Maundy Thursday

[It has become a tradition in this blog to commemorate this special day with a post about Maundy Thursday and its meaning.  Servanthood.  Loving one another.  Communion, with God and one another.  Messages I need to hear, regularly.  For those Christians who read my blog, may the rest of your Holy Week be blessed.]

Today is "Maundy Thursday." Some call it "Holy Thursday" but I like "Maundy" because it makes people say "What does 'Maundy' mean?" and that gives us a chance to talk about one of the most important aspects of the Easter season: The New Commandment.

Now, admittedly, those who attend services on this day every year probably know it as the celebration of the Last Supper and therefor the birth of Holy Communion. This is true, and we should not minimize that aspect of Holy Thursday.

Yet the more significant event, relative to how Jesus asked us to live our lives, is the commandment He gave us that same night. [The word that is the root for "command" that is also the root for "Maundy."]

In John 13, we have the important account of Jesus acting as a servant, though He is the Master. He washes the disciple's feet. Then, he gives the New Commandment:

John 13:34 (King James Version)

³⁴A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

In one brief evening, in his last opportunity to be with His disciples, Jesus gives us the gift of Holy Communion, the example of service, and the New Commandment: Love one another.

This is nothing new, of course. When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus says (in Matthew 22, Mark 12, Luke 10) that the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God" but immediately follows it with "Love your neighbor as yourself."

In His final hours, Jesus knows that the disciples will soon find themselves floundering in grief. He gives them a few final lessons to solidify the foundation on which they are to build His church and spread His lessons: recognition of the need for salvation and the acceptance of that salvation (Communion), service to others, and finally love.

It is this New Commandment we celebrate on Maundy Thursday.

Improvation and Relaxification

I mentioned that I got myself a new laptop.

In the month since, I have spent some time improvating ^[1] it to a point where it is useful.  And by "useful" I mean:

• I got our financial information off the old computer and onto the new so I can pay bills, balance banking accounts, and keep track of college payments.  Bo-Ring.  But necessary.
• I installed drivers and configurated^[1] the silly Windows 7 interface to allow myself to print to our wireless printer.  Also pretty boring, except I had never done that to my work laptop, so it is nice to have a wireless printing capability from the comfort of my La-Z-Boy.
• I installed DM Genie, and transferred both campaigns to it.  Very, very cool.
• I installed my excellent electronic toy, the Bamboo Fun tablet I bought so I could draw more maps and such for Dungeons and Dragons.
• I installed enough games to give me something to do while winding down at the end of the day: Ticket to Ride: Online, mostly.

But, in that month, I had not yet taken the time to do the most important step in relaxifying^[1] my new laptop.  I did that this weekend:

• I installed Civilization IV: Gold Edition

And thus was a weekend enhancerated.^[1]  Sherry has way more work to do than she can get done during a school week, so she has been doing hours and hours of homework each weekend.  Quiet helps her.  Mom and Dad (currently staying with us for recuperative^[1] purposes) have their quiet things to do.

Ah yes.  It was excellent.  Having Civ IV on my laptop allowed me to enjoy hours of "America takes over the world" diversosity. ^[1]

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 ^[1] I have "Wicked" on the brain today, so many of my verbs, adverbs, nouns and adjectives are being influenced by the coinification^[1] which takes place in that musical. Plus, "The Lorax" is being released, and Dr. Seuss's birthday was this week. It's no wonder convergosity^[1] is taking place in my wordifying.^[1]  But one of the words I have labeled with this superscript is, in fact, not invented.  Do you know which one?

What I've Been Writing

[Warning to the reader: This is a very strange entry today.  Too many thoughts.  But it's how my Muse was pulling me late last night.]

Slow days in "Snippets and Wisps" lately.


I have written a lot lately.  Just not here.  My material has mostly been:

1. Stuff for work (but I don't blog about work [not here in SnW, anyway].)
2. Discussions, Essays and Devotional material about Christianity and Faith (and you've seen a portion of that here)

... but primarily I've been writing ...

3. The Dungeons and Dragons campaign my groups are playing.

So, the work stuff is right out.  And I can't very well put that DnD stuff in the blog, can I?  I mean, my players don't all read this, but some of them do.  No spoilers here.  [Just a teaser.]

So, if you see a few faith-based entries here in the days to come, just realize that it's about the only thing I've been writing which even remotely fits into this blog.

I can hear some of you now:

"Wait, Steve, does that mean that some of what you publish here has been used somewhere else?  Some of the things I read on 'Snippets and Wisps' were not solely for your 'SnW' audience?"

To which I reply, emphatically:

"Oh.  My.  Yes."

