Dear Lord and Lady – the mediators – And to the Sweet God above all gods – We thank you for this meal that we are here to enjoy together. We pray for those who are sick, lonely, afraid, and in need – that you may send them strength and comfort. Protect us from domination and destructive intent – and help us to combat it in fairness and love. Help our leaders to remember, and to honor, the well-being of…
I’ve been blogging as VirusHead for five years. Wow. My first post: 11/21/2003 The Problem with Fundamentalists
I’ve always been fascinated by words and phrases, and how we manage to employ textures of meaning, even when we don’t know the etymologies. The Wired blog has a great post by John Scott Lewinski that called my attention to a new book called A Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare. We learn, for instance, that we use language in chunks of words–as one linguist put it, “we know words by the company that they keep.” For instance, the…
Laughter, as the Reader’s Digest always said, is good medicine. I’ve really been enjoying some of Maria Bamford’s comedy. Her routines on her sister and dad never fail to crack me up. So I’m really savoring the synchronicity today as I came across this bit of hers on cults.
I was visited again this morning by a lovely Jehovah’s Witness. He seemed to be a very sweet person. I’m laughing like God(ess) was tickling me. In honor of that, this is a post about the benefits of no longer being a Jehovah’s Witness (beyond not having to go door-to-door on a blustery day like today). I’d like to set the stage with a satirical treatment of the benefits of being a JW. An illuminating example is this post by…
I’m dwelling on a few of the more illuminating passages from the Hebrew and the Greek Scriptures. There are a few (yes, there are) that are encouraging and inspiring. These are shimmer points that can always bring goodness. They are sometimes surrounded by passages that provide only the very dimmest of lights from the tain of the mirror. Perhaps that is somehow necessary, just as the best grapes for wine only grow and flourish in well-aged manure. It doesn’t prevent…