Another Birthday

Completed 92 laps around the Sun!

 

Celebrate!

Marketing Ploy, or. . .

 You call it.   

Last time (April) I got this product it came in a 16 oz jar at a bit over 19 bucks. The "New look, same formula" jar I bought today contains 1.7 oz at $21.49. 

That, my friends, is fractionally more than one-tenth the amount of product as the earlier purchase at a significantly increased purchase price. I possess maths skills sufficient to calculate the percentage price increase but I have other things to do. Not the least of which is to conclude this little rant.

In how many ways did our consumer-based economy rip you off today?

 

Just a Kid on the Hillside #T

       We have looked at the teleportation of the boat and crew after the men took the Master into the vessel. We scarcely touched on the earlier account in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, as the Feeding of the Multitude has been studied and rehearsed for us since our childhood. 

     Now, though, let us explore a detail we tend to sail past, giving little thought to.it.  Who was the source of the loaves and fishes? Scripture says Andrew told Jesus there is a boy here with five barley loaves and two small fish. Next thing we know, Jesus blesses the food and breaks it into pieces, tells the disciples to distribute it to the crowd,

Back up. Earlier that day, the boy, most certainly twelve or thirteen, perhaps a year or two older, the boy whose father tells him he surely has a hollow leg, for otherwise where does he put it all? (At table.)

This transpires.  Boy says, Ma, this Jesus is coming up the hill with a huge mob of people. I want to go see what it is all about.  Mother replies, Fine. Just be home before the streetlights come on. But Ma, I'll need something to eat. Can you fix me something? Mom tells him, It's already fixed. There are a couple little fish left from last night's dinner, and there is a package of brioche rolls in the pantry.  Aw, Ma! And she replies, eat that or go hungry, your choice.

So, now the lad is on the hillside with several thousand other people NONE OF WHOM thought to provide nourishment for themselves. Then Jesus comes.  Hi, kid, he says. Heard you've brought your lunch. What is the boy to do? One can only imagine what goes through his mind, and let's leave the conversation and exchange to our imagination as well. What we do know is Jesus took the grub, offered thanks for it, and fed the entire multitude, having the apostles pick up huge quantities of leftovers after everyone's hunger had been assuaged. So, to my way of thinking Jesus and the lad, not even accorded a name in the account, fed the crowd.

     Wait, you say. Jesus could have fed everyone had no one brought food. Fed them what? I, for one, am a believer that God created everything ex nihilo but, in the instance, Jesus needed material with which to work. Yep, he may well have planted the seed of lunch necessities in the mind of the child, but still, they fed the hungry crowd.

To this day, Jesus requires us to share our goods with the needy. Follow His lead, turn your all over to Him and He will multiply it to abundance. Never mind that you might receive no plaudits or adulation for your selfless behavior. After all, it is The Master who provides all good things.

Around We Go!

   

Today I will have completed ninety-one elliptical orbits around the Sun.

Conversations with Random People --30 #T

 Today I walked into an elder care facility and as I was passing through the commons area, piano music! To  my left I saw a lady seated in her wheelchair as she was tickling the ivories. I moved close and to her left. As the number ended I applauded heartily. Picture, or hear if you will, the sound of a single person applauding in a large room occupied by only two people of a certain age.

"I love the old songs," the pianist said. "Do you know this one?' as she struck the keys. From the soundboard came the melody, accompanied harmoniously by the surrounding notes. of course, of an old favorite "Has Anybody Seen My Gal" I naturally burst into song on the first line, 'Five-foot two, eyes of blue." She played the number all the way through, and I sang it word perfect to the end. Note I did not say melodically perfect, but it was fun! 

Libby took her fingers from the keys and introduced herself. I volunteered my name, and we each had a new friend! I noted that these songs were popular in our day, indicating that we were pretty much of the same generation.  A gentleman never asks a lady her age, and I didn't. Nor did she ask me mine, for I suppose a lady doesn't get that personal with a new acquaintance. Suffice it to say that if I were a betting man, and if anyone were to discover our ages, we would be less than five years apart and I would further guess much closer than that.

Well, Libby volunteered that her birth name was Mary Elizabeth, but she had been called Libby all her life and she rather preferred it. She volunteered that she was a retired schoolteacher, and I said I was, too. She then told me that she had a piano in her classroom and she started each day with music as she believed tuning the kiddos in to joyful sounds early in the day ignited a spark of joy that would help carry them through all the day.

"Where did you teach?" I was emboldened to enquire.  

