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Thursday, March 22, 2012

Time - Pink Floyd

TIME - Songwriters: DAVID GILMOUR, NICHOLAS MASON, ROGER WATERS, RICK WRIGHT

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say




Tuesday, March 20, 2012

ONE HOUR OF ST. PATRICK'S DAY

Going out into public is never very easy for me.  I suffer from acute anxiety along with my depression and most times when I go shopping and am placed into a crowd of people, I do not do very well.  An ordinary shopping trip for me is to know what I am going shopping for, what store it will be at and going in, picking up what I need and checking out and straight back to the car.  I seldom make conversation with passers by and eye contact is not something that I feel is a must.

I have pills for my anxiety but they have a side effect that makes me think twice about taking one before I step out of the house.  They make me drowsy.  Still I have to take them on a daily basis to keep me functioning at all and so I usually take two of them before taking a nap and one at bedtime.  This way they help keep the anxiety under control a bit and also help me to get some sleep that does not come easy for me.  the necessity of this information will become clear in a bit.

St. Pat's day was on a Saturday this year.  I have a pretty well set routine for Saturdays.  I get up, spend a little time with Barb and then go to the grocery store with a list that I study to the point of almost memorizing before I get out of the car and head into the store.  I can then sweep through the store quickly getting what I need, head to the check out and get out of there before too much anxiety sets in.  It was not any different on this St. Pat's day.

It makes me tired trying to keep the anxiety under control while shopping and so I usually come home and do a few chores, watch a ball game or a race on the television and then take two of my anxiety pills to take a nap around three o'clock.  Barb had her own schedule that Saturday.  She went out to get her hair cut and then came home for a bit before she went for a manicure and stuff that goes along with that.  I watched a ballgame while she was out and before she got home I decided to take a couple of pills and take a nap.

Just as I had taken the pills, Barb comes back home.  We had planned on going out shopping in Lee's Summit that afternoon and so when she arrived home, I decided to take her on out even though I had taken my pills.

The pills worked wonders on my anxiety that afternoon.  Even though I was a little drowsy we headed out to get the special shopping done.  First stop was at the Target store to get some bones for Dutch and a few other minor things.  The pills slowed me down a bit and we wandered through the store, my anxiety under control and things went pretty smooth.

As we were leaving the checkout at Target I noticed a little boy about five years old standing next to the restrooms.  I assumed he was waiting for his mother.  He had a green shirt on with diagonal stripes criss crossing across it so it had the effect that his was wrapped in police tape.  The stripes said "Don't Pinch Me" all up and down the front of his shirt.  As we were leaving I looked at him very seriously and asked what his shirt said.  He pointed at the word "pinch" everywhere it was on his shirt and read it.  "Pinch, pinch pinch pinch pinch." he said proud that he could read it.  I looked at him and without hesitating asked him if that meant he wanted me to pinch him.

"NO!", he exclaimed with a huge smile on his face. "I'm wearing green so you can't pinch me!"

OHHHh I said with understanding.  I told him to have a good day and he told me good-bye.  That contact with another human being out shopping is very rare for me but it is fun.  I love to tease little kids and he seemed to enjoy being teased.

I went out to get the car to pick Barb up so she wouldn't have to walk and on my way to the car crossed paths with a lady with a very old CUBS shirt on.  I pointed at her and yelled "CUBS" and then gave her a thumbs up.  She smiled and then I told her "This is the year!!" and she stopped and looked at me incredulously and said "REALLY?" with a tone that said what planet did you just come from?  She shook her head and walked on past me into the store. 

The next stop was at the jewelry store.  I had promised to replace a necklace of Barb's for Valentine's day but had been so very busy had not found the time to accomplish it.  We walked in and found ourselves to be the only customers.  I was wearing my Alabama National Champions t-shirt and my mizzou ball cap.  A fine looking young man that was obviously barely twenty years old if that came up to help us.  He looked at me a little strange and then said, the clash of the crimson and the black and gold was throwing him off.  I simply said "SEC" and he nodded in recognition.  Then I explained to him in great detail how I had family in Alabama and my sister had graduated from there.  Then to explain the hat, I stated very clearly that even though Mizzou had lost in the first round of the NCAA tourney, I was still proud enough of them to wear that hat.  He then started talking about the Duke loss that same evening and we discussed it a little.

Finally he got around to asking us how he could help us and we told him we were looking for a chain for Barb's pendent.  As we walked over to the display I asked him if he were going to school and he answered that he was going to William Jewell but was looking to transfer to another school next year.  He was going to go into the psychology field and also had an interest in playing baseball.  I looked him over.  He wasn't a big kid, definitely a second baseman or a shortstop.  So I asked him if he played second.  Turns out he played second, short and a little third.  They had tried him at pitching but his arm wasn't strong enough.  When he said that I nodded and said, so second base?.  He kind of shyly answered, yeah, second base for the most part.

