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Last updated: 7/25/2007. The most recent addition(s) are this color. Amusing * Meaningful * Historical * &c. * Poetry * Verses * Jokes |
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I've said it before, and I'll say it again--girls are rummy. Old Pop Kipling never said a truer word than when he made that crack about the f. of the s. being more d. than the m. Bertie Wooster, in Right Ho, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse. (The reference is to Kipling's The Female of the Species.)
Try not to get involved in politics. And don't volunteer. Stuart
A. Collins, Jr. -- advice to me before my first council meeting. (Note
that Dad has spent countless hours volunteering for various causes.)
Light a fire for a man and he will be warm for one night. Light a man on fire and he will be warm the rest of his life. Anon., courtesy Ruth Manson
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. Johann Sebastian Bach
Sleep is God's contrivance for giving us the help he cannot get into us when we are awake. George MacDonald
Admittedly, a new baby incorporates an array of features that would be dismaying in any other houseguest: incontinent, unreasonble, incoherent, autocratic, and prone to tears. It is like hosting a tiny, hyper-emotional, non-English-speaking emperor, with wet pants. Why God thought this particular assortment of traits would be irresistible to parents is unclear. Other factors more than compensate for these negatives however (see top of head, sweet smell). It is no use telling me that there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core they are all alike. Sooner or later out pops the cloven hoof. P. G. Wodehouse, raised largely by aunts
"For the rest of your academic life", she'd told him on his first day of kindergarten, "whenever any teacher tells you that Columbus discovered America, I want you to run up to him or her, jump on his or her back, and scream, 'I discovered you!'" Sherman Alexie from the short story What Ever Happened to Frank Snake Church
Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the hotel at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. P. G. Wodehouse (as quoted in God and Bertie Wooster, First Things,
Oct 2005, p. 23)
There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard that there was such a thing. We all have the strength to endure the troubles of others. Everybody complains of his memory, but nobody of his judgment. Francois VI, duke de La
Rochefoucauld (b. 1613)
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. Groucho Marx
There is, of course, a certain amount of drudgery in newspaper work, just as there is in teaching classes, tunnelling into a bank, or being President of the United States. I suppose that even the most pleasurable of imaginable occupations, that of batting baseballs through the windows of the R.C.A. Building, would pall a little as the days ran on. James Thurber, from Memoirs
of a Drudge, responding to a comment that his informal education included
"drudgery" on several newspapers.
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you. Carl Jung
Be calm, and share the bananas. Koko the Gorilla (in sign language)
[Billy Graham's] voice is weak, but he rehearses it daily ''like an opera singer,'' he said, demonstrating with a booming ''Yes, yes, YES LORD.'' His wife, Ruth, bedridden but sharp as a tack, likes to joke by responding from her recliner in the bedroom, ''No, no, no.'' From an interview with Billy Graham in the NYT, "Spirit Willing,
Another Trip Down Mountain for Graham", Laurie Goodstein, June 12, 2005
Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal. Leo Tolstoy
Yet he...joked that "he preferred the Episcopalians to every other sect, because they are equally indifferent to a man's religion and his politics". Allen C. Guelzo, quoting Abraham Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1st
ed., p. 152)
...when you need to make a decision, in your work or otherwise, and you don't know what to do, just do one thing or the other, because the worst that can happen is that you will have made a terrible mistake. Annie Lamott
Like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorneys of Center Moriches Union Free School District. Its most recent burial, only last Term, was, to be sure, not fully six feet under... Over the years, however, no fewer than five of the currently sitting Justices have, in their own opinions, personally driven pencils through the creature's heart (the author of today's opinion repeatedly), and a sixth has joined an opinion doing so. The secret of the Lemon test's survival, I think, is that it is so easy to kill. It is there to scare us (and our audience) when we wish it to do so, but we can command it to return to the tomb at will. Such a docile and useful monster is worth keeping around, at least in a somnolent state; one never knows when one might need him. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia on the Court's invocation of the Lemon test (which concerns governement reimbursement of nonpublic, e.g. religious schools) Associate Justice Antonin Scalia on decency laws (here are more Scalia
quotes)
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. Ben Hecht (see Writer's Almanac, Feb
28, 2005)
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. Rod Serling, creator, writer and producer of "The Twilight Zone"
which first aired in 1959
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn? Jane Austen
It is better to have loafed and lost, than never to have loafed at all. James Thurber
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Ben Franklin
Ah, the sweet couple of seconds before I remember why I'm sleeping on the lawn. Homer Simpson As she fell face-down into the muck of the mud-wrestling pit, her sweaty, three-hundred-pound opponent muttering soft curses in Latin on top of her, Sister Marie thought, 'there is no doubt about it: the Pope has betrayed me!' From the Bulwer-Lytton contest
In science, as in love, too much concentration on technique can often lead to impotence. P. L. Berger (courtesy Barbara Hull) In the early years of the nineteenth century, Columbus won out, as state capital, by only one vote over Lancaster, and ever since then has had the hallucination that it is being followed, a curious municipal state of mind which affects, in some way or other, all those who live there. James
Thurber, "More Alarms at Night", from _The Thurber Carnival_
In February the McGregor boys from Meadow Hill were out shooting woodchucks, and not far from the Gardner place bagged a very peculiar specimen. The proportions of its body seemed slightly altered in a queer way impossible to describe, while its face had taken on an expression which no one ever saw in a woodchuck before. The boys were genuinely frightened, and threw the thing away at once, so that only their grotesque tales of it ever reached the people of the countryside. H. P.