In fact, I try very hard not to write the same thing twice, but I often think the same thing multiple times, so it's not hard to imagine that I might write about the same thing multiple times.  But, if I've written it once, I try to use it again, if the topic needs to be addressed again.  I do it at work:  All.  The.  Time.  [Are we all tired of that rampant idiom yet?  So.  Over.  Used.]   I suppose "SnW' is the writing venue where I do the least re-use of material, but I certainly re-use when it makes sense.

For example, these days when I get into an extended "conversation" with someone on Facebook, I often think "This would make a great blog someday."  So I try to capture it for later re-use here.

The thing is, long discussions on Facebook are most often about religion and/or politics.  So if I re-use my thoughts from fb here, they will almost certainly get into one or both of those topics.  [For example, I would gladly join a group of "Liberal Christians Opposed to Rick Santorum" but according to his 2008 interview, he wouldn't believe we existed.]  And once I get started down that road, this blog could just turn into another politics blog, and there are too many of those around, don't you agree? 

Plus, to be fair, politics doesn't interest me enough to think about it often.  [Games do.]  And my belief in Christianity, while it does interest me quite a bit, is among the least-read topics when I post here.  [But when I mention "Castle" or "X-Men" or put up a great photo of one of the beautiful women in my life, I get more traffic. Go figure!]

So, all this is to explain why there has been a relative dearth of material here lately.  And it might continue.

But hey, it could change!  I am very motivated to make people happy.  I love knowing I have an audience.  I'd be happy to write about specific topics, if requested (and appropriate.)  I've solicited topics from readers before and gotten the proverbial crickets chirping in response.  So, I reissue the offer.  If you really wish I'd write about one of my many topics, drop me a line or write a comment.

And now, just to prove my point [well, one of my many points] I will put in a photo of Stana Katic as Detective Kate Beckett and Nathan Fillion as (the "ruggedly handsome") Richard Castle.  My hit rate will quadruple.

[I am two episodes behind on watching this wonderful TV show, by the way.  Why?  Three consecutive weeks of Dungeons and Dragons.  Fantastic.  Gotta love it.  And thank goodness for "On Demand" viewing so I can catch up.]


So, that's all for today.  Maybe, after seeing "Gone with the Wind" and "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" this past weekend it's about time for another edition of Movie Micro-Reviews.  That's always good for a quick blog.  [Teaser: One of these movies is much, much better than the other.  And we all know which one that is.  So really, it's not much of a teaser, is it?]

Favorite Foto Friday - Ebullience

Giving gifts to certain people can be so fun!  Sarah, for example.




Do you know what "ebullience" means?  If you know Sarah, you have experienced it, whether you knew what to call it or not. 

Love you, Sarah!  You brighten our day!

Planning Pays; and I Spend

Saturday I decided to take care of the annual chore of draining my lawnmower of gas.  I typically combine this with the chore of testing out the snowblower to ensure I'm ready for the first snow of the year.

At first, all went well.  Raised the mower to a height above the level of the snowblower's gas tank.  Siphoned the gas from mower to blower.

I checked the oil in the snowblower -- yuck, that stuff is dirty.  But hey, we can test to see if it starts.  Hey, there seems to be a little gas leakage.  Tighten up a valve.  OK, prime the line with nine or ten pumps to the priming bulb and yank the cord.

You see, people, this is a very old snowblower.  We've been in this house over 19 years.  That means we are heading into the 20th winter.  For the first couple of winters, I cleared our 100-foot driveway with snow shovels.  Remember, though, that I was much younger then.  but I was also poorer.  Shoveling was a financial necessity.

But finally, a couple of years into owning this house, we got the snowblower.  It's the only one we've ever owned, so having it last for over 15 years is pretty darn good, considering how many times it gets used each winter.

Anyway, I yanked the cord.  The engine coughed a couple of times, but killed.  This, however, is not unexpected.  Even at its best, in recent years, this blower doesn't start on the first pull.

So I pulled a second time.

And it started right up!  Huzzah!

Oops.  Except for one small problem.  On that second yank, I was left holding the handle and the cord of the starter.  Completely pulled free from the blower.  Though the blower was running, if I ever shut it off, I would not get it started again.

I had three options.  But two, really, for anyone who knows me.

1. Buy a new snowblower.
2. Get this snowblower fixed.
3. Fix it myself.

The real point of this post is that, with any of those options, it would be technically possible that I would have a working snowblower before the first snowfall!  This, my friends, is what preparation is all about.  If a snowblower is going to break, wouldn't it be nice if it did so BEFORE you needed it?  Yet how often is that going to happen?  For me, it did!

So, what did I do?

Option 3 is laughable.  I have the mechanical aptitude of a ten-thumbed rock.

Option 2 is possible, but seriously, this thing is over 15 years old, has been giving us trouble for years (I am the only one m=in my family who has been able to use it for years, because I am the only one who knows how to set the choke "just so" and prime the engine "just right" to get it to stay running.)

