On the Wall - 23 January 2021 - Plague Journal Day 317

Micah 6:8
Daniel 5:1-6
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?


Today is National Handwriting Day! As wonderful as email and text messages are, isn't it more special to receive a handwritten note in the mail? I know I believe that it is. My handwriting is, shall we say less than lovely, but I do give it the old college try when the time comes to send a note, a card, or a letter. Perhaps I should say the old elementary school try, since that's where we all learned this stuff - at least those of us of a certain age. Please note that I encourage this effort - hand writing notes to family, friends, and acquaintances - despite its being the only subject at which I failed in school - and miserably at that!
Please celebrate by writing something - almost anything - by hand today.

On a totally separate topic, on 23 January 1944 Edvard Munch, the famed Norwegian painter, passed on. You probably know him for his famous painting of the scream (no, not the poster for the movie).

Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

Cimmerian - 22 January 2021 - Plague Journal Day 316

Micah 6:8
Mark 6:21-29
Romans 1:13-15
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

Today would have been the 215th birthday of Robert E. Howard, the fabulous pulp fiction writer, creator of Conan the Cimmerian (often called Conan the Barbarian). This character has lived on well past his creator's death in print and on film. Without him, what would Arnold have done? How different might our world be without all those spectacular catch phrases from his various films? Clearly Robert E. Howard was a main driver of today's popular culture, regardless of how few people today have read his work.

One spectacular piece of pop culture (to coin a phrase) was this clip from the classic film, UHF. Enjoy!

In addition to pop culture, we should also celebrate something highbrow, don't you think? Well you're in luck - today is also Dance Of The Seven Veils Day! This is a commemoration of the premiere of the Opera "Salome" by Richard Strauss at the Metropolitan Opera in NY. Feel free to do your own dance to celebrate - perhaps there should be a dance of the seven masks to be more contemporary?
At any rate, I've found a performance from the Royal Opera House in London (Covent Garden). Here is a link to the video, but (oh, you Brits!) it is most royally Not Safe For Work! You have been warned!



Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

Conflicted - 21 January 2021 - Plague Journal Day 315

Micah 6:8
1 Kings 12:6-20
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

Unity sounds like a noble goal, but unity around what? We've heard the same thing in the church for decades - calls for unity are so common that they're almost not noticed anymore due to their ubiquity.

The problem is that those calls for unity generally are simply calls to ignore the very real differences in understanding of Scripture, rather than calls to unite around the person of Jesus and to work to come to agreements where possible, to respect respectable differences where possible, and finally to divide where differences are on the essentials of the faith. To act as though there is unity when there isn't goes beyond disingenuous to dishonesty - and to be dishonest with God is not a good idea.

I would love to believe him, but it seems that our new president is calling for Unity and then acting as though that means nothing other than acquiescing to his goals. It's definitely time for more civility, but I simply cannot unite with those who hold ideas that are contrary to my firmly held beliefs, any more than I would expect them to do so with me.

Please - just stop pretending to be a uniter and actually become one. We could use someone who works for all of us (or at least most of us), and especially who works for American interests rather than his own or those of foreign interests.

OK. That's enough political near-diatribe.

Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

Unity - 20 January 2021 - Plague Journal Day 314

Micah 6:8
Daniel 5:1-9,17,23-28
Ecclesiastes 12:11-13
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

No, not national unity (that would be great, but I think we'll have to hope for that at some later date). Instead, as (not quite) promised yesterday, I'm going to look at Edgar Allan Poe's theory of writing - that there should be a Unity of Effect in a composition.

One of the consequences of his ideas is that short stories are superior to novels or other longer works, simply because reading them in one sitting means getting the full effect of the words - and that without the dilution of real world happenings which eventuate between reading sessions of a longer work.

I see his point. I think he's wrong, but I see his point. 

Maybe I'm just a really good reader and am able to re-immerse myself in a novel after having put it down for a time. That's probably true (I do practice reading a lot, so I should be good at it by now), but I think it's also down to the writing involved. There are novels I've read where I see Poe's objection writ large in every pause I take. Then there are novels where within the first few words back at it I'm fully engaged and drawn into the story. The latter ones tend to have much more "superfluous" matter - beautiful language, vivid descriptions, extra subplots, even a plot cul de sac here and there. In sum, the ones with which I can most easily re-engage are the ones most different from the short story style of writing - the ones that are most obviously "novels" per se.