Lovecraft, THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants. Isaac Newton If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders. Hal Abelson In computer science, we stand on each other's feet. Brian K. Reed You know, if you `owed your soul to the company store,' at least you'd be assured of having a job. Don Olbris One day the President and Mrs. Coolidge were visiting a government farm. Soon after their arrival they were taken off on separate tours. When Mrs. Coolidge passed the chicken pens she paused to ask the man in charge if the rooster copulates more than once each day. "Dozens of times," was the reply. "Please tell that to the President," Mrs. Coolidge requested. When the President passed the pens and was told about the roosters, he asked, "Same hen every time?" "Oh no, Mr. President, a different one each time." The President nodded slowly, then said, "Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge." Bermant, G. (1976).
Sexual behavior: Hard times with the Coolidge Effect. In M.
H. Siegel & H. P. Zeigler (Eds.), /Psychological Research: The
inside story/ (pp. 76-103). New York: Harper & Row.
He'd never shot a woman before. He'd shot men, plenty of them. Shot them, bludgeoned them, garroted them, drowned them, poisoned them, he'd even pushed some poor slob out of a 747 as he crapped in his pants and pleaded for his life. But he'd never shot a woman before. No, wait a minute. He had shot a woman before. There was that dance therapist in Fort Lauderdale. He'd filled her with so much lead that you could have sharpened her head and done a crossword puzzle with her. He'd shot women before, but never anyone as beautiful as this. He'd never shot a beautiful woman before, that's it. And this one was beautiful, wow. Long legs, long long hairy prehensile toes. An ape-woman. Square peg teeth, hairy floppy ears, a bridgeless nose with wide flattened nostrils. He'd never shot an ape-woman before. Well, come to think of it, he had shot an ape-woman. Back in '63 in Reno. But he'd never shot an ape-woman this beautiful. Nope. Mark Leyner, My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist
It is like finding a new room in the house we have lived in since childhood," said Charles Dermer of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, a researcher from one of five collaborating institutions that discovered the fountain. "And the room is not empty. It has some engine or boiler making hot gas filled with annihilating antimatter. Scientists often use
familiar situations to explain complex scientific issues. Investigator Larry
Yates, a connoisseur of fine prose, spotted the previous description in
a recent issue of the "Washington Post." The article was headlined "Scientists
Find Antimatter Fountain Gushing From Center of Milky Way."
Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by Grove Press, and this fictional account of the day-by-day life of an English gamekeeper is still of considerable interest to outdoor-minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. Unfortunately one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous materials in order to discover and savor these sidelights on the management of a Midlands shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion this book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's Practical Gamekeeping. From a (tongue-in-cheek)
review of Lady Chatterley's Lover as it appeared in Field and Stream, November
1959.
The mating rites of mantises are well known: a chemical produced in the head of the male insect says, in effect, "No, don't go near her, you fool, she'll eat you alive." At the same time a chemical in his abdomen says, "Yes, by all means, now and forever yes." While the male is making up what passes for his mind, the female tips the balance in her favor by eating his head. He mounts her. Fabre [a naturalist] describes the mating, which sometimes lasts six hours, as follows: "The male, absorbed in the performance of his vital functions, holds the female in a tight embrace. But the wretch has no head; he has no neck; he has hardly a body. The other, with her muzzle turned over her shoulder continues very placidly to gnaw at what remains of the gentle swain. And, all the time, that masculine stump, holding on firmly, goes on with the business!... I have seen it done with my own eyes and have not yet recovered from my astonishment." Annie Dillard, _Pilgrim
at Tinker Creek_
I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses. Victor Hugo Love is like a snowmobile flying over the frozen tundra that suddenly flips, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come. Matt Groening
I once heard that
the great mathematician David Hilbert was invited to give a talk on any
subject he liked during the early days of air travel. His subject:
"The Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem" Needless to say, his talk was eagerly
anticipated. The day arrived, the talk was given, and it was brilliant --
but it had nothing at all to do with Fermat's Last Theorem. After the talk,
someone asked Hilbert why he had picked a title that had nothing to do with
the talk. His answer: "Oh, that title was just in case the plane crashed."Anon.
No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman. Honore de Balzac Brevity is the soul of lingerie. Dorothy Parker One World War II Quaker conscientious objector had been a professional wrestler. Once when he and some other inmates of the Coshocton CPS camp in Ohio made a trip into town, they were hassled about their pacifism by some local youths, who insisted that only force could change the German's views. In response, the ex-wrestler took off his coat, challenged one of the local boys to a match, and promptly threw the townie across the room. He then asked the youth, "_Now_ do you believe that force won't change people's views?" "Heck no!" the local boy hollered back.