So I went with Option 1.  I found a good looking Craftsman on sale at the local hardware store - one of those great local stores which always give excellent advice and service.  I bought it.  It will be delivered on Friday.  I just saw the week's forecast.  No snow between now and Friday.

So, by preparing early, I saved myself at least one frustrating shovel session, and I was able to buy the replacement snowblower without fighting crowds of people doing the same!

To quote Hannibal:  "I love it when a plan comes together."



P.S. For some strange reason, despite the fact that I have always, always, always spoken and heard these devices called "snowblowers," the advertisements all call them "snow throwers."  What do you call them where you live?

When Cometh Normal?

I was recently asked to describe a normal week in my life. I was stumped.  It's past mid-October.  And I still have not had a "normal" week this fall.

A "normal" week, during the school year, is certainly different than it once was.  After all, Sherry's up in St. Paul, so it's hard to think of that as "normal."  But go with me here.

Criterion #1: A "normal" week should have me in Rochester, all week.

Since the beginning of the school year, I don't think that has happened yet.  If it has, I don't remember it.


One week, I didn't travel for work, but I spent the weekend at the apartment in St. Paul.  Is that normal?  It was relaxing, that's for sure.  (There is no lawn to mow at the apartment. Big plus!  But not normal.)

Next week, I think I will be in Rochester all week.  But while being in Rochester is necessary for a week to feel normal, it's not sufficient.  You see, one or two of my evenings will be tied up with work commitments, so I will not have to get dinner for myself.  So that's not normal either.

Criterion 2: A "normal" week includes meals I have to plan for, shop for, and prepare.  That almost happened this week -- I can count the D&D group feeding me as "normal" now, since I plan for that meal, even if I don't prepare it.  It occurs regularly enough.  But, I will be eating dinner outside of Rochester Thursday through Sunday, because we get to fly to NYC to see Leah perform.  Which is wonderful!  It's just not "normal." 

Criterion 3: A "normal" week has a five-day work week, Monday through Friday. 

I'm thinking I will not get a "normal" week until sometime in January.

And so, if "normal" is that rare, it can't be "normal" can it?

I just have to face it.  I don't do "normal."

Well, normally, I don't.

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.

William James 

Shakespeare - Great (of) Course

My latest Great Course was William Shakespeare: Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, taught by Dr. Peter Saccio. 

Back at Luther, I took a Shakespeare class from Dr. John Bale, and it was one of my favorite courses.  Over the years, though, I have forgotten more than I remember from that class.  And, after all, in a one semester class, we could only read a few plays.

Fifteen plays are covered in this Great Course, each of the comedies and histories gets two lectures, as do three of the tragedies.  Then, the Four Great Tragedies (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth) are each covered in three lessons.

And, since this is a Great Course, no lecture is the same as any of the others.  Dr. Saccio examines various attributes of the plays, and of Shakespeare as a writer, by using the plays.

Now, I have seen or read some of the plays covered in the course, but not all of them.  Yet I was able to follow every single lecture, and to appreciate the incredible richness of the scripts, because of the insightful Dr. Saccio.  He is not only a professor, but also an actor, so his readings of various lines in the plays added depth and context one might not get from another teacher, and are almost certain to miss from just a reading.

Dr. Saccio convincingly argues that the "tragic flaw" theme taught by so many English teachers, and taught to so many young people, is simplistic at best, and quite misleading at the worst.  He shows the pervasiveness of Christian imagery in many of Shakespeare's most powerful soliloquies.  He explains the bleeding of comedy into tragedy, and both into history plays.  In the end, I learned a tremendous amount from this course, and I am anxious to see some of these plays, again, or for the first time.


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Interesting word fact:  "Assassinate" is coined in Macbeth.  While "assassin" came into English the previous century, Macbeth says "assassinate" during a soliloquy when he is deciding whether or not to commit the murder which begins his rise and fall.  As he considers the deed, he doesn't want to call it "murder," and so he creates a new verb from an obscure, exotic noun.  Brilliant psychological writing.



[999]

Big Words

As I grew up, I read.  As I read, I encountered new words.  Early on, I just absorbed the words, mostly making guesses about meanings based on context.  Eventually, I put a dictionary in my bedroom so I could be more certain of the actual definitions.

While I've been re-reading the Thomas Covenant series, I have been reminded of this experience, because the author, Stephen R Donaldson, has a very large vocabulary.  I remember that it was in the course of reading Lord Foul's Bane I first learned the words "mien" and "ichor" and "anathema." These words occurred so frequently, knowing their true meaning was necessary to truly understanding the book.

