But that changes right now.  You could cut the tension with that little cut-and-paste scissor icon hiding somewhere up there in the menu.

The intrepid souls who have been reading The Ark of Mark since it was an email and not a blog will remember a feature called “The Humble Servant.”  I would lay out, from personal experience, a series of steps one could take to become more humble.   I haven’t done this in the blog until today, as I write about something that just happened a few minutes ago.

(I need something to do for a few minutes while my paintbrush dries out.  What I just did right there is known as foreshadowing).

So let’s give a warm welcome to the return of The Humble Servant.  As always, follow these steps in order to experience true humility:

1. Take advantage of a snowy Saturday afternoon with no place to go by deciding to finish up some painting you’ve been avoiding.
2. Turn on some good music and get to work.
3. Move to a tricky side of a door jamb that requires cutting in.  For those of you non painters out there, I should explain that “cutting in” refers to painting along some kind of interface.  For example, one “cuts in” the blue paint on the wall where it butts up against a white door jamb.  Cutting in requires patience, practice, a steady hand, and the steely nerves of an amateur blogger.
4. Consider proudly that very few people can cut in quite as well as you are doing it.  (In today’s example I had even moved to my non-dominant painting hand to get a better angle.  I was in the zone).
5. Decrease grip on brush handle in order to reduce possibility of a minor hand tremor that could lead to a wayward bristle.
6. Lose complete control of brush handle such that brush totally slips out of your hand.
7. (This step is an aside to explain that throughout my life I have noticed that I am better than the average person at catching dropped items.  So good, in fact, that I once saved a dropped drinking glass by flicking my toe out at the last moment so that the glass glanced safely off my shoe rather than shatter on the floor.  Those of you paying attention will detect some more foreshadowing right there).
8. Instinctively begin to position hand to catch brush before it hits the floor.
9. Inadvertently hit handle of brush such that brush begins cartwheeling in the air and flinging paint droplets in a whimsical pattern.
10. Snag brush out of the air by seizing the painted end by the palm of your hand.
11. Hurry off to find a wet washcloth to limit the damage, once again a humble servant ready for God to mold.

Let me say Merry Christmas to you all now just in case I don’t get back here before then.  I may be too busy cleaning as-yet-unseen paint droplets.