R U M O R S #558
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-06-28
June 28, 2009
SURVIVING LIFE
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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It’s great to receive your notes. And I appreciate whatever you send even if it turns out to be something that’s already appeared here.
Please put your name and where you are from in your notes. Even if this is the 537th time you’ve written to me. My old brain just doesn’t retain those kinds of things.
Sorry if that sounds a bit whiney.
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The Story – the legend of Abigail
Rumors – we do what we have to do
Soft Edges – building consensus
Bloopers – old, male angels
We Get Letters – a platitude of morticians
Mirabile Dictu! – used once
Bottom of the Barrel – read at your own risk
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – 1 Samuel 25 selected verses.
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – This from Anneliese Martin of Manitou Springs, Colorado.
Three friends from the local congregation were asked, “When you're in your casket, and friends and congregation members are mourning over you, what would you like them to say?”
Artie said: “I would like them to say I was a wonderful husband, a fine spiritual leader, and a great family man.” Eugene commented: “I would like them to say I was a wonderful teacher and servant of God who made a huge difference in people’s lives.” Al said: “I'd like them to say, 'Look, he's moving!'”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, July 5th, which is Proper 9 [14].
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 or Ezekiel 2:1-5
Psalm 48 or Psalm 123
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13
The Story – 1 Samuel 25 selected verses. Check out the “Readers’ Theatre” below. The whole story is a bit long, but I’ve condensed it to a more manageable size.
Ralph says:
We didn’t choose the lections selected in the Revised Common Lectionary because they offered a rather thin gruel. And the story of Abigail in Chapter 25 isn’t in the lectionary at all. Which is a shame, because her story connects with so many realities in our own lives.
It’s the “is-ness business.” All of us find ourselves in the lives we are in because of all the big and small decisions during the course of our lives. There’s a whole batch of things in our lives, in our families, in our communities, in our churches, in ourselves that are not likely to change.
Bev and I often try to get each other to stop fussing by saying, “That simply is.” On top of my computer stands a metal caricature of Don Quixote. He continually reminds me that we “dream the impossible dreams” and we “fight the unbeatable foe,” everyday in our struggles for peace and justice and faithfulness.
But it’s important to pick our battles. It’s important to choose a few places where there is at least a possibility of change. Faithfulness isn’t about flailing around over every issue that comes our way. Faithfulness is about focusing our resources and energies where they might do some good.
There’s a whole range of issues about which we must say, “That simply is.” To fuss, fight, struggle, complain, agonize, worry about things that we know we can’t affect is a recipe for burn-out or mental breakdown.
Abigail was such a person. She picked her battles. If it had been around in her day, I think she would have had the famous “Serenity Prayer” taped to her bathroom mirror. If she’d had a bathroom.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Jim says –
Three people’s stories intersect here: Nabal, Abigail, and David.
Nabal reminds me of an asthmatic bulldog, growling at everything.
Abigail was probably given to him as a child bride; it sounds unlikely that she chose such an irascible partner. But she is one gustsy woman, who could be a role model for many women today.
And of course, there’s David. Most governments today would brand David’s band of brigands as a “terrorist organization.” Certainly David lived outside the law. But like Hamas and Hezbollah, he was also the local security force and perhaps the social work agency. Within his sphere of influence, he protected flocks and shepherds; he kept rival gangs away.
In return, he expected local citizens to donate to his cause.
When Nabal baulked at this bargain, David led a squad of enforcers to punish Nabal. But Abigail intervened. Amazingly, Nabal’s employees took orders from a mere woman. She greeted David with a peace offering from Nabal’s inventory.
Nabal got so apoplectic at a wife usurping his authority that he had a heart attack. David was so impressed that he took Abigail as an additional prize.
In time, Abigail became a queen.
Those who insist that the Bible is the basis for “family values” – whatever those are – might consider that David, so often portrayed as a model servant of God, was a polygamist. The Bible records, at a minimum, Abigail, Ahinoam, Michal, Bathsheba, and a Shunnamite woman who is never named.
Polygamy aside, I would explore how some terrorists get raised to role models, and others remain villains. I suspect it has more to do with how they eventually turn out than with what they actually do.
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 (or Ezekiel 2:1-5) – For the people who passed along the legend of David, it was very important that their king obeyed God. Israel was a theocracy. The health of the state was directly related to how closely the king adhered to the expectations of God.
There was a time, not long ago, when it was really important that leaders were faithful members of the church – and it had to be the “right church.” That is no longer true. We’re actually more comfortable now if our leaders are not strongly identified with one denomination or another.
We are anything but a theocracy. Is that an improvement?
Psalm 48 (or Psalm 123) – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
1 When good things happen, when things go right,
give God the praise;
give God the glory.
2 Raise your eyes; look upward to the Lord.
The glory of the Lord looms over us, like a mountain,
like a mountain of ice towering above the tundra.
3 In the shadows of God's ramparts, no one would dare defy us.
4 No, not even the kings and rulers of this world.
They gather in force, confident of their powers;
5 They disintegrate in wonder, as they recognize their pathetic powers.
6 They were as helpless as a newborn child.
They cried out, and collapsed,
unable to support their own pride on their feeble limbs.
7 Like leaves before an autumn wind, they scattered.
8 We do not lie;
we witness in truth to what we have seen and what we have heard.
The realm of God is secure;
it is safe from human depredation.
9 It is more than human minds can grasp;
we struggle to understand.
10 The wonders of God always extend beyond us;
they defy our attempts to confine them to our comprehension.
We do not even know the name of God.
11 We only know how to worship the Lord of creation,
the one who created us, and all creatures, and all communities of creatures.
Let them all praise God.
12 So spend your life learning about this Lord;
study the scriptures and the stories of salvation,
13 So that you may pass on to your successors the truth
14 That this is God.
There is but one God, now and forever.
This God will lead us forward into the future.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Publications.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
2 Corinthians 12:2-10 – One of the games played by biblical scholars is to speculate on the “thorn in the flesh” that Paul experienced. Chronic malaria? Homosexuality? Epilepsy? A cranky wife? Those and more have been suggested by serious scholars.
It’s probably more useful to use Paul’s story to identify our own “thorn in the flesh.” What is it that keeps us from accepting God’s grace and entering in to a more full and complete relationship?
And what does it mean to say that God’s grace is sufficient? Suck it up and get with the program? Or is there a better way that God helps us deal with our own personal weakness?
Mark 6:1-13 – Most ministries begin with a honeymoon period when everybody is flexible and understanding and small irritations are overlooked.
This passage is about the end of Jesus’ honeymoon. Up till this point, as Mark tells the story, things have been going well, but then Jesus goes back to Nazareth. His relatives and neighbors, after being initially impressed, look at him and sniff. “We knew him when. . .”
The lectionary both liberates and limits us. It liberates us from riding our favorite hobby-horses, but it also keeps us from encountering parts of the Bible that are not in it. Such as the story of Abigail. Like some other good stories, it’s not in the lectionary and therefore also not in the Lectionary Story Bible.
There are, of course, stories from the readings prescribed for July 5th. “David Becomes King,” is on page 152 and “Jesus’ Friends Become Apostles,” based on the reading from Mark, is on page 163.
There are children’s stories for every Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary, in “The Lectionary Story Bible,” by yours truly. The marvellous illustrations are by Margaret Kyle. There’s at least one story for each Sunday, usually two, and occasionally three. Click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – The story of Abigail – “We do what we have to do."
(NOTE: Read this story all the way through before you decide to use it for worship or study group. It’s a bit ripe in a few places. You’re welcome to revise it to suit your needs. Or it might simply give you a few ideas on how to describe a feisty female survivor.)
"And how would you like a swift kick in the family jewels?" That's what I'd tell them when they pounded on the door in the middle of the night looking for cheap wine and cheap sex.
My besotted father ran a wine shop in the slums of Carmel. The stuff we sold was cheap rot gut that kills most people if they drink enough. And our customers all drank enough. They'd buy a skin of wine in the afternoon, spend the evening getting themselves thoroughly bombed, then come staggering back at all hours of the night looking for more.
Papa was in no condition to help them by that point. He'd sampled his own merchandise steadily all day, and by nightfall, he was zonked out, snoring away in the back of the shop. My four older brothers were even less help. They spent most of their time and all of dad's money chasing around town with their buddies, and when they came home they'd devote themselves to making my life miserable. I ran the wine shop most of the time, and learned to think on my feet.
The only thing that made life bearable was Atarah, my younger sister. She was born when I was only ten, and I became her mama, because my mother died a few days after. Papa's been drunk every day since. So by the time I was fifteen, I knew how to handle babies – I knew how to handle drunks – I even knew what to say to the bozos who would pound on our door at midnight looking for more cheap wine to kill themselves with. They'd ask for wine and then they'd proposition me.
Usually I'd just insult their masculinity. "Go to hell, I'd say. You're too drunk to get it up anyway." That would usually send them off muttering. But some would persist, and then I'd threaten to kick them in the knackers and on more than one occasion I did exactly that. So by the time I hit twenty, I was and old maid with a reputation. Every man in town was scared of Abigail the nutcracker.
Hey, was I surprised when dad announced one morning that I was engaged! "Last night," he said. "I got Ichabod the herdsman drunk. He signed the marriage contract."
"You what?" I demanded. "Thanks for nothing. I whacked old Ichabod on the beak with an empty goat skin once. He wouldn't marry me if I was the last woman in Carmel. Besides, he's an ass and he smells of garlic."
"Of course he's an ass. You were expecting maybe Jonathan, the king's son? The rabbi was there to witness the marriage contract. So it's a done deal. He and the rabbi drank your dowry. Two flasks of wine."
I don't cry often, but I bawled that day. Thank God for Atarah, who listened to me rant and yell and cry and threaten. She was just a girl of ten but she know how to be my mother and my friend. She had a sense of faith and a sense of humor. We prayed and laughed together often, and sometimes I couldn't tell which was which. All I know is, it kept me from falling apart.
"Every girl dreams of a man who is strong, witty, good looking, intelligent, sensitive and rich. Ichabod may be a nabal, a fool, but he's rich. One out of six ain't bad for an old maid with two flasks of wine for a dowry."
"A herd of sheep is rich?"
"A nabal with a herd of sheep is better than a genius with a herd of cockroaches."
"Married to a nabal. I go from being the daughter of a drunk to the wife of a nabal. How come such good things keep happening to me? How come I am so doubly blessed?"
"I'm coming with you," said Atarah. "If I stay here with father, I'll be raped and pregnant by one of those drunks before you know it. I don't even mind being a second wife to the nabal if that's how it works out."
"Two brides for two flasks of wine? Such a deal."
Now it was Atarah's turn to cry. "Life is just so hard for women," she moaned. "We don't get to choose anything for ourselves."
"No sis, we don't. We do what we have to do, right? But you and me are going to plow into life snoot first and take our lumps. That's the only choice we have – to laugh at life and to pray to God. Then sometimes – not very often but sometimes – we can get to chose the lumps. Maybe we don't have to take absolutely everything this rotten life throws at us. We can't choose much, but we can choose something. Especially if we can manage a private laugh, you and me, now and then. We'll make it. God will help us, Atarah. We are going to make it.."
"We'll call him Nabal. You and I. When there's just the two of us, that's what we'll call him."
So Nabal he was. The word means fool. At least it does when you're in polite company. I've heard more colorful definitions in the wine shop.
You should have seen Atarah laugh when I told her about our wedding night. Nabal had all the finesse of billy goat in full rut. And then he wanted me to tell him the next morning how wonderful he was. I said, "Well, love. You were enthusiastic!"
As for David, my second husband. Well, he didn't write the Song of Songs either, let me tell you. But at least life with him was never boring. Terrifying often, but never boring.
Funny, you know. It was saving Nabal's backside that got me married to David. At that time, the great King David was nothing but a petty warlord running a protection racket in the hills around Carmel. David was in trouble with King Saul because the old king was nuttier than a fruitcake but not so nutty that he didn't realize David was going to take the throne away from his son Jonathan. So David was on the run and had to make a living somehow. He collected a bunch of ruffians who were also in trouble with the law, and they'd go to the herdsmen around and say, "How about giving me some food and wine and stuff as payment for 'protecting' you." And if they didn't come across, funny things would start to happen to the herd and to the sheepherders.
David had a gang of about 600 guys with him and they decided the folks around Carmel needed a lot of "protecting." People just paid up. What could they do?