But Donaldson does love his words, and every once in a while, he lays down a paragraph which would have sent me to a dictionary three or four times if I really wanted to know all the words. But sometimes it was simply easier to guess at meanings and plunge along.

A paragraph 400+ pages into The Illearth War contained these words:

• ambuscade
• panoply (which I didn't recognize at the time)
• lambent

and the next paragraph had

• crepuscular  (really!)

The story was at a critical point, and I simply jumped over the words.  I don't think I missed much, but I decided as I was encountering these paragraphs that I would bookmark the page and come back to them later.

Of course, there are words in the paragraphs, and in the surrounding paragraphs, which are part of my working vocabulary which might be unknown to others.  As a writer, it's a challenge to use excellent vocabulary -- words which fit the purpose of the narrative so well they must be used -- and yet avoid words which will jar your reader out of the story.  Donaldson's hero, Thomas Covenant, is a writer, so it makes sense that his mind would use extraordinary words.

Thankfully, not every author has such a surfeit of entries in his lexicon.

And yes, that was a joke.

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[And, disappointingly, even Donaldson misuses the word "sojourn."  So can we really be sure he meant to use those other unusual words properly?  Yes, I think we can.  The misuse of "sojourn" as a synonym for "journey" is a pet peeve of mine.]


[998]

Will Power - The Shirt

I have a great t-shirt.  I love it.  It's just so multi-appropriate for me!

As I said yesterday, it's the name of a Fantasy Football team I run.

And, yes, I am a fan of Will, the Bard, who wrote all the plays represented on the shirt.  (What?  You hadn't looked that closely yet?  Well, click the photo for a closer look.)

In my work life, I happen to work on IBM Power Systems, so there's that.

I am also a firm believer that "will power" is a key attribute for building a life that is satisfying.  It can be taken too far, but in my opinion, the more common frustrations in life are related to knowing what we ought to do, but not having the will power to do them.



And then, of course, I am a Will.  I love having the illusion of power. Having my surname in such a great phrase is a kick!

"All the sudden" I'm hearing this

OK, so I know I learned in one of my recent Great Courses that language evolves.  It changes.  But can it change this rapidly?

For my entire life, I have known the idiom "all of a sudden."  It means "suddenly" but with a definite contextually meaning of "unexpectedly."  You know this, I know this, everyone who speaks English probably knows this.

And yet, in the past two weeks, I have heard person after person say "all the sudden."  Not "all of the sudden" which I have always considered a rare, slightly "incorrect" variant.  But "all the sudden."

I don't get it.  I mean, sure, if you break it down into its component pieces "all of a sudden" doesn't really parse in current English.  But it's an idiom.  Idioms often don't parse.

What I find particularly strange is that I feel as if I had never heard "all the sudden" before two weeks ago, and now, I am hearing person after person say it. 

All of a sudden, it's "all the sudden."

It's ironic, is what it is.

"Silly" Knowledge - Understanding begets Learning

When it comes to words -- their meanings, and their proper use -- I care. I enjoy learning words, and using them properly. I don't study them; I don't go out of my way to find new words. I like to encounter them in my reading -- in the wild, in their natural habitats, as it were -- and then relish them as they become part of my vocabulary.

If you've read my blog for a while, you know that I don't want to be a pedant -- making an excessive or inappropriate display of learning -- but I sometimes comment when people use words incorrectly (see "thence," "sojourn," "beg the question," "solution") or use non-words when there are perfectly good words for the concepts they are trying to get across ("doable," "mentee.")

I suppose I have an internal desire for there to be "right" and "wrong" in various areas of life, and for some reason, proper use of words is among those.

Well, my current Great Course is "The Story of Human Language" by Dr. John McWhorter, and it is teaching me that "right" and "wrong" is far more variable than I once thought. The course has already taught me quite a bit, but the word which inspired me to write is the word "Silly."

Why "Silly?" Because McWhorter uses it as a clear example of how a word can change its meaning from one thing to something completely different.

Here is a quote from English in 1400, spelled as it was a the time.

"Cely art thou, hooli virgyne marie"

which would be spelled today as

"Silly are you, holy virgin Mary."

Between 1400 and today, "Silly" actually transformed several times. The word "Cely/Silly" meant something completely different in 1400. It meant "Blessed" and then "Innocent." Either meaning might have been used here to describe the mother of Jesus, and this quote was probably a transitional use. From its "blessed" meaning, it moved to "innocent" and was further modified to mean "deserving of compassion" by the time Shakespeare used it in 1591 in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

"I take your offer and will live with you,/Provided that you do no outrages/On silly women or poor passengers."

Its current meaning is an evolution which followed this long, convoluted, but strangely logical line of changing usage.