"That's exactly my point," said the Quaker, who put on his coat and left. Taken from Quakers Are Funny! by Chuck Fager,
Kimo Press, 1987
William Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, was invited to a demonstration of Michael Faraday's equipment for generating the latest scientific wonder---electricity. Faraday set up the experiment and ran it, while Gladstone looked coolly on. When the show had run its course, Gladstone stood silent for a moment, and then said to Faraday: "It is very interesting, Mr Faraday, but what practical worth is it?" "One day, sir, you may tax it," replied Faraday. From the New Scientist
(25 Dec 1993/1 Jan 1994)
The other week a white Cadillac drove up into the yard and out jumped an unknown priest. He turned out to be a Jesuit, come over to tell me that he had read and liked my stores. This almost knocked me out, as no priest has ever said turkey-dog to me about liking anything I wrote. Flannery O'Connor,
The Habit of Being
What I wondered was, what was this lemur doing in my scheme of a perfectly balanced organization? H. G. Wells, THE TIME MACHINE Hawaii's Republican Senator Hiram Fong, an American of Chinese ancestry, had an impassive face but a keen sense of humor. Once he accompanied some Senators to London to attend a conference and was at the dinner which a member of Britain's House of Commons gave in their honor. The toastmaster introduced the Senators, one by one, and when he reached Fong, he said: "I am pleased to introduce the next of our guests. He is the first American Senator of Chinese ancestry. Unlike many -- perhaps most -- Americans, he has no English blood." Fong got up to respond, and, with a deadpan expression, announced: "I must correct our good host. He said I have no English blood. I must tell him that my great-grandfather ate Captain Cook." This brought down the house. Taken from Paul F.
Boller, Jr., "Congressional Anecdotes" (New York, 1991), 171.
It will be clear even at this stage that the mixing length theory represents an extreme simplification of the actual physical process of convection. One does not therefore expect quantitative results derived on the basis of this theory to have high accuracy or reliability. One of the principal sources of uncertainty in the theory is the value to be used for the mixing length itself. Arguments could also be raised against some of the factors of two, etc. which (as we shall see) are introduced in the course of development of the theory. In view of the basic crudity of the theory, the exact values adopted for such factors are hardly significant. Cox & Giuli, Principles
of Stellar Structure, vol I, ch 14. (It is for a reason that they
say in astrophysics the error is in the exponent of the measurement.)
Jack London claimed to write twenty hours a day. Before he undertook to write, he obtained the University of California course list and all the syllabi; he spent a year reading the textbooks in philosophy and literature. In subsequent years, once he had a book of hisown underway, he set his alarm to wake him after four hours' sleep. Often he slept through the alarm, so, by his own account, he rigged it to drop a weight on his head. I cannot say I believe this, though a novel like _The_Sea-Wolf_ is strong evidence that some sort of weight fell on his head with some sort of frequency -- but you wouldn't think a man would take credit for it. Annie Dillard _The_Writing_Life_
There's good news and bad news. The bad news is I just discovered cat vomit (quite a bit of it too) on the carpet in front of the whiteboard. The good news is i was able to put off writing for a few minutes in order to clean up the cat vomit. Susan Gilbert-Collins
We do not intend to hand the reader a bushel of potsherds with the remark that it contains the wisdom of ancient Sumer. ... Needless to say the description of properly assembled potsherds is a tedious business. We hope the results are worth the effort. Eugene N. Parker
President Charles de Gaulle, a six-foot-four-inch humorless Frenchman with "a head like a banana and hips like a woman" (as Hugh Dalton remarked), did not hit it off with the much more compact and sparkling Churchill. Each had his own ego problem; each saw himself as the embodiment of his nation. On one occasion, during dinner at Chequers, Churchill was informed by his butler that de Gaulle wished to speak to him on the phone. Churchill, in the middle of drinking his soup, refused to take the call. De Gaulle, vehemently persisting through the intermediary of the butler, eventually persuaded the British leaderto abandon his soup. When Churchill returned to the table ten minutes later, he was still crimson with rage. "Bloody de Gaulle! He had the impertinence to tell me that the French regard him as the reincarnation of Joan of Arc." Pause. "I found it necessary to remind him that we had to burn the first one." Anon. (to me)
I hate quotations. Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Sooner or later if you follow Christ you've got to answer this question: Which is going to be more important to me, that I make it as difficult as possible for me to sin or that I make it as easy as possible for people who don't know Christ to find him? Dennis McCallum, in a teaching on Lk 18:9-14, the parable of the tax collector and the pharisee
Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis. (Here literal means concrete.)
