STOP IT!

Tobias Haller says in his comments:

If we would stop trying to "institutionalize" the Spirit, we might get somewhere. Jesus already Incarnated the Body of Christ for us, and all we need to do is stop fighting with each other...

Amen to that!

THE 3 BEARS...NEW VERSION

A far more accurate account of the events of that fateful morning....


Baby bear goes downstairs, sits in his small chair at the table..
He looks into his small bowl. It is empty. 'Who's been eating my porridge?' he squeaks.


Daddy Bear arrives at the big table and sits in his big chair. He looks into his big bowl and it is also empty. 'Who's been eating my porridge?!?' he roars.

Mummy Bear puts her head through the serving hatch from the kitchen and yells, 'For God's sake, how many times do I have to go through this with you idiots? It was Mummy Bear who got up first. It was Mummy Bear who woke everyone in the house. It was Mummy Bear who made the coffee. It was Mummy Bear who unloaded the dishwasher from last night and put everything away. It was Mummy Bear who swept the floor in the kitchen. It was Mummy Bear who went out in the cold early morning air to fetch the newspaper and croissants. It was Mummy Bear who set the damn table.

'It was Mummy Bear who walked the bloody dog, cleaned the cat's litter tray, gave them their food, and refilled their water.

'And now that you've decided to drag your sorry bear-arses downstairs and grace Mummy Bear with your grumpy presence, listen carefully, because I'm only going to say this once....


'I HAVEN'T MADE THE PORRIDGE YET!'



Doug did it.

STILL WORKING IN YOUR 70s AND 80s?

From the Wall Street Journal:

We all think it’s a panacea. If you don’t have enough money saved for retirement, you’ve got a few ways to close the gap between what you have and what you need in your nest egg: Save more, invest more aggressively, and/or work longer.

Well, it turns out that working longer is indeed an option, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute latest study. The only problem is that the latest research shows that you’ll have to work much longer than you anticipated. In fact, many Americans will have to keep on working well into their 70s and 80s to afford retirement, according to the study, titled “The Impact of Deferring Retirement Age on Retirement Income Adequacy.”

What’s more, it’s even worse for low-income workers, according Jack VanDerhei, one of the co-authors of the study. Those who earned (on average over the course of their careers) less than $11,700 per year, the lowest income quartile, would need to defer retirement till age 84 before 90% of those households would have just a 50% chance of affording retirement.

We are blessed that Grandpère has a good pension, since I took 12 years off from the workplace while my children were young. Although I started working part-time at the age of 16, my wages were quite low. When I finished college and graduate school, I earned a small salary compared to today's wages. And even after I went back to work as my children grew older, I never made a great deal of money. Thus, my Social Security income computed from the average of my wages over the years is low enough that I'd be eligible for public assistance, if I were not married to Grandpère. My marriage saves me from poverty.

Some folks never want to quit working, and that's fine for them, but most of us get tired. What of the workers who do hard physical labor, whose bodies wear out, and they lose the ability to do the work?

All but the wealthy face a very different situation today. I most certainly would make different choices from staying out of the workforce for 12 years, and I'd have paid more attention to striving up the ladder of success in order to earn more money.

How brilliant of me to latch on to Grandpère and hang on to him for what will soon be 50 years. As I looked for a good YouTube version of Maurice Chevalier singing "I'm So Glad That I'm Not Young Anymore", I found the song below, which I like better, because it's all about me.




So I went from serious to silly in my post. So sue me.

WE CAN STILL DO SOMETHING

A FUTURE NOT OUR OWN

It helps, now and then, to step back
And take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
It is beyond our vision

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
The magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
Which is another way of saying
That the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection…
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
And there is a sense of liberation realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
An opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results…
We are prophets of a future not our own.

When we become discouraged...

When we wonder if our efforts accomplish any good at all...

When we perceive our words go into the void having no effect...

When our prayers seem not to be answered...

We can still do something.

In his efforts to build the Kingdom of God, Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador became an advocate for justice for the poor and downtrodden. He was assassinated in 1980.

Sent to a friend on her birthday. I already knew the poem, but the reminder was timely.

DAUGHTER-MOTHER EXCHANGE ON FACEBOOK

Click for the larger view.

Lovely, don't you think? The message caught me quite by surprise.

AM I LUCKY, OR WHAT?

FEDEX COURIER SERVICE,
EDO STATE,NIGERIA
WEST AFRICA.
12-06-2011

Dear Customer!
SHIPMENT CODE: CPEL/OWN/9856
PARCEL #: EG2272

You have a parcel contaning an ATM CARD worth Eight Hundred Thousand Dollars [$800,000.00USD] with us at the FedEx delivery company. Your delivery charges has been paid for. All you have to do is to re-confirm your information with the correct mailing address and make a payment of $210USD only [Two Hundred and Twenty Dollars Only] for the security keeping fee of the said parcel.

