On troubles. . .

The world breaks everyone and afterward 

many are stronger at the broken places.

                        Earnest Hemingway

                        "Farewell to Arms"

The Cokesbury Hymnal

I saw an old familiar hymnal in our Methodist Church office the other day.  The secretary told me that
she had located the book for my old friend, Shelby, who lives in Florida.   I was delighted to pick it up to mail to her because I recall a long ago conversation between the two of us.

Shelby attended a rural church in southeastern Kansas at the same time I attended Shiloh Methodist
Church in central Missouri.   Unbeknownst to each other, we were both novice pianists for our
congregations and like me, she always selected number 124 in the Cokesbury Hymnal, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus", the easiest hymn in the book to play.

Many of the favorites of our congregation are seldom heard today.  I can get nostalgic whenever I hear "The Church in the Wildwood".   The view from every window at Shiloh was trees and fields.  So many memories associated with the old-time hymns.

Reading

Mark Edmundson has written:  "Real reading is reincarnation.   
. . .    It is being born again into a higher form of consciousness than we ourselves possess.  when we walk the streets of Manhattan with Walt Whitman or contemplate our hopes for eternity with Emily Dickinson, we are reborn into more ample and generous minds."

                       W. Andrew Ewell     Salon.com   October 11, 2014

My Latest Project

In Tennessee last month, my Aunt Jo and I edited a booklet I have put together of letters from my
Uncle George when he was on the USS Lamar 1944 - 1946.   Because we are presently too lazy to
read script, I typed a large number of letters he wrote to her during WWII and they will be put into booklets along with copies of newspaper clippings and memorabilia.   Close relatives will all get
a copy.   My aunt (who is now 97) is excellent at editing and we spent 9 hours together going over
all the details of the project.     I would not trade this wonderful experience. . .

Beauty

"The test of beauty is whether it can survive close knowledge.  This is as true of persons as of places. the dancer,  dazzling behind the footlights, may in ordinary living be so dull, so unkind, so fractious, that her smooth limbs and lovely face are lost in the immediacy of her spiritual unloveliness.   On the other hand, a very plain woman or an ugly man may receive a deep devotion, because  the known qualities of mind and spirit are beautiful, and this familiar beauty lies like a soft veil over any physical inadequacies."
                                    Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings    Cross Creek
           

Walmart Chaos

One Sunday afternoon recently I ran some errands at Walmart.   As I entered, no carts were available and the standard greeter was missing.    Carts were all over the parking lot in random places and shoppers were going out to find one.    I did my shopping, joined the long lines at every check-out only to find my cashier was a novice who was having difficulty with every aspect of closing out customers.    When I got home I realized I had someone else's groceries.  

Returning to customer service, I saw plastic grocery sacks piled up behind the counter.   The customer assistant looked at my receipt and searched through bags for my items.    When she returned my goods to me, she said, "Sorry.  We've had a bit of a moment."

Definition

ultracrepidarianism:   the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one's knowledge or competence"          With the internet, we have become "entrepreneurs of error".

                                       Think Like a Freak  Steven D Levitt  and  Stephen J. Dubner