Oh, language changes in many other ways, as I am learning, but this specific example has taught me that I should not be so caught up in "right" or "wrong." I am not sure I can move past my "prescriptivist" tendencies to an acceptance of true "descriptivism" when it comes to word meanings, but I have a deeper appreciation for how seeming "misuse" of a word might actually be a step in the development of the language.

Yet there is a part of me that will still be sad when "comprise" completes its change to mean its opposite.

Silly me!

Thankful For and Thankful To

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope this holiday finds you well, and that you are able to spend it with family or friends or both. Today's blog is a little essay I wanted to write about the meaning of "thanksgiving." If you don't feel like a Small Sermon today, feel free to stop reading and go enjoy your day. You deserve it!

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Thanksgiving is a special holiday. Though we are taught to be thankful all year round, having a day set aside for feeling thankful helps focus our gratitude.

Of course, it has become "Turkey Day" to some, and "Football Day" to others, but in general, with families & friends gathering together, many people do still focus on the thankfulness.

Interestingly, though, at Thanksgiving, people primarily talk about the things they are thankful FOR. This, of course, is perfectly natural. To feel thankful, people need to feel they have received something for which they can give thanks.

For me, there are too many blessings to count and list, but I would certainly start here:



I am so thankful for my family. Words cannot express it. Though I try. I am also thankful for the friends I have, especially for those who think about me frequently, providing me company when I laugh, care when I need it, and conversation - in person or over the network. I am thankful for my work, for my home, and for the beautiful world in which we live.

But I am not done with this Thanksgiving message. I want to continue on to discuss the full meaning of giving thanks.

Here is the first definition of "Thank" from from Dictionary.com:

thank

–verb (used with object)

1.to express gratitude, appreciation, or acknowledgment to: She thanked them for their hospitality.

And for good measure, the definition of "Thanks" from the same source:

thanks (θæŋks)
—pl n
1.	an expression of appreciation or gratitude or an acknowledgment of services or favours given

In both of these definitions, there is a clear message which is glossed over by many, but it is worth considering. The definitions make it clear there is someone who is thankful, and someone who is receiving the thanks, because the latter did something for the former.

So, if you are thankful, who are you thankful TO?

Yes, I am thankful to the people in my life who make my life so blessed. And if that's as far as you go in your faith, then be sure to thank the people in your life on Thanksgiving. For, just as a secular Christmas is to be more about giving than receiving, a secular Thanksgiving should be about being thankful, and to be thankful, there must be someone who deserves our thanks. With that in mind, look around at all those people who have made your life better, and express your appreciation and gratitude as you celebrate your Thanksgiving.

To carry the message a bit further, people of faith should pause to recognize that what we have been given, the materials and relationships for which we are thankful, are not merely gifts from people, but gifts from God. The original Pilgrims were not thanking one another. They were thanking God.

If you explain to a child the concept of Thanksgiving -- that we are grateful for the many things around us -- and ask them to list those things, they will often lists parts of nature. The sun, the air, the water.

If a person has no faith in a creator, then there really is no one to thank for these things. Such a person can feel lucky to have them, and they should, but they cannot truly be thankful, because they have no one to thank.

But for people who believe in a God, today is the day to thank God, as the true source for all of these blessings. Even the blessings which appear to have come from people are truly an expression of God's love towards us. And for this, thanks are appropriate, and a form of blessing in themselves.

Lord God, Creator of all, Source of Love and Blessings, on this day of Thanksgiving, we thank you, above all, for the gift of life and for the gifts we receive in life. We especially thank you for the people in our lives who show us love and kindness. For these, and for all, we are truly Thankful. Amen.

A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to you all.

Breakfast - a Time or a Menu?

This comic strip reminded me - a few weeks ago, we ate the evening meal (sometimes dinner, sometimes supper, around here) at a Baker's Square restaurant. I mentioned that I had been thinking about pancakes for a couple of weeks so I thought I might order them.

I received some disbelieving looks from my dinner companions -- at least, from the ones who were not in my immediate family. "Really? Pancakes? For dinner?"

I guess we're weird. We've had pancakes, and waffles, and eggs, as "dinner" entrees quite often in our family. In fact, I'm quite sure my we did the same thing when I was growing up. This does not seem unusual to us, but we get skeptical reactions from most people when they find this out about us. [Imagine! How unconventional! Scandalous, I tell you.]

I wonder how these traditions get started, and then turn into conventions, and then even into expectations.

Part of the reason, I'm sure, is the dichotomy of "morning people" and "late night people."