"I started in Greenfield, but I moved the second year to Knightstown where I finished my career.  Where, may I ask, did you teach?"

"I started in Wilkinson, but after three years moved to the Sheridan school system."

Clearly, we were both astonished.  Here are two strangers having a conversation about their parallel lives which were lived in the same time frame, and our early teaching experiences were within ten miles of each other. We shared a few more details of school life, wished each other well, and went our separate ways.

It brought a bit of joy into my life, meeting you, Libby.

That's the Spirit! #T

      Twice today, rainy day that it is, I have been greeted with "Nasty day, isn't it?" To which I responded the first time as I flung my arms wide as though to receive the rain with joy, to accept it for the blessing that it is, "It's a wonderful day, and I am thankful to have lived long enough to see it!"  The interrogator smiled and said, "Have a great day!"  That's the spirit.

     The second time I encountered the question I responded in the same manner. I was not well-received. The woman said to me, "Look at you. All wet, that's what you are." Perhaps she is right. I may be all wet, but I am enjoying this day that the Lord has allowed me to have in my life collection. 

     When I was a lad growing up in Colorado, a funeral home in Denver had this little aphorism printed at the bottom of its advertising, "Into each life some rain must fall." I have remembered that for eight decades. The meaning of this little gem may well be subject to interpretation. We know that rainfall is essential to life, that without it none of us would be here. So, perhaps the advertiser sees their words as encouragement to those bereft of a loved one. Yes, there will be rainy days, but life goes on. 

     I try in my own way to see each day as a blessing, some with rain, some with wind, or snow, some with sunshine and gentle breezes. (Snow is the hardest one for me to get excited about, but then I reflect that even on the coldest, sharpest, wintry day I have been blessed with shelter from the storm and, God willing, there will be another day tomorrow. And someone out there lives for the snow!)  The weather does not make our days; we make our days. Each day will present its challenges. The spirit and attitude with which we face the day will determine the level of joy or the depths of disappointment we may derive from it.

     "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." --Proverbs 17:22 ESV

Be Kind to the Elderly #T

 People make fun of old guys, asking, Why do they wear their belt so close to the armpits? I am an elderly gentleman, not to mention an old guy, not to put too fine a point on it. Life's experiences and empirical evidence may serve us well in this case, and since you have not lived long enough to observe it yourself, I will tell you why.

Stick with me.

People of a certain age (mine) tended to buy quality items "back in the day." These things virtually never wear out. Also, many old people endured hard times as they clawed their way through the world and "waste not, want not" became their mantra. I am still wearing slacks and sweaters, suits, even, that I bought when I was, as you might describe yourself, "middle-aged." They are still good. Would I go out and fritter away my hard-earned wherewithal on new? I think you know the answer to that.

Now an interesting if not marvelous thing tends to occur in the human physique as it ages. The elderly shrink as they get older, and the older they get the more they shrink. Observation, empirical evidence. Case, the first person. I, in my younger day, stood six foot three. If I straighten my spine against a wall and stand tall (yet flat-footed) the tape will catch me at just. . . just barely, six feet even. You do not have to have a degree in astrophysics to understand that my pants are too long. And both the solution and the answer to the original question is evident.

Thank you for asking; and thank you for your patience.

Joy

Advent:  Good tidings of great joy!  Luke 2
The magi followed the star with joy! Matthew 2

Q- What is this joy?
A- God is love.  Love wins.

Q- What is the key to this joy?
A- The key to joy is trusting God.  Surrender to His will. It is that simple

Q- What is this joy I gain?
A- The joy of the Lord is my strength. (Neh. 8:10)  In Him I delight.

Q- What is the will of God?
A- "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind;  and love your neighbor as yourself."

Q- What is grace?
A- Grace is going out of ones way to help someone who does not deserve it and did not earn it.

Q- How far does God go to extend grace to us?
A- We cannot imagine how far Christ, the Creator of all things, went out of His way, assuming finite human flesh, dying a cruel and inhumane death, to extend His grace to us.

Q- What must we do to receive His grace?
A- "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved."

Q- What must we give to God in return for this salvation?
A- Withhold nothing; give Him your all.  Submit to His will.

" It is not the teaching of the Scriptures that grace makes us free to do evil.
Rather, it sets us free to do good."  A.W. Tozer

My Little Sister

 

Oh, rain, rain, rain.

The baby said

It's gonna rain!

She cried from her bed.

The lightning flashed

It's gonna rain!

The thunder roared

It's gonna rain!

