Either time is speeding up or I am slowing down

...because August just started and it's already over.

Three guesses which theorem is correct, and the first two don't count.

I'm doing my best to keep this blog going a while longer because its 19th anniversary will occur on September 28th and there's still a bit of life left in it if you ask me, which you didn't, of course.

I've been trying for a month to put ogether one of the most difficult jigsaw puzzles I've seen in a long, long time. A collage of many, many U.S. postage stamps, it was created as part of our country's semi-quincentennial (250th) anniversary celebration and sold at the post office for twenty dollars American ($20USD). I just had to have it. I couldn't resist. My dad was a philatelist (stamp collector) and in my yute I spent many hours admiring his collection of U.S. commemorative plate blocks. I even had a little stamp collection of my own. I learned how to count peforations. I licked hinges.

In early August our only granddaughter was married and a good time was had by all. At the reception I learned a new word, mocktail. The waiter offered to bring us mocktails after I said we didn't drink alcoholic beverages. When I asked him what was in a mocktail, he said, "watermelon juice and spritzer water" so Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) and I both had one. They were very refreshing.

This is turning out to be a stream-of-consciousness post and, like most of my other posts, it is all over the place. I do apologize (British, apologise) but it simply can't be helped, especially at this late juncture in my life when an old dog has difficulty learning new tricks.

Speaking of old, our oldest son is helping me transition from a Windows 10 system to Windows 11 by helping to find a replacement for my trusty old Hewlett-Packard All-In-One. It was kind enough to inform me after suggesting that I run a few diagnostics that my computer is not able to be upgraded to Windows 11. Bummer.

My son also informed me that our iPhone 11s are the oldest model phones that Apple will support once ios 27 comes out. Bummer squared.

I have decided to give my fabulous 1000-piece 24"x 30" jigsaw puzzle to my granddaughter, not as a wedding present, you understand, but just because her mother told me the other day how much she enjoys doing jigsaw puzzles.

Eighty years ago today (September 2nd) my mother married my father who was not really my father, a fact I didn't know until I was well into my teens, in Seekonk, Massachusetts, a place that I'm fairly certain will live in infamy for that very fact. I was born 5-1/2 years earlier in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and my biological father had not been in the picture for, would you believe it, 5-1/2 years and one week. He joined the Army and went out of the picture forever exactly one week before I was born.

Well, that's enough minuutiae for one post.

To quote Winnie The Pooh or Tigger or somebody invented by A.A. Milne, "Ta-ta for now."

Only God knows the end from the beginning

This post, like most of the others on this blog, will make no sense to some and perfect sense to others.

That having been said, let us proceed with today's offering.

When I worked for IBM in Boca Raton, Florida, which I did for about a decade several decades ago, one of my colleagues was Frank Lindauer (a German surname, I think) and another one of my colleagues was Pete Zambito (an Italian surname, I think). I worked in the same department as Frank. I did not work with Pete but I knew who he was and saw him from time to time.

There was a Mrs. Lindauer and a Mrs. Zambito. Both families had children who attended the same elementary school in Boca Raton. As fate would have it, the Lindauers divorced and so did the Zambitos. Time passed, but not much. Lo and behold, and it occurs to me that I might have posted about this before, the former Mrs. Lindauer married Mr. Zambito, and the former Mrs. Zambito married Mr. Lindauer. Everyone except the local school system lived happily ever after; the school system could not manage to keep straight the fact that the Lindauer children lived at the Zambito residence and the Zambito children lived at the Lindauer residence, and often sent correspondence and report cards to the wrong place.

As Sir Walter Scott once wrote, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, / When first we practise to deceive!"

I'm not suggesting in any way that the Lindauers' and Zambitos' situation was based on deception because I don't have the facts at my disposal, but a tangled web was woven nonetheless.

You may remember that Sir Walter Scott also wrote, "O young Lochinvar is come out of the west, / Through all the wide Border his steed was the best" but that fact is totally unrelated to this post. Let us continue apace.

