Rush Limbaugh is crazier than the world these days....

OK, the Rush-Man, commenting on the Malaysian airliner that crashed or was shot down over Eastern Ukraine, observed that it was suspiciously convenient to distract media attention from what he sees as the impeachable offenses of the Obama administration at just the right time. So the thousands of children at the Texas border and Benghazi and American inaction in Iraq (oh, please, save me from Iraq!) not to mention an executive order making job discrimination against LGBT folks reportable and whatever other heinous offensives our first Black President has committed are being ignored on CNN because of the Malaysian plane. (Malaysian Airlines has had a really bad couple of months....)

The Rush-Man found it all, and I quote, 'a little eerie'.

So, in Limbaugh-land, Putin told the Russian leaning dissidents in Eastern Ukraine to shoot down an airplane so the main-stream media wouldn't be focused on Obama's Right Wing invented problems here in the US....Oh, I get that....

There has to be an eighth realm of hell that Dante didn't know about for people as stupid and vile and vindictive as the Rush-Man. There just has to be...with punishment that would make him want to die for good so much that he would love the President....

That would be justice and righteousness. And not at all 'eerie'.

The world is going crazy

A Malaysian airplane shot down in Ukraine...Israel invading Gaza...Whatever nonsense in Iraq and Syria....Thousands of children at the southern boarder of the US....People are killing Peacocks in California....China's pollution is out of hand....The Congress unable to act on anything at all....People whining about Pope Francis' open-mindedness....Labron going back to Cleveland....the world is going crazy.

It just is. And there is nothing any of us can do to make it be sane again, if it ever was. And perhaps that is the point--the world has always been going crazy, it's just that we hear about it as it's happening now and it makes it crazier and more frightening.

How long did it take folks in the hinterland to know Julius Caesar had been killed? Or that Attila the Hun had overrun Eastern Europe? Or that Lincoln had been assassinated Or that Duke Ferdinand had met the same fate?

My theory is that we know too much too fast.

The world is no crazier than it has always been--we just know how crazy it it as soon as the craziness shows up.

And it makes us anxious. More anxious than we would be if we found out how crazy stuff was a week or month or year after the craziness happened.

At least I hope that's true. Though I don't know for sure. One more thing to ponder about: is the World going crazy or has it always been crazy?

Pondering

I used to have a poster on the wall of my office at St. Paul's in New Haven and before that at St. James in Charleston, that said: Sometimes I sits and thinks. And sometimes I just sits.

Since the most used word, I imagine in this space has be "ponder", (which is the sits and thinks part of that poster. I thought I've give you some 'dictionary definition' of 'ponder'.

pon·der

verb \ˈpän-dər\

: to think about or consider (something) carefully

pon·deredpon·der·ing

Full Definition of PONDER

transitive verb

1

:  to weigh in the mind :  appraise <pondered their chances of success>

2

:  to think about :  reflect on <pondered the events of the day>

intransitive verb

:  to think or consider especially quietly, soberly, and deeply

— pon·der·er noun

See ponder defined for English-language learners »

See ponder defined for kids »

Examples of PONDER

1. He pondered the question before he answered.
2. The team pondered their chances of success.
3. We pondered whether we could afford the trip.

Origin of PONDER

Middle English, from Middle French ponderer, from Latin ponderare to weigh, ponder, from ponder-, pondus weight — more at pendant

First Known Use: 14th century

Related to PONDER

Synonyms

chew over, cogitate, consider, contemplate, debate, deliberate, entertain, eye, kick around, meditate, mull (over), perpend, pore (over), question, revolve, ruminate, study, think (about or over), turn, weigh, wrestle (with), beat one's brains out (about), chew on, cudgel one's brains (about), look at

Related Words

muse (upon), reflect (on or upon), reminisce; analyze, explore, review; conclude, reason; second-guess, speculate (about); brood (about or over), dwell (on or upon), fixate (on or upon), fret (about or over), obsess (about or over); believe, conceive, opine; absorb, assimilate, digest, drink (in)

