REFLECTIONS

#501 from Singing the Living Tradition:

Spirit of Community, in which we share and find strength and common
purpose, we turn our minds and hearts toward one another seeking to
bring into our circle of concern all who need our love and support: those
who are ill, those who are in pain, either in body or in spirit, those
who are lonely, those who have been wronged.

We are part of a web of life that makes us one with all humanity, one
with all the universe.

We are grateful for the miracle of consciousness that we share, the
consciousness that gives us the power to remember to love, to care.
(Frederick E. Gillis)

For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in
a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ...
on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies.
... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is
very good for us to understand that.
--Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose
to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not
the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and
righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God,
and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. -Isaac Asimov

"When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most
mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without that proper
deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest
absurdities."
-- David Hume (1711 - 1776) Scottish philosopher

"Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?"

-- Dick Clark

"I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up wrinkles the soul."

-- Douglas MacArthur

"I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and
wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil--to
regard man as an inhabitant, or part and parcel of Nature, rather
than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so
I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of
civilization: the minister and the school committeee and every one
of you will take care of that . . . Perchance, when, in the course
of ages, American liberty has become a fiction of the past--as it is
to some extent a fiction of the present--the poets of the world will
be inspired by American mythology."

from "Walking" - Thoreau

Some things to think about

I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

Gardening Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.

Life is sexually transmitted.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

Some people are like Slinkies. Not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?

Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"

Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?

If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

"You never ask questions when God's on your side." Bob Dylan sang in 1963.

The philosopher William James, an ardent opponent of American imperialism in the Philippines a century ago, once declared that "there is no certitude," only "men who are certain."


With God on Our Side
Fred Nielsen
- History News Service

"The heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good; and thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burdens of the past."

-- Gabrid Garcia Marquez

I am not sure our "memory eliminates the bad".
We may be able to come to terms with it, look at it
differently or in general learn to cope with both the
"bad" & the "good".
WT.

"Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another."

-- Eustace Budgell

"There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity."
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Freedom means learning to deal with being offended.

Andrew Sullivan. "Your Taboo, Not Mine." Time, February
13, 2006, p. 100

Ann Coulter and millions of her fellow adherents to ChristianityLite -- a "religion" that is the equivalent of a "Lose weight without diet or exercise" scam ("Easy Jesus! Be saved without sacrifice or good works!") -- have aborted Jesus and rewritten his teachings to suit their own selfish desires. Their revision of the Beatitudes -- what we might call the Be-Ann-itudes -- goes something like this:

Blessed are the haughty in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who exult over others, for they shall be further rewarded.
Blessed are the arrogant, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for domination, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are those who show no mercy, for they shall obtain the wealth of others.
Blessed are the hard in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the war-makers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who persecute for their own sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when you revile others and persecute others and utter all sorts of evil against them falsely on my account.

Onward Jesusless "Christian" soldiers, marching others into war.



Robert S. McElvaine teaches history at Millsaps College and is the author of Eve's Seed (McGraw-Hill). He is currently completing a book manuscript entitled ChristianityLite: Getting to Heaven without the Hassle.