Progress

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Value of Work

All labour that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Being Creative With Troublesome Kin

You are working on your family genealogy and for sake of example, let's say that your great-great uncle, Remus Starr, a fellow lacking in character, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889.
A cousin has supplied you with the only known photograph of Remus, showing him standing on the gallows. On the back of the picture are the words:
"Remus Starr: Horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison, 1885. Escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged, 1889."
Pretty grim situation, right? But let's revise things a bit. We simply crop the picture, scan in an enlarged image and edit it with image processing software so that all that is seen is a head shot.
Next, we rewrite the text:
"Remus Starr was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad.
Beginning in 1885, he devoted several years of his life to service at a government facility, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honour when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed."
And that's how political spin is created...

Life back in the 1500s

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and were still smelling pretty good in June. However, they were starting to smell a little, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour.
Baths equalled a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons, then the women, then the children, and finally the babies. By then, the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water".
Houses had thatched roofs (thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath). It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets (dogs and cats) and other small animals (mice, rats, and bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained, it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs".
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. So they found if they made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it remedied the problem. Hence those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopies.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor". The wealthy had slate floors which would get slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a "thresh hold".
They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been in there for a month. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old".
Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon the hang it from the rafters to show it off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could really "bring home the bacon". They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat".
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach into the food. This happened most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes - for 400 years.
Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers (a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl). Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy trenchers, they would get "trench mouth".
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust".
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination of lead and alcohol would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road could take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait to see if the person would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake".
England is old and small, and they started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a house and re-use the grave. In reopening these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So, they thought they would tie a string on the 'dead' person's wrist and lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead ringer".

This material is offered for amusement only. Do not put these tidbits into high-school essays (check here)

Between the two...

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.

Representing Christ

The living Word once took on flesh in Mary’s son. The eternal, living Word – Christ – now takes on a new body in the church. Therefore the apostle Paul said that a mystery was entrusted to him, which he calls the body of Christ (Col. 1:24-26). The fact that the church is the body of Christ means that he becomes visible and real in the world today.
Just as Christ was in Mary, so Christ wants to live in us who believe and love. If Christ is real in us then we will live in accordance with and reflect the character of God’s future. The future kingdom receives form in the church.
For this reason the church must represent now God’s peace and justice in our world. This is why it cannot shed blood or tolerate private property. This is why the church cannot lie or take an oath. This is why it cannot tolerate the destruction of bridal purity and of faithfulness in the marriage of husband and wife. This is why the church expends all its life and energy to make room for God to bring everything under his rule.  

Eberhard Arnold

From Little Things...

Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves.

- Dale Carnegie

A Day's Beginning

When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself.

- Tecumseh (1768-1813) Shawnee Chief

A High Calling

Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A High Price

Don't sell out your virtue and your value for something you think you want. Judas got the money, but he threw it all away and hung himself because he was so unhappy with himself.

- Jim Rohn

Perspective

If we perceive things not as problems but rather as opportunities for learning, we can experience a sense of joy and well-being when the lessons are learned. We are never presented with lessons until we are ready to learn them.

- Gerald G. Jampolsky "Love Is Letting Go of Fear"

Youth

That's what being young is all about. You have the courage and the daring to think that you can make a difference. You're not prone to measure your energies in time. You're not likely to live by equations.

- Ruby Dee

Time

Time is amazing...you spend it, and it multiplies...you invest it, and it intensifies...and you ignore it...it passes you by...

- Doug Firebaugh

The Ultimate Victor

When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it, always.

- Mohandas Gandhi

Something to be thanful for...

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

– Albert Schweitzer

People.

Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own efforts. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.

- Stephen Covey

The Price of Success

The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.

- Vince Lombardi

Happiness depends on...

I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.

- Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt

Wellbeing

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.

- Siddhartha Gautama (c. 566-486 B.C.) Founder of Buddhism

Growth

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, tolerant of the weak and strong. Because sometime in your life you will have been all of these.

- George Washington Carver

Destiny

If humans are to fully attain their destinies, so far as earthly development permits this; if they are to become truly whole, unbroken units, they must feel and know themselves to be one, not only with God and humanity, but also with nature

- Friedrich Froebel

Freedom

Freedom is not a thing you can receive as a gift. One can be free even under a dictatorship on one simple condition, that is, if one struggles against it. A man who thinks with his own mind and remains uncorrupted is a free man. A man who struggles for what he believes to be right is a free man. You can live in the most democratic country in the world, and if you are lazy, callous, servile, you are not free, in spite of the absence of violence and coercion, you are a slave

- Ignazio Silone

The Intrepid Smuggler

Mahmud the Palestinian comes up to the Israeli border on his bicycle. He's got two large bags of sand over his shoulders. The Israeli soldier guard stops him and says, "What's in the bags?"
"Sand," answers Mahmud.
The guard says," We'll just see about that - get off that bike."
The guard takes the bags and rips them apart: he empties them out and finds nothing in them but sand. He detains Mahmud overnight and has the sand analysed only to discover there is nothing but sand in the bags.
The guard releases Mahmud, puts the sand in new bags and sends him on his way across the border.
A week later, the same thing happens again. The Israeli soldier asks, "What do you have there?"
"Sand," Mahmud replies.
The guard does a thorough examination and discovers the same thing, sand. He gives the sand back and Mahmud crosses the border on his bicycle.
This sequence of events is repeated every day for three years. Finally one day Mahmud doesn't show up and the guard meets him at a falafel stand outside of Jericho.
"Hey Buddy," says the guard, "I know you're smuggling something. It's driving me crazy, I can't eat or sleep. It's all I think about. Just between you and me, what are you smuggling?"
Mahmud stops chewing on his pita and says "Bicycles."

Misery

The greater part of happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.

- Martha Washington

Human Rights

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations

- James Madison

Looking Ahead

The new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises - it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. It appeals to their pride, not their pocketbook - it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security.

- John F. Kennedy

Beginnings

You cannot speak that which you do not know. You cannot share that which you do not feel. You cannot translate that which you do not have. And you cannot give that which you do not possess. To give it and to share it, and for it to be effective, you first need to have it. Good communication starts with good preparation.

- Jim Rohn

Value

If your everyday day life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no indifferent place.

- Rainer Maria Rilke