Everyone except our brilliant Nabal. Nabal decides to be courageous. Nabal, with fifteen sheepshearers working for him and one rusty sword in the tent decides to stand up to David – the same David who killed Goliath; who used to be Saul's chief commander. When David sends his flunkies with a very "polite" request for some food and wine, Nabal tells them to stuff it in a place where the sun don't shine. And surprise! David and his boys strap on their swords and head to out to teach Nabal some manners.
David would have wiped us out. All of us. Except I heard what Nabal had said from one of my servants, so I grabbed all the food and wine I could get my hands on and headed out to intercept David. There he was – coming down the road – blood in his eye.
I did my "sweet young thing" act. I opened my cloak to show a nice bit of ripe young bosom. I minced up to him wiggling my backside and flattered him and fawned over him.
Hey, you think that's easy? For some women, maybe. I went to finishing school in dad's wine shop, remember? Learning how to whack a knee into a guys groin when he's all over you is not the best training to be a sex kitten. But you do what you have to do. The game is survival.
I told David what an ass Nabal was. And that's the name I used. Nabal. "He can't help being stupid. Nabal's mamma dropped him on his head when he was tadpole."
I knew the flattery and the food wouldn't be enough. David was no dummy – they said he was sharp as a whip. But listening to those guys in the wine shop, I had learned about men and the macho games they play in their heads. Even the sharp guys, the bright ones, play those games. It's amazing. For some reason, when Jewish guys have their pride punctured, they want revenge, but they want one of their buddies to get revenge for them. Makes them feel right good inside to have loyal comrades who go and do their dirty work for them. So I worked David over on that one.
And I called him "King of Israel." You always call a guy something he would like to be. Never what he really is, which in this case was a bush-fighter smelling of smoke and urine.
"I know how badly you would feel, O king-in-waiting, if you had to take revenge on Nabal for yourself. You'd feel guilty about that, wouldn't you. Why not consider my gift a payment for his insult? I know I'm just a woman and you are so strong and handsome and people say you are kind and gentle with poor women and young children."
He bought it. I felt liked a bit of a floozy manipulating the man like that, but you do what you have to do. And hey, did Atarah and I ever have a good laugh over it. It felt good to know I could outwit a guy like the famous David.
Nabal didn't laugh. Not at that. He was giggling in a corner, absolutely stone bottle-eyed drunk when I got home. So I waited till the next morning when he got out of bed with his head feeling tighter than a donkey's ass in fly season.
"Nabal, baby," I said to him. Then I realized I had called him that to his face. But I went right on. "Your sweet little wifey saved your backside yesterday. You spit in David's eye. I went and bought him off with good food, a lot of wine and a large dose of old-fashioned femininity. Because, duckey, David was on his way here with 600 guys, ready to string you up by your toes and slice you into very thin strips."
His face went the color of a baboon's backside. He sputtered a few times, then he went pure white. He just sat there. For ten days Nabal sat there, not saying or doing anything. Then he fell over dead.
The local gossip had it that David claimed this was God taking revenge on Nabal. God did it for David. Folks said David really believed it. He really believed it!
Well, I did a pretty fair job of mourning my late, great husband. Sack cloth. Ashes. Kyying. The works. You do what you have to do. What I hadn't counted on was being a widow. Nabal and I had no kids so I had a reasonable chance of hanging on to Nabal's estate. And I knew I could run the place a whole lot more efficiently and profitably than Nabal, which isn't saying a whole lot. But no sooner was the official mourning period over, then David sent one of his flunkies to tell me how highly David thought of me and what a beautiful and clever woman I was.
I said to Atarah. "Isn't this wonderful. I am being wooed." She giggled. Then I thought, do I want to be married to a petty warlord who runs a protection rack and lives in caves and smells of smoke and urine?
Then Atarah asked, "Do you have a choice?"
She was right of course. If David's pride was hurt because Nabal told him to shove it, the guy would have had a cat fit if a woman told him "no." He'd slice me into little pieces the way he planned to slice up Nabal!
The next day, another messenger from David came along and got right to the point. "David wants you for his wife." I shrugged and thought, "What you gotta do you gotta do." But I said to the messenger, "Look, I'm not used to living in caves with 600 men. I want to bring along my sister for company." I had a sneaking hunch that David might not be a great conversationalist.
David was only slightly better as a conversationalist than he was as a lover. My wedding night with David was a slow-motion replay of my wedding night with Nabal. Except that David's idea of romantic conversation was to talk about how many sheep and goats and other stuff we had there on the homestead. "It kind of puts romance in context," I said to Atarah, and we had a good laugh over that.
Look, I'm not complaining. Lots of women got things a whole lot worse than I did. I was never hungry. I was mad and frustrated lots of times. And scared. But never bored.
They said David was a man of God. It's hard to see a man of God when he's standing beside your bed, pot-bellied and stark naked. He might have been. Sometimes I thought so.
I know that Atarah was a woman of God. She helped me laugh. She helped me pray. She helped me survive.
"We women don't get much to work with in this world," I said to Atarah. "The breaks don't just naturally go our way. We use every bit of wit and savvy and faith we've got."
"Well sis," she said. "We've learned to laugh and pray. That doesn't make life easier, but it sure has helped us survive."
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Building Concensus
Our organizations might be better off without Robert’s Rules of Order.
Robert’s is, of course, the American text on Parliamentary Procedure. It is not the Canadian authority – although many Canadian organizations wrongly cite it. The Canadian authority is Bourinot, the standard used by the House of Commons in Ottawa.
Nevertheless, both Bourinot and Roberts agree on some basic principles.
One is that there can be no discussion until a formal motion defines the issue.
Another is that each person may speak only once (except the mover, who may also close the debate).
At a gathering recently, a woman described the effect of these principles. “If you’ve only got one chance to speak,” she said, “you tend to come out with all guns blazing to support your position. You have no idea yet how others will react, so you shoot down any opposition before it can come up.”
The tactic reminds me of old Wild West movies where the good guys drag in a Gatling gun to mow down the bad guys before they can return fire.
It’s hardly a process for building consensus.
I can say this, having had – for one period of my life – a reputation for writing absolutely scathing memos to colleagues in another office. I’ve seen some of them since then; I’m appalled at the tone of my words.
But I know why I did it. Because I had only one chance to convince them. My colleagues would then make their decision without further input from me. Their decision would affect my reputation.
So it was all or nothing.
I’ve often seen meetings where every speaker argued against an imagined opposition. When the actual vote came, everyone was in favour. The opposition was never there.
In a group of friends, ideas are traded, pros and cons weighed, implications considered… A consensus emerges.
The aboriginal practice of a circle works well, too, if the group is not too large. Everyone gets a chance to speak; everyone listens. No one interrupts; no one dominates. If there’s no consensus, you go around again.
But it can take a long time. So larger bodies tend to fall back on the rules of parliamentary procedure to expedite debate and discussion.
But there are other ways.
One church organization allows a speaker two minutes to present an idea. Any idea. It doesn’t have to be a formal motion – the official decision could get shaped later.
After two minutes, the other delegates indicate shades of support:
1. I love it, and I’ll work for it.
2. I agree.
3. I can accept it.
4. I disagree, but I won’t block it.
5. I disagree strongly, and I’ll block it if I can.
If the mood seems generally favorable, further discussion takes place.
But if enough people oppose the proposal strongly enough to resist it with any tactics short of terrorism, the proponents may withdraw their proposal, or take time to make it more acceptable.
It’s a much more practical process.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Arn Main of Barrie, Ontario enjoyed the hymn “All Hail The power Of Jesus Name” that was on the LED screen in church. Arn says “The first line began okay – ‘Let angel’s prostrate fall’ and then followed with ‘Let angel’s prostate fall.’ Painful thought!”
Not painful at all, Arn. It proves my theory that angels are not cute, fat babies but gentle old men.
Horace King of Binghamton, New York, writes: “When I was engaged in a counseling ministry, my name appeared on the letter-board, and underneath it said, ‘therapist’. I was proud!
A week or so later, some wag had split the letters so that underneath my name appeared, ‘the rapist’!"
Denise Patterson of Simcoe (The one in Ontario, I think) writes: “My daughter was in her Sunday school class, and her teacher was going over the verses about ‘having the faith of a mustard seed.’
“My daughter leaned over to a friend and asked, ‘How much faith does a mustard seed have?’"
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers (or such like that-there stuff) in your church bulletin or newsletter (or anywhere else for that matter) please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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We Get Letters – A delightful batch of responses to my challenge around collective nouns.
David Evans of Moncton, New Brunswick, who has “four young ladies (all under twelve and all sisters or cousins) in a small rural church,” proposes “a giggle of girls.”
Ann Pollock of Castlegar, BC, also suggested a “giggle of girls” and just to be inclusive added, "tribe of little boys."
Albert Durksen of Winnipeg, Manitoba, was “surprised I did not see ‘a mound of grave diggers’ in your” list of collective nouns.
“Phil from ‘Down Under’” (Phil – you thought I’d remember your last name when the reality is, I can’t remember my grand-kids first names half the time) suggested “a solicitude of morticians” but then decided that “a platitude of morticians” would be even better.
Virginia Rickeman of Bethel, Maine, says she should have been “writing the minister's message for our church newsletter. Instead, my mind is occupied with:
a coil of snakes
a stack of beauty contestants
a rack of inquisitors
a forest of greens
a mountain of molehills
and other such mindless trivia....
Phil Gilman of Dunnellon, Florida says “you'll be sorry you asked” and contributes a whole list. So I’ll give him the last word.
a scratch of fleas
a pint of beer-guzzlersa tun of winos
a glutton of epicures
a wastebasket of editors
a crow of braggarts
a deletion of writers
a lot of realtors [true corn, that]
a skein of knitters
a basket of cagers
a classroom of pedants
a Basin of blues singers [from the right Street, of course]
a pitcher of ballplayers
a swat of flies
a Kipling of trees
a bane of telemarketers
a vacuum of carpet sweepers
an odium of name-coiners
and last, but not least,
a passing of Ralph's:
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Wish I’d Said That! – A sign on a local church reads: 'For a real treat try our Sundays.'
source unknown via Marilyn MacDonald
I would rather spend time wondering why I was never Prime Minister than spend time wondering why I was Prime Minister
Dennis Healey via George Brigham
Give others freedom. When you hold them captive to your own wishes, you destroy them.
Lisa Engelhardt via Mary in Oman
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “used once!”)
* Free. Yorkshire Terrier. Eight years old. Hateful little dog.
* Free puppies. Half Cocker Spaniel. Half sneaky neighbor’s dog.
* Free puppies. Part German Shepherd. Part stupid dog.
* Snow blower for sale. Only used on snowy days.
* Nordic Track. Hardly used. Call Chubby.
* Hummers. Largest selection ever. “If it’s in stock, we have it!”
* Georgia peaches. California Grown, 89 cents a pound.
* Nice parachute. Never opened. Used once.
* Tired of working for only $9.75 an hour? We offer profit sharing and flexible hours. Starting pay: $7 - $9 per hour.
* Joining nudist colony. Must sell washer and dryer.
* Open House Body Shapers Toning Salon. Free coffee and donuts.
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Bottom of the Barrel – This one is so “bottom” that it’s more of a hole underneath it. In fact, unless you are feeling quite perky, I’d suggest you not read it at all. And please don’t blame it on me. Blame it on Vern Ratzlaff. He thinks maybe he got it from me in the first place, but that couldn’t possibly be the case.
Whatever. Read at your own risk!
Once upon a time, in the tropical waters of the Coral Sea, two prawns were swimming around. One was called Justin and the other Christian. The prawns were constantly being harassed and threatened by sharks. One Day Justin said to Christian, 'I'm fed up with being a prawn; I wish I were a shark and then I wouldn't have any worries about being eaten.'
A large mysterious cod appeared and said, 'Your wish is granted', and behold – Justin turned into a shark. Horrified, Christian immediately swam away, afraid of being eaten by his old mate.
Justin found life as a shark boring and lonely. All his old mates simply swam away whenever he came close to them, and he especially missed Christian.
One day he saw the mysterious cod again and he thought, 'Perhaps he can change me back into a prawn.' He approached the cod and begged to be changed back, and lo and behold, he found himself a prawn again.
The first thing he did was to swim over to Christian's home, and banging on the gate, he yelled, 'It's me, Justin; your old friend – come out and play with me again.'
But Christian said, 'No way; you're a shark and I'm afraid of you.'
Justin cried out, 'No, I'm not; that was the old me; I've changed; I found Cod; I'm a prawn again, Christian.'
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – 1 Samuel 25 selected verses.
Note: If you want the shorter form of this chapter but don’t want to use the Readers’ Theatre version, just skip down to the actual scripture (after “Slight Pause”) and have just one person read the whole thing.