She shouted from her bed

Her mama raised up her head 

Said go to sleep.

Oh, rain, rain, rain, rain.

And the baby said

It's gonna rain.

And mama stood beside the bed 

Do that again I'll have to spank.

And the lightning flashed 

And the baby said IT'S GONNA  *whispered* rain.

And baby said

It's! (Whispered from her bed) gonna rain.

                                      ------Eighty-four years ago

We're b a a a ck!

 Once again, my all-time favorite Halloween cartoon.

Within Which I Save Short Pieces

 She was sitting on the sidewalk, legs spraddled, chin down, obviously wracked by drug abuse and dissipation.

He walked by and in disdain saw the town he grew up in falling into ruin.  "I need to get out of this degenerate place."

She walked by, shook her head and thought, "Sad.  How can young people do that to themselves.?"

Jesus looked down and saw one of his children, broken and in ruin, desperately in need of help.  "I must send one of my servants to minister to her needs."

You approach the frail, dirty girl there on the sidewalk. . .

*******************"+

Burdens are lifted away

when Jesus hears somebody pray,

Oh, Lord, I need help down below

lest I stray!

Then the burdens are lifted away.

(She was lying on the bed, sound asleep, singing this song.) ---March 5, 2020

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Two men on the porch enjoying one another's company.

"Yer."

Couple minutes of silence.

"Ayeh," responds the other.

Meanwhile in the kitchen their wives are visiting.

"Yadayadadayadaya"

"Blahblahblahchablah"

"Yadblahya blayadachblachyadablah. . ." ---March 4, 2021

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Before I could hit the "off" button the afternoon soaps started. Screen came up "The Young and the Restless." Really? I would have thought they would be "The Old and the Decrepit" by now.

50 seasons. Can you believe it?

--March 2, 2021***

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How Great is our God? We cannot fathom that. I am told that there are more than one and two thirds sextillion molecules in a drop of water; not in a bucketful of water, not in the Zambesi River, not in all the oceans of the world, but in a single drop. And if God should lose track of a single atom, He would not be God.

(1.67 x 10^21) --March 2, 2021

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Most people are ordinary; love them, but love 

the oddballs, too. --Song of Prudence, v. 19

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Just now listening to radio station in Texas, announcer reads commercial for a crafts outlet. "Items and goods crafted by real artesians."

Yep, that's what he said. --March 1, 2021

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Watching the weather report on the "news." Chirky girl is reading the stats, waving her arms as the radar shows in the background.

At the bottom of the screen this script,

1 to 2 inches rain this afternoon

Water pondering in places,

which naturally caused me to wonder what the water is thinking about, what exactly is it "pondering"? ----February 28, 2021

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Unsolicited advice freely given is often worth every penny.

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Common sense is often nonsense. Thy need is uncommon sense. --Song of Prudence, v. 4

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Informed? Uninformed? Ill-informed? Misinformed? It seems that the news source is the determining factor. If you listen to the source I favor, you are well-informed; if not, you are one of the other choices. Now I submit that I am the best informed of all. This is my technique. I scan the front page of my local newspaper for the headlines, note each one (carefully avoiding the reading of the smaller print beneath) then at my leisure and as I have time to think about it, I create my own narrative. Win! --Februiary 26, 2021

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Small engines and Big governments

If it is running a little rough, dismantle it. If you can't put it back together, oh, well, it wasn't running right anyway. --February 24, 2021

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Poke-a-Woke or poke a bear

it's all the same cause anywhere

you go these days

people are prickly

in more ways

than you can poke a stick at.

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In many ways we create our own realities for we interpret events through the lenses of temperament, belief, and experience. Yes, we are surrounded by much that is

disturbing but how we process it determines who we become.

************************************+

"Oh, Odysseus, as you see I have crossed the River Styx. Charon unceremoniously dropped me overboard on this godforsaken shore." "Yes; go on. Why do you seek to address me, Agamemnon?" "I've a word to say about the perfidy, nay, treachery of women." "Say on." "But first, here's why I was forced to board the fatal ferry. Clytemnestra did it. Someday it will be bruited far and wide that it was Aegisthus who did me in, and a pox on him, but no, the woman acted alone. A warm, relaxing bath, a net, a dagger. But Orestes will avenge me, just you wait!" "Boring, my good man. Of such tales, mixed up and muddled, twisted and perverted, has mankind entertained himself since Prometheus stole fire from Hephaestus and gave it to Man. Go away!"

**********************************+

God in his wisdom drew a distinction between "love" and "like."