To sum up (not that there was a lot to go through above), I think Poe was exactly right in his prescription for writing short pieces; but I also think that by saying this doesn't work for longer works, and thus longer works are inferior, he simply betrays his own penchant for short stories. Poetry, short stories, and novels all require very different types of language, structure, and development. The fact that the requirements of one won't work for another doesn't mean one is superior to the other, simply that they are different.

As an aside, I note that today is day 314 of our ongoing plague/shutdown/work from home/shelter in place regime. 314. As a mathematician that makes me think of pi, so we may have quiche or pizza for dinner tonight, but it's time to be real and rational, as this illustration indicates.

Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

No, not Kwak - 19 January 2021 - Plague Journal Day 313

Micah 6:8
Job 10:9-10
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

Huzzah! Today is World Quark Day!

No, not that quark

No, not that quark either.

 

No, not even that quark.

This quark:

Why do I care about this celebration? 30 years ago or so I tried to make a quark substitute, as it wasn't readily available in our area. 

 

We wanted to make a zwiebelkuchen from a German recipe, and it called for quark (naturally - I couldn't get it, so it was required). I was told I could make a similar substance in my blender with cottage cheese and sour cream (at least those are the ingredients I think I remember using). All was going swimmingly until I used a small rubber spatula / bowl scraper to scrape down the sides of the - gasp! - running blender.
The spinning blades engaged the spatula, launching the mixture ceiling-ward.
Fortunately, it didn't all hit the ceiling.
Unfortunately, much of it did land on my head.
Hilarity ensued, and I have not scraped the inside of a running blender since.
Please, feel free to learn from my experience. You're welcome.

Today marks what would have been the 212th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe. I may discuss his writing (and philosophy of writing) in the next few days. He was an important and excellent writer in many ways. His equal will be seen nevermore.

Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

Dreams - 18 January 2021 - Plague Journal Day 312

Micah 6:8
Romans 10:11-17
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

Folks at my company received this memo regarding Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:

For nearly 40 years, Dr. King’s birthday has been commemorated as a national holiday here in the U.S. For the last quarter of a century, it has been appropriately marked as a national day of service, on which Americans are encouraged to volunteer and contribute to their communities. As the holiday weekend approaches, I would add that it’s also an important time to reflect on our joint journey to becoming a society that is more just and equitable.
While Dr. King is best known for his work in pursuing racial equality and securing civil rights for Black Americans, he also focused a great deal of his thinking, writing, public speaking, organizing and advocacy on a range of vital issues that we are still grappling with to this day. These included income inequality, equal access to quality healthcare, non-violent protest, and achieving a more fulsome democracy.

Yes, but we shouldn't forget that he was the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - an ordained elder, a pastor, a preacher, a Christian working to bring His Kingdom to the Earth. He wasn't working just to have better race relations, equality, and all that - he was working to save souls, to bring people to Christ.
We could do nothing better in celebration of this day than to help spread the gospel. Remember, in the Bible we are told that "as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." That's Galatians 3:27-29.

Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

Worship - 17 January 2021 - Plague Journal Day 311

Micah 6:8
1 Samuel 3:1-9
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

 

 

This Sunday is the second Sunday after Epiphany.

With the current spike in COVID cases in Grosse Pointe, we've paused our in-person worship, probably for the rest of the year. We will only be streaming our services on YouTube until further notice, so please join us online.

Speaking of joining us online, we're back to having a small worship team in the Sanctuary to stream a live worship service again. In addition to a duet at the offertory time, Doug will be back at the organ and piano for opening and closing voluntaries based on familiar hymns - AND - we'll have a sing-along hymn for all of you watching online.

As usual, today's stream should just appear as the latest entry on our YouTube channel, here.
You'll find all our previous worship videos right there at that same place, and today's stream will stay there as a recording as well.

Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.