Reader I: She was a feisty woman!
Reader II: Who?
I: Abigail.
II: Abigail who?
I: This is starting to sound like a “knock-knock” joke.
I: I’m serious. I’ve never heard of any Abigail in the Bible.
II: I know. And that’s too bad, because Abigail was a feisty woman. Life had not dealt her a good hand. She was married to Nabal, a guy who was a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.
I: Yeah, but where does she fit into the whole story? She didn’t just pop up, out of thin air.
II: Sorry. You’re right. Abigail is part of the legend of King David. So let me recap that story. David was a shepherd boy who managed to kill the giant Goliath, and then was taken into the household of King Saul.
David was really popular and that bugged King Saul to the point where he tried to kill David. So David high-tailed it out into the bush, where he gathered a bunch of other fugitives around him. He ran what amounted to a protection racket – telling the farmers and ranchers in the area that in exchange for money or food, he would protect their sheep and their crops. If they didn’t come across, then strange and terrible things would happen. So the smart farmers and ranchers came across.
So David and his gang made a nice living wandering around and demanding money or food from the various ranchers. And that’s where Abigail comes in.
I: OK. So let’s read the story. It’s from First Samuel, chapter 25. We’ve condensed the story a bit.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
II: David left Saul’s house and went down to the wilderness of Paran. There was a rancher named Nabal who was very rich. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. His wife’s name was Abigail and she was clever and beautiful. David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. So David sent ten young men to go visit Nabal.
I: Go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. Say to him: 'Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. Your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing. Ask them and they will tell you. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.'"
II: When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David; and then they waited. But Nabal answered David's servants.
I: "Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are breaking away from their masters. Shall I take my bread and my water and the meat that I’ve butchered for my shearers, and give it to men who come from I do not know where?"
II: So David's young men turned away, and came back and told him all this. David was furious!
I: "Every man strap on his sword!"
II: David also strapped on his sword; and about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.
I: Meanwhile, back at the ranch, one of their servants spoke to Abigail, Nabal's wife.
II: "David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master Nabal who then shouted insults at them. Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we never missed anything when we were in the fields, as long as we were with them; they were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.”
I: Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, five sheep ready dressed, five measures of parched grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys and told her servants to go ahead of her. But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
II: Meanwhile, David had been planning what he was going to do to Nabal.
I: "Surely it was in vain that I protected all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; but he has returned me evil for good. God do so to David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one of his servants alive."
II: When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from her donkey.
I: She fell before David on her face, bowing to the ground.
II: "Upon me alone, my lord, be the guilt. My lord, do not take seriously this ill-natured fellow, Nabal. His name means, fool and that’s what he is. I didn’t see the men you sent, so I didn’t know that he had done such a foolish thing. But I have brought you gifts that I hope you will accept from me. And I am sure that God will bless you if you accept these gifts and you don’t shed any innocent blood because of the foolishness of my husband.
I: "Blessed be the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me today! Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, who have kept me today from bloodguilt and from avenging myself by my own hand!
II: Then David received Abigail and accepted her gifts.
I: "Go up to your house in peace. I have heeded your voice, and I have granted your petition."
II: So Abigail went back to her house. Her husband Nabal was holding a feast in his house. His heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. So Abigail told him nothing at all until the morning light when he was sober. When Abigail told him what she had done, his heart died within him. When David heard that Nabal was dead, he laughed out loud.
I: "Blessed be God who has judged the case of Nabal's insult to me, and has kept me from evil. God has returned the evildoing of Nabal upon his own head."
II: Then David sent his servants with a message to Abigail.
I: "David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife."
II: I am your servant. I will be like a slave to wash your feet because you are the servants of David, my lord."
I: Abigail got up hurriedly and rode away on a donkey. She went after the messengers of David and became his wife.
II: David also married Jezreel; so she and Abigail both became his wives. And David was already married to Michal, who was King Saul’s daughter.
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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
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* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Preaching Materials for June 28th, 2009
R U M O R S # 557
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-06-21
June 21st, 2009
RADICAL RESPECT
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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The Story – it’s who got healed
Rumors – Marie trusts me
Soft Edges – Canadian icons
Bloopers – the logical seminary
We Get Letters – an inordinate fondness for beetles
Mirabile Dictu! – a whirl of dervishes
Bottom of the Barrel – Christian fleas
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 5:21-43
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – The church board was considering the agenda.
“Item number one,” said the board chair, “someone figures we should buy a chandelier for this here room. I can’t see the sense of it myself. In the first place, it’d be way too expensive, and even if we got one, we don’t have nobody that knows how to play the thing.”
“Besides,” piped up another member. “What we really need in this room is some decent lighting.”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, June 28th, Proper 8 [13].
* 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 or Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24
* Psalm 130 or Psalm 30 (optional Psalm reading: Lamentations 3:23-33)
* 2 Corinthians 8:7-15
* Mark 5:21-43
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) – Mark 5:21-43
I would have preferred to use the passage from 2nd Samuel, because it is David’s lamentation over Saul and Jonathan. But the gospel reading is too important to neglect and it occurs nowhere else in the cycle.
Jim says –
Ralph’s right – this is too good a story to skip, despite the allure of David’s famous line, “How the mighty are fallen...”
I would look beyond the specifics, the exegesis of the patriarchal culture of Jesus’ time that considered women and children less worthy than men. I would tell the story as part of a consistent pattern of honoring those who are too often belittled by society.
And I would use a modern example. As reported by Associated Press, ten-year-old Kennedy Corpus attended Barack Obama's town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with her father. During a question and answer session, John Corpus mentioned that his daughter was missing school to attend the event.
"Do you need me to write a note?" Obama asked. The crowd laughed, but the president was serious.
On a piece of paper, he wrote: "To Kennedy's teacher: Please excuse Kennedy's absence. She's with me. Barack Obama." Then he stepped off the stage to hand-deliver the note.
I’m not attempting to glorify Obama; I’m trying to say that Jesus’ kind of breaking-the-rules respect for those who often fly below society’s radar still exists, and always has.
It’s up to us to recognize it and to celebrate it whenever it occurs.
Ralph says:
A story within a story, and both of them powerful. What strikes me most about this story is not the healings, but who was healed.
In the hierarchy of first century Jewish life, a child was much less important than an adult, and a girl child even less so. The story has Jesus going out of his way to heal this girl, which tells us again that he was constantly working against the social system which classified some people as more important than others.
That idea is underlined in the story within the story. The woman broke all the rules by being out in public when she was hemorrhaging. She was considered ritually unclean and therefore should have kept to herself to avoid contaminating others. But she forces her way through the crowd, making every one she brushes against unclean. And she touches Jesus.
Instead of yelling at her for making him ritually unclean, he says it was her faith that made her well. Not his action but her faith. Nor does Jesus go through the necessary ablutions to ritually cleanse himself, but proceeds right on to the house of an official of the synagogue who would have been very conscious of such rules.
Jesus kept coloring outside the lines.
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 – I find verse 26 of this passage deeply moving. My gay friends tell me it shows that Jonathan and David were in a homosexual relationship. I don’t have a problem with that.
But the passage also leads me to reflect on deep friendships – people of the same sex or male and female. Deep and profound friendship is a powerful and beautiful gift that is undervalued. It is a friendship that takes work and it takes years. It grows into a gift that may be deeper and stronger and more satisfying than any erotic or romantic relationship.
I have been blessed with two such friendships. Bev, my wife of more than 50 years, and Jim, my colleague of about 30 years. Such friendships take work, commitment and time.
Psalm 130:1-8 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
A woman described her clinical depression as a deep black pit with shiny walls, too smooth for her to climb.
1 From the bottom of a deep black pit, God, I shout at you.
2 The walls rise above my head, shutting out the light.
Can you hear me, God?
I can't get out by my own efforts.
3 I've tried and tried. I climb part way out,
and then I slide back again to the bottom.
Without your help, I'm sunk forever.
4 Don't judge me – forgive me!
Free me from my secret faults.
Give me another chance!
5 I shall go down in the depths of the pit and wait for your decision.
6 Like parents staying up until a teenager comes home,
like a puppy poised for its master's footstep,
I wait for your response.
I know I will not be disappointed.
7 Put your hope in the Lord.
You will not be disappointed either.
8 God can free us from our failures,
and save us from our successes.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Publications.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
2 Corinthians 8:7-15 – This passage is good stewardship material. Paul is writing to the folks in Corinth who have been holding back on helping the hurting folks in Jerusalem. Paul offers healing to the Corinthian congregation through a change of focus and an opening of their hearts to others.
I keep getting more and more reports of people using the “Lectionary Story Bible,” the “Readers’ Theatre” and their sermon, as a one-two-three punch to help adults enjoy and understand the scripture.
Of course, the Story Bible version of the scripture is read while the children are still in church. The adults think it’s for the kids, but they listen anyway, so when the Readers’ Theatre comes along later in the service and offers that same passage from a translation, and that same scripture is then unpacked in the sermon, folks actually remember and learn.
Not all of them, of course. Some would need rockets and sirens. But there’s enough feedback to know that it’s working.
For this coming Sunday, you’ll find a story called “A Sad Song about a Good Friend,” based on David’s lamentation, on page 149 and “Jesus Heals a Sick Girl,” based on the gospel, on page 149.
If you don’t already own this three-volume set – “the largest collection of children’s Bible stories ever published” – click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – I have a friend named Marie. She is six months old, and that’s her name. Some people give their babies traditional names. Marie has a brother named Henry.
A few days ago, after Marie had been fed, I held her on my knee for awhile. Naturally, she burped a bit of dinner on to my shirt. Her mother apologized – rather too much, I thought – but Marie smiled and bubbled and stiffened her legs to stand on my lap.
Marie trusts me. She shouldn’t of course, because I am not a very reliable person. I’ve let lots of people down and will probably let her down someday. Marie is only six months old and has no alternative.
I am a little older than Marie and I have alternatives. I don’t trust everybody the way she does. I trust Marie, but then what can she do to me besides spit up on my shirt.
Former US President Lyndon Johnson is quoted as saying he never trusted anyone unless he had that person’s career in his pocket. Johnson did not understand trust. Trust is not mutual fear.
My friend Jim Taylor once talked about a person who “I disagree with on many things, but I trust implicitly.” I trust Jim, come to think of it, even though I know he may well forget the lunch date we have on Wednesday. I don’t trust him to make all the right decisions or to remember everything or to never let me down on anything.
But I trust him to be a good person, and that he would not take advantage of my vulnerabilities. I am not afraid of Jim.
Maybe that’s the same kind of trust I receive from little Marie. Does she know that I will not take advantage of her vulnerabilities? Do I know that?
The woman with the hemorrhage in today’s Gospel and even Jairus were very vulnerable – the woman through her shame and pain. Jairus through his grief and fear. Like Marie, they had no alternative but to trust.
Perhaps we never know whom we trust – whom we can trust – till we are laid out in a hospital bed, or broke, or in jail, or in a nursing home. Or an infant like Marie.
Perhaps God can’t trust us with the gift of love until then either. Until we are vulnerable. Until we know that the ones we trust can hurt us, but we trust them anyway.
Isn’t it interesting how Jesus’ metaphor of becoming “like a child” keeps coming back to us?
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Canadian Icons
Author John Robert Colombo once quipped that the two most Canadian institutions were the National Hockey League and the United Church of Canada.
Since then, both the NHL and the UCC have lapsed into irrelevance. The NHL has moved south. Besides, ice hockey playoffs in mid-June? Get real!
And The Observer, the United Church’s national magazine, has plummeted from some 350,000 subscribers – which made it, at one time, Canada’s fourth largest magazine after the Reader’s Digest, Maclean’s, and Time – to around 60,000.
I would guess that today’s Canadian icons are Tilley clothes and Tim Hortons coffee.
Canadians who travel abroad recognize each other by their Tilley hats. Or by Alex Tilley’s shorts or slacks – clothes that wear forever and have secret pockets tucked deep inside where you can carry your passport and traveller’s cheques in absolute security until you have to dig them out in front of a suspicious immigration official...
I wore Tilley hats for years. A couple actually wore out; Tilley replaced them free. Several others got stolen. Whenever I see a Tilley hat go by, I wonder if it’s one of mine.
I have a long history with Tim Hortons too, starting so far back that the Tim Horton’s logo still had an apostrophe. Our son played kids’ hockey. He idolized Tim Horton, the defenceman. We patronized Tim’s first coffee-and-donut shops out of loyalty.
