t always count on my home laptop to be working (it’s ancient in computer terms), and I don’t actually know if my phone would work for this. I’m afraid to try. Either way, it would be super small.

Thus, I only ever work on the blog or my website at the office. And I tend to do it on Fridays because I have a window of time in the afternoon, and, well, I can wrap up the week. But if I can make my laptop work over the Christmas break (which I just realized I haven’t talked about yet), you may get another post.

So, break. I am actually leaving on the 11th for Huntington. I will be there until the 28th-ish. That first week, I will actually be working as I need to, but I’m taking the full Christmas week off because OMS was nice enough to give us the full week. Maybe you’ll get a rumination on the year when I get back.

I need to be better about the blog in general. I just get so busy, and I let other things take precedence. I’m curious - what things would you like to see or read or learn about on here? I used to do live blogs of movies. That could be fun to do again. It’s been so long since I actually wanted to see a movie. So much of what comes out now just does not look interesting. Or I just can’t be bothered to spend that much time in a darkened theater on my own.

(Will I spend hours on my own in my apartment watching a 17-hour breakdown of a Star Wars video game I’ve never played? Yes. But I don’t know why you’d bring that up.)

I feel like I need to expand my horizons. I’m interested in your thoughts on the matter. You can actually leave comments on the blog! I will read them. I promise.

These last two weeks have been filled with random projects. I’m trying to get some stuff done before the end of the year, but I’m also trying to make sure I have myself set up well for when I get back. We were running before we crawled when it came to VCP, and we’re missing some of the balance that we should have learned with those baby steps. I’m still so behind in the process for VCP, but I keep learning more. All progress is good progress, but some progress is better.

I was a little worried when my end-of-year to-do list kept growing even as I crossed things off. But I’m finishing up cards and supporter gifts today, so I finally feel like I’m on solid footing. And if I have to leave myself a few sticky notes as a reminder of where I left off, then so be it. I’ll try to make sure they are festive colors.

Finally, I’m going to leave you with a rant, because those are fun, and I need to cleanse myself of this negativity before I go home.

Background: Bing is a terrible search engine. BUT, they are bribing me to use them. I do a few searches a day, answer a few questions about things, and they give me points that I can then turn into gift cards. I assume it’s mutually beneficial even if I’m never going to make Bing happen in my normal life.

But I was answering one of their little quiz things this morning, and I just had to take a picture because there was so much wrong with it.

Please ignore how dirty my screen is.

Okay, let’s start with the question. What was the original purpose of the building known as the Mosque-Cathedral?

I think my options were Christian church, synagogue, and mosque. I knew there was no way it was a synagogue because those tend to be more practical buildings with little art. I could be mistaken, but I don’t know of any synagogues that are renowned for their architecture.

I didn’t think the answer would be mosque because there aren’t many places that go from mosque to church. It usually goes the other way. So naturally, I chose Christian church.

I was wrong.

Except I wasn’t! Because if you read the answer, they tell you that “the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba originally began as a church.” Remember the question? Original purpose, originally began as a church. It was transformed into a mosque. They weren’t asking about the primary function, they were asking about the ORIGINAL PURPOSE!

Córdoba is in Spain, right? Specifically, southern Spain, so it makes sense that Islam took over around 784 (we’ll address the abomination of CE later). But Bing says the church-that-became-a-mosque was built by the Visigoths.

The Visigoths were Germanic peoples, a branch of those who sacked Rome and started taking over what would become Europe. The Visigoths invaded the Iberian Peninsula (where Spain now exists) in 415 A.D. Even if you think they took their time to reach the southern area, they had complete control of the peninsula by the sixth century. For those of you playing along, that is well before 784. That’s two whole centuries that this church could have existed before al-Rahman built his mosque.

Now, remember when I said that mosques rarely become churches? This is an exception. The kingdom of Castile took over this part of Spain in the 13th century. (Isabella of Christopher Columbus fame was the Queen of Castile.) The mosque became a Cathedral, but they kept a lot of the architecture from the mosque. It remains a Cathedral to this day.

So, yes, it was a mosque for a long time. But the original purpose was as a Christian church, even if no evidence of the original church remains. And you know what I used to research all of that?

Google. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Bing.

Now, let’s talk about CE. CE doesn’t exist. It’s a ludicrous invention of lesser minds. Bing tells me that CE (which stands for Common Era) is preferred over (which is Anno Domini, Latin for in the year of the Lord) to provide a secular, inclusive way of referencing years without religious connotations.

And if you didn’t read that with sarcasm, loathing, and a little bit of puke, then we can’t be friends.

Jesus existed. Literally everyone agrees that Jesus existed. There are objective sources for the existence of Jesus. And literally everyone agrees that his existence marked a turning point in human history.

The history of calendars is fascinating, and I won’t get into too much of it here. Currently, most people in the world use the Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII. It replaced the Julian calendar in October 1582. As the people of the world started encountering one another in greater numbers, it was generally agreed that everyone needed to be operating on similar terms.

Previously, years weren’t really marked by sequential numbers. Things happened ‘in the third year of the reign of John of wherever.’ Even in the Bible, it’s hard to line things up because the two kingdoms had different ways of documenting when things happened. It’s a lot nicer to be able to say something happened 583 B.C. (Thank you, Church!)

So, when the Church put together the calendar, they adopted (I am making a logical assumption here) anno domini as a nod to the previous way of doing things because we’re acknowledging that we are now in the 2025th year of the Lord. It has been 2025 years since God became flesh and dwelt among us, as it were.

We use A.D. because that’s how the inventors of the calendar wanted it, and I get that you didn’t like it and invented your own, but it sucks, and I refuse to acknowledge it. Also, what makes this the common era, huh? Did something happen around that time that, I don’t know, had a radical impact on the world and how people interact with others?

Miss me with your BCE and CE nonsense.

Anyway. I hope you enjoyed that. This post is not sponsored by either Bing or Google.

In case I don’t see you, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Indulge in some small stuff, and embrace the big stuff. I hope it’s a relaxing time full of joy and fellowship. Don’t forget to celebrate the gift of Christ, and wish Jesus a happy birthday.

Bye!