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Red Knees

thirty-six degrees
the winter that never ends
and it's no pants day

***********************************************

Middle the night, my right arm moved to reach but I snapped to awareness quickly enough to realize there was nothing there to touch. This morning I was reading some lines on the screen, glanced at the clock in the lower right-hand corner. Why is she running so late? I thought. Then the tears (and again as I write this). We are haunted, I think, not by the will of the departed but by the subconscious self who remembers what should be, then we spring into consciousness and stark reality. Do not feel sorry for me; I have been and am abundantly blessed. I seek not sympathy but rather find the need in my loneliness to share with someone, anyone.

**************************************************************

"Sometimes in life you get caught for sins you haven't committed." --John LeCarre

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 Last time I took a grandkid to McD, he, about nine years old, didn't want the kid's meal. Oh, no. The full way-too-big sandwich, whatever it is called, along with fries. He ate about two bites of burger and three french fries. Little snipe now has four kids of his own. Serves him right.

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Dad stood five-ten, a sturdy muscular five-ten. I was fourteen when I surpassed his height, and well over six foot at fifteen, and still growing. "Nobody in our very large clan has ever topped six foot," Dad said, "and I have always harbored a suspicion of people over six feet tall.  Seems to me their head is too far from the heart to get the benefit of circulating blood, brain dead, if you know what I mean. Well, you're my son, and I love you anyway."

**********************************************************************+

Middle the night, my right arm moved to reach but I snapped to awareness quickly enough to realize there was nothing there to touch.  This morning I was reading some lines on the screen, glanced at the clock in the lower right-hand corner.  Why is she running so late? I thought.  Then the tears (and again as I write this).  We are haunted, I think, not by the will of the departed but by the subconscious self who remembers what should be, then we spring into consciousness and stark reality.

Do not feel sorry for me; I have been and am abundantly blessed.  I seek not sympathy but rather find the need in my loneliness to share with someone, anyone. 

50th Mid-america Threshing and Antique Show

 

For Labor Day

 

Joe Hill wrote on his dying day

"My body? Oh, if I could choose
I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow"

and from this the story spins this way

 

Reduced to ashes as he wanted

but his acolytes by his words undaunted

spread the ashes far and wide

to city streets and countryside

to his native land and Detroit woods 

and burned again and re-collected

and eaten, washed down with ale

Is there never end to this tale

Joe Hill has grown and grown and multiplied

'til six men on a side could not heft the box

that would hold his body, hide and locks

If we believe all the tales in print

even Joe would wonder where he went.

It Isn't Practical #T

     Heide and I were visiting, two nonagenarians discussing some of the enigmas of life, the wonders, the puzzlements, and the age old "why are we here?" sort of things. In the course of the conversation, the subject memory, its miracles, its tricks, and the issue of the loss of it. I remarked that I had read that while the body regenerates many of its cells as they are lost to time or minor trauma, the brain loses vast numbers of cells daily, never to be replaced by new ones. Hence, I suggested, if I were to lose the cells that store my memories of you not only would those cells be lost, but you would be lost to me. Now understand that she and I are not scientists but rather lay persons pondering the wonders of life.

     Then, I said, why do the cells of the brain not regenerate? Heide's immediate response was, "Because it isn't practical!" 

     Thus, we found ourselves in a discussion of practicality, the necessity of one generation moving on to make room for the next, and so on. This portion of the conversation was concluded with her observation that "Nature is nothing if not practical." I told her that I was going to write a piece entitled "It isn't practical." And here we are.

     It is easy for me to imagine that "It isn't practical" entered the lexicon of mankind early on in his habitation of the Earth.  Say, for example, Cain, a gardener, or dirt farmer, if you will, brought a sacrifice of the bounty he had raised, because, as he might have reasoned, an animal sacrifice was impractical, as he would have had to barter his goods with, say, his brother Abel, a herdsman. And we all know the rest of the story.

     Skipping ahead to the dawn of The Enlightenment, we might picture Gutenberg, having "perfected" his press, attempting to sell the notion to his public and said public arguing that "It isn't practical," for there are not enough poor on earth to provide the necessary quantity of rags to feed the press even if we were to dispose of all the Earth's poor.

     I need not further the exercise, for any reader may imagine countless examples of progress stymied were the visionaries to cease dreaming and tinkering simply because they were told, "It isn't practical." Nature, we may conclude, is indeed practical. But man's imagination! Ah, the wheels of progress turn only when fueled by the imagination of the human mind.