Many religious people lament that the first fervors of their conversion have died away. They think—sometimes rightly, but not, I believe, always—that their sins account for this. They may even try by pitiful efforts of will to revive what now seem to have been the golden days. But were those fervors—the operative word is those—ever intended to last? …And the joke, or tragedy, of it all is that these golden moments in the past, which are so tormenting if we erect them into a norm, are extremely nourishing, wholesome, and enchanting if we are content to accept them for what they are, for memories. Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, they will send up exquisite growths. Leave bulbs alone, and the new flowers will come up. C. S. Lewis, from Letters to Malcolm, pp. 26-27.
The parable is thus essentially two-sided. It has a visible side, the analogical; but that is thrown alongside the invisible Kingdom and is, so to speak, contrapuntal to it. The parable is essentially sacramental in form and that is always its intention on the lips of Jesus. Jesus Christ, in teaching and Person, is Himself the great Parable of the Kingdom of God. Scottish Presyterian theologian T. F. Torrance, Scottish Journal of Theology, 3, 298 (1950). [Torrance (1913-) was
a student of Karl Barth and one of the exceptional theologians of his
time, focusing on a range of topics including the Trinity, science and
theology and Calvin and Reformed theology.]
Above all forms of speech the parable is calculated to have the greatest propensities for suggestion in which with the light and skilled thrust of a rapier Jesus gently touches men to the quick of their soul by the two-edged Word, summoning them to decision without crushing them to the ground by an open display of majesty and might. It is by means of the parable that Jesus pierces to the heart in such a way as not to crush the bruised reed or quench the burning flax. T. F. Torrance, ibid.
Every story Susan has ever written stops before the end and that shows amazing writing clarity. And everyone who reads them imagines the next day or next conversation and the story goes on, at least a little while, in the reader's imagination. Ruth Manson Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. George Washington in his farewell address of 1796
Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. C. S. Lewis
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. Albert Einstein
Only because God has become human is it possible to know and not despise real human beings. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Bet the ladies were lining up to marry him!)
God foreknew those who would be reborn in response to the offer of grace. Pelagius, Commentary on The Second Letter to Timothy
(should I be worried that I agree with Pelagius?!)
This same election took place, not on the basis of foreseen faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness, or of any other good quality and disposition, as though it were based on a prerequisite cause or condition in the person to be chosen, but rather for the purpose of faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness, and so on. The Canons of Dordt
We get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless. Paul Bowles (novelist, composer, and poet) They ought to make it a binding clause that if you find God you get to keep him... Finding God (if indeed [I] did find God) became, ultimately, a bummer, a constantly diminishing supply of joy sinking lower and lower like the contents of a bag of [drugs]. Philip K.
Dick
That which was not assumed is not healed; but that which is united to God is saved. More and more, it seems to me that the gospel is terrible news before it is good news--especially if you happen to be at the front of the line, on the top of the heap. That seems to be where I am being led these days--to the gospel that disturbs before it comforts and that insists on death as the condition of new life. Barbara Brown Taylor
God is easy to please but hard to satisfy. George MacDonald
Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be. Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, "How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?" The point is that each person's pride is in competition with every one else's pride. Clive Staples Lews, from Mere Christianity
It struck me, after reading my umpteenth book on the problem of pain, that I have never seen a book on ‘the problem of pleasure.’ Nor have I met a philosopher who goes around in head-shaking perplexity over the question of why we experience pleasure. Yet it looms as a huge question – the philosophical equivalent, for atheists, to the problem of pain for Christians. Philip Yancey
A quantum mechanics professor once said that someone asked him, 'Is such and such a theorem in quantum mechanics a deep truth?' He said, 'No, that's a simple truth. No man is an island--that is a deep truth. Every man is an island. That is also a deep truth.' Scripture doesn't tell us about the wave nature of particles; scripture tells us about really deep things. William Phillips, winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize
in physics for laser cooling of atoms (quoted in The Best Christian Writing
2004, Ed. John Wilson)
When we savor God, we call it worship. Earl D. Wilson
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters. Norman Maclean,
A River Runs Through It
Women and God are the two rocks on which a man must either anchor or be wrecked. Frederick William Robertson Some things arrive in their own mysterious hour, on their own terms and not yours, to be seized or relinquished forever. Gail Godwin Not only this valley but all this earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, `No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say `Let me but have this and I'll take the consequences': little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already confirms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, `We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,' and the Lost, `We were always in Hell.' And both with speak truly. C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce |
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Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Prov 3:5-6
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Prov 4:23
Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun-- all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Eccl 9:9 Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work--this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart. Eccl 5:19-20
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor 4:16-18
I also thought, "As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath [or spirit] ; man has no advantage over the animal. Ecclesiastes 3:18-19 (the "all dogs go to Heaven" verse) The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Ecclesiastes 10:2 (what could this mean? Credit to Barbara Hull for this one) Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Ecclesiastes 5:1 Do not say "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions. Ecclesiastes
7:10
This is what the sovereign Lord, the holy one of Israel, says: `In repentance and rest if your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength' Isaiah 30:15a
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. I Thess 5:23-24
Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. Jonah 2:8
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous, therefore, and repent. Revelation
3:19
His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ephesians 3:10 After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel. Judges 3:31
Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. 2 Tim 4:14 (my "life verse"... one of them,
anyway. This is probably the only mention of Alexander in the Bible. How
would *you* like to be forever remembered this way by perhaps the greatest
evangelist?)