We're "late night people" in our family. [OK, not so much Sarah anymore -- she has to be up so early to teach -- but if left to her own devices, who knows....] School-day mornings were timed to the last second, with an efficiency that would never have been possible if a meal needed to be cooked, served and consumed. [To this day, my "breakfast" is a small, plastic kiddy glass {left over from a Bible School in the '90's} filled with a high-fiber breakfast cereal. {Who has time for sitting down and eating?}] Weekend "mornings" completely disappeared for our kids most of the time, especially once they reached double-digits in age. We had to wake some of them up for lunch, for goodness sake [and a certain teenage son of mine was quite often unhappy about being woken up that early.] If we never ate pancakes except at "breakfast" we'd never have eaten pancakes!

I really don't think we are so strange. We just recognize that a food that is good at 6:00 AM is equally delicious at 6:00 PM. And, you're awake to enjoy it!

So don't look at me so funny when I want pancakes for dinner.

[And I won't mention our habit of having popcorn for dinner sometimes. As the entree. With a homemade shake or smoothie as the drink. Yummmmm.]

It's not schadenfreude - I'm just glad it's not that hot here!

Today's word is schadenfreude (I learned it first from Mike).

schadenfreude –noun - satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

The East is suffering through dangerous and sweltering heat. Anything near or over 100° F is bad enough, but in cities where there is so little relief? Yikes.

So, 80° F & humid is uncomfortable. But they have it worse.

I am not satisfied or pleased by their misfortune. Instead, I am counting my humid blessings that we only have it this bad.

Still, dew points above 70° F are bad, period. (That's Rochester today.) New York may be 97° F but its dewpoint is only 61° F.

Maundy Thursday - Again

[Revising and reprinting last year's "Maundy Thursday" blog. Why? It's a good reminder, I have increased my readership in the past year, and it's so appropriate for the day.]

Today is "Maundy Thursday." Some call it "Holy Thursday" but I like "Maundy" because it makes people say "What does 'Maundy' mean?" and that gives us a chance to talk about one of the most important aspects of the Easter season: The New Commandment.

Now, admittedly, those who attend services on this day every year probably know it as the celebration of the Last Supper and therefor the birth of Holy Communion. This is true, and we should not minimize that aspect of Holy Thursday.

Yet the more significant event, relative to how Jesus asked us to live our lives, is the commandment He gave us that same night. [The word that is the root for "command" that is also the root for "Maundy."]

In John 13, we have the important account of Jesus acting as a servant, though He is the Master. He washes the disciple's feet. Then, he gives the New Commandment:

John 13:34 (King James Version)

³⁴A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

In one brief evening, in his last opportunity to be with His disciples, Jesus gives us the gift of Holy Communion, the example of service, and the New Commandment: Love one another.

This is nothing new, of course. When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus says (in Matthew 22, Mark 12, Luke 10) that the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God" but immediately follows it with "Love your neighbor as yourself."

In His final hours, Jesus knows that the disciples will soon find themselves floundering in grief. He gives them a few final lessons to solidify the foundation on which they are to build His church and spread His lessons: recognition of the need for salvation and the acceptance of that salvation (Communion), service to others, and finally love.

It is this New Commandment we celebrate on Maundy Thursday.

Solve Feasible Protege - Let's Use the Words We Have

Hey, everyone. I'm going to rant today. If you like positive messages, furry little bunnies, treacle and the like, just skip Snippets & Wisps today.
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Two years ago, I blogged on this topic, but, darn it, I have to do it again!

The world in general, and the business world in particular, creates non-words and uses them mercilessly. It also misuses words with equal disregard for their true meanings. And why do they do this? Because the people involved don't know that perfectly good words already exist for the concepts. Or even if some people know, the non-words have been adopted by The Powers That Be - who are perceived to be too powerful to correct.

Examples:

Solution (as a verb): One of a class of misused words. Have a problem? Does it need a solution? Then, by all means, solve it! [Sheesh, even Vanilla Ice knew that one!]

Doable: The focus of that prior blog post. Feasible is a fine, fine word. But some folks don't know what the word means, so we just dumb down our speech and use this one instead. [Some dictionaries tell me this "word" is really a word. So I will retract my statement that it's not a word. But it is not even close to the best word. And I don't think it's too much to ask that people know the word feasible. I still believe I was taught by good, honest English teachers that doable was not a word.]

Mentee: Why was this word created? It's in some dictionaries now - The Merriam-Webster's online dictionary has it being created in 1965. Why? Why? Why? The word protégé has existed for a long time, and it means "one who is protected or trained or whose career is furthered by a person of experience, prominence, or influence" which is exactly what mentee was created to mean.

Incentivize: Arrgh! Another modern creation with no value. Again, M-W online has it, from 1970. Thank goodness, however, Thesaurus.com does not yet recognize it. [M-W is too lax in allowing new words, IMHO.] Do you want to provide an incentive to someone? OK, do that. What's a verb to describe it? Encourage, or even better, entice them.