Today, Tim Hortons is Canada’s largest restaurant chain. A recent study found Canadians preferred Tim Hortons to Starbucks, two to one. Tim Hortons put “double-double” into the Canadian vocabulary.
Joan and I travel back and forth to Edmonton to visit grandchildren. We know every Tim Hortons on either of the two possible routes.
When we come back into Canada, after international trips, we know we’re home when we see that familiar Tim Hortons logo in the airport. Donut and drink later, we’re ready to brave the baggage carousels and customs officers.
There’s even a Tim Hortons at the Canadian forces base in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Having a Canadian flag on one’s backpack used to guarantee a friendly reception anywhere in the world. I’m told that’s not true anymore. Between the seal hunt and armed intervention in Afghanistan, Canadians are no longer welcomed with the same warmth.
The United Church has similarly fallen from favour. We used to have missionaries around the world: India, China, Zambia, Kenya, Lesotho, the Polynesian islands... Wherever they were stationed, because of their example, Canadians were regarded with respect.
Now the church just sends money to overseas partners. Sending money makes good sense. It enables local churches to undertake projects that they couldn’t otherwise afford, at far less cost than sending Canadian personnel.
But money is faceless, anonymous. Only the accountants know where it came from.
Canada still sends diplomatic staff. But they’re virtually unknown outside their own circle of acquaintances.
If Canadians want to be liked, respected, even valued abroad, maybe we should invite Tim Hortons and Alex Tilley to represent us.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Evelyn McLachlan laughed at this bumper sticker.
“Where am I going? And why am I in this handbasket?”
April Daily (who says she is an “ecstatic Penguins hockey fan”) says the lector should have read (from Corinthians), “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others..." Instead, the lector read: "...we try to ‘persecute’ others...."
“Gee,” says April. “I hope not!”
Evelyn McLachlin's story about the church sign "losing" a word reminded April of the time at "The Lutheran Theological Seminary" of Gettysburg, PA, in preparation for the ‘Luther Bowl’ (a football game between LTS Philadelphia & LTS Gettysburg) we removed the ‘O’ from theological, leaving the sign to read: ‘Lutheran The Logical Seminary.’ Made perfect sense to me – only logical, of course.”
Sharyl Peterson of Grand Junction, Colorado chuckled at this in the bulletin: "The minister and liturgist will come down the aisle and pass the peach of Christ to you..."
Tim Hayward of Trenton, Ontario tells this one on himself. Reporting on the activities of children at a meeting of the church Conference, Tim said, “these were children brought to conference by their ‘delicate’ (delegate) parents.”
Nicole Burassa-Burke of Scarboro, Ontario, saw this on a church message board.
“Our Sundays are better than Baskin Robbin's"
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – Blogging is the first draft of history.
Nobel Prize committee, explaining why blogs are now eligible in the writing and newspaper categories. Via Stephani Keer
Nobody roots for Goliath. Wilt Chamberlain via Evelyn McLachlan
It is better to deserve honors and not have them, that have them and not deserve them.
Mark Twain
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We Get Letters – Fred Brailey of Orangeville, Ontario writes: There's an apocryphal tale of some theologians asking the late geneticist (and polymath) J.B.S. Haldane what could be inferred about the mind of God from the works of creation. The response : "God has an inordinate fondness for beetles."
“There are over 350 thousand species of beetles. Beetles represent just 40% of all insect species. But then, there are myriads of other microscopic forms of life, including viruses and bacteria, serving who knows how many purposes in the ecology of evolution. Similar things inside our bodies ensure our biological survival.”
Marilyn Stone of Springfield, South Dakota writes: “I love your story of David, especially ‘Guess what Davey told his Dad to do with the sheep?’
“The whole thing makes more sense to our society when told as a sports story. But now I'm trying to figure out HOW I tell or read it to my SMALL congregation. Well, heck, I may just take a chance and read it to them anyway! I'm 63 years old. They're not going to fire me!”
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “a whirl of dervishes!”) This can make a fun game – give people a list of occupations or kinds of people and ask them to dream up collective nouns. If you add any really good ones to this list, send them to me.
Some examples:
* a mass of priests * a modesty of nuns* a pomposity of prelates * a serenity of monks* a solemnity of bishops* a limit of patients* a herd of roomers* a multitude of sinners* a sowing of doubters* a cloud of pessimists* a horde of misers* a slough of despondents* an abrasion of critics* a semblance of orderlies* a stink of complainers* an unction of do-gooders* a fallacy of Freudians* a whirl of dervishes* a gathering of Zionists* a harmony of transcendentalists* a tide of humanitarians* a vigilance of fundamentalists And when the chaplain has done her best, and God calls us home:* a body of undertakers * a solicitude of morticians
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Bottom of the Barrel – Why Church School teachers go grey. Or, “Who’s on First?”
It was one of those days. The Sunday school teacher just knew the lesson would not go well.
It started when young Todd asked a question. “Teacher, is there a Christian flea?”
“Where did you get an idea like that?” the teacher demanded.
“Well, the preacher read it from the Bible. She said, ‘the wicked flea from God.’”
“Well, Todd, that means that the wicked men flee.”
“Then is there a wicked woman flea?”
“No, no. It means that the wicked flee – they run away.”
“Why do they run? “Who?”
“The wicked fleas.”
The teacher had almost lost it by this time. “No, no. Don’t you see? The wicked man runs away when no one is after him.”
“Is there a woman after him?”
“No, there is no woman after him?”
Todd was more confused than ever. “Well, what about the fleas? Are there wicked fleas and Christian fleas?”
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 5:21-43
Reader I: This is kind of a weird story we’re reading today, isn’t it?
Reader II: It’s really two stories. Jesus heads out to help a high official of the synagogue, and on the way, he encounters a woman with a hemorrhage.
I: Am I the only one who gets a bit twitchy about these healing stories. I can’t help wondering if these things could really happen. I mean, if Jesus could heal a few people here and there, why couldn’t he heal everybody.
II: That’s a really good question, and I don’t know the answer. But that’s not the point of the story.
I: So then what is the point?
II: It’s who Jesus healed. Women weren’t much valued in first century Israel. In fact women were only slightly more valuable then cattle. Children were only important if they were male, and so a young girl is down fairly low on the social ladder. So in our story today, we have Jesus healing a girl-child and a woman.
I: Wasn’t there something weird about that woman he healed? Didn’t she push her way through the crowd to touch Jesus?
II: Weird is an understatement. This was a woman whose menstrual flow was continuous. She took a huge risk. She could have been killed for shoving her way through a crowd. A menstruating woman was considered ritually unclean and that was hugely important in first century Israel. She broke all the rules. And so did Jesus by healing her.
I: OK, so enough blabbering. Let’s get on with the story.
II: A reading from the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Mark.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
I: When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side of the lake, a great crowd gathered around him. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and when he saw Jesus, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly.
II: "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."
I: So Jesus went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,
II: "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well."
I: Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus was aware that power had gone forth from him.
I: "Who touched my clothes?"
II: His disciples had no idea.
I: "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'"
II: Jesus looked all around to see who had done it.
I: But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.
II: "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
I: While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house.
II: "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?"
I: But Jesus overheard what they said. He turned to the leader of the synagogue.
II:"Do not fear, only believe."
I: Jesus allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.
II: "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping."
I: They laughed at Jesus. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand.
II: "Little girl, get up!"
I: Immediately the girl got up and began to walk about. She was twelve years of age. At this the people who had gathered were overcome with amazement. Jesus strictly ordered them that no one should know about this. And he told them to give the child something to eat.
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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
* Don't put anything else in that e-mail
To Unsubscribe:
* Send an e-mail to: rumors-unsubscribe@joinhands.com
* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-06-21
June 21st, 2009
RADICAL RESPECT
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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The Story – it’s who got healed
Rumors – Marie trusts me
Soft Edges – Canadian icons
Bloopers – the logical seminary
We Get Letters – an inordinate fondness for beetles
Mirabile Dictu! – a whirl of dervishes
Bottom of the Barrel – Christian fleas
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 5:21-43
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – The church board was considering the agenda.
“Item number one,” said the board chair, “someone figures we should buy a chandelier for this here room. I can’t see the sense of it myself. In the first place, it’d be way too expensive, and even if we got one, we don’t have nobody that knows how to play the thing.”
“Besides,” piped up another member. “What we really need in this room is some decent lighting.”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, June 28th, Proper 8 [13].
* 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 or Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24
* Psalm 130 or Psalm 30 (optional Psalm reading: Lamentations 3:23-33)
* 2 Corinthians 8:7-15
* Mark 5:21-43
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) – Mark 5:21-43
I would have preferred to use the passage from 2nd Samuel, because it is David’s lamentation over Saul and Jonathan. But the gospel reading is too important to neglect and it occurs nowhere else in the cycle.
Jim says –
Ralph’s right – this is too good a story to skip, despite the allure of David’s famous line, “How the mighty are fallen...”
I would look beyond the specifics, the exegesis of the patriarchal culture of Jesus’ time that considered women and children less worthy than men. I would tell the story as part of a consistent pattern of honoring those who are too often belittled by society.
And I would use a modern example. As reported by Associated Press, ten-year-old Kennedy Corpus attended Barack Obama's town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with her father. During a question and answer session, John Corpus mentioned that his daughter was missing school to attend the event.
"Do you need me to write a note?" Obama asked. The crowd laughed, but the president was serious.
On a piece of paper, he wrote: "To Kennedy's teacher: Please excuse Kennedy's absence. She's with me. Barack Obama." Then he stepped off the stage to hand-deliver the note.
I’m not attempting to glorify Obama; I’m trying to say that Jesus’ kind of breaking-the-rules respect for those who often fly below society’s radar still exists, and always has.
It’s up to us to recognize it and to celebrate it whenever it occurs.
Ralph says:
A story within a story, and both of them powerful. What strikes me most about this story is not the healings, but who was healed.
In the hierarchy of first century Jewish life, a child was much less important than an adult, and a girl child even less so. The story has Jesus going out of his way to heal this girl, which tells us again that he was constantly working against the social system which classified some people as more important than others.
That idea is underlined in the story within the story. The woman broke all the rules by being out in public when she was hemorrhaging. She was considered ritually unclean and therefore should have kept to herself to avoid contaminating others. But she forces her way through the crowd, making every one she brushes against unclean. And she touches Jesus.
Instead of yelling at her for making him ritually unclean, he says it was her faith that made her well. Not his action but her faith. Nor does Jesus go through the necessary ablutions to ritually cleanse himself, but proceeds right on to the house of an official of the synagogue who would have been very conscious of such rules.
Jesus kept coloring outside the lines.
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 – I find verse 26 of this passage deeply moving. My gay friends tell me it shows that Jonathan and David were in a homosexual relationship. I don’t have a problem with that.
But the passage also leads me to reflect on deep friendships – people of the same sex or male and female. Deep and profound friendship is a powerful and beautiful gift that is undervalued. It is a friendship that takes work and it takes years. It grows into a gift that may be deeper and stronger and more satisfying than any erotic or romantic relationship.
I have been blessed with two such friendships. Bev, my wife of more than 50 years, and Jim, my colleague of about 30 years. Such friendships take work, commitment and time.
Psalm 130:1-8 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
A woman described her clinical depression as a deep black pit with shiny walls, too smooth for her to climb.
1 From the bottom of a deep black pit, God, I shout at you.
2 The walls rise above my head, shutting out the light.
Can you hear me, God?
I can't get out by my own efforts.
3 I've tried and tried. I climb part way out,
and then I slide back again to the bottom.
Without your help, I'm sunk forever.
4 Don't judge me – forgive me!
Free me from my secret faults.
Give me another chance!
5 I shall go down in the depths of the pit and wait for your decision.
6 Like parents staying up until a teenager comes home,
like a puppy poised for its master's footstep,
I wait for your response.
I know I will not be disappointed.
7 Put your hope in the Lord.
You will not be disappointed either.
8 God can free us from our failures,
and save us from our successes.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Publications.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
2 Corinthians 8:7-15 – This passage is good stewardship material. Paul is writing to the folks in Corinth who have been holding back on helping the hurting folks in Jerusalem. Paul offers healing to the Corinthian congregation through a change of focus and an opening of their hearts to others.
I keep getting more and more reports of people using the “Lectionary Story Bible,” the “Readers’ Theatre” and their sermon, as a one-two-three punch to help adults enjoy and understand the scripture.
Of course, the Story Bible version of the scripture is read while the children are still in church. The adults think it’s for the kids, but they listen anyway, so when the Readers’ Theatre comes along later in the service and offers that same passage from a translation, and that same scripture is then unpacked in the sermon, folks actually remember and learn.