This sort of thing (the Lindauer/Zambito scenario) happens more often than you might think. One example that comes to mind happened in the world of Christian music among practitioners of what is called Southern Gospel. It's true. I kid you not. Specifically, and this also happened decades ago, Reba Rambo of The Singing Rambos (Buck, Dottie, and Reba) was married to Landy Gardner. Joy Dyson, also a professional singer of Christian songs, was married to Dony (with one 'n') McGuire. Again, as time passed, both couples divorced. Joy Dyson McGuire ended up marrying Landy Gardner, and Reba Rambo Gardner ended up marrying Dony (with one 'n') McGuire. I went to school in Texas with a Donnie McGuire but he was an entirely different person; his brother Robert dated Diane Howell. Anyway, everyone involved in the now hush-hush Gardner/McGuire fruit-basket-turn-over continued to smile broadly and sing, write, and perform Christian songs of the American Southern Gospel variety as though nothing unusual had happened. Another highly-regarded Christian performer divorced her husband and married the drummer in her band.

William Shakespeare is reported to have said, "All's well that ends well." One can only hope. I hope it is true in the cases of the reconfigured Lindauer, Zambito, Gardner, McGuire, and highly-regarded Christian performer families.

You never know how life will turn out until you live it. Many things start out with good intentions, but as my mother used to say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

I'm not judging any of these people (because St. Matthew reported that Jesus said, "Judge not, lest you be judgef") and neither should you. As my mother also used to say, "There but for the grace of God go I."

Addendum to "Testing...Testing..."

Turns out the problem is that I'm a numbskull.

All I had to do was sign on with my gmail address and password instead of the erroneous ones I unwittingly tried to force Google to accept instead. Lesson learned. One does not force Google. Ever.

I shall now try to respond (maybe later today) to any of your comments on recent posts that have heretofore remained unresponded-to.

All's well that ends well *breathes huge sigh of relief*.

Testing...Testing...

Google or Blogger or somebody/something is not being kind to me lately. This post is a test post to see if I can still create one. Also, the ability to reply to comments seems to be, how you say, gone with the wind.

I'm hoping things will get better soon.

I think you can still leave comments but I appear to be incommunicado for the moment.

Please bear with me as together we implore whatever computing gods may be (stage whisper: there aren't any) to have mercy.

Itineraries are us and other useless information

This is my 20th post of 2026 and the 2,336th post since this blog began back on Sepember 28, 2007. I know you probably don't care but I sense an inner need to report it anyway.

My blogging has slowed down tremendously this year. In some years I have written 100 posts by this time. I don't know how Neil (Yorkshire Pudding) and Rachel (My World) keep blogging day after day after day.

This is a very busy time in our lives. Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) will be observing her 91st birthday at the beginning of next week (she must remember to call her cousin in North Carolina who will be observing her 81st the day before) and at the end of the week our one and only grandaughter who is fifth among our six grandchildren in birth order and the only one unmarried is, wait for it, getting married! She and her young man, whose name is Ryan, have planned strategically. I will elaborate.

All of her family live in various affluent suburbs northwest of Atlanta (except for the ones in Alabama and Florida and other parts of Georgia) and all of his family live in various affluent suburbs northeast of Atlanta, so a neutral location that was both semi-convenient and semi-inconvenient to all interested parties was sought and chosen in the affluent suburbs that are due north of Atlanta (neither northwest nor northeast) for the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding ceremony, and the reception afterward. All of these events will take place next Friday and Saturday afternoons and evenings, and rather than driving back and forth to our homes during pre-rush-hour, rush-hour, and post-rush-hour traffic (the congestion never stops), some of us will be staying in a posh hotel in the area. Trust me, nothing (okay, very little) is less than posh in the affluent suburbs due north of Atlanta.

It has been many moons since I used the word 'posh' in a sentence. I remember from a song in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that the word is an acronym for "port out, starboard home" and was marked on the steamship tickets to indicate passengers who wanted staterooms with the best views of the African coast while traveling from England to India during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Maybe the hotel is only semi-posh. When I find out I will let you know.

I have heard rumours that a short wedding trip is planned to Charleston, South Carolina (a lovely place) and a longer one may also occur a little later to either Vancouver, British Columbia (that's in Canada) or possibly somewhere in Europe (because the bride vacationed year before last in France, Switzerland, and Holland and had a great time). Grandparents are often the last to know.

With all these activities looming, I probably won't be blogging again until after the festivities are over and done with and receding into history. Although my readership is small, I thought you ought to know about my impending absence.

At the very least, if Yorkshire Pudding can report on going to Mallorca and Rachel can report on going to Azerbaijan, I can report on going to the affluent suburbs due north of Atlanta.

