The Heavens are Telling

The Heavens are Telling

From “The Creation”

The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament;

Today that is coming speaks it the day,
The night that is gone to following night.

The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament;

In all the lands resounds the word,
never unperceived, ever understood.

The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament.

—Author and Composer: Franz Joseph Haydn

These words may not mean a lot to you.  It is the closing number of part one of The Creation by F. J. Haydn.  It is translated from German, so the English rendering may appear to be rather stiff and stilted.  But the meaning is clear.  It is taken from Psalm 19.  Of this, Wikipedia says the following.

The text is based on Psalm 19:1–3, which had been set by Bach as the opening chorus of his cantata Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, BWV 76. Haydn's century, following on the discoveries of Newton, had the view that an orderly universe—particularly the mathematically-governed motion of the heavenly bodies—attests to divine wisdom.

Wiki continues to describe Haydn and this work.  The work on the oratorio lasted from October 1796 to April 1798. It was also a profound act of faith for this deeply religious man, who appended the words "Praise to God" at the end of every completed composition. He later remarked, "I was never so devout as when I was at work on The Creation; I fell on my knees each day and begged God to give me the strength to finish the work."

The words above may still not mean much to you…and that’s understandable.  Listen to it performed.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwqqfbinUDY

Not So Bad

Well, I knew everything was getting older, but did it have to hit me in the head?  OK, those of you who spend hundreds of dollars every few weeks, seemingly, to keep your transportation running probably won’t think much of my rant this morning.  But you see, I’m not used to having to spend that kind of money more than once in a blue moon or so.  We’ve been very, very fortunate that our vehicles have run well over the years with minimal upkeep except for the routine oil changes, occasional tires and batteries, etc.

Last week, I was driving my pickup and saw that the idiot light for the charging system was on.  As they wanted me to be certain, Ford also included gauges…of which the battery gauge was showing lower than it normally does.  I thought, “OK, what now?” as I went down the road.  I looked at the light a moment or two later, and it wasn’t on.  And the battery gauge was back to normal.

Knowing that I saw probably the beginning of something that probably won’t get better on its own, I went to the local auto electrical place where I’ve had some work done before.  I told the nice man about my problem, and said it was working now.  They thought it best to check it over, and I took it in the next day.  About mid day they called and said they found a couple of things wrong after checking out everything, and that it would be almost $400 to fix it.  I swallowed hard and OK’ed the work.

The next day, after picking up the pickup, I was going down the street, looked down, and the battery idiot light was on again.  Then in a few blocks, it went off again.  Finding it within myself to go back to the repair shop, I told the man that I wanted him to know it wasn’t fixed, but that I would try to bring it in when it was actually acting up so they could find the problem more easily.

That time came today.

The truck is in the shop now, getting another $500 worth of work done to it…with their assurance that THIS time, they’ve found the problem.  Actually, I don’t begrudge the earlier money spent, as the things they found really did, I think, need to be done.  So I would have spent that money, or most of it anyway, in any event.

It’s just a little disconcerting to think, though, that getting a vehicle repaired anymore is kind of like going to the emergency room…it’s hundreds of dollars just to get in the door, it seems.  And then there are charges on top of that which would make your head swim.

It almost makes me want to just put the battery charger on the truck each night and top off the battery…then drive around the next day on the battery.  You can do that, you know.  The battery will carry a modern vehicle for several hours before giving out, assuming one doesn’t use the lights or air conditioner too much.  Radios don’t take much current, and turn signals don’t either.  You could use those as much as you wanted and still drive all morning.  And if you have a stick like I do, you can park on an incline and start the truck with the momentum of rolling down the hill.

So, there ya’ go.  Charger at night…inclines during the day, and you’re fixed.  Of course, you won’t do that for long before you have to call AAA or the tow truck man to come get you because you forgot and didn’t park on that incline…or you stalled out at Central and Rock in the left turn lane and don’t have the battery to start it.

Come to think of it, $900 isn’t such a bad deal after all.

What Would They Say?

The other day, I went with the wife to a banquet.  It was given by the state nurses’ association, of which she is a member.  They were having their annual membership meeting, and the banquet was kind of the highlight of the weekend.  I assume my wife invited me to the banquet (and paid for my dinner) because she needed some “arm candy.”  I fill that role very well, I might say, and did not disappoint on this night.

At many of this type of function, they have a program of some kind.  This was no exception.  They had a motivational speaker, announcements, and awards.  One of the awards was induction into a nurse hall of fame for Kansas.  There were four inductees, I believe, some of whom were deceased.

For each inductee, someone read a paragraph or two telling why this person deserved to belong in the hall of fame.  For one of the deceased inductees, the last comment was this, “Many lives were changed (for the better) because she was here.”

Think about that.  I won’t go into all of this woman’s accomplishments and career.  Suffice it to say that this was an ordinary woman in ordinary work environments with the ordinary trials and issues, ordinary aspirations and inclinations, who accomplished something truly extraordinary in her all-too-brief life (she died in her 50’s).  She changed the lives of many people for the better because she was diligent…diligent to live, love, serve, and give.

She wasn’t the daughter of a great business magnate.  She didn’t have the background that propelled her into the limelight.  She encountered the ordinary and routine of life.  Yet she made an extra-sweet lemonade out of that soupy mix and caused the lives of many to be forever changed and made better.

What would someone say about you should you be nominated for some kind of hall of fame?  Could they say, truthfully, that you changed the lives of many people for the better?  Could they say that the world was a better place because of you?  Could they articulate your accomplishments and achievements as they relate to your obligation to your neighbor (as defined by Jesus in the story of the Good Samaritan), and the universal spiritual admonition to do unto others as you would have them do unto you?

