WEIGHING THE BABY

A blonde calls a pharmacy and asks if she can get an infant scale to weigh a baby.

The clerk explains that many women figure out an infant's weight by weighing themselves while holding the baby on an adult scale, then the mother weighs herself alone and subtracts the second amount from the first.

"Oh, that won't work," replies the blonde. "I'm not the mother -- I'm the aunt."


 Cheers,

Paul (A.)

WAXING GIBBOUS MOON

 

Waxing and gibbous 
Bright white moon plays in night sky
Flickering through leaves

JOYFUL REUNION IN THE MIDST OF THE DEVASTATION

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.)