It's Greek to me, but still

Today, if you hang in there all the way to the end, I think you will find the post to have been interesting. Today, we're going to look at one verse from what is called the "Love" chapter in the Bible, First Corinthians 13.

Trust me, this will not be a scholarly approach. I just want to make a few observations.

Chapter 13 of St. Paul's first letter to the Christian believers in Corinth opens with these words in the old King James Version of 1611:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal".

The New Testament was written originally in Greek, of course. St. Jerome and others translated it into Latin in the fourth century AD (or CE if you prefer) because the Roman Empire had replaced the Greek one. The Latin version became known as the Vulgate because a Latin phrase "versio vulga" means "the version commonly used", not that it is vulgar in the modern sense.

Here is the original Greek sentence St. Paul actually wrote:

Ἐὰν ταῖς γλώσσαις τῶν ἀνθρώπων λαλῶ καὶ τῶν ἀγγέλων, ἀγάπην δὲ μὴ ἔχω, γέγονα χαλκὸς ἠχῶν ἢ κύμβαλον ἀλαλάζον.

So now you know. It's all Greek to me too.

Here, for your convenience, is a transliteration (that is, a replacement of the Greek letters with the letters of the Latin alphabet we use today):

Ean tais glōssais tōn anthrōpōn lalō kai tōn angelōn, agapēn de mē echō gegona chalkos ēchōn ē kymbalon alalazon.

Okay, now we can at least pronounce the words even if we don't understand Greek.

A translation, not a transliteration, is what we need. A literal tranlsation into English from the original produces the following:

If in the tongues of men I speak, and of angels, love however not have, I have become a brass sounding, or a cymbal clanging.

In many languages adjectivea come after nouns instead of before them as we do in English. For example, "beautiful house" in Spanish is casa linda (house beautiful) and "big river" is Rio Grande (river big). Greek is constructed similarly, so whether we read "sounding brass" or "brass sounding" doesn't really interfere with our understanding. I do find it mildly interesting, however, that English readers are told that the cymbal is tinkling but the original Greek says the cymbal is clanging. Tinkling and clanging are not the same thing, not at all. Another mildly interesting point is that the word brass actually refers to a gong, which is more like a cymbal, and not to a trumpet or a trombone.

I have the feeling some of you are not enjoying reading this post as much as I am enjoying writing it. I am undaunted. Onward and upward! or as the Greeks might say (transliterated) Excelsior! (which just happens to be the motto of New York State in the United States). But I digress.

Many Greek words can still be recognized in the English language of today. For example, from the words glōssais, anthrōpōn, and angelōn in our verse we can recognize the English words glossry, anthropology, and angels.

Some words change meaning over time. The word translated as "charity" throughout Chapter 13 of First Corinthians in the 1611 English version is the Greek word agapēn. More recent English versions have changed the word "charity" to "love" because meanings change over the years. The KJV says "charity" because in the Vulgate St. Jerome used the Latin word caritas, a word that once meant love in English but now seems to mean donating old clothes to a thrift shop because you no longer want them. In this verse, at least, the KJV doesn't go back and check the original language but is instead a translation of a translation, and sometimes meanings get lost or changed.

Greeks has several words that mean love. Paul used the word agape which means divine love, God's love). Other Greek words that are translated into English as "love" include philao (brotherly love), storgas (family love), and eros (physical love, secial desire).

I hope you are still with me.

With that in mind, let's think about one other passage in the New Testament, a portion of the 21st chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. We join the action after Jesus has risen from the dead. He will not ascend to heaven for 40 days. One morning he appears at the shore of the Sea of Galilee just as his disciples, who were formerly fishermen, are returning from fishing all night. He has built a fire and prepared a breakfast for them. As they are sitting around the campfire eating, Jesus turns to Peter, who had denied knowing him three times on the night before the crucifixion, and asks, "Do you love me more than these (other disciples)?" and Peter replies, "You know that I love you." Jesus says "Feed my sheep". Jesus then asks Peter a second time, "Do you love me?" and when Peter again says that he does, Jesus says, "Feed my lambs", a slightly different command. Yet a third time time Jesus asks Peter, "Do you love me?" and when Peter replies that he does, and Jesus says, "Feed my sheep". Sounds a bit repetitive, right?

