Today is the birthday of my maternal grandfather, Nathan Silberman of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. He died in 1970 when I was 29 and he was 95. Today I am 81 and he would be 147. No one has been that old in a very long time. According to the Book of Genesis, Adam lived 930 years, Noah lived 950 years, Jared lived 962 years, and Methuselah lived 969 years. Compared to them, my grandfather was just a kid.
Three days ago, my own birthday rolled around again. The day, like so many of my birthdays, was a yukky one -- cold, damp, gray, dreary, and full of rain. Weather in the middle of March is very unpredictable, at least around here. One day it is 75°F and the next day it is 20°F, and I am not exaggerating.
The full moon occurred on my birthday this year. March's full moon has a variety of names -- Worm Moon, Eagle Moon, Goose Moon, Crow Comes Back Moon, Sugar Moon, Sap Moon, Wind Strong Moon, Sore Eyes Moon, Lenten Moon -- the list goes on and on.
But this post cannot, as it may win the prize for being the most boring post ever.
Before you go, though, if it were your job to name it, what would you call the March full moon, and why?
Monday, March 21, 2022
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Monday, March 14, 2022
Wait, what?
I know and you know that it has been more than a week since I posted anything on this blog, but I won't hold it against me if you won't. Actually, I won't hold it against me even if you do. I do apologize (British, apologise) for leaving you, my readers, few though you may be, high and dry for that length of time. I trust that you managed to find sustenance elsewhere.
Little things bug me, things that wouldn't bother others at all. For example, our pastor has referred two or three times in the past few months to "Francis Schaeffer's book How Then Should We Live?" when that is not the title at all. The title is How Should We Then Live?, a little thing, to be sure, but it bugs me.
There is someone to whom I am related by marriage (it is not Mrs. RWP) who wished a friend on Facebook a happy birthday, congratulating said friend for "completing another trip around the moon." No, no, no. We don't go around the moon, the moon goes around us. We go around the sun. Again, a little thing, but it bugs me.
Am I perfect? No way, José. I make plenty of mistakes. Somehow, though, it is easier to spot the mistakes of others than one's own. Jesus addressed this all too human tendency, telling us in the Sermon on the Mount to remove the beam/log/plank/telephone pole/railroad tie from our own eye first and then we would be able to see clearly to remove the mote/speck/cinder/eyelash/grain of sand in our neighbor's eye.
So far I have managed to restrain myself and not correct our pastor or my relative. I intend to keep it that way.
In the overall scheme of things, these things are not important. Invasions, bombings, fleeing refugees, pandemic diseases, these are the important things.
What little things bug you that aren't worth mentioning to anyone?
Little things bug me, things that wouldn't bother others at all. For example, our pastor has referred two or three times in the past few months to "Francis Schaeffer's book How Then Should We Live?" when that is not the title at all. The title is How Should We Then Live?, a little thing, to be sure, but it bugs me.
There is someone to whom I am related by marriage (it is not Mrs. RWP) who wished a friend on Facebook a happy birthday, congratulating said friend for "completing another trip around the moon." No, no, no. We don't go around the moon, the moon goes around us. We go around the sun. Again, a little thing, but it bugs me.
Am I perfect? No way, José. I make plenty of mistakes. Somehow, though, it is easier to spot the mistakes of others than one's own. Jesus addressed this all too human tendency, telling us in the Sermon on the Mount to remove the beam/log/plank/telephone pole/railroad tie from our own eye first and then we would be able to see clearly to remove the mote/speck/cinder/eyelash/grain of sand in our neighbor's eye.
So far I have managed to restrain myself and not correct our pastor or my relative. I intend to keep it that way.
In the overall scheme of things, these things are not important. Invasions, bombings, fleeing refugees, pandemic diseases, these are the important things.
What little things bug you that aren't worth mentioning to anyone?
Sunday, March 6, 2022
Pontifications
There are five stages of life (no matter what Shakespeare said about seven ages of man) and at the beginning of each stage we make a great discovery.
The five stages are:
1. Infancy
2, Childhood
3. Youth / young adulthood
4. Middle age
5. Old age
and these are the great discoveries:
1. Toes
2. Bubble gum
3. Sex
4. Arthritis
5. Death
How's that for pontificating? You may have other ideas, like roller skates instead of bubble gum, or drugs/rock-and-roll instead of sex (you're kidding, right?), but this is my blog and I'm the one doing the pontificating. Go write your own post if you have other ideas.
Better yet, let me know your choices in the comments.
The five stages are:
1. Infancy
2, Childhood
3. Youth / young adulthood
4. Middle age
5. Old age
and these are the great discoveries:
1. Toes
2. Bubble gum
3. Sex
4. Arthritis
5. Death
How's that for pontificating? You may have other ideas, like roller skates instead of bubble gum, or drugs/rock-and-roll instead of sex (you're kidding, right?), but this is my blog and I'm the one doing the pontificating. Go write your own post if you have other ideas.
Better yet, let me know your choices in the comments.
Thursday, March 3, 2022
141 for, 5 against, 34 abstentions
On the U.N. General Assembly's vote on March 2, 2022, to condemn Russia for invading Ukraine, here are the bad guys:
I think (you should excuse the expression) something is rotten in the state of Denmark, because 141 plus 5 plus 34 equals 180 nations and according to what I read today there are 193 member nations in the U.N. General Assembly.
If you don't vote for, and you don't vote against, and you don't abstain, what is left? Perhaps there were 13 nations not present at the meeting? I'm just wondering. Were they playing hookey? Home sick with a cold? Attending Grandma's funeral?
As Yul Brynner once sang in The King and I, "Is... a puzzlement!"
What think you?
The eye-catching chart appeared in the March 3, 2022, edition of the U.S. Sun.
If you don't vote for, and you don't vote against, and you don't abstain, what is left? Perhaps there were 13 nations not present at the meeting? I'm just wondering. Were they playing hookey? Home sick with a cold? Attending Grandma's funeral?
As Yul Brynner once sang in The King and I, "Is... a puzzlement!"
What think you?
The eye-catching chart appeared in the March 3, 2022, edition of the U.S. Sun.
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