It will be the haunt of pelican and hedgehog, the owl and the raven will live there; over it Yahweh will stretch the measuring line of chaos and the plumb-line of emptiness. Isaiah 34:11
(Jerusalem Bible)
I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits. Song of Solomon
6:11
Pay no attention to his height, for I have rejected him. 1 Sam 16:7
(no, this is my life verse)
The driving is like that of Jehu, son of Nimshi - he drives like a madman. 2 Kings 9:20
(and this used to be!)
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matt 6:34 "Is not my word like fire," declares the Lord, "and like a hammer shattering a rock?" Jeremiah 23:29
To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. Romans 8:6 (NRSV)
All things are possible, but not all things make money 1 Cor 10:23 a la Danny Veenje
It is God ... who made Aldebaran and Orion, the Pleiades and the circle of the Southern stars; who does great and unsearchable things, marvels without number. Job 9:9
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references to the holy kiss [see e.g. Rom 16:16] in Christian writings
of the second and subsequent centuries consistently treat it as a
liturgical action, often linked specifically with the Eucharist. Also,
we learn that it was given mouth-to-mouth, an exchanged kiss,
expressing mutual intimacy and affection among all congregants, and
that, for the first century or so at least, the kiss was exchanged with
members of one's own sex and the opposite sex as well. In time, from
fears of impropriety and in efforts to abate pagan rumors about
Christian promiscutiy, later church authorities sought to restrict the
kissing to members of one's own sex. Similarly motivated were rules
that the holy kiss was to be given with mouths closed and that no
second kiss was permitted! Larry Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship, Eerdmans, 1999, p. 42-43.
It later became almost a rule that married couples should have intercourse on Friday night, and this may very well have been part of ordinary sabbath observance in the first century. E.
P. Sanders on the topic of 1st cent. Jewish sabbath practices by common
Jewish people ["Judaism, Practice and Belief 63 BCE-66 CE", p. 211].
Sanders is making the point that that the run of the mill Jewish people
were pretty observant, but that the sabbath was a joyful day. It
was a day on which, for instance, they would have a nicermeal than the
rest of the week (including fish or poultry rather than the usual meal
of cheese, lentils and bread).
There is a fascinating example [of a noncanonical saying of Jesus] in what is known as the Western Text ("D") of St. Luke's Gospel. It comes just after the pointed words of Jesus "The Son of man is Lord of the sabbath" (Luke 6:5). "D" then offers a short narrative which is complete in itself and thoroughly fits the context: "When on the same day he saw a man doing work on the sabbath, he said to him: 'Man, if you know what you are doing, you are blessed. But if you do not know it, you are accursed and a transgressor of the law.'" It may well be authentic. Anglican theologian Michael Green in The Books the Chuch Suppressed, p. 140.
The problem of the delay of the parousia is a modern myth. The problem is caused by liberal Christianity's no longer believing in the resurrection, which means that the weight of God's activity is pushed forward in time. There's not much evidence that the early church was anxious about this. First-century Christianity didn't see itself so much as living in the last days, waiting for the parousia, as living in the first days of God's new world. N.
Thomas Wright, Resurrection Faith, Christian Century, Dec 18-31 (2002),
p. 30.
The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. Galileo Galilei, quoting
the Cardinal who was the Vatican Librarian (an assertion also quoted by
Pope John Paul II in his final summary of the Galileo investigation). According
to Owen Gingerich, who provided the attribution, the quote is as clever
in Italian as in English, but not quite so nice in Latin.
Give peace in our time, O Lord. Because there is none other that fightest for us, but only thou, O God. From the suffrages of the
Daily Morning Prayer service, in the 1549 Anglican Prayer Book
If you ask for change, someone philosophizes to you on the Begotten and the Unbegotten. If you ask for the price of bread, you are told, "The Father is greater, the Son inferior." If you ask "is the bath ready" someone answers "The Son was created from nothing." Gregory of Nyssa, complaining about the effects of the extensive
popular interest in questions about the Trinity in 381 in Constantinople
around the time of the Council there (as quoted in Roger Olson's The Story of Christian Theology).
Prospects for absorbing the immigrants into American life seemed dim. They insisted in segregating their children into special religious schools, where, rumor had it, even the youngest were indoctrinated to hate others who were not like them. Knowledgeable observers claimed that the immigrants' places of worship concealed arsenals; that their fanatical secret societies swore bloody oaths to exterminate Americans; that their religious loaylties would always prevent them from assimilating in anything but name. Self-evidently, their rigid religious dogmas prevented them from participating in the intellectual debates of an open democracy. At their worst, their clergy and spiritual leaders sounded as if they were still living in the 13th centure. But somehow, matters changed dramatically over time. In 1960, in fact, a member of this despised immigrant religion even became president of the United States, and today only the narrowest of bigots would deny that Roman Catholics are fully assimilated into American sociel, political and intellectual life. Philip Jenkins, The Mosque on the Corner, from Books and Culture, May/June 2004, p. 9. More or less unsuccessful attempts were made to capture the essence of the Trinity using analogy: water, snow ice, or the identical reflection in several fragments of a broken mirror... There was a passion for similitudes of all kinds among the preaching friars [of the middle ages], some of whom carried little pocket books containing prompts. Ursula Rowlatt, "Popular Representations of the Trinity in
England, 990-1300", Folklore, 112, 201 (2001).