Not all of them, of course. Some would need rockets and sirens. But there’s enough feedback to know that it’s working.
For this coming Sunday, you’ll find a story called “A Sad Song about a Good Friend,” based on David’s lamentation, on page 149 and “Jesus Heals a Sick Girl,” based on the gospel, on page 149.
If you don’t already own this three-volume set – “the largest collection of children’s Bible stories ever published” – click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – I have a friend named Marie. She is six months old, and that’s her name. Some people give their babies traditional names. Marie has a brother named Henry.
A few days ago, after Marie had been fed, I held her on my knee for awhile. Naturally, she burped a bit of dinner on to my shirt. Her mother apologized – rather too much, I thought – but Marie smiled and bubbled and stiffened her legs to stand on my lap.
Marie trusts me. She shouldn’t of course, because I am not a very reliable person. I’ve let lots of people down and will probably let her down someday. Marie is only six months old and has no alternative.
I am a little older than Marie and I have alternatives. I don’t trust everybody the way she does. I trust Marie, but then what can she do to me besides spit up on my shirt.
Former US President Lyndon Johnson is quoted as saying he never trusted anyone unless he had that person’s career in his pocket. Johnson did not understand trust. Trust is not mutual fear.
My friend Jim Taylor once talked about a person who “I disagree with on many things, but I trust implicitly.” I trust Jim, come to think of it, even though I know he may well forget the lunch date we have on Wednesday. I don’t trust him to make all the right decisions or to remember everything or to never let me down on anything.
But I trust him to be a good person, and that he would not take advantage of my vulnerabilities. I am not afraid of Jim.
Maybe that’s the same kind of trust I receive from little Marie. Does she know that I will not take advantage of her vulnerabilities? Do I know that?
The woman with the hemorrhage in today’s Gospel and even Jairus were very vulnerable – the woman through her shame and pain. Jairus through his grief and fear. Like Marie, they had no alternative but to trust.
Perhaps we never know whom we trust – whom we can trust – till we are laid out in a hospital bed, or broke, or in jail, or in a nursing home. Or an infant like Marie.
Perhaps God can’t trust us with the gift of love until then either. Until we are vulnerable. Until we know that the ones we trust can hurt us, but we trust them anyway.
Isn’t it interesting how Jesus’ metaphor of becoming “like a child” keeps coming back to us?
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Canadian Icons
Author John Robert Colombo once quipped that the two most Canadian institutions were the National Hockey League and the United Church of Canada.
Since then, both the NHL and the UCC have lapsed into irrelevance. The NHL has moved south. Besides, ice hockey playoffs in mid-June? Get real!
And The Observer, the United Church’s national magazine, has plummeted from some 350,000 subscribers – which made it, at one time, Canada’s fourth largest magazine after the Reader’s Digest, Maclean’s, and Time – to around 60,000.
I would guess that today’s Canadian icons are Tilley clothes and Tim Hortons coffee.
Canadians who travel abroad recognize each other by their Tilley hats. Or by Alex Tilley’s shorts or slacks – clothes that wear forever and have secret pockets tucked deep inside where you can carry your passport and traveller’s cheques in absolute security until you have to dig them out in front of a suspicious immigration official...
I wore Tilley hats for years. A couple actually wore out; Tilley replaced them free. Several others got stolen. Whenever I see a Tilley hat go by, I wonder if it’s one of mine.
I have a long history with Tim Hortons too, starting so far back that the Tim Horton’s logo still had an apostrophe. Our son played kids’ hockey. He idolized Tim Horton, the defenceman. We patronized Tim’s first coffee-and-donut shops out of loyalty.
Today, Tim Hortons is Canada’s largest restaurant chain. A recent study found Canadians preferred Tim Hortons to Starbucks, two to one. Tim Hortons put “double-double” into the Canadian vocabulary.
Joan and I travel back and forth to Edmonton to visit grandchildren. We know every Tim Hortons on either of the two possible routes.
When we come back into Canada, after international trips, we know we’re home when we see that familiar Tim Hortons logo in the airport. Donut and drink later, we’re ready to brave the baggage carousels and customs officers.
There’s even a Tim Hortons at the Canadian forces base in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Having a Canadian flag on one’s backpack used to guarantee a friendly reception anywhere in the world. I’m told that’s not true anymore. Between the seal hunt and armed intervention in Afghanistan, Canadians are no longer welcomed with the same warmth.
The United Church has similarly fallen from favour. We used to have missionaries around the world: India, China, Zambia, Kenya, Lesotho, the Polynesian islands... Wherever they were stationed, because of their example, Canadians were regarded with respect.
Now the church just sends money to overseas partners. Sending money makes good sense. It enables local churches to undertake projects that they couldn’t otherwise afford, at far less cost than sending Canadian personnel.
But money is faceless, anonymous. Only the accountants know where it came from.
Canada still sends diplomatic staff. But they’re virtually unknown outside their own circle of acquaintances.
If Canadians want to be liked, respected, even valued abroad, maybe we should invite Tim Hortons and Alex Tilley to represent us.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Evelyn McLachlan laughed at this bumper sticker.
“Where am I going? And why am I in this handbasket?”
April Daily (who says she is an “ecstatic Penguins hockey fan”) says the lector should have read (from Corinthians), “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others..." Instead, the lector read: "...we try to ‘persecute’ others...."
“Gee,” says April. “I hope not!”
Evelyn McLachlin's story about the church sign "losing" a word reminded April of the time at "The Lutheran Theological Seminary" of Gettysburg, PA, in preparation for the ‘Luther Bowl’ (a football game between LTS Philadelphia & LTS Gettysburg) we removed the ‘O’ from theological, leaving the sign to read: ‘Lutheran The Logical Seminary.’ Made perfect sense to me – only logical, of course.”
Sharyl Peterson of Grand Junction, Colorado chuckled at this in the bulletin: "The minister and liturgist will come down the aisle and pass the peach of Christ to you..."
Tim Hayward of Trenton, Ontario tells this one on himself. Reporting on the activities of children at a meeting of the church Conference, Tim said, “these were children brought to conference by their ‘delicate’ (delegate) parents.”
Nicole Burassa-Burke of Scarboro, Ontario, saw this on a church message board.
“Our Sundays are better than Baskin Robbin's"
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – Blogging is the first draft of history.
Nobel Prize committee, explaining why blogs are now eligible in the writing and newspaper categories. Via Stephani Keer
Nobody roots for Goliath. Wilt Chamberlain via Evelyn McLachlan
It is better to deserve honors and not have them, that have them and not deserve them.
Mark Twain
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We Get Letters – Fred Brailey of Orangeville, Ontario writes: There's an apocryphal tale of some theologians asking the late geneticist (and polymath) J.B.S. Haldane what could be inferred about the mind of God from the works of creation. The response : "God has an inordinate fondness for beetles."
“There are over 350 thousand species of beetles. Beetles represent just 40% of all insect species. But then, there are myriads of other microscopic forms of life, including viruses and bacteria, serving who knows how many purposes in the ecology of evolution. Similar things inside our bodies ensure our biological survival.”
Marilyn Stone of Springfield, South Dakota writes: “I love your story of David, especially ‘Guess what Davey told his Dad to do with the sheep?’
“The whole thing makes more sense to our society when told as a sports story. But now I'm trying to figure out HOW I tell or read it to my SMALL congregation. Well, heck, I may just take a chance and read it to them anyway! I'm 63 years old. They're not going to fire me!”
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “a whirl of dervishes!”) This can make a fun game – give people a list of occupations or kinds of people and ask them to dream up collective nouns. If you add any really good ones to this list, send them to me.
Some examples:
* a mass of priests * a modesty of nuns* a pomposity of prelates * a serenity of monks* a solemnity of bishops* a limit of patients* a herd of roomers* a multitude of sinners* a sowing of doubters* a cloud of pessimists* a horde of misers* a slough of despondents* an abrasion of critics* a semblance of orderlies* a stink of complainers* an unction of do-gooders* a fallacy of Freudians* a whirl of dervishes* a gathering of Zionists* a harmony of transcendentalists* a tide of humanitarians* a vigilance of fundamentalists And when the chaplain has done her best, and God calls us home:* a body of undertakers * a solicitude of morticians
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Bottom of the Barrel – Why Church School teachers go grey. Or, “Who’s on First?”
It was one of those days. The Sunday school teacher just knew the lesson would not go well.
It started when young Todd asked a question. “Teacher, is there a Christian flea?”
“Where did you get an idea like that?” the teacher demanded.
“Well, the preacher read it from the Bible. She said, ‘the wicked flea from God.’”
“Well, Todd, that means that the wicked men flee.”
“Then is there a wicked woman flea?”
“No, no. It means that the wicked flee – they run away.”
“Why do they run? “Who?”
“The wicked fleas.”
The teacher had almost lost it by this time. “No, no. Don’t you see? The wicked man runs away when no one is after him.”
“Is there a woman after him?”
“No, there is no woman after him?”
Todd was more confused than ever. “Well, what about the fleas? Are there wicked fleas and Christian fleas?”
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 5:21-43
Reader I: This is kind of a weird story we’re reading today, isn’t it?
Reader II: It’s really two stories. Jesus heads out to help a high official of the synagogue, and on the way, he encounters a woman with a hemorrhage.
I: Am I the only one who gets a bit twitchy about these healing stories. I can’t help wondering if these things could really happen. I mean, if Jesus could heal a few people here and there, why couldn’t he heal everybody.
II: That’s a really good question, and I don’t know the answer. But that’s not the point of the story.
I: So then what is the point?
II: It’s who Jesus healed. Women weren’t much valued in first century Israel. In fact women were only slightly more valuable then cattle. Children were only important if they were male, and so a young girl is down fairly low on the social ladder. So in our story today, we have Jesus healing a girl-child and a woman.
I: Wasn’t there something weird about that woman he healed? Didn’t she push her way through the crowd to touch Jesus?
II: Weird is an understatement. This was a woman whose menstrual flow was continuous. She took a huge risk. She could have been killed for shoving her way through a crowd. A menstruating woman was considered ritually unclean and that was hugely important in first century Israel. She broke all the rules. And so did Jesus by healing her.
I: OK, so enough blabbering. Let’s get on with the story.
II: A reading from the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Mark.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
I: When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side of the lake, a great crowd gathered around him. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and when he saw Jesus, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly.
II: "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."
I: So Jesus went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,
II: "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well."
I: Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus was aware that power had gone forth from him.
I: "Who touched my clothes?"
II: His disciples had no idea.
I: "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'"
II: Jesus looked all around to see who had done it.
I: But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.
II: "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
I: While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house.
II: "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?"
I: But Jesus overheard what they said. He turned to the leader of the synagogue.
II:"Do not fear, only believe."
I: Jesus allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.
II: "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping."
I: They laughed at Jesus. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand.
II: "Little girl, get up!"
I: Immediately the girl got up and began to walk about. She was twelve years of age. At this the people who had gathered were overcome with amazement. Jesus strictly ordered them that no one should know about this. And he told them to give the child something to eat.
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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
* Don't put anything else in that e-mail
To Unsubscribe:
* Send an e-mail to: rumors-unsubscribe@joinhands.com
* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Preaching Materials for June 21st, 2009
R U M O R S # 556
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-06-14
June 14th, 2009
HOW TO BE A REAL MAN
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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Please put this “blog” address on your “favorites” list. http://ralphmiltonsrumors.blogspot.com/
I post each issue of Rumors on that blog so that you can access it any time. And if an issue of Rumors goes missing, you can go and find it there. And if you need back issues, that’s where to find ‘em.
Thanks.
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The Story – four kinds of men
Rumors – little Davey beats big 99
Soft Edges – prayer wheels and computers
Good Stuff – God texts the Ten Commandments
Bloopers – peach be still
We Get Letters – therapeutic humor
Mirabile Dictu! – tilt your head to smile
Bottom of the Barrel – five Jewish men
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – 1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49, 57, 18:5, 18:10-16
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – This from Evelyn McLachlan.
After the birth of their child, a clergy person, wearing his clerical collar, visited his wife in the hospital. He greeted her with a hug and a kiss, and gave her another hug and kiss when he left.
Later, the wife's roommate commented, "Your pastor is sure friendlier than mine."
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Next Week’s Readings – Below are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, June 21st, which is also Fathers’ Day.
Jens Hanson of Windsor, Ontario writes: “We must count differently. Isn't June 14 the second Sunday after Pentecost?”
