PRAYERS FOR OKLAHOMA

 

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, on the devastation in Oklahoma:

The prayers of Episcopalians are with the people of Oklahoma in the midst of this tragic event.  May the spirit of God hover over the broken, lost, and grieving, and may they meet the love of God in their neighbors’ responses.

Prayer after a tornado especially for those who were directly impacted by the storm.

Merciful God,
Hear our cry for mercy in the wake of wind and water.
Reveal your presence in the midst of their suffering.
Help them to trust in your promises of hope and life
so that desperation and grief will not overtake them.
Come quickly to their aid that they may know peace and joy again.
Strengthen them in this time of trial
with assurance of hope in the death and resurrection
of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

(Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)

How to donate to groups helping the people who were affected by the storm.

UPDATE: Also, donate online to Episcopal Relief and Development, or send checks labeled "Tornado relief" to:

Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma
924 N. Robinson
Oklahoma City, OK 73102. 

ETERNITY

"You must let go of all conception of what eternity is, which means letting go of who you are, in order to feel the truth of eternity and its meaning in your life - and in your death."

My Bright Abyss; Meditation of a Modern Believer by Christian Wiman.

A few days ago, the book arrived in my mailbox, but I have not yet read it.  I have thumbed through and found brief passages much to my liking, such as the words quoted above.
 
Mathew Sitman reviewed the book at The Daily Dish. 

The New York Times published a  Q&A  between John Williams and the author.

THE LONE BELLOW - "TEACH ME TO KNOW"

Intense. Nice harmony

IT'S NOT THE GUNS - PART 3

A Tullahoma man is accused of shooting his 13-month-old baby girl Sunday night while cleaning a handgun at the family's home.

Kevin Sayre, 26, faces a charge of aggravated assault after police said he was cleaning the 9mm gun at the East Gate Apartments when the weapon fired, striking the baby in the chest.
.....

The child is listed in critical but stable condition.

"We're always disappointed, astounded, surprised when we heard of someone who is handling a firearm recklessly, neglectfully," said Tullahoma Police Chief Paul Blackwell.

Why is the police chief astounded or surprised by stories of reckless handling or storage of loaded guns?  I decided to limit my series of reports of accidental shootings to infants and children, because I could not keep up with the weekly numbers if I included adults.  I don't even manage to keep up with all the reports of children who are victims of accidental shootings.

H/T to David Waldman at Daily Kos, who documents the shootings this week.   I did not know there were quite so many in just one week.

WATCHING WHEN I DON'T WATCH

Twice last week I missed parts of a movie and a TV show, because I'm visually squeamish about scenes that are too violent, too bloody, or too frightening.  Obviously, my aversions rather limit what I watch.  I read about the movies I select for my Netflix queue, and sometimes when the films arrive in my mailbox several weeks later, I wonder why I chose them.

Recently, I sat down to watch Inception, and, after 20 minutes or so, I could not work out what the story was about, so I quit.  When I was younger, I would have plodded on, but no more.  20 minutes of my life was enough.  Why I chose the film, I can't say, because science fiction is not my favorite genre.  Perhaps I was persuaded by the good reviews.

 The next film in the queue, based on a true story, was 127 hours, which was very well done.  When the movie arrived I remembered the story and wondered again why I chose it, because in the course of the film the main character, Aron Ralston, when he is trapped by a falling boulder while making his solitary way through a crevice in a canyon in a remote spot in Canyonlands National Park in Utah, is forced to cut off his own arm to save his life .  The film is pretty much a one-man show, except for the beginning and end and the characters who inhabit Ralson's hallucinations and flashbacks while he's trapped.  I had to have known that the amputation would play a large part in the movie, and I would not be able to watch.  Of course I couldn't, and while I was not watching, I missed other important scenes in that flashed on the screen while Aron was in the proccess of  cutting off his arm with a dull knife.  So it goes.

The BBC series, The Bletchley Circle, tells a story of four women, Susan, Millie, Jean, and Lucy, who worked at Bletchley, the top secret code-breaking headquarters in England during WWII, and have moved on with their lives post-WWII.  When a serial murderer kills a number of women, and the police cannot discover the identity of the murderer to stop the killings, the four join together, using their skills developed at Blatchley, to help find the killer.  When the police refuse to take seriously the information given them by the women, they decide to find the killer on their own. In the final episode of the three Susan finds a clue, and, in true mystery story convention, she goes off alone to find the murderer and puts herself in great jeopardy.  Without spoiling the ending, I'll just say that I could not watch the frightening scenes, and, once again, I missed necessary parts of the drama.  And how could I spoil the end anyway, if I didn't see it?