I don’t know what someone would say about me.  I’m not young anymore, and have lived by far most of my years.  And, I suppose it would matter somewhat who was saying things about me insofar as what that person would say.  I say that somewhat lightly, of course.

Maybe a good exercise would be for us to write our own induction into a hall of fame.  I dare say we would have a difficult time of it, as we don’t like to toot our own horns for one, and secondly, sadly, we might not have very much to write about.  Perhaps it’s time that we used what time we have left on this earth to make some changes…as long as there is breath, there is opportunity.  We dare not miss it.

"Be the First Kid On Your Block!"

Are you mature enough to recall the old cereal commercials that had, somewhere within them, “Be the first kid on your block”?  Invariably, that comment was in regard to some toy or gizmo you could send in twenty-five cents (no stamps, please) and two box tops to get, or came already packaged somewhere inside the cereal box.  Usually, it was made of plastic or some kind of construction paper or cardboard, and lasted all of about ten minutes before something on it broke or otherwise became inoperable.

I was reminded of that phrase this weekend.  We had company in our home for a few days, so when I went to the store, I picked up several different kinds of cereal besides the ONE kind the wife and I eat.  I figured they might not care for spoon-size shredded wheat each morning, and might want something different.

When we opened one of the boxes and poured out some cereal, out came a plastic thingy wrapped in more plastic.  It took the wife unwrapping it and looking on the box to determine that it was a Sponge Bob water shooter.  Evidently, you fill the thing with about three teaspoons of water and then push the plunger.  The water shoots out a hole in the other end, ostensibly getting someone wet.

We haven’t tried it yet.  It’s laying on the pie safe in the dining area.  (Why do they call it a pie safe?  We haven’t EVER stored pies in ours…)  I admit I was tempted to stand out in our front yard with the thing and yell at the top of my lungs that I was the first kid on my block to have one.  But with my luck, a neighbor kid would come out of his or her house with a giant version of the same thing and give me a quick shower just to show me that they had one before I did.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t really sure what “my block” even was.  We lived in an unplatted part of the town.  That means that there were no streets and lots platted.  We owned about two and a half acres, and there were two or three other houses in the same unplatted area.  The place where the street (Adams Street, by the way, for those who know my home town) would have gone had there been a platted street was right through our front driveway and garage.  So I was always a little ambivalent about just who and what constituted my block.  Besides, most of the kids who were within a block or so of me didn’t care about things such as that anyway.  We were more concerned with finding crawdads, lizards, and snakes down at the drain ditch, watching the train come to bring or take cars to or from the neighboring grain elevator, or playing at the old, abandoned house we owned on part of that acreage.

Those were the days when our mothers would toss us out the door sometime in the earlier morning and call us back in for lunch (we called it dinner); then toss us out again until supper time.  Our family had a bell mounted on a pole outside that we could hear from two or three blocks away.  And when we heard it, we knew we were supposed to hightail it home.  Blocks really didn’t mean much to us back then, and the concept of child kidnapping never occurred to anyone…least of all us.  We’d use the nearest bathroom, which often was a tree, the drain ditch, or inside the barn on our property.  And once in a while, someone’s mom would poke her head out the door just to be sure no one was dead or had suffered an amputation of some kind.

“Be the first kid on your block!”  I like all the memories that come with that.  Hopefully, you have such memories as well.

Well, huh.

I was putting away laundry a few days ago when I rather innocently took a brief look at the tag in the waistband of a pair of briefs…you know, underwear.  I didn’t think much about it because a guy’s gotta look somewhere.  But then after a few seconds, it hit me.  There’s a URL on the tag in the waistband of my briefs.  I took another look and sure enough.  www.hanes.com/briefs was in sorta fine print at the bottom of the tag.

I wondered, “Why would anyone want to look at a webpage for men’s underwear?”  And then I thought, “Isn’t anything sacred anymore?  Does everything have to have a URL plastered on it?”  I went ahead and put away the “offensive” briefs along with socks and other assorted men’s items, and went about my business.

But the URL for underwear stayed in my head, and I finally today succumbed to the temptation.  I typed the URL into FireFox and lo and behold, there it was!  Of course, the first page didn’t really have much except a little introductory material and a couple of boxes where you could click if you were interested in boys or men.  I presume they meant boy’s underwear or men’s underwear instead of something more dark and sinister, and clicked on men.  And there they were!

There was the classic underwear.  There were tagless briefs.  There were “comfort blend” briefs.  There were briefs with the comfort flex waistband.  And briefs with the comfort soft waistband.  There were dyed briefs.  There were mid-rise briefs, sport briefs, and even boxer briefs (I have a nephew that may like those…).  Oh, and if you clicked on one of the pictures, you could get a larger view, as if that somehow would determine what you ordered.

And you could order any or all of these right on the web site.  No need to go to Wal Mart, Dillards, or some real store.  Just order in the comfort of your home and have ‘em delivered.  Of course, until they ARE delivered, you have to wear your old, worn out Fruit-Of-The-Looms and can’t take advantage of the latest tagless black sports brief with the comfort flex waistband and comfort blend material.  But they are certainly worth the wait, aren’t they?

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I order stuff on line.  Maybe not underwear, but I have accounts with several on-line outfits, and order things there somewhat readily.  However, I usually order only the stuff I can’t get here.  I’ve not normally found that on line ordering is cheaper, but I’ve never been unsatisfied with something I’ve ordered, either.

So, I guess this is fair notice to me that URL’s can and will appear anywhere, anytime.  Just like the little boxes called QR codes that whisk one to a web site and that show up anywhere, URL’s can and do appear in places not often thought of as places to look for them.  Well, huh.