Look, the creation of new words has its place. Dr. Seuss needed to create truffula, and Jabberwocky needed snicker-snack and mimsy. Nonsense is a fine reason to create new words. And in the scientific and technical realm, we create new concepts, or new technologies, which also need new words. Fine. Create laser, add a new meaning to web, coin internet.

But in daily life, before uttering a new word, how about ensuring that it doesn't have a perfectly suitable existing alternative?

Would solving the problem that way be feasible? Could we all entice our protégés to agree?

Great. Let's strive for a better working vocabulary, then.

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End of rant. Tomorrow I will return to treacle. Or at least non-ranting.

O is for Orange --- Or maybe not

Leah tells me I say "orange" wrong.

One of the skills an actor or actress acquires at NYU is speaking properly. And, though we Midwesterners like to think we don't have an accent, clearly, we do. Now, it happens that her accent is closer to correct pronunciation than that of many students, there are some telltale signs of her linguistic origin.

One of those is "orange."

We've always pronounced the word with a long "o" -- as in "oar" or "oak." The proper pronunciation, it turns out, is with one of the shorter "o" sounds -- either the one in "ought" or the one in "hot" -- dictionaries seem to differ, and Leah's not around at the moment to tell me for certain which one she's being taught in her speech class.

So, I've learned something. With most things I learn, they are just facts. They may cause me to discard old facts, but they don't really affect my daily living.

The pronunciation of "orange" will be challenging, however. Can I really train myself to say it differently? I'm a pretty old dog, after all.

And besides, there are all those other "or-" words that need to be considered. "Orangutan" still has the long "o" but "order" doesn't. How am I supposed to know?

Well, I'll decide some other day. For now, I'll just prepare for Christmas, and watch the snow.

And ask Sherry not to serve oranges.

Too Much To Write, Too Little Time

Ah, faithful readers, here's the situation.

Vacation starts tomorrow after I leave work! [You may begin envying me, congratulating me, or wondering why I'd save two weeks of vacation for the time of year when I can't golf -- whichever you prefer.]

Among other things, vacation marks the time when I don't blog regularly. [From my blog's prolog: "I post every weekday when I'm not on vacation."] So, for tomorrow, I have a last-blog-before-vacation already written. [I'm very happy with it, so I hope you enjoy it.] This means that today's blog is really the last one I will be certain to write before 2010. [OK, except that I also have a blog ready for 12/31 entitled "2009 - The Year Of ..." I like that one, too. {I like my own writing way too much for my own good. It's part of my high self-esteem issues. (And I am falling into my hyper-parenthetical habit again, sorry.)}]

But I have so many topics I'd like to write about!

• Over the past month, I've finished a Great Course about the Old Testament. I learned quite a bit from that course, but I've only mentioned it briefly once. Gotta write about that sometime. If for no other reason than to solidify in my head some of the key points.
• And I am well into the next Great Course, about the New Testament. The things I have heard about the differences in the Gospels, about the various sources for the Gospels, about how scholars investigate "The Historical Jesus" and so on -- these deserve comment.
• I've been listening to lots of Christmas music, of course, and I've had several thoughts about the place it holds in our various personal histories. Yesterday, in fact, I was riding with Patrick. He wanted to know what music I'd like to hear from his iPod as we drove. I suggested Christmas music and he had a series of four albums -- 100 Christmas Songs. After 40 minutes of driving, I heard only one arrangement I had heard before. In any case, I could probably write a long entry on this topic.
• "I know, right?" This phrase is coming into its own, and I really like it. It's funny, because in a blog from last summer, I wrote about how "I know" can be somewhat off-putting as a response. But not this! The way the girls (and others -- I've heard quite a few 18-20-somethings say it) use the phrase, it's a nice little agreement phrase. I smile. It's cute.
• And then I have a batch of Movie Micro-Reviews to post. If I save them for the New Year, I will probably have a much longer list.
• Oh, and I met someone at a party who blogs daily (pretty much) and has been doing it for five years! I think finding her blog and linking to it would be fun, as would commenting on our discussion.
• And then there's this recent obsession with the Facebook game called "The Warlords." Yikes. I wonder if I'll even still be hooked on it by the time I blog next year.
• I also have a few snippets running around in my head. [It's quite crowded there in my head, with all these ideas trying to avoid the snippets, but somehow rubbing up against them and influencing their paths.]
• And we've stopped being a two-person household for the next few weeks -- the population in our house is going to expand dramatically. I'm certain there's a blog or two in that topic!
• I must also write about Fiction or Non-Fiction. I must!

But not today. And probably not before 2010 arrives.

So, if I get a bit quiet over the next few weeks, forgive me. It's vacation! And I will definitely have things to write about when I return.

And now, it's for Real. (Really?)

