Never point. Never look back.
THEORY: Ever post an old picture of yourself on Facebook or Instagram because it's Throwback Thursday"? That was devised by the National Security Agency (NSA) to get people to upload pictures from the pre-digital age so they can be cataloged in a secret database. This theory may have resulted from a 2011 report on the leaked memos uncovered by hacker Edward Snowden that said the NSA was collecting 55,000 images a day of people in an attempt to thwart terrorism.
Among the other many, Many, MANY facts and trivia in Uncle John's Uncanny Bathroom Reader (ISBN 9781626867598) that I picked up this weekend at our local Barnes & Noble, which I will put between paragraphs today. Yes, I try to shop local as opposed to at franchises whenever I can, but I had my membership to renew there as well as extra money that the kids and I each used to get one thing. I slipped money Friday to the kids and Martha taped to Twix bars, not realizing the kids weren't fans of the bars (oh, they like having the money). Tuesday at Grandparents Bingo that had been rescheduled from a snow day last month Sarah was two games and thirty dollars in Wal-Mart gift cards, and last night the kids in Carol Choir -- there's four others besides our two -- got a long tube of Mini M&Ms and five dollars each.
The weight of the average American baby at birth is around 7 pounds. Why, that's about the same as ... 29 million poppy seeds ... 7 million grains of sand ... 25 million grains of sugar ... 600 sheets of printer paper ... 5 basketballs ... Or, to put it another way ... 4 newborn babies = a bar of gold ... 16 newborn babies = a brand-new toilet ...
I got to church last night in time to hear Sarah and Jeffrey in Bethany's Carol Choir right after Pastor Gerald's sermon, and they all did great! This morning before work I also got in on his honest questing about what topic to use for a Christmas sermon, and I may have had a suggestion or two on that ... in any event, when I was teaching Sunday school I would make sure the story of Joseph and Mary arriving in Bethlehem and Jesus being born was told, but from a different character's (or characters', if we're talking about the Shepherds or the Wise Men ... yes, I KNOW only the shepherds got to the stable -- that account's in Luke, the Wise Men come to their house in Matthew) point of view. And true enough, there are only so many ways you can tell the story that way too.
The last major rule change in chess was more than 700 years ago. In 1280, chess players in Spain introduced the idea of pawns making a first move with one or two squares forward, instead of just one.
But the point of the sermon isn't, or I suspect won't be, retelling the Gospel account. It's where can we see ourselves in it; that is, how does a child being born two thousand years ago make any difference to us past what we believe -- and with Christians or adherents of any other faith, it IS a matter of what we believe (and to not believe is a matter of belief too, or even believing you don't know, so atheists and agnostics get no wiggle room here) -- exceptional or inspiring about the event. And if you're like Magnus the Black, the main character in Image Comics' Black Road: The Holy North (ISBN 9781632158727) that I just finished, you'll find yourself straddling a fence between the traditions you grew up with and the insidious (or simply sidious, depending on you) takeover of them.
"Never point. It is excessively ill-bred. Never look back. That, too, is excessively ill-bred." (from the 1860 etiquette book The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness)
And they're not all hostile. I find myself wondering whether the first Christmas ought to be AD 337 when the technical "Mass of Christ" (Christmas) supplanted Saturnalia -- also celebrated on December 25 -- as a feast and celebration day. It wouldn't be a Christmas you or I would recognize, without an Nativity scene or Christmas tree or Christmas cards (all second millennium innovations) or anything beyond the simplest gifts, but it would be the honest expression of a definite school of thought. (My Van Loon is creeping in, isn't it.) But Magnus hired as an escort of a Christian priest to the north coast of a in-the-process-of-being-churched Norway of the year 1000 shows he's a man of honor that doesn't change in a changing world.
That's what you and I have to show too.
David
Among the other many, Many, MANY facts and trivia in Uncle John's Uncanny Bathroom Reader (ISBN 9781626867598) that I picked up this weekend at our local Barnes & Noble, which I will put between paragraphs today. Yes, I try to shop local as opposed to at franchises whenever I can, but I had my membership to renew there as well as extra money that the kids and I each used to get one thing. I slipped money Friday to the kids and Martha taped to Twix bars, not realizing the kids weren't fans of the bars (oh, they like having the money). Tuesday at Grandparents Bingo that had been rescheduled from a snow day last month Sarah was two games and thirty dollars in Wal-Mart gift cards, and last night the kids in Carol Choir -- there's four others besides our two -- got a long tube of Mini M&Ms and five dollars each.
The weight of the average American baby at birth is around 7 pounds. Why, that's about the same as ... 29 million poppy seeds ... 7 million grains of sand ... 25 million grains of sugar ... 600 sheets of printer paper ... 5 basketballs ... Or, to put it another way ... 4 newborn babies = a bar of gold ... 16 newborn babies = a brand-new toilet ...
I got to church last night in time to hear Sarah and Jeffrey in Bethany's Carol Choir right after Pastor Gerald's sermon, and they all did great! This morning before work I also got in on his honest questing about what topic to use for a Christmas sermon, and I may have had a suggestion or two on that ... in any event, when I was teaching Sunday school I would make sure the story of Joseph and Mary arriving in Bethlehem and Jesus being born was told, but from a different character's (or characters', if we're talking about the Shepherds or the Wise Men ... yes, I KNOW only the shepherds got to the stable -- that account's in Luke, the Wise Men come to their house in Matthew) point of view. And true enough, there are only so many ways you can tell the story that way too.
The last major rule change in chess was more than 700 years ago. In 1280, chess players in Spain introduced the idea of pawns making a first move with one or two squares forward, instead of just one.
But the point of the sermon isn't, or I suspect won't be, retelling the Gospel account. It's where can we see ourselves in it; that is, how does a child being born two thousand years ago make any difference to us past what we believe -- and with Christians or adherents of any other faith, it IS a matter of what we believe (and to not believe is a matter of belief too, or even believing you don't know, so atheists and agnostics get no wiggle room here) -- exceptional or inspiring about the event. And if you're like Magnus the Black, the main character in Image Comics' Black Road: The Holy North (ISBN 9781632158727) that I just finished, you'll find yourself straddling a fence between the traditions you grew up with and the insidious (or simply sidious, depending on you) takeover of them.
"Never point. It is excessively ill-bred. Never look back. That, too, is excessively ill-bred." (from the 1860 etiquette book The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness)
And they're not all hostile. I find myself wondering whether the first Christmas ought to be AD 337 when the technical "Mass of Christ" (Christmas) supplanted Saturnalia -- also celebrated on December 25 -- as a feast and celebration day. It wouldn't be a Christmas you or I would recognize, without an Nativity scene or Christmas tree or Christmas cards (all second millennium innovations) or anything beyond the simplest gifts, but it would be the honest expression of a definite school of thought. (My Van Loon is creeping in, isn't it.) But Magnus hired as an escort of a Christian priest to the north coast of a in-the-process-of-being-churched Norway of the year 1000 shows he's a man of honor that doesn't change in a changing world.
That's what you and I have to show too.
David
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