Jens, that count isn’t given in the official RCL publication, and I keep getting it mixed up. So to avoid confusion, I’m not going to do that “Sunday after” thing during the current season. Instead, I’ll give the Proper numbers – which I also don’t understand but they’re printed nice and clearly in the book. It’s Proper 7 [12] and the Revised Common Lectionary gives us a bunch of options. For the first two readings, you have a choice among three.
1) 1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49 and Psalm 9:9-20 2) 1 Samuel 17:57-18:5, 18:10-16 and Psalm 1333) Job 38:1-11 and Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32
plus the Christian scripture readings:2 Corinthians 6:1-13Mark 4:35-41
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) – Guess what? Our choice for the story is none of the above. Or at least not in those combinations. We’re going for both the 1st Samuel readings so that a good hunk of the David saga gets told.
That gets to be a pretty long reading, so in the Reader’s Theatre thing below, I’ve done some pruning.
Ralph says –
This is a great reading for Father’s Day. It’s a great time to use the David saga to speak to issues of masculinity and fathering. It’s a story of four very different men, David, Goliath, Saul and Jonathan.
For starters, there’s a huge difference in the way we use the words “fathering” and “mothering.” For instance, when we say, “he fathered a child,” we mean he inseminated a female. When we say, “she mothered a child,” we mean she offered tenderness and caring.
There was an active “men’s lib” movement in response to the feminist movement. But it seems to have died off. We made a lot of progress in a lot of ways, but we’re still a long way from where we need to be.
Way back in 1993 I wrote a book titled, “Man to Man,” which was subtitled, “Recovering the best of the male tradition.” It used the life of David as a template for discussing issues of masculinity. (Most of those books were sold to women who gave them to the men in their lives. Not many of those guys read it.)
There are at least two significant issues raised in this part of the David saga – the masculine mythology of power and male to male relationships.
The description of the two armies lined up for battle sounds a lot like the Super Bowl or some other huge sport event. In fact, much of 1st and 2nd Samuel sounds like the sports page – who beat whom and by how much.
Most of the story of the deep friendship between David and Jonathan did not make it into the lectionary. So many men have never learned how to have a deep and caring friendship with another man, which is why this story is so important. Some claim this was a homosexual relationship. That point can be argued either way. Whatever your conclusion, it is at least the story of a deep friendship between two men – something that many men are not able to manage.
In fact, men generally find it hard to have a friendship with a person of either sex without the relationship having a sexual component. That may be why so many men are so very lonely.
Jim says –
One minute the boy David is getting the king’s blessing; the next he has to duck the king’s spear. One minute he’s a kid mouthing off; the next he’s in charge of a thousand soldiers. One minute he’s being ridiculed; the next he’s loved by all of Israel and Judah.
I know why this story is in the Bible – it’s supposed to show that if God is with you, nothing’s impossible. But I catch myself wondering about Saul. Because, says 18:12, slightly paraphrased, “the Lord used to be with Saul, but had departed from him.”
And I suspect that more of us have had Saul’s experience than David’s. We have not gone out slaying giants or commanding armies; rather, we have a sense at times that the Lord has left us. And we wonder why. What did we do to cause God’s face to be turned away from us?
There are no easy answers for why we sense the absence of God in times of pain and sorrow – or, for that matter, in times of success and prosperity. We just have that sense of being left alone in the night, to cry into our pillows. Which is better, I suppose, than throwing spears and tantrums.
And we wait, yearning for a resurrection...
Psalm 9:9-20 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
What would we do without God?
When things go wrong,
when the milk of human kindness sours,
when fingernails screech on each day's blackboard,
we can still trust in God.
God does not abandon us.
The Lord lives; praise God!
God's presence surrounds the earth;
God's actions affect everyone!
From this universal vantage point,
the Lord keeps an eye on everyone.
God settles disputes;
God watches out for those who suffer.
And I, Lord, I am one of those who suffer;
Be kind to me too.
Can't you see what those who hate me are doing to me?
I feel like dying.
Save me, so that I can sing your praises,
so that I can stand tall again,
and tell everyone how you saved me.
Let those who think they can save themselves sink into their own pit;
Let them get tangled up in their own snares.
It is part of the Lord's plan;
Their downfall is inevitable.
The wicked will destroy themselves by their own deceit.
They forget about God – let them go to hell!
But those who are really in need will not be forgotten;
The poor will not die without hope.
Show yourself, Lord!
Don't let the self-confident ones seem to be right.
Judge those who parade pompously before you;
Put the fear of God into them;
Let them see that they are mere mortals,
and only you are God.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Publications.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
2 Corinthians 6:1-13 – I have mixed feelings about the tone of this passage. My self-effacing Protestant tradition says it sounds like boasting. But last Sunday, preaching a stewardship sermon in Kamloops, I found myself telling the folks what Bev and I did. It wasn’t comfortable, but I think it was necessary. People need to know that we practice what we preach. And that’s what Paul is doing here.
Mark 4:35-41 – A symbol often used in the church is that of a ship under the cross on a storm-tossed sea. Not a bad symbol, but the reality is that we often find ourselves traumatized by the storms around us. Fear blinds us to alternatives that are available to us. When the waves are sloshing all over the decks and everyone is sea-sick, it’s hard to trust God’s assurances.
The theme of trust is also there in the David story. When you face a well-armed giant of a man, it’s hard to trust a kid with a slingshot.
Of course the David and Goliath story from 1 Samuel is in the “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B.” Page 143, but with much less focus on the gore than is normal in the retelling of this legend.
You’ll also find the story of David and Jonathan (p. 145) even though most of it is not in the lectionary, because it is one of the few stories about a close friendship between two men.
The gospel story, “Jesus Stops the Storm,” is on page 147.
If you don’t own the three volume set of the “Lectionary Story Bible,” click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – Little Davey Beats Big 99
a story based on the biblical legend of David and Goliath
Davey could see his dad coming toward him, over the hill.
"What does the old geezer want this time?" David wondered. Two weeks ago he'd asked David to look after the sheep. "Asked," was the wrong word. "Told," was more like it.
David hated sheep. Dumbest animals in the world. Good for only two things – to get clipped and to get eaten. "Just like those older brothers of mine," Davey thought. "They're fat and stupid, but they get to have all the fun."
David kept looking for the day he could get out of Bethlehem and play in the big leagues. "All I need is just one good chance. One big break."
In the meantime, Davey lived with his fantasies and did pushups and sit ups and worked on his hand-eye coordination. He'd pump up his Reeboks and zip a rock through the hole of a bagel at 50 paces. Davey was good, and he knew it.
And he didn't mind telling his older brothers. His brothers? Well, it's better I don't tell you what his brothers said about Davey.
"Davey," said his Dad.
"What now," Davey groaned.
"None of your lip, punk." Davey and his dad had a good, normal, father-son relationship.
"Get your lazy backside in gear and take this lunch over to your brothers. Then come right back, y'hear, and tell me what the score is."
"Allright!" yelled David. He'd been itching to get into that war against the Philistines. The Israelites were down 3-0 in the best of seven, but Davey was absolutely sure they'd win if they'd let him play. So what if he was underage. Maybe this was his chance.
It was a fair hike to the valley where they were having the war. But when he got there, nothing was happening. No fighting, nothing. All the guys were sitting around looking like they'd just swallowed rotten eggs.
"Hey, what's happening?" David asked. "What's the score?"
"Score? It's Philistines zip, Israelites zip. It's all tied up. We've had two sudden death overtime periods, now we're into the one-on-one shootout. If we blow that, we blow the series."
"So what's the problem?"
"Problem? Take a look at that Philistine over there. The big guy wearing number 99. His name's Goliath. Would you go one-on-one with him?
"Jeez," said David. "What a jock! Look at them triceps. But hey, I could ring his bell!"
"Smart ass! You're half his size. Go back to the bush leagues and grow up."
David was a cocky little character. Off he went to talk to the coach Saul. "Coach, look, I know I'm small, and I'm from the bush league, but I've got some moves that big old 99 out there doesn't know. He's big, but all those steroids make him slow. I'm smaller, but I'm smart and I'm fast."
Well, coach Saul didn't have a lot of options. All the guys on the front of his bench were freaked out by this Goliath. "Here," said Saul. "Put on my pads and my helmet."
David tried them on, but took them off again. "Too big and too heavy, coach," said David. "I gotta be free to be me."
So David went out one-on-one against big Goliath. Goliath almost split a gut laughing when he saw the kid coming up against him. Little Davey deaked Goliath right out of his socks, put a move on him he'd never seen before, and WHACK! Game over.
Israelites 1. Philistines 0. Final score.
Davey became an instant superstar. Everybody's hero. The media fought for interviews. Saul offered him a fat contract. Advertisers lined up offering endorsements. Women lined up for his autograph, among other things.
David's Dad sent a message. "Hey, come home Davey. You've got sheep to look after here."
Guess what Davey told his Dad to do with the sheep?
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Prayer Wheels and Computers
If you travel to Nepal, or Bhutan, Tibet, or other Buddhist regions of the Himalayas, you’re sure to see prayer wheels.
Prayer wheels are colorful cylinders, each containing a written prayer. Every time the cylinder spins, the prayer is supposedly sent out.
Everyone passing a prayer wheel is expected to give it a spin.
A few enterprising persons dispense with the passers-by – they set up prayer wheels kept spinning constantly by the wind, or by a tumbling stream.
From our scientific western mindset, the whole idea of prayer wheels seems primitive, even superstitious. But the prayer wheel concept has reached our world too.
A company called Information Age Prayer offers to have their computer say a daily prayer for you. For just $3.95 a month.
That’s only for the Lord’s Prayer, of course. If you add prayers for peace, morning prayers, prayers for financial help, or up to five Get Well prayers, it will cost you more.
But as a Protestant, you can get the entire bundle for just $19.95 a month.
That’s a bargain. The Jewish package – a Shema twice a day, five Get Well Prayers and a Prayer for Peace – goes for $25.95 a month. A cholim for the sick, or a kaddish for mourning, costs extra.
And the Catholic package, with the complete Rosary cycle of Hail Mary’s and creeds, costs $49.95 a month. “Show God you are serious!” trumpets the advertising blurb for the “Full Rosary Package.”
“The computer doesn't need any beads to keep track of Hail Mary's while saying this prayer,” the blurb gushes; “it will be voiced precisely the correct way each time for you without taking any breaks.”
To be fair to the company involved, it does not advocate abandoning your own prayers. “Our service should be used ... to extend and strengthen a subscriber's connection with God. Traditional prayer is an integral part of this connection and should never be foregone,” they caution.
But they also say that their service will “give you the satisfaction of knowing that your prayers will always be said even if you wake up late, or forget.”
This is the part that gets me: “We use state-of-the-art text-to-speech synthesizers to voice each prayer at a volume and speed equivalent to typical person praying. Each prayer is voiced individually, with the name of the subscriber displayed on screen.”
Why limit prayers to the speed of human speech? Computers can process digital messages at light speed – is God less capable than a computer?
If I programmed a computer to send prayers constantly, 24 hours a day, shouldn’t that earn me some serious Air-Miles points with God?
Sorry – I’m being sarcastic. On this issue, I’m with Colin Johnstone. When he was a chaplain with the Canadian Cancer Society, he told people, “You can’t help a person get well by doing their physical exercises for them, and you can’t help someone heal their spirit by trying to do their spiritual exercises for them.”
Not by using a prayer wheel, or a computer.
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Good Stuff – This from Fran Ota who got it from David Shearman who no doubt found it somewhere on the net. My spell checker suffered a hackers hernia trying to deal with this.
God Texts* the Ten Commandments
By Jamie Quatro
1. no1 b4 me. srsly.
2. dnt wrshp pix/idols
3. no omg's
4. no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)
5. pos ok - ur m&d r cool
6. dnt kill ppl
7. :-X only w/ m8
8. dnt steal
9. dnt lie re: bf
10. dnt ogle ur bf's m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.
M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl.
ttyl, JHWH.
ps. wwjd?
* Special note to my daughter Kari, Jim, and others who care about such things: “Text” has become a verb.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Jody Felton of Kuna, Idaho “spotted a license plate that said ‘JC SR.’ “I wonder,” she writes. Wouldn't that be God? And I didn’t even know that God drove a large white pickup!”
Mark Brantley-Gearhart of Snyder, Texas found his secretary laughing at her own typo. “She had typed in the text of Mark 4:35-41. "He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, 'Peach! Be still!'"
Finally now I understand, Mark. Not that long ago, our bulletin listed “The passing of the peach.”