All argument is for it; all human experience against it. Samuel Johnson, when prodded by James Boswell to comment
on predestination. (Courtesy David Sims.)
[Augustine] is alleged to have commented that the doctrine of the Trinity is mysterious and dangerous because, "if you deny it you will lose your salvation, but if you try to understand it you will lose your mind!" Roger E. Olson, "The Story of Christian Theology"
One way of imagining the question of image and
likeness is to think of a lock and the key made to fit it. A key and its
lock do not look like each other, one is not a big version of the other.
But a key is made after the image and likeness of the lock, it fits and meshes
with it, it belongs in it and its purpose and destiny is to move in it. We
are not miniatures of God... but our mysterious evolution influenced by the
Spirit working in creation has made us able to "fit" the being of God, our
beings match and mesh with God's. Our deepest needs as person are met and
fulfilled by who God actually is. Every aspect of ourselves as persons-in-relationship
is blessed and completed by contact and union with all that God is.Martin L. Smith, from "The Word Is Very Near You", on being
made in God's image
The ancient Jewish historian Josephus notes several disturbances in Jerusalem during [Jesus' life] that had inflamed the Jewish crowds. One occurred shortly after Jesus' death when a Roman soldier 'mooned' the Jewish crowd from a temple portico during a festival, creating a public riot that left the streets strewn with bodies. Darrel L.
Bock, "Jesus v. Sanhedrin", Xianity Today, 4/6/98.
What do you mean, 'helped to create'?! I am Cyrus! I am Cyrus! President
Harry Truman, when introduced at the Jewish Theological Seminary as "the
man who helped create the state of Israel" [from The Land, by Gerald McDermott, Books
& Culture, 9, 8 (2003)].
Read your letter from the blessed Apostle Paul again. Ever wondered
what happened to those troublesome Corinthians? This is several decades
after Paul, from the first letter of Clement, bishop of Rome, to the Corinthians,
who had just kicked out their own bishops.
What does it matter if I can prove to you that lobsters exist, if you're not interested in seafood at all? The theologian's real job should be to work up your enthusiasm for the Lobster Himself. Only after that can be talk to you about the Unlobstered First Lobster without putting you to sleep. Robert Capon,
"Hunting the Divine Fox"
In advanced matters of theology absolute confidence is possible only for two classes of people, saints and idiots. Origen, as quoted in Christopher
Hall's Reading
Scripture With the Church Fathers.
If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that through God's glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner. Luther, from a
letter to Melanchthon on the day of the
feast of St. Peter the apostle, 1521 (Letter
no. 99, 1 August 1521, from the Wartburg)
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| Etc. |
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Just simply to say that it goes against tradition and the teachings of the Church and scripture does not necessarily make it wrong. Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson, bishop of the diocese of New Hampshire.
(What else, by the way, is left as a standard?)
Tell me, tell me if anything got finished. Leonardo
da Vinci, who worked very slowly and only finished a few paintings in his
life. This phrase is repeated again and again in his notebooks, and scholars
believe he wrote it whenever he was testing out a newly cut pen.
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead. from Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, an excellent and spooky book. The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. Henry David
Thoreau
If they pay you to pet the cat, then pet the cat. Ellen Gilbert
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| Poetry |
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THINGS There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public. there are worse things than these miniature betrayals, committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things than not being able to sleep for thinking about them. It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse. Fleur Adcock from Poems: 1960-2000 (Bloodaxe Books)
REACH HITHER THY FINGER Maybe the wound still oozed, or maybe it had healed over with scars like golden coins. Thomas might have noticed, but I doubt it. True, he placed his finger in the Lord's hand, and his hand in the Lord's side, and then, we presume, he held his heart in the bleeding heart. I like to think that. And I like to think that years later he was still radiant with holy light. My unholy hunch, though, is that within a week he learned to doubt his eyes or his touch, maybe both, maybe whether he'd really been in the room or not, or if again the elders had sent him out for bread or fish, anything to keep his mouth out of earshot. He wasn't the type to suffer his loss in silence, and the more he wondered, the more they doubted, too. That's my guess. And that may be why only John, the youngest of the bunch, the mystic, the beloved, the mad, recalled the very day, and cared enough about belief to recall the shame of doubt. William Jolliff, Christian Century, April 20, 2004, p.