Wrong. In the original Greek the conversation is different. The first time Jesus says "Do you agape me?" (love me with God's love?) Peter says "I philao you" (I love you like a brother). The second time Jesus says again, "Do you agape me?" Peter again says "I philao you". The third time, Jesus changes his question and asks "Do you philao me?" and Peter replies "Lord, you know all things. You know that I philao you." Jesus then repeats what he said at first, "Feed my sheep". This very nuanced question-and-answer seesion occurs with both of them knowing full well that Peter had denied knowing Jesus three times on the night before Jesus was crucified.

I don't know about you, but I find this fascinating because it is a real failure of the English language to capture the whole thrust of the conversation.

In conclusion, while it may be admirable to donate clothing to a thrift shop or to toss a few coins into a Salvation Army kettle during the Christman season (charity's modern meaning), those measures alone are insufficient to qualify as love. As my mother would have said, don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.

I am suddenly rminded of the scene from Fiddler On The Roof where Tevye's oldest daughter has refused to enter into an arranged marriage to the town's wealthy butcher, an older man, because she loves a young, poor tailor. It is a concept of marriage that is new to Tevye, who then sings the song "Do You Love Me?" to his wife, Golda. She answers, "For twenty-five years I've cooked for you, washed for you, cleaned for you" (or something like that) and Tevye asks "But do you love me?" At the end of the song, she admits, "I suppose I do."

Your assignment has two parts. First, go find the YouTube version of Tevye's song and watch it. Then tell in a comment what U.S. city is known as The City Of Brotherly Love. Your comment will be proof that you read all the way to the end of the post.

I will now leave quietly, as I fear I may have exhausted your patience/overstayed my welcome. If you promise to return again soon, I promise to be less verbose.

j

People get their tangs all tongueled up

I heard some mispronunciations while watching church services on the telly recently, and I would like to pass them on to you. Not only would I like to, I am going to whether you want me to or not.

I heard a preacher say "DeuterOMONY" instead of "DeuterONOMY". I thought, "What?"

I heard a different preacher say "VietMANese" instead of "VietNAMese". Ditto.

Such errors jar the ears of careful listeners, but I think the effect is worse when a preacher makes them, because it brings into question everything else of a spiritual nature that the preacher is trying to persuade his congregation to accept.

The mind, aided by the the seemingly ever-present enemy of the soul, immediately thinks, "Well, if he can't even get that right, can I trust him on the weightier matters, things of a spiritual nature?" At leas, that is where my mind goes. Confession is good for the soul, I've heard.

Maybe I'm being overly critical (ya think?). Maybe it's just another opportunity for EGR (where Extra Grace is Required).

Let us now pivot to another subject.

I used to think people who spoke in tongues were speaking gibberish. Then I learned of a musical group called Ladysmith Black Mombazo, who sang with Paul Simon on his Graceland album back in 1986. You may remember Paul Simon, the fellow who teamed up with Art Garfunkel -- Simon and Garfunkel -- on such hits as "The Sound Of Silence" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water". The founder of Ladysmith Black Mombazo was Joseph Shabalala, and as recently as May 2026 the members of Ladysmith Black Mombazo, which is still going strong, include Mfanafuthi Dlamini, Thamsanqa Shabalala, Sibongiseni Shabalala, Sabelo Mthembu, Thulani Shabalala, Gagamela Shabalala, and Msizi Shabalala, according to Wikipedia.

When you say their names you are speaking in tongues and the language is Zulu. The point I'm trying to make is that if you should ever find yourself in a Pentecostal worship service and hear someone speak in a tongue that is filled with repetetive syllables, it is not necessarily an indication that the tongue is gibberish. Perhaps it is not even a human language but an angelic one, as Saint Paul told the Corinthians that there are such things, beginning Chapter 13 of his letter to them with the words, "Though I speak with the tongues of me and of angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal" (except that he wrote it in Greek, of course).

Or maybe their tangs are all tongueled up. Or maybe their tongues get in the way of their eye teeth and they can't see what they are saying.

Okay, I'm reaching now.

It must be time to close this post.

If you don't understand this post at all, why should this post be any different from all the others?

T.T.F.N.

P.S. - For a fascinating look at the languages of this world in a post from 2010, even though the figures on the number of people who speak them are now 16 years out of date, click here .