WISDOM FROM AN OLD JEWISH MAN

A CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time.

So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site.

She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she approached him for an interview.

"Pardon me, sir, I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN. What's your name?

"Morris Feinberg," he replied.

"Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"

"For about 60 years."

"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"

"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims."

"I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop."

"I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults and to love their fellow man."

"I pray that politicians tell us the truth and put the interests of the people ahead of their own interests."

"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"

"Like I'm talking to a wall."

:-) Thanks to susan s.

BULLYING...WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

Please read the excellent post at Dirty Sexy Ministry on bullying.

Bullies don't exist.

At least that's the viewpoint held by some who think that the intentional harm they cause to others is just what happens in the course of a day's work or in the course of human relationships. And yes, we who live in community together do things to each other through thought and word and deed that hurt others.

Bullying, however, is another matter. Bullying by adults covers a range of behaviors from teasing which gets out of control (i.e. the person being teased has said or indicated that it's troubling, but the person doing the teasing refuses to stop) to serious criminal activity like verbal threats and physical assault.

I know adult teasers who don't get it that enough is enough. "Oh, it's just teasing," is the excuse. There is no excuse. When a person asks you to stop, just stop.

Bullies are a magnified example of how our own hurts and wounds can hurt and wound others. Most bullies don't see their actions as bullying; they may not even be aware of just how damaging their personal actions are to others. Perhaps a first step to healing may be admitting that there are bullies in both clergy and laity and, even more difficult, admitting that all of us are capable of bullying others. I've yet to meet a person that didn't have places in our self-image that were sensitive and lacking. I've yet to meet a person that didn't, on some level, have issues with authority and issues with misuing it at times. I've yet to meet a person who didn't crave acceptance and attention, and who didn't coerce someone to salve that craving.

I absolutely agree that we all need to examine ourselves for 'subtle and covert' signs of bullying, which is far easier to recognize in others than in ourselves. And yes, there's no denying that bullying happens in the church, at times with catastrophic consequences.

Read the entire post.

STORY OF THE DAY - OUTSIDER

I'm an outsider by choice, she said, but
I'm hoping that won't be my choice
forever.

From StoryPeople.

PRAYER FOR 2012

My prayer for 2012 is for
A fat bank account & a thin body.
Please don't mix these up like you did last year.
AMEN!

Don't blame me. Blame Doug.

BOROWITZ REPORTS...

January 9, 2012

Other Republicans Agree Not to Tell Rick Perry Where Next Debate Is

‘Only Humane Thing,’ Candidates Say

Read the rest at The Borowitz Report.

GLASS ORGAN - BACH'S TOCCATA AND FUGUE IN D-MINOR

More lovely sounds from the Glass Duo, thanks to Paul (A.).

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY FROM RICK SANTORUM

If you can take one part out, if it's not for the purpose of procreation, that's not one of the reasons you diminish this very special bond between men and women. So why can't you take other parts of it out? It becomes deconstructed to the point where it's simply pleasure.

Rick's on a roll! The statement is from an interview, which is posted on YouTube. The conversation is nearly 45 minutes long. Watch if you care to. I didn't.

How would you like such thoughts thrust upon you for four years?

Read more from Charles Pierce at The Politics Blog at Esquire.

UPDATE: I watched approximately 20 minutes of the video, (It was difficult!) and Rick did, indeed, say the words above.

PONDERISMS - PART 1

1. I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

2. There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.

3. Life is sexually transmitted.

4. Healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

5. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

6. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

7. Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?

8. Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

9· All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

10. In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

My brother-in-law sent me twenty ponderisms, but I know some of you have short attention spans, so I divided them to post in two parts.

THE FACE OF OCCUPY NEW HAMPSHIRE

Occupy New Hampshire

Every now and then, as Kathy Thorndike stood on the curb near the park where the Occupy The New Hampshire Primary encampment is located, and as she waved her signs demanding that big money be excised from our politics, a car would drive by and someone would blow their horn and a sleek young voice would tell her to get a job.

As it happens, Kathy Thorndike has a job. She's a health-care administrator overseeing a geriatric care unit near her home in the lakes region around Laconia. As it happens, her husband has a job, too. He's a contractor who built his business after starting out as a laborer and then becoming a carpenter. As it happens, her parents had jobs, too. Her father was a podiatrist, her mother a nurse. As it happens, her children have jobs, too. Two of them are nurses. One of them is a contractor. As it happens, one of her daughters is underwater on her mortgage. Another one of her children has to work overtime at two jobs in order to provide for Kathy's grandchildren. The notion that Occupy is made up of unemployable layabouts is one of the things that makes Kathy Thorndike as angry as an otherwise mild person can get. The other is what she calls the "propaganda" that Occupy has no coherent message. Her message, she says, is the facts of her own life.

"People are really struggling in the middle class," she said here on Saturday afternoon, as a man in a long red robe carrying a sign saying "Fight American Imperialism" rang a cowbell not two feet down the sidewalk. "I was raised in the middle class. I raised my children in the middle class. My children are not middle class. They're all professionals — they're nurses and carpenters — but they're not able to be middle class anymore.

"I got to stay home with my children, and we were middle class, and my husband was a laborer, for goodness sake."

What an amazing change in a generation. Nurses and carpenters are no longer assured of a place in the middle class. I'm reminded of my friend who was laid off his job in computer technology at age 62 and has not found a job three years later. He and his wife may yet lose their home. Companies are not falling over each other to hire folks in their late 50s and early 60s, even highly-skilled people with excellent references and experience. Many of the 'layabouts' are just such people as my friend.

Read more by Charles Pierce at Esquire's The Politics Blog.

I HAVEN'T DONE IT EITHER :-(

Click on the cartoon for the larger view.

From ASBO Jesus.