Logged Another Year

 

As has become a custom, I guess, since I have been doing it since my 78th birthday, I am using a US Route sign to announce the completion of another trip around the sun during my lifetime. it is a blessing beyond measure that the Lord has granted me this many years here on Earth. I am further blessed in that my health is reasonably good, and I have been able to enjoy the vast majority of my days on this sojourn. Sorrows? Yes, of course, for no life well-lived does not encounter loss and heartbreak. It is the human condition. I once wrote, "Life consists of joys and disappointments. If at the end the ledger shows zero sum, count it as a pretty good life." This may be a bit of an oversimplification since much of life consists of the humdrum, but it is the joys and disappointments that fill our memory banks.

I am greatly blessed to be able still to access those files!

Living on the Level #T

   

      I like to think that in the metaphorical sense I live my life on the level in my dealings with other people. But today I sat down to write some thoughts about living on the level in a literal sense. I am abundantly blessed in that 1) I have lived a long time, and 2) I am still mobile. I can get around and go places. But I am pretty sure that when the youngsters see me going down the steps, say at our local post office, two feet on each step, hand on the rail, they probably remark to one another, "Look at the old dude. He's on his last legs." And they would be right. I am on the only legs with which my Creator endowed me. They just don't function so smoothly, so quickly, as they did in my youth. 

     Alternatively, the youngster should reflect that, "There, but for a few short years, go I." As the Preacher said, "Time and chance happen to them all."  (Ecclesiastes 9:11) Well, the young are immortal in their own sight, and more joy and happiness to them, I say. But they do need to treasure and care for the body they have been given, for there may be a limited number of replacement parts, but there is no replacement for the body itself.

     If you have observed me stepping off a curb, you will have noticed that I turn my body 90 degrees, facing parallel to the curb before I step off.  And why is that? There is no banister! So, you might think, our city has thoughtfully provided ramps at the intersections to accommodate those in wheeled vehicles, such as mobility scooters, wheelchairs, or even the baby buggy.  (Wait! Have you actually seen a parent wheeling a baby in a buggy in the last half-century? I am old.) And you think, "Why doesn't he use that ramp?"  Because. It is more treacherous than steps! Watch me lurching down one of those sometime. It's a nose-threatener. 

     Okay, so I am grateful to be living in Tipton where the streets and sidewalks are quite nearly perfectly level, though I am sure that a topographical map would show you that the elevation at, say, the corner of Conde and Walnut is a tad higher than it is at the corner of Main and Madison. But that is a quibble.  The town is essentially flat, and I appreciate that.

     As I get around town, I often meet people, a few contemporaries, a host of people of a certain age who were students of mine in the past, and I am often asked how I am doing, and sometimes hear an expression by the acquaintance to the effect that they are glad to see me getting out and about.  And I appreciate that. The other day, one of these people, seeing me negotiate a series of steps, courthouse, I think, and knowing that I live in a two-story house, asked me if I slept downstairs.  "No," I replied, "I still sleep upstairs, but I make only one trip up and one trip down each day, and when I can no longer do that, the master bedroom is on the first floor, and I can move down there."

     Mostly, I live life on the level.

Citizenship

 Went to our court house Thursday afternoon to pay the property taxes. I like to do this in person so I can personally thank the treasurer and the office staff for the services they provide to the community as I regard them as a sample of all the good workers in the public sector whom we support with our means. Fulfillment of a duty which I hope I do cheerfully.

Upon completion of the task I walked a few paces down the hall to the site of early voting. I usually take advantage of this service as one never knows what election day may hold either weather-wise or health-wise.  The room was occupied by two poll workers and two voters occupied in their civic duty.  I stopped at the doorway and noticed that the ballots were posted on the wall just to the left.  I read them carefully. And completely. Turned, smh, and walked to the stairway where I carefully lowered myself to the ground floor and exited the building.

Sorry; that was rude.

Aeronautics

1910, the first airplane flight by a U.S. President was taken in St. Louis, Missouri. Theodore Roosevelt, ex-president and not yet the Bull Moose candidate for another term, was taken aloft by pilot Arch Hoxsey in a Wright Brothers plane.

It is said that the Wrights, by whom Hoxsey was employed, were inclined to fire their pilot for having "endangered" a personage of such stature.

On New Year's Eve that same year, Hoxsey died in a crash in Los Angeles in which he was attempting to set a powered aircraft altitude record.

Archibald Hoxsey 1884 - 1910 RIP

Image: Wikipedia