Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The Book of Qualities


Worry
Worry has written the definitive work on nervous habits. She etches lines on people's foreheads when they are not paying attention. She makes lists of everything that could go wrong while she is waiting for the train. She is sure she left the stove on, and the house is going to explode in her absence. When she makes love, her mind is on the failure rates and health hazards of various methods of birth control. The drug companies want Worry to test their new tranquilizers but they don't understand what she knows too well: there is no drug that can ease her pain. She is terrified of the unknown.

O God


God,
what a waste!
He was so needed
by us all
...by You.
and yet You kill,
it seems at will,
Your young,.
Your trained,
Your highly skilled
(and not a few)...
Stephen first
...then James...
and...
O God!
our Savior, too.
Did I say "waste"?
Forgive
the stupid words
we cry
in anguished haste.
The Gardener
plants
and reaps
with skill.
...it's only
that we're left here
still.
by Ruth Bell Graham

ChiroJava Saturday night!



ChiroJava
5th Anniversary
Celebration
Saturday, May 16th
7:00pm - 11:00pm
Street Dance
Fun
Friends
Free Coffee & Dessert
114 South Austin Street
Hope to see you there!!!

Cool Mint Cafe


The Flower Car




Misinformation

"They shall beat their swords into plowshares." This rendering of Isaiah 2:4 contains an anachronism introduced by the translators. The plowshare belonged to the type of plow invented in the seventh century A.D. in order to turn the heavy turf of Europe. It was unknown in the East at the time those words were written.
Far from the Madding Crowd. This is the title of Thomas Hardy's novel as correctly rendered: the word is not maddening, which is often said and which means something else. Madding means "frenzied" and maddening means "annoying." Hardy did not originate the phrase, but borrowed it from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."
"Dear hearts and gentle people." Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, these are not the words found on a scrap of paper in the possession of Stephen Foster when he died. They are, rather from a popular song of the 1950s. What Foster had written was "Dear friends and gentle hearts." Nobody has ever figured out why he wrote it. Some speculate that it was a title or a phrase he meant to use in a song.

bulldog. Not so named because of its appearance, but because bulldogs were especially bred during medieval times in England for the cruel sport of bullbaiting, which continued to be popular until the eighteenth century.