Near Antonyms

disregard, ignore, overlook, slight; dismiss, pooh-pooh (also pooh), reject

more

Synonym Discussion of PONDER

ponder, meditate, muse, ruminate mean to consider or examine attentively or deliberately. ponder implies a careful weighing of a problem or, often, prolonged inconclusive thinking about a matter <pondered the course of action>. meditate implies a definite focusing of one's thoughts on something so as to understand it deeply <meditated on the meaning of life>. muse suggests a more or less focused daydreaming as in remembrance <mused upon childhood joys>. ruminate implies going over the same matter in one's thoughts again and again but suggests little of either purposive thinking or rapt absorption <ruminated on past disappointments>.

 

All this is from the Merriam Webster Dictionary.

I love the "weigh in the mind" piece.

This is what I'm up to most of the time that I'm not sleeping. I want to meditate, muse and ruminate on what's going on around me and within me. I want to chew over, cogitate, consider, deliberate and mull over What It's All About, Alfie?

Like that, 

MUSE on 'pondering' for a bit. I read and re-read the above for 15 minutes or so. Enjoy.

One way we're different, Bern and I

(I'm pretty sure it's 'Bern and I' since you would say: 'Bern and I are different in one way.' But 'Bern and me' sounds fine when it's 'one way we're different, Bern and me.' Jeez, I'm the English major and I'm not quite sure!!!)

Anyway, here it is: I play Hearts on the computer and she plays Solitaire. I win 50% of the time in Hearts and she wins 16 or 17 % of the time in Solitaire. So we're different because she likes a challenge and I like to win....

We're actually remarkably different:


1) I'm an extrovert and she's an introvert.

2) I'm messy and she's neat.

3) I follow recipes and she makes food up.

4) I stay up late and she gets up early.

5) She organizes things and I like chaos.

6) She loves to work in the yard and love to sit on the deck.

7) I have a car and she has a truck.

8) I wash small loads of clothes, she washes lots when she washes.

9) She holds grudges and I forget why I should be mad about things.

10) I don't mind washing a half-full dishwasher--she wants it packed.

But in some ways we are alike.

*we are both intuitive types and need lists to get things done.

*we both read a great deal and tend to like most of the same books.

*we both love our children and grandchildren  without boundaries.

*we both enjoy solitude.

*we have similar senses of humor. (only she never got Monty Python....)

September 5, when we're on Oak Island, North Carolina with Mimi and Tim and John and Sherry, we'll celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary. That's 1 year short of 2/3 of my life and  2 years more than 2/3 of her life. Two out of ever three breathes I've taken, two out of three of ever time our hearts have beaten, we've been married.

We're different in lots more ways than I listed--and alike in lots more ways as well.

I'm just pondering  how remarkable that seems to me. To be so different and so alike and to have spent so much time together. There were hard times, for sure, but for the most part...well, for the most part...it's been glorious.

Almost a thousand

I just noticed, as I was writing about Mimi's birthday, that I'm only 11 posts--after this one, 10--from a thousand posts.

I tend to like milestones, anniversaries, birthdays, moments to pause and reflect on and ponder.

It's kind of like being amazed at how may hands of hearts I've played on my computer--several thousand and I'm 22 games above winning half the time. Almost a thousand posts. My Lord, why don't I have a life?

And here's what's interesting: I've enjoyed writing everyone of them. I've said before, I'd probably do this if no body every looked at it. It's a form of therapy for me and much cheaper than a psychologist would be!

And that you guys read it just makes it all the more better and special and wondrous.

Thanks for tagging along in the journey. We're coming up on 1000. Pretty good. Ten more. I'll have to come up with something special 10 blogs from now.

Hang in there and see what I can do....

Mimi's coming

Mimi's coming for her birthday next Sunday. Her given name is Jeremy Johanna Bradley, given the names of her two godmothers (who never come through in good ways, by the way) Sister Jeremy Daigler, a Sister of Mercy I worked with one summer and Victoria Johanna Handwerk, the wife of an Episcopal priest we knew well for years.