What shall I do?  Next time, will I be able to bite the bullet and watch the scenes?  I don't know, but I must do something different.

UPDATE: I must add that I thoroughly enjoyed The Bletchley Circle, and I read that the second season is now being filmed. 

PENTECOST

An icon of the Christian Pentecost, in the Greek Orthodox tradition. This is the Icon of the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. At the bottom is an allegorical figure, called Kosmos, which symbolizes the world.

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

T S Eliot - "Little Gidding" 

Image from Wikipedia. 

THE FOUL-MOUTHED PARROT

A quiet, polite man inherits a foul-mouthed parrot from his brother the sailor.

One day, the constant loud and annoying obscenities get to be too much for him, so the man locks the parrot away in a kitchen cabinet.  When the man finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a fresh stream of vulgarities.  In desperation, the man puts the bird into the freezer.

After a few seconds of clawing and thrashing and yelling, it suddenly gets VERY quiet.

Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, the man opens the freezer door.  The bird calmly climbs onto the man's outstretched arm and says, "I'm so very, very sorry.  I promise I'll never curse again."

The man is astonished.

Then the parrot says, "Oh, by the way, what did the chicken do?"


Cheers,

Paul (A.)

IT'S NOT THE GUNS - PART 2

The Bossier Parish Sheriff's Office is investigating a shooting at the Haymeadow Trailer Park in Bossier City that sent an 11-year-old boy to the hospital.

Authorities say two boys, aged 11 and 13, were at the older child's home around 4 p.m. Friday when the teen accidently shot the 11-year-old in the abdomen with a .22 handgun revolver. The weapon belongs to a family member of the teenager.

The injuries to the 11 year old boy are not life-threatening, and the shooting was determined to be accidental.  Will anyone be held responsible for owning a loaded hand-gun which is accessible to children?

The NRA brays about restrictions on responsible gun owners, but, in addition to guns used to commit crimes, frequent accidents involving guns and children indicate that a good many gun owners, who, though they do not use their weapons to commit crimes, are obviously not responsible gun owners.  Would it be against the 2nd Amendment to pass laws requiring gun owners to secure their weapons and ammunition to prevent children from having access?  I think not.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.  

The "well-regulated" descriptive in the 2nd Amendment is completely ignored by those opposed to regulations on gun ownership.  Before the spate of mass shootings, an incident such as the above may not have been the subject of a news report, so perhaps we should consider that we are making progress.

LITTLE RICHARD - "TUTTI FRUTTI"

Friday night with Little Richard.

FAST TALK BY FASTPATH, OR IS OUR CHILDREN LEARNING?

John C. White

Southwood High School junior Randall Gunn is a straight-A student.

So when the school’s principal saw his name come up as registering to retake several courses online, it immediately raised a red flag. Gunn was called into a counselor’s office and told he was enrolled in three Course Choice classes — all of which he already had passed standardized tests with exceptional scores.

“I had no clue what was going on,” Gunn said. “I have no reason to take these classes and still don’t know who signed me up.”

More than 1,100 Caddo and Webster students have signed up to participate in what some say are questionable Course Choice programs. According to parents, students, and Webster and Caddo education officials, FastPath Learning is signing up some students it shouldn’t — in many cases without parent or student knowledge.

Our whiz kid State Superintendent of Education, John C. White, touts the course on the state website.

“This all goes back to all of the education reforms that were passed within eight days during last year’s session. This is what you get,” state Rep. Gene Reynolds, D-Dubberly, said of the apparent lack of oversight. “I’m not saying the idea was bad, but they are not doing it the way it should be done.”

Oops!  Oversight missing.   If you read the entire article at the Alexandria Town Talk, you will see that the tactics used by FastPath to sign up students are no more than flim-flammery on a scale which boggles the mind.  The Louisiana State Supreme Court ruled that public school funds cannot be used to pay for courses offered by private entities.  Last year, the purveyors of the courses were paid with funds taken from local public school districts, and apparently no definitive decision has yet been made by the Department of Education as to whether the company can continue to sign up students for the online courses with public school funds.

But that’s not the message Webster Parish education leaders are getting from Baton Rouge. Morris Busby, the district’s supervisor of secondary education, said he was “joyous, but cautiously joyous” with the court ruling. But the next day, he was still trying to get clarification from the state’s Course Choice counselors and got the impression state education officials are “bent on going ahead."

If they believe they can get away with it, Jindal and Co. appear determined to circumvent the court ruling against using public school funds to pay private entities of one kind or another to "educate" the children of Louisiana.

Excellent reporting by Vickie Welbord and Mary Nash-Wood at the Alexandria Town Talk.

H/T to Charles Pierce at Esquire.