For your information, the delivery Charges, Insurance premium and Clearance Certificate Fee of the ATM CARD showing that it is not a Drug Money or meant to sponsor Terrorist attack in your Country have all been paid for. You have to contact the Dispatch Office now for the delivery of your Draft with this information below:

Contact Person: ----- -----
Email Address: Email: -------------@----.--
Telephone:+--- --- ---- ---

Please reconfirm your details:

FULL NAMES:
TELEPHONE:
POSTAL ADDRESS:
STATE:
COUNTRY:

Again, don't be deceived by anybody to pay any other money except $210US Dollars as stipulated by the company. They would have paid that but we said no because we don't know when you will contact us and in case of any demurrage.

Finally, make sure that you re-confirm your Postal address(s) and Direct telephone number to them again to avoid any mistake on the Delivery.

Yours Faithfully,

Ms. ---- --------,
Secretary.

What a bargain! $800,000.00 in exchange for only $210USD. Nevertheless, Grandpère said I should choose demurrage. What is he thinking?! Help! What should I do?

STORY OF THE DAY - SORROW

This is a box filled with the sorrow of all
the people who have been forgotten &
some day it will wash the world clean.

We can hope.

From StoryPeople.

UPDATE ON GÖRAN

Posted on Facebook:

A few minutes ago, me and our dear mum Rosemary Kestner Kauffman, we have talked with dad Göran Koch-Swahne, over the phone,he told us the surgery was successful, but he don't know the day he will get back home, until doctors confirm the right time, so for the time being he is having a rest, therefore later he will be under kind of rehab for the recovery process, and he said thanks for the kind wishes and prayers from all his facebook friends. Thanks too from me and may God bless us all. cheers!

Thanks be to God, the medical staff, and all who care for our friend. Please continue your prayers for Göran's full recovery.

Update on Göran posted on Facebook:

@all,thanks, a few minutes ago, i have talked with Goran, and i was glad for the positive improvement news, he told me doctors have re-asured him he will go home coming wednesday, so lets hope this time around he will get back to his house, thanks for your best wishes to him.

Ah yes! It's lovely to get more good news on our friend.

SECOND DIOCESE IN ANGLICAN CHURCH OF AOTEAROA, NEW ZEALAND AND POLYNESIA SAYS NO TO THE ANGLICAN COVENANT

From Bosco Peters at Liturgy blog:

Breaking news (thanks to Rev. Ngira Simmonds) on the Eve of Pentecost the second Episcopal Unit (cf. diocese) in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia has rejected the Anglican Covenant:

Read the entire statement at Bosco's blog. I especially like the following words:

■In terms of our shared Mihingare and Anglican heritage, our call to communion, and our call to ministry and mission, the Covenant offers us nothing new or more compelling than the Spiritual Covenant that we already have with each other through faith in Jesus Christ;

Yes! Thank you, my dear fellow Anglicans in Te Hui Amorangi o Te Tairawhiti Episcopal Unit in New Zealand.

WHAT ARE LITTLE BOYS MADE OF?

You may or may not have seen the two episodes of "The "Sissy Boy" Experiment" on "Anderson Cooper 360", the nightly news show on CNN, about the young boy, Kirk Murphy, who was not quite five years old when he was taken to UCLA for early intervention treatment in an experimental program for young boys who showed evidence of excessive femininity. Yes, that is UCLA. The purpose of the treatment was to change the excessively effeminate behavior and prevent the young boys from possibly growing up gay.

The story is heartbreaking. If you'd like to watch the two episodes which have already aired, here are the links:

The "Sissy Boy" Experiment Part One

The "Sissy Boy" Experiment Part Two

Jim Burroway, who blogs at Box Turtle Bulletin, investigated the story, and he will be seen on another episode on CNN sometime next week. Jim published the results of his separate, in-depth investigation, which gives a much fuller and more detailed report on Kirk's story, at Box Turtle Bulletin under the title What Are Little Boys Made Of?. Jim's report is long, in seven parts, but I plead with you to take the time to read it. I read it in two intervals because the report is so very tragic and emotionally wrenching that I had to stop at Part 5 and resume the next day.

Kirk's main counselor seems to have been George Rekers, a young graduate student at the time. Yes, the anti-gay activist George Rekers, the co-founder of the Family Research Council, who was caught recently at the Miami Airport traveling with a young male escort.

Rekers, who is also a professor emeritus of neuropsychiatry at the University of South Carolina and a Baptist minister, recently testifed against gay adoption in Florida, where he resides.

No doubt Rekers testified as an expert against gay adoption. If you made up the story, no one would believe you, but, tragically, the story is all too true. Kirk's picture at the head of the post shows him at about the age that the therapy began.

As Jim Burroway says:

In this original BTB investigation, we speak with his family and friend who knew the real “Kraig” to uncover the truth behind Reker’s greatest success story. Their stories reveals the tragedy of a terrible experiment on a very young boy which would haunt him for the rest of his life. It is not only an indictment of a man who built his anti-gay career on Kirk’s suffering, but a rebuke to others — those in the mental health profession then and in the contemporary ex-gay movement today — who would place their careers and agendas ahead of the well-being of this young boy and countless others like him.

Kirk Murphy committed suicide in 2003 at the age of 38.

Thanks to Jim Burroway for his hard work in investigating and telling Kirk's story.

Photo from Box Turtle Bulletin.