First of all, non-Canadians need to know that our $1.00 coin has a picture of a loon on it and is affectionately known as a “loonie.” By extension, the $2.00 coin is a “twoonie.” Suzanne Poirier of Ottawa, Ontario says her church has “its fair share of eccentrics,” which may be why the cost of an event was listed as "one loonie person." It should have been "one loonie per person."
Judith Johnson-Siebold of Schenectady, New York saw a newsletter note that said,
"Recently Pastor Neil was blessed with an electric chair...". Judith adds, “I'm not sure that's a blessing. I hope he doesn't plan to use it!”
Noel Koestline of Southold, (Long Island) New York says the Long Island Council of Churches, organizes a free Thanksgiving Dinner each November in a local High School cafeteria. Their newsletter reported, “We served a record 75 sinners at the High School."
Noel, that may be a bit more candid than usual, but perfectly correct.
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.
Viktor Frankl via Evelyn McLachlan
I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that God didn't trust me so much." Mother Teresa via Dave Towers
Most of the greatest evils that [humans have inflicted on each other] have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.
Bertrand Russell via Jim Taylor
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We Get Letters – Fred Brailey of Orangeville, Ontario sends a note that’s relevant to the Father’s Day discussion above.
“Perhaps we should learn the benefits of ‘therapeutic humor.’
“In his autobiography ‘Human Options,’, Norman Cousins, author of ‘Anatomy of an Illness’ thinks so. ‘Illness is not a laughing matter. Perhaps it ought to be.
Laughter is a form of internal jogging. It moves your internal organs around. It enhances respiration. It is an igniter of great expectations.’ [this part he doesn't explain!]
Cousins allowed himself a laugh at male weakness, saying ‘Most men think they are immortal – until they [catch] a cold, when they think they are going to die within the hour.’ Indeed, many of us might seem at times like puling infants, while our harried caregivers search for instant remedies.”
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Tilt your head to smile!”)
This from Margaret Wood.
You know you are living in 2009 when –
1. You accidentally enter your PIN on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
8 Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12 You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Evelyn McLachlan
Five Jewish men influenced the history of Western civilization.
* Moses said the law is everything.
* Jesus said love is everything.
* Marx said capital is everything.
* Freud said sex is everything.
* Einstein said everything is relative.
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – 1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49, 57, 18:5, 18:10-16
(Important note: It is important for the readers to rehearse this material. This is theatre and needs to be presented with vitality and power. Pay particular heed to the pauses between speakers. Except occasionally for dramatic effect, there should never be any pause between speakers. They should almost overlap.
If microphones are needed, each speaker should have one. Handing a mike back and forth slows things down dreadfully.)
Reader I: This is great. I’ve been waiting for this story. The little twerp beats the big baboon. I love it.
Reader II: It seems everybody likes that kind of story. The legend of the underdog beating the champion is there in one form or another in the legends of every culture in the world.
I: This is the kind of story the guys would tell each other over a few beers in the pub.
II: That’s right. And the story would get just a little bit better each time it was told.
I: You mean, Goliath would get bigger and David would get smaller.
II: I don’t know about David, but at a time when the average adult male stood very little over five feet tall, it’s hard to imagine someone who is nine and a half feet tall as it says in this story. So it could be that Goliath grew an inch or two with each telling.
I: What I can’t figure out is, why is this story in the Bible? The Bible is supposed to be about, you know, religious things. Spiritual things. Chopping off the big guys head doesn’t sound very spiritual to me.
II: Originally, the Hebrews told this story to show that their God was more powerful than the Philistine god. That’s how it got into the Bible. We can still learn from this story because it is a good study of masculinity – of the use and abuse of power. David was both the best and the worst of men. We can learn a lot by reflecting on his life.
I: So let’s read it.
II: The story of David, condensed somewhat, from the 17th and 18th chapter of the book of First Samuel.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
Reader I: Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle; and there came out from their camp a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was nine and a half feet.
Reader II: He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; that weighed 200 pounds. Goliath had bronze leggings and an iron spear that weighed 25 pounds. And Goliath shouted to the army of Israel:
I: "Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man, that we may fight together."
II: When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.
I: Young David, on instructions from Jesse, his father, rose early in the morning. He came to the encampment as the army was going forth to the battle line, shouting the war cry. He arrived just in time to hear Goliath challenge the army of Israel. And so David spoke to King Saul.
II: "Let no one's heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine."
I: "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth."
II: "Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down, and kill it. Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God. God, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine."
I: So King Saul gave David his blessing. He clothed David with his armor. He put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. David strapped Saul's sword over the armor.
II:"I can’t walk with these! I am not used to them!"
I: So David removed them. David took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from a dry creek bed, and put them in his shepherd's bag, in the pouch; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine. When Goliath saw young David, he yelled his insults. "Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks? I’ll feed your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field."
II: "You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the God of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day God will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that God does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is God’s, and God will give you into our hand."
I: When Goliath drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground. Then David took Goliath’s own sword, and cut off his head, which he brought to King Saul. And Saul asked him, “Whose son are you, young man?”
II: "I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem."
I: And so King Saul insisted that David come and live with him. David became close friends with Jonathan, King Saul’s son.
I: The soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Jonathan made a covenant with David. He gave David the robe he was wearing and even his sword and his bow and his belt.
II: David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him; as a result, Saul set him over the army. And all the people, even the servants of Saul, approved.
I: But an evil spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand; and Saul threw the spear, for he thought, "I will pin David to the wall." But David eluded him twice.
II: Saul was afraid of David, because God was with him. But God had departed from Saul.
I: Saul removed David from his presence, and made him a commander of a thousand; and David marched out and came in, leading the army. David had success in all his undertakings; because God was with him.
II: When Saul saw how successful David was, he became afraid.
I: But all Israel and Judah loved David; for it was he who marched out and came in leading them.
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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
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* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-06-14
June 14th, 2009
HOW TO BE A REAL MAN
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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Please put this “blog” address on your “favorites” list. http://ralphmiltonsrumors.blogspot.com/
I post each issue of Rumors on that blog so that you can access it any time. And if an issue of Rumors goes missing, you can go and find it there. And if you need back issues, that’s where to find ‘em.
Thanks.
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The Story – four kinds of men
Rumors – little Davey beats big 99
Soft Edges – prayer wheels and computers
Good Stuff – God texts the Ten Commandments
Bloopers – peach be still
We Get Letters – therapeutic humor
Mirabile Dictu! – tilt your head to smile
Bottom of the Barrel – five Jewish men
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – 1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49, 57, 18:5, 18:10-16
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – This from Evelyn McLachlan.
After the birth of their child, a clergy person, wearing his clerical collar, visited his wife in the hospital. He greeted her with a hug and a kiss, and gave her another hug and kiss when he left.
Later, the wife's roommate commented, "Your pastor is sure friendlier than mine."
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Next Week’s Readings – Below are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, June 21st, which is also Fathers’ Day.
Jens Hanson of Windsor, Ontario writes: “We must count differently. Isn't June 14 the second Sunday after Pentecost?”
Jens, that count isn’t given in the official RCL publication, and I keep getting it mixed up. So to avoid confusion, I’m not going to do that “Sunday after” thing during the current season. Instead, I’ll give the Proper numbers – which I also don’t understand but they’re printed nice and clearly in the book. It’s Proper 7 [12] and the Revised Common Lectionary gives us a bunch of options. For the first two readings, you have a choice among three.
1) 1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49 and Psalm 9:9-20 2) 1 Samuel 17:57-18:5, 18:10-16 and Psalm 1333) Job 38:1-11 and Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32
plus the Christian scripture readings:2 Corinthians 6:1-13Mark 4:35-41
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) – Guess what? Our choice for the story is none of the above. Or at least not in those combinations. We’re going for both the 1st Samuel readings so that a good hunk of the David saga gets told.
That gets to be a pretty long reading, so in the Reader’s Theatre thing below, I’ve done some pruning.
Ralph says –
This is a great reading for Father’s Day. It’s a great time to use the David saga to speak to issues of masculinity and fathering. It’s a story of four very different men, David, Goliath, Saul and Jonathan.
For starters, there’s a huge difference in the way we use the words “fathering” and “mothering.” For instance, when we say, “he fathered a child,” we mean he inseminated a female. When we say, “she mothered a child,” we mean she offered tenderness and caring.
There was an active “men’s lib” movement in response to the feminist movement. But it seems to have died off. We made a lot of progress in a lot of ways, but we’re still a long way from where we need to be.
Way back in 1993 I wrote a book titled, “Man to Man,” which was subtitled, “Recovering the best of the male tradition.” It used the life of David as a template for discussing issues of masculinity. (Most of those books were sold to women who gave them to the men in their lives. Not many of those guys read it.)
There are at least two significant issues raised in this part of the David saga – the masculine mythology of power and male to male relationships.
The description of the two armies lined up for battle sounds a lot like the Super Bowl or some other huge sport event. In fact, much of 1st and 2nd Samuel sounds like the sports page – who beat whom and by how much.
Most of the story of the deep friendship between David and Jonathan did not make it into the lectionary. So many men have never learned how to have a deep and caring friendship with another man, which is why this story is so important. Some claim this was a homosexual relationship. That point can be argued either way. Whatever your conclusion, it is at least the story of a deep friendship between two men – something that many men are not able to manage.
In fact, men generally find it hard to have a friendship with a person of either sex without the relationship having a sexual component. That may be why so many men are so very lonely.
Jim says –
One minute the boy David is getting the king’s blessing; the next he has to duck the king’s spear. One minute he’s a kid mouthing off; the next he’s in charge of a thousand soldiers. One minute he’s being ridiculed; the next he’s loved by all of Israel and Judah.
I know why this story is in the Bible – it’s supposed to show that if God is with you, nothing’s impossible. But I catch myself wondering about Saul. Because, says 18:12, slightly paraphrased, “the Lord used to be with Saul, but had departed from him.”
And I suspect that more of us have had Saul’s experience than David’s. We have not gone out slaying giants or commanding armies; rather, we have a sense at times that the Lord has left us. And we wonder why. What did we do to cause God’s face to be turned away from us?
There are no easy answers for why we sense the absence of God in times of pain and sorrow – or, for that matter, in times of success and prosperity. We just have that sense of being left alone in the night, to cry into our pillows. Which is better, I suppose, than throwing spears and tantrums.
And we wait, yearning for a resurrection...
Psalm 9:9-20 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
What would we do without God?
When things go wrong,
when the milk of human kindness sours,
when fingernails screech on each day's blackboard,
we can still trust in God.
God does not abandon us.
The Lord lives; praise God!
God's presence surrounds the earth;
God's actions affect everyone!
From this universal vantage point,
the Lord keeps an eye on everyone.
God settles disputes;
God watches out for those who suffer.
And I, Lord, I am one of those who suffer;
Be kind to me too.
Can't you see what those who hate me are doing to me?
I feel like dying.
Save me, so that I can sing your praises,
so that I can stand tall again,
and tell everyone how you saved me.
Let those who think they can save themselves sink into their own pit;
Let them get tangled up in their own snares.
It is part of the Lord's plan;
Their downfall is inevitable.
The wicked will destroy themselves by their own deceit.
They forget about God – let them go to hell!
But those who are really in need will not be forgotten;
The poor will not die without hope.
Show yourself, Lord!
Don't let the self-confident ones seem to be right.
Judge those who parade pompously before you;
Put the fear of God into them;
Let them see that they are mere mortals,
and only you are God.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Publications.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
2 Corinthians 6:1-13 – I have mixed feelings about the tone of this passage. My self-effacing Protestant tradition says it sounds like boasting. But last Sunday, preaching a stewardship sermon in Kamloops, I found myself telling the folks what Bev and I did. It wasn’t comfortable, but I think it was necessary. People need to know that we practice what we preach. And that’s what Paul is doing here.
Mark 4:35-41 – A symbol often used in the church is that of a ship under the cross on a storm-tossed sea. Not a bad symbol, but the reality is that we often find ourselves traumatized by the storms around us. Fear blinds us to alternatives that are available to us. When the waves are sloshing all over the decks and everyone is sea-sick, it’s hard to trust God’s assurances.
The theme of trust is also there in the David story. When you face a well-armed giant of a man, it’s hard to trust a kid with a slingshot.
Of course the David and Goliath story from 1 Samuel is in the “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B.” Page 143, but with much less focus on the gore than is normal in the retelling of this legend.
You’ll also find the story of David and Jonathan (p. 145) even though most of it is not in the lectionary, because it is one of the few stories about a close friendship between two men.
The gospel story, “Jesus Stops the Storm,” is on page 147.
If you don’t own the three volume set of the “Lectionary Story Bible,” click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – Little Davey Beats Big 99
a story based on the biblical legend of David and Goliath
Davey could see his dad coming toward him, over the hill.