As I indicated recently, I've been blogging for a long time. But, as I've pointed out repeatedly, I don't blog about work.

Well, that's about to change. (Sort of.)

A colleague and I are starting a blog, related to our work. And that means that I'm about to start blogging about work-related things. [But not here. I still won't blog about work -- here.]

This means that I will have the job of coming up with well-written articles on a regular basis. Somehow, the idea is daunting. Yet, I come up with things to say here at Snippets & Wisps multiple times a week, and it doesn't weigh on me. (Mostly.)

It's funny, because when I started thinking about why the new blog is different, I described it internally as being a "Real" blog. [Hence the title to this entry.] Why is that funny? Because I think of this blog as being about the things in my Real Life. The new blog will be from my Work Life. Yet, I mentally put the word "Real" in the description of the new blog.

Though I try hard to keep them separate [and I've written about this in a blog entry I haven't scheduled to be posted yet] my Work Life and my Real Life are both Real parts of my life.

What's interesting to me is how my mind immediately assigned "Real" to the new blog, as if that somehow made it more ... what? ... important? imposing? difficult?

I think it was just an underlying flight response to a new situation. I like writing. I like expressing myself coherently. At my core, I like teaching people things. Once I figure out how to plan for the new blog, once I've decided on my first few topics, and met my first couple of deadlines, the word "Real" will remain, but it will carry less stress.

Recently, I've been listening to a Great Course about Consciousness. In light of that, I need to be more aware of how I use the term "Real." "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." OK, Inigo was talking about a different word. But the point is the same. I should examine what I really meant by thinking the new blog is "Real" and then substitute the right word. Then I can effectively deal with my reaction.

Words; they can confuse, obfuscate, and enlighten.

Have a good weekend, everyone. And I mean that. Really. Every word.

Christian Views on Science - Devolved or Devolved

My most recent "Great Course" is "Science and Religion." It examines the relationship between science and Christianity over the centuries, and while I'm not done with the course yet, there is already a remarkable point to be made. To make it, I'm going to teach us all a word: devolve. [Since I can't count on everyone to click the link, and since it will really help to have the definition close at hand, I will copy it here.]

Main Entry:

de·volve

Function:

verb

transitive verb: to pass on (as responsibility, rights, or powers) from one person or entity to another <devolving to western Europe full responsibility for its own defense — Christopher Lane>

intransitive verb 1 a: to pass by transmission or succession devolved on a distant cousin> b: to fall or be passed usually as a responsibility or obligation devolved increasingly upon women — Barbara Ehrenreich>2: to come by or as if by flowing down devolve from his belief in basic American rights — Frank Deford>3: to degenerate through a gradual change or evolution devolves into chaos — Johns Hopkins Magazine>

OK, so now that we have the definitions, let's make the point.


One of the great fathers of Christianity is St. Augustine. Augustine through his life, work, study and writings was very concerned with the relationship between reason and faith, and hence "science" and "religion" as we describe them today. To greatly simplify, it was Augustine's belief that reason and faith both lead to a description of a single unified truth. And, while "science" is sometimes hard to interpret, scripture is even harder. When scripture and "science" seem to conflict, it is because we haven't found the correct interpretation of the scripture yet.

[This is so much like my own belief system, that I might just have to read some Augustine. But that's beside the point.]

This attitude towards science, though it appears to have been cast aside at certain points in history (see Galileo) has been canon in the Christian church for centuries, and Pope John Paul II reiterated the same themes in the 1990's [Fides et Ratio - Faith and Reason.] In other words, this attitude toward the relationship between theology and science, between faith and reason, between scripture and scientific evidence, devolved (1a) from one generation to another - this is a good thing; knowledge was passed down. Further, when the theological reasoning is examined, Augustine's analysis devolves (2a) from (as a natural result of) Christian faith and the evidence of our senses. This, too, is a good thing -- it makes science consistent with faith, and vice versa.

Yet, for some reason, the Christian Right in the US has taken an attitude towards science which is devolved (3) from the progress made by its forefathers. This is not a good thing. Augustine was fighting a perception that, when science and scripture disagreed, clearly the science must be wrong. He refuted such a belief system, arguing that it makes believers and their faith subject to ridicule, and ultimately harms the cause of spreading the Gospel and bringing souls salvation. Yet this anti-science "fundamentalism" persists, and even seems to be growing today. If it's not growing in number, it is certainly well entrenched in the persistence and volume of its proponents.

I decided to buy this course precisely so I would be able to examine the science/faith relationship, better articulate my own views, and gain a deeper understanding of the history of that relationship. Clearly, just three lectures into the course, I have already begun to get what I wanted.

Now, I must figure out how to use this knowledge.

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"devolve." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.

Merriam-Webster Online. 19 May 2009