30
A POETRY READING AT WEST POINT I read to the entire plebe class, in two batches. Twice the hall filled with bodies dressed alike, each toting a copy of my book. What would my shrink say, if I had one, about such a dream, if it were a dream? Question-and-answer time. "Sir," a cadet yelled from the balcony, and gave his name and rank, and then, closing his parentheses, yelled "Sir" again. "Why do your poems give me a headache when I try to understand them?" he asked. "Do you want that?" I have a gift for gentle jokes to defuse tension, but this was not the time to use it. "I try to write as well as I can what it feels like to be human," I started, picked my way care- fully, for he and I were, after all, painted by the same dumb longings. "I try to say what I don't know how to say, but of course I can't get much of it down at all." By now I was sweating bullets. "I don't want my poems to be hard, unless the truth is, if there is a truth." Silence hung in the hall like a heavy fabric. Now my head ached. "Sir," he yelled. "Thank you. Sir." William Matthews,
printed in "Poetry 180" by Billy Collins
The secret is not a calm disposition or inner strength Or following the advice of your physician: The secret of longevity is length. Day by day the journey is made. I'ts like becoming the Tallest Boy In The Sixth Grade, Stick around and you are bound to win it. And by and by You'll even be as old as I. Garrison
Keillor
When my ashes scatter, says John, "there is left on earth No one alive who knew (consider this!) --Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands That which was from the first, the Word of Life. How will it be when none more saith, `I saw'?" Robert
Browning, from A Death in the Desert
Dearer to me than the evening star A Packard car A Hershey bar Or a bride in her rich adorning Dearer than any of these by far Is to lie in bed in the morning Jean
Kerr, from Please Don't Eat the Daisies
ANOTHER REASON WHY I DON'T KEEP A GUN IN THE HOUSE The neighbors' dog will not stop barking. He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark that he barks every time they leave the house. They must switch him on on their way out. The neighbors' dog will not stop barking. I close all the windows in the house and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast but I can still hear him muffled under the music, barking, barking, barking, and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra, his head raised confidently as if Beethoven had included a part for barking dog. When the record finally ends he is still barking, sitting there in the oboe section barking, his eyes fixed on the condictor who is entreating him with the baton while the other musicians listen in respectful silence to the famous barking dog solo, that endless coda that first established Beethoven as an innovative genius. Billy
Collins
THE PANTHER The Panther is like a leopard, Except it hasn't been peppered. Should you behold a panther crouch, Prepare to say Ouch. Better yet, if called by a panther, Don't anther. Ogden Nash
FUNEBRIAL REFLECTION Among the anthropophagi People's friends are people's sarcophagi. Ogden Nash
I NEVER SAW A MOOR I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in Heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given. Emily Dickinson
DESERT PLACES Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last. The woods around it have it - it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares. And lonely as it is that loneliness Will be more lonely ere it will be less - A blanker whiteness of benighted snow With no expression, nothing to express. They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars - on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places. Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold, the hardest hue to hold Her early leaf's a flower, but only so an hour Then leaf descends to leaf. So Eden sank to grief. So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. Robert Frost
I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen; A chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this chapel were shut, And `Thou shalt not' writ over the door, So I turned to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore, And I saw it filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires. William Blake in the window // there's a kitten // it's a very tiny kitten in it's mouth // there's a tongue // it's a very long tongue when it's cleaning // when it's preening // it wraps its tongue around it there's no fur // there's no claws // it's just a red ball of tongue So I pick it up and I bounce it // And I put it in my pocket I lose it in a game of marbles // But I win a bigger one. (from talk.bizarre)
Adam & Eve, who first began The human race, the race of man, Walked upright, and had brains & thumbs. (We use those still, for doing sums.) They named the beasts, invented clothes, Left Eden,when the need arose. The need arose in apple season. It's called the Fall, for just that Reason. From "Consider the Lemming"
Irritation produces the pearl, Pressure make a diamond, Impurities color all precious gems, Fire refines Gold. Amy Collins
THE SATIN DRESS Needle, needle, dip and dart, Thrusting up and down, Where's the man could ease a heat Like a satin gown? See the stiches curve and crawl Round the cunning seams -- Patterns thin and sweet and small As a lady's dreams. Wantons go in bright brocades; Brides in organdie; Gingham's for the plighted maid; Satin's for the free! Wool's to line a miser's chest; Crape's to calm the old; Velvet hides an empty breast; Satin's for the bold! Lawn is for a bishop's yoke; Linen's for a nun; Satin is for wiser folk -- Would the dress were done! Satin glows in candlelight -- Satin's for the proud! They will say who watch at night, ``What a fine shroud!'' Dorothy Parker
INTROSPECTIVE REFLECTION I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance. Ogden Nash
JERUSALEM And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England's mountains green? And was the Holy Lamb of God on England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here among those dark Satanic mills? Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my Chariots of Fire! I will not cease from metal fight; nor shall my sword sleep in my hand till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land. William Blake
A medieval carol (from The Oxford Book of Carols): Refrain: Make we joy now in this feast In quo Christus natus est: [On which Christ was born] Eya! A Patre unigenitus [From the Father only-begotten] Through a maiden is come to us: Sing we of him and say `Welcome, Veni Redemptor genitum.' [Come, Redeemer of the nations] Agnoscat omne seculum: [Let every age acknowledge (thee)] A bright star made three kinges come, For to seek with their presents Verbum supernum prodiens: [The celestial word proceeding] A solis ortus cardine, [Risen from the quarter of the sun] So mighty a lord was none as he: He on our kind his peace hath set, Adam parens quod polluit: [Which parent Adam defiled] Maria ventre concipit, [Mary conceived in her womb] The Holy Ghost was ay her with: In Bethlehem yborn he is, Consors paterni luminis: [Consort of the father's light] O lux beata, Trinitas! [O blessed light, O Trinity] He lay between an ox and ass. And by his mother, maiden free, Gloria tibi, Domini! [Glory to thee, O Lord] PARADELLE FOR SUSAN NOTE: The paradelle is one of
the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in langue d’oc love
poetry of the eleventh century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in
which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of
the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which
traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding
lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word
from all the preceding stanzas and only those words.