But, for all that, even though my plan was to call her J.J., she became Mimi because she was a horrible baby who cried for six months and then became the best baby and best kid and best teen and best young woman daughter ever. When she cried and cried and cried and arched and struggled against being held for those first six months, her 3 year old brother, Josh, would sing to her like this: "Jer-e-mimi, mimi, mimi". And it stuck.

Her birthday is Monday, July 21. We'll celebrate on the evening of the 20th, when she comes to us from the Berkshires. My baby girl will be 36 in a week. Imagine that! I can't, I'll tell you that....

She and Tim, who will become her husband on October 12 in Brooklyn, with me presiding, go on vacation with us every September for at least five years now. We love him only slightly less than we love Mimi. Really.

I talked with her on the phone tonight. She wants a grilled meal for her birthday dinner. She--for 35 years and 6 months--has been an 'easy' child. Something on the grill will do--not going out somewhere in New Haven.

Those first six months though, that was madness. I still think I'm catching up on sleep I missed almost 36 years ago!

We've talked about it, Bern and I, what happened to that baby from Hell, who bore no relationship to
'easy-baby-Josh'. Bern says, simply, at the age of six months, "her brain flipped", and we were lucky to get rid of all the badness in one six month period so early on. All the badness.

Since then she, besides the normal stuff you could expect from any 'good child', has been golden.

Sunday and Monday will be so wondrous, so special, so like Mimi....

Tony

I saw Tony yesterday in the parking lot of the package store we must both use. I hadn't seen him for 5 years or so. Our daughters went to school together--Beth and Mimi--from first grade to graduation. They were sometimes close and sometimes not. Tony ran a print shop/trophy shop/where you could get keys made and ship stuff by UPS and FedEx that was just a block or so from St. John's in Waterbury.

I used to see him a lot since he did major printing and shipping and plaques for the church and I always wanted to get out and walk rather than send someone else.

I guess I haven't seen him in a while since he mentioned "my new wife" and I didn't ask for details.

I always liked him because he was very efficient and was one of the few men shorter than me. Short people, I like.

And we always had our daughters to talk about.

He asked me how I liked retirement and I told him (as I tell everyone) "if I'd known how good I'd be at being retired I'd done it years before." He's given up the shop but works 4 days a week in his son's independent pharmacy in New Haven. For both of us, the grandchildren come from the sons. Three each, we learned.

Talking with Tony for ten minutes in the parking lot got me to pondering. He and I could have been friends, I think, under different circumstances--like, if I had a different personality.

I started pondering 'me and friends'. I think my closest friends are John and Jack and Sherry in New Haven. John and I go back to WVU and met in church in Morgantown. Jack and Sherry I met because Sherry came to church at St. Paul's in New Haven and she's married to Jack and she and Bern are in a women's group together for 30 years or so. John and Sherry come on vacation with the two of us and Mimi and Tim each September. Jack runs a Day Care and can't come but may retire in 2015 and then they'll both come.

I consider the people I meet with on Tuesday morning to be friends, but they're all friends because of church. Besides John, the only friend from the past I have any contact with is Mike, who I roomed with in college.

Harriet and Malinda and Bob and Fred are my friends, but we worked together at St. John's in Waterbury.

Most of my friends these days are people who go to the three churches I serve.

Of all my friends, only Mike (who I've only seen once in 20 years) and Jack aren't somehow related to 'church' in some way--though Jack is related by marriage.

I have lots of acquaintances and neighbors who I'm 'friendly' with. But we fall short of being friends.

I have to ponder this some more. I'm an extrovert and quite gregarious, though shy at first meetings, but most everyone I consider a friend has a 'church angle'.

Shouldn't I have some friends who have nothing to do with church in any way? How odd I've never noticed this before.

Talking to Tony got me to thinking....