"What does the old geezer want this time?" David wondered. Two weeks ago he'd asked David to look after the sheep. "Asked," was the wrong word. "Told," was more like it.
David hated sheep. Dumbest animals in the world. Good for only two things – to get clipped and to get eaten. "Just like those older brothers of mine," Davey thought. "They're fat and stupid, but they get to have all the fun."
David kept looking for the day he could get out of Bethlehem and play in the big leagues. "All I need is just one good chance. One big break."
In the meantime, Davey lived with his fantasies and did pushups and sit ups and worked on his hand-eye coordination. He'd pump up his Reeboks and zip a rock through the hole of a bagel at 50 paces. Davey was good, and he knew it.
And he didn't mind telling his older brothers. His brothers? Well, it's better I don't tell you what his brothers said about Davey.
"Davey," said his Dad.
"What now," Davey groaned.
"None of your lip, punk." Davey and his dad had a good, normal, father-son relationship.
"Get your lazy backside in gear and take this lunch over to your brothers. Then come right back, y'hear, and tell me what the score is."
"Allright!" yelled David. He'd been itching to get into that war against the Philistines. The Israelites were down 3-0 in the best of seven, but Davey was absolutely sure they'd win if they'd let him play. So what if he was underage. Maybe this was his chance.
It was a fair hike to the valley where they were having the war. But when he got there, nothing was happening. No fighting, nothing. All the guys were sitting around looking like they'd just swallowed rotten eggs.
"Hey, what's happening?" David asked. "What's the score?"
"Score? It's Philistines zip, Israelites zip. It's all tied up. We've had two sudden death overtime periods, now we're into the one-on-one shootout. If we blow that, we blow the series."
"So what's the problem?"
"Problem? Take a look at that Philistine over there. The big guy wearing number 99. His name's Goliath. Would you go one-on-one with him?
"Jeez," said David. "What a jock! Look at them triceps. But hey, I could ring his bell!"
"Smart ass! You're half his size. Go back to the bush leagues and grow up."
David was a cocky little character. Off he went to talk to the coach Saul. "Coach, look, I know I'm small, and I'm from the bush league, but I've got some moves that big old 99 out there doesn't know. He's big, but all those steroids make him slow. I'm smaller, but I'm smart and I'm fast."
Well, coach Saul didn't have a lot of options. All the guys on the front of his bench were freaked out by this Goliath. "Here," said Saul. "Put on my pads and my helmet."
David tried them on, but took them off again. "Too big and too heavy, coach," said David. "I gotta be free to be me."
So David went out one-on-one against big Goliath. Goliath almost split a gut laughing when he saw the kid coming up against him. Little Davey deaked Goliath right out of his socks, put a move on him he'd never seen before, and WHACK! Game over.
Israelites 1. Philistines 0. Final score.
Davey became an instant superstar. Everybody's hero. The media fought for interviews. Saul offered him a fat contract. Advertisers lined up offering endorsements. Women lined up for his autograph, among other things.
David's Dad sent a message. "Hey, come home Davey. You've got sheep to look after here."
Guess what Davey told his Dad to do with the sheep?
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Prayer Wheels and Computers
If you travel to Nepal, or Bhutan, Tibet, or other Buddhist regions of the Himalayas, you’re sure to see prayer wheels.
Prayer wheels are colorful cylinders, each containing a written prayer. Every time the cylinder spins, the prayer is supposedly sent out.
Everyone passing a prayer wheel is expected to give it a spin.
A few enterprising persons dispense with the passers-by – they set up prayer wheels kept spinning constantly by the wind, or by a tumbling stream.
From our scientific western mindset, the whole idea of prayer wheels seems primitive, even superstitious. But the prayer wheel concept has reached our world too.
A company called Information Age Prayer offers to have their computer say a daily prayer for you. For just $3.95 a month.
That’s only for the Lord’s Prayer, of course. If you add prayers for peace, morning prayers, prayers for financial help, or up to five Get Well prayers, it will cost you more.
But as a Protestant, you can get the entire bundle for just $19.95 a month.
That’s a bargain. The Jewish package – a Shema twice a day, five Get Well Prayers and a Prayer for Peace – goes for $25.95 a month. A cholim for the sick, or a kaddish for mourning, costs extra.
And the Catholic package, with the complete Rosary cycle of Hail Mary’s and creeds, costs $49.95 a month. “Show God you are serious!” trumpets the advertising blurb for the “Full Rosary Package.”
“The computer doesn't need any beads to keep track of Hail Mary's while saying this prayer,” the blurb gushes; “it will be voiced precisely the correct way each time for you without taking any breaks.”
To be fair to the company involved, it does not advocate abandoning your own prayers. “Our service should be used ... to extend and strengthen a subscriber's connection with God. Traditional prayer is an integral part of this connection and should never be foregone,” they caution.
But they also say that their service will “give you the satisfaction of knowing that your prayers will always be said even if you wake up late, or forget.”
This is the part that gets me: “We use state-of-the-art text-to-speech synthesizers to voice each prayer at a volume and speed equivalent to typical person praying. Each prayer is voiced individually, with the name of the subscriber displayed on screen.”
Why limit prayers to the speed of human speech? Computers can process digital messages at light speed – is God less capable than a computer?
If I programmed a computer to send prayers constantly, 24 hours a day, shouldn’t that earn me some serious Air-Miles points with God?
Sorry – I’m being sarcastic. On this issue, I’m with Colin Johnstone. When he was a chaplain with the Canadian Cancer Society, he told people, “You can’t help a person get well by doing their physical exercises for them, and you can’t help someone heal their spirit by trying to do their spiritual exercises for them.”
Not by using a prayer wheel, or a computer.
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Good Stuff – This from Fran Ota who got it from David Shearman who no doubt found it somewhere on the net. My spell checker suffered a hackers hernia trying to deal with this.
God Texts* the Ten Commandments
By Jamie Quatro
1. no1 b4 me. srsly.
2. dnt wrshp pix/idols
3. no omg's
4. no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)
5. pos ok - ur m&d r cool
6. dnt kill ppl
7. :-X only w/ m8
8. dnt steal
9. dnt lie re: bf
10. dnt ogle ur bf's m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.
M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl.
ttyl, JHWH.
ps. wwjd?
* Special note to my daughter Kari, Jim, and others who care about such things: “Text” has become a verb.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Jody Felton of Kuna, Idaho “spotted a license plate that said ‘JC SR.’ “I wonder,” she writes. Wouldn't that be God? And I didn’t even know that God drove a large white pickup!”
Mark Brantley-Gearhart of Snyder, Texas found his secretary laughing at her own typo. “She had typed in the text of Mark 4:35-41. "He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, 'Peach! Be still!'"
Finally now I understand, Mark. Not that long ago, our bulletin listed “The passing of the peach.”
First of all, non-Canadians need to know that our $1.00 coin has a picture of a loon on it and is affectionately known as a “loonie.” By extension, the $2.00 coin is a “twoonie.” Suzanne Poirier of Ottawa, Ontario says her church has “its fair share of eccentrics,” which may be why the cost of an event was listed as "one loonie person." It should have been "one loonie per person."
Judith Johnson-Siebold of Schenectady, New York saw a newsletter note that said,
"Recently Pastor Neil was blessed with an electric chair...". Judith adds, “I'm not sure that's a blessing. I hope he doesn't plan to use it!”
Noel Koestline of Southold, (Long Island) New York says the Long Island Council of Churches, organizes a free Thanksgiving Dinner each November in a local High School cafeteria. Their newsletter reported, “We served a record 75 sinners at the High School."
Noel, that may be a bit more candid than usual, but perfectly correct.
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.
Viktor Frankl via Evelyn McLachlan
I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that God didn't trust me so much." Mother Teresa via Dave Towers
Most of the greatest evils that [humans have inflicted on each other] have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.
Bertrand Russell via Jim Taylor
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We Get Letters – Fred Brailey of Orangeville, Ontario sends a note that’s relevant to the Father’s Day discussion above.
“Perhaps we should learn the benefits of ‘therapeutic humor.’
“In his autobiography ‘Human Options,’, Norman Cousins, author of ‘Anatomy of an Illness’ thinks so. ‘Illness is not a laughing matter. Perhaps it ought to be.
Laughter is a form of internal jogging. It moves your internal organs around. It enhances respiration. It is an igniter of great expectations.’ [this part he doesn't explain!]
Cousins allowed himself a laugh at male weakness, saying ‘Most men think they are immortal – until they [catch] a cold, when they think they are going to die within the hour.’ Indeed, many of us might seem at times like puling infants, while our harried caregivers search for instant remedies.”
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Tilt your head to smile!”)
This from Margaret Wood.
You know you are living in 2009 when –
1. You accidentally enter your PIN on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
8 Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12 You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Evelyn McLachlan
Five Jewish men influenced the history of Western civilization.
* Moses said the law is everything.
* Jesus said love is everything.
* Marx said capital is everything.
* Freud said sex is everything.
* Einstein said everything is relative.
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – 1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49, 57, 18:5, 18:10-16
(Important note: It is important for the readers to rehearse this material. This is theatre and needs to be presented with vitality and power. Pay particular heed to the pauses between speakers. Except occasionally for dramatic effect, there should never be any pause between speakers. They should almost overlap.
If microphones are needed, each speaker should have one. Handing a mike back and forth slows things down dreadfully.)
Reader I: This is great. I’ve been waiting for this story. The little twerp beats the big baboon. I love it.
Reader II: It seems everybody likes that kind of story. The legend of the underdog beating the champion is there in one form or another in the legends of every culture in the world.
I: This is the kind of story the guys would tell each other over a few beers in the pub.
II: That’s right. And the story would get just a little bit better each time it was told.
I: You mean, Goliath would get bigger and David would get smaller.
II: I don’t know about David, but at a time when the average adult male stood very little over five feet tall, it’s hard to imagine someone who is nine and a half feet tall as it says in this story. So it could be that Goliath grew an inch or two with each telling.
I: What I can’t figure out is, why is this story in the Bible? The Bible is supposed to be about, you know, religious things. Spiritual things. Chopping off the big guys head doesn’t sound very spiritual to me.
II: Originally, the Hebrews told this story to show that their God was more powerful than the Philistine god. That’s how it got into the Bible. We can still learn from this story because it is a good study of masculinity – of the use and abuse of power. David was both the best and the worst of men. We can learn a lot by reflecting on his life.
I: So let’s read it.
II: The story of David, condensed somewhat, from the 17th and 18th chapter of the book of First Samuel.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
Reader I: Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle; and there came out from their camp a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was nine and a half feet.
Reader II: He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; that weighed 200 pounds. Goliath had bronze leggings and an iron spear that weighed 25 pounds. And Goliath shouted to the army of Israel:
I: "Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man, that we may fight together."
II: When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.
I: Young David, on instructions from Jesse, his father, rose early in the morning. He came to the encampment as the army was going forth to the battle line, shouting the war cry. He arrived just in time to hear Goliath challenge the army of Israel. And so David spoke to King Saul.
II: "Let no one's heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine."
I: "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth."
II: "Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down, and kill it. Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God. God, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine."
I: So King Saul gave David his blessing. He clothed David with his armor. He put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. David strapped Saul's sword over the armor.
II:"I can’t walk with these! I am not used to them!"
I: So David removed them. David took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from a dry creek bed, and put them in his shepherd's bag, in the pouch; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine. When Goliath saw young David, he yelled his insults. "Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks? I’ll feed your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field."
II: "You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the God of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day God will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that God does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is God’s, and God will give you into our hand."
I: When Goliath drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground. Then David took Goliath’s own sword, and cut off his head, which he brought to King Saul. And Saul asked him, “Whose son are you, young man?”
II: "I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem."
I: And so King Saul insisted that David come and live with him. David became close friends with Jonathan, King Saul’s son.
I: The soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Jonathan made a covenant with David. He gave David the robe he was wearing and even his sword and his bow and his belt.
II: David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him; as a result, Saul set him over the army. And all the people, even the servants of Saul, approved.
I: But an evil spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand; and Saul threw the spear, for he thought, "I will pin David to the wall." But David eluded him twice.
II: Saul was afraid of David, because God was with him. But God had departed from Saul.
I: Saul removed David from his presence, and made him a commander of a thousand; and David marched out and came in, leading the army. David had success in all his undertakings; because God was with him.
II: When Saul saw how successful David was, he became afraid.
I: But all Israel and Judah loved David; for it was he who marched out and came in leading them.
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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
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* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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