We discussed different universities around the area that he was thinking of.  He said he would love to go to Avila as he thought he could make their ball team but it was within walking distance of home which was WAY to close for him to feel comfortable.  He wanted to get away for college.  We discussed some other institutions and evaluated their baseball programs and tuition as well as proximity to where his mom lived.  He ended up talking one of the other sales people to clean Barb's pendent and wrap up the necklace while we continued to talk baseball.  We must have been in there a good forty minutes or so talking to this kid about his future.  His name was Drew by the way and was just finishing his sophomore year.  

After leaving Drew we headed for home.  I had not talked that much in public in a very long time but it was fun.  I enjoyed it.  It is something I should do more often.

So we didn't celebrate St. Pat's day partly because Barb is solid German (Kissinger is he maiden name) and I have no inclination to take part in things that rely on conformity to celebrate.  But it was a good afternoon.

It wore me out though.  The combination of the pills making me drowsy and the effort of talking to people that I had never seen before made me tired.  When we got home I went to bed and thought about Drew and that little kid not wanting to be pinched and then just before I fell asleep I remember thinking, "Could this be the year for the Cubs? .... nah..... "

Thursday, March 15, 2012

ONE ANGEL OR TWO ?

My wife is preparing her children's choir to do another musical for the church.  While she was going through the songs, she noticed that one of the songs said there were two angels at the tomb on Easter morning.  She had always thought there was only one, but she wanted to make sure so she did some research.  After her research, she asked me this question:

"Okay, I looked it up in all four gospels.  Only Luke (Luke 24:4) mentions two angels in shining garments. 
Why would the others say one?"

I felt like I could not let my wife down by not giving her an answer.  She always depends on me for my wealth of knowledge and this was too serious to let slide, it had to do with the Bible after all.

So I gave her an answer that very well could be fairly accurate although I must admit I took some artistic license with the facts.

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ONE ANGEL OR TWO ?

Well... first off the books were written YEARS after the fact.  They think John was the oldest written followed by Luke.  Even then though, they estimate John was written about 60 years or so after the fact.  Remember that game where you sit in a circle and whisper something in the person's next to you ear?  by the time you get around the circle, the whole message had changed.

Then there is the little known, or at least little publicized issue that John had with Luke.  These two did not get along at all.  John was always writing how he was Jesus' favorite.  Luke always thought that while he was trying to write down the truth, it was always "me me me" with John.  Luke knew that Peter was the favorite but John just kept on going on about how Jesus trusted him more than the others and all of that.  As a matter of fact at the crucifixion scene, you see John saying that "his fav was by his mother's side".  Luke knew perfectly well that John wasn't there.  Luke couldn't prove it of course, because he was off hiding like all the others.  Luke knew that John was off in hiding somewhere as well, but he was hiding by himself so no one could prove or disprove whether he was with Mary or not..

John started writing before Luke did.  John did not want anyone to know that he was writing the story and placing himself in the middle of absolutely everything.  Luke had a suspicion that John was writing things down and so he decided to write his own version, the correct version of what had happened.  He hired a ten year old kid to go get a copy of what John had so far.  The problem was that by the time Luke had hired the kid, John had already published and his book started to appear in storefronts throughout the Holy Land.  When the kid brought Luke a copy of John's book, Luke lost it.  John had beaten him to the punch.

This was when Luke learned of John's tremendous ego and how he had written the story to be more a "Jesus and John with their Friends" book instead of a "Jesus Story".  Luke was furious.  He knew that the book was out there and people were reading, and believing that John was this great disciple a level above the other eleven.  Luke bore down and started to write what he saw as the truth.

Unfortunately, Luke lost focus every once in a while and strayed off into a mode of proving John wrong on little things before getting back on track and writing the story the way he remembered it.  When Luke got to the resurrection scene he noticed John had said that there was only one Angel at the scene.  From the way John wrote it, the angel was either Micheal or Gabriel.  Luke, while not knowing for sure which angel it was had assumed it was Andy Messersmith, who would later become an outstanding pitcher for the Angels when they returned to play ball in the American League in 1969.  I digress, sorry.  Just a nice little side tidbit there.

When Luke read about John's account of just one angel, he decided that this would be a good place for a little of that embellishment that he had used earlier in his book to kind of stick a thorn in John's side.  He made the decision that there would have at least been two angels at such a remarkable and miraculous event.  And so he wrote the two angel part just to one up John.  He put the angels outside the tomb, kind of guarding it while John had the angle sitting inside the tomb as if he was taking the place of Jesus.  Luke thought that was a little presumptuous for an angel to take the place of Jesus.

And so that is why Luke wrote of two angels while the others, Mathew and Mark, more or less just assumed John knew what he was talking about and followed his lead.  After all John had written his book before Luke so surely his memory was clearer than Luke's.

Luke fell into a small depression because it didn't seem any one was taking his book as seriously as Johns. Then an idea popped in his head.  None of the guys were writing a book about what happened AFTER the event and ascension.  He immediately took up his pen and started writing about events after Jesus had left.  He knew that this book would be a good one and possibly end up in the top five of books about life before and after Jesus.  "The Acts of the Apostles" did indeed become a best seller and because of it's title, none of the other Apostles argued with anything in the book, because The Acts had set a pretty high bar for them to live up to.

And that is why Luke wrote of two angels instead of one.