A place for everything...

I recