"Balancing Laura Ingalls and Paris Hilton"

This morning, I was sitting in church during the prelude, and in the announcements, there was a handout about an upcoming young people's conference to be held at Covenant. The handout gave brief overviews of some of the activities and lectures, including a lecture titled "Balancing Laura Ingalls and Paris Hilton." This particular talk for females promises to deal with whether we can be modest and godly, yet trendy and stylish at the same time. OK, I'm going to be real honest here; I think this is a worthwhile topic. However, I suspect that dealing with it in this way is not the best way to go about it. Anyway, as the pianist plays away before the service, B. the pastor's wife leans towards me, points at Paris Hilton's name, and says, "Who is this? I don't even know who this is." So, imagine me trying to briefly yet tastefully sum up the significance of Paris Hilton before church. (As a side note, I think that her not knowing who Paris Hilton is speaks highly of B.) So I'm trying to be tactful yet clear, and really, I'm not the queen of tact and discretion.

After discussion Paris briefly, I took another look at the handout, and here's what really gets to me about the whole thing. The woman slated to give this talk on "Balancing Laura Ingalls and Paris Hilton" is named Mary Jo Frump! What could be better? I know that maybe I shouldn't laugh at her last name, although I'm the first to laugh at my own last name. But really, couldn't this be a Saturday Night Live skit?