I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love. I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love. Always perched on the thinnest, highest branch. Always perched on the thinnest, highest branch. Thinnest love, remember the quick branch. Always nervous, I perched on your highest bird the. It is time for me to cross the mountain. It is time for me to cross the mountain. And find another shore to darken with my pain. And find another shore to darken with my pain. Another pain for me to darken the mountain. And find the time, cross my shore, to with it is to. The weather warm, the handwriting familiar. The weather warm, the handwriting familiar. Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below. Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below. The familiar waters below my warm hand. Into handwriting your weather flies you letter the from the. I always cross the highest letter, the thinnest bird, Below the waters of my warm familiar pain, Another hand to remember your handwriting. The weather perched for me on the shore. Quick, your nervous branch flew from love. Darken the mountain, time and find was my into it was with to to. Billy Collins,
United States Poet Laureate 2001-2002. No relation. Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. She scissored short. Sorely shorn, Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, Silently
scheming,
Some savage, spectacular
suicide.Sightlessly seeking S. Lem, The Cyberiad -- "...A
poem about a haircut. But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love,
treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom..."; and
all the words beginning with "s".
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| Jokes |
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Finally, after 25 years on a deserted island, Joe was being rescued. As he climbed onto the boat, the curious crew noticed three small grass huts. "What are those?"
they asked.
***"The first one is my home," Joe said. "The second is my church." "What about the third hut?" the rescuers wanted to know. "Oh," says Joe, "that's the church I used to belong to." See Fennimore Cooper's Literary Offences by Mark Twain. *** Jesus was having dinner with his disciples one time and as they gathered reverentially about him, more or less in the attitudes since immortalized by Leonardo da Vinci, he looked about at them. There, in one direction, he saw Judas Iscariot, who he well knew, would betray him to the authorities before three hours had passed. On the other side was Peter, the prince of the disciples, who, as he well knew, would deny him thrice ere the cock crowed. And almost immediately opposite him was Thomas, who, on a crucial occasion, would express doubts. There seemed only one thing to do. Jesus called over the head-waiter. "Max," he said, "separate checks." *** As an Oberlin grad I shouldn't find this funny, but there you are... An Italian, a Scotsman and a Chinese fellow are hired at a construction site. The foreman points out a huge pile of sand and says to the Italian guy, "You're in charge of sweeping." To the Scotsman he says, "You're in charge of shoveling." And to the Chinese guy, "You're in charge of supplies." He then says, "Now, I have to leave for a little while. I expect you guys to make a dent in that there pile." So the foreman goes away for a couple hours and when he returns, the pile of sand is untouched. He asks the Italian, "Why didn't you sweep any of it?" The Italian replies, "I no hava no broom. You saida to the Chinese a fella that he a wasa in a charge of supplies, but he hasa disappeared and I no coulda finda him nowhere." Then the foreman turns to the Scotsman and says, "And you, I thought I told you to shovel this pile." The Scotsman replies, "Aye, ye did lad, boot ah couldnay get meself a shoovel! Ye left th' Chinese gadgie in chairge of supplies, boot ah couldnay fin' him either." The foreman is really angry now and storms off toward the pile of sand to look for the Chinese guy ... Just then, the Chinese guy leaps out from behind the pile of sand and yells... SUPPLIES!! *** A man walked into a doctor's office. He had a cucumber up his nose, a carrot in his left ear and a banana in his right ear. "Whats the matter with me?", he asked. "You're not eating properly", replied the doctor. *** Top 10 Least Exciting Super Powers 10. Super spelling 9. Lightning-fast mood swings 8. Really bendy thumb 7. Power to breathe soup 6. Ability to calm jittery squirrels 5. Power to shake exactly two aspirin out of a bottle 4. Ability to get tickets to Goodwill Games 3. Power to score with other Superheroes' wives 2. Ability to communicate with corn. 1. Magnetic colon |
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