ODDS & ENDS II [R, 5-20-21]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

ODDS & ENDS II                  [R, 5-20-21]

 

Occasionally there is stuff I think is worth sharing, but it doesn’t require a whole column, so...

Our late friend, Trina Mescher, was a great cook. Helen always asked for the recipe when we ate something Trina brought to a potluck. When she asked for the blueberry buckle recipe, Trina said, “Oh, it’s in that cookbook. You know, the one with the cover falling off.” Helen knew immediately what she meant. Every woman of a certain age has a Betty Crocker cookbook she has used so long and frequently that the cover is falling off.

Recently at breakfast, I was complaining about the filioque controversy that split the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches apart, how stupid and unnecessary it was. Helen started laughing. I didn’t think that the Great Schism of 1054 was that funny, but she said, “When you said Roman, I thought you were going to tell about an Italian learning English and when somebody said, ‘How are you?’ he said, “Feely okay.’” [I told this to the Crumble Bums the other day and every one of them said, “I’m with Helen!” That’s the state of theological literacy these days…] {Kathy Roberts says I am a good husband even if I do talk theology at breakfast, so there.}

I did something “slightly” forgetful and was afraid Helen might think I was “losing it” and thus put me in “the home.” She said, “Heavens, no. When I want you to do something, I don’t want to have to drive half-way across town to get you.”

“Misery is no time to live in the moment.” Caulfield, in the “Frazz” comic strip.

An article in The Indiana Daily Student newspaper is entitled, “You Need to Start Assuming that You Are Surrounded by Queer People.” I always assume that, but I think we may have different definitions of “queer.”

During these days of pandemic, even baseball locker rooms had to provide for social distancing. Some place where the Reds were playing, the locker room was not large enough to accommodate all the players in an adequately distanced way, so some of the older guys [in their 30s] were put in the coaching office to dress. Somebody put up a sign over their door saying, “Assisted Living.”

But, as Helen famously asserted a long time ago, “Men enter assisted living the day they get married.”

In 1869, Charles Eliot became president of Harvard and deplored the state of medical education. He tried to improve said education, including written exams. The medical faculty objected. Prof. Henry Bigelow, the most prominent faculty member, said: “We can’t give them written examinations. More than half of them can barely write.” How quaint, that it is okay to unleash a medical student onto the general public even though he is so ignorant and uneducated he can’t write. [Of course, that might account for the famous doctor handwriting on prescriptions.]

A young man who had never read the Bible was given a New Testament. After he read it, he was asked what he thought. He said, “Jesus never met an unimportant person.”

In case you missed it at the time: A respondent to my 5-5-21 CIW, “We’ll Meet Again,” noted the irony of people refusing the covid vaccine because “we don’t know what’s in it,” while continuing to eat hot dogs. 

[Now this last one is funny, but it has naughty words, so stop reading now if you are trying to be pure of mind.]

Daughter Mary Beth read an article about people who receive texts that were meant for others, such as the man who got a text that said, “We’re at the ER. Leon set his butthole on fire again.” [Again?] The man replied, “I think this was meant for someone else, but please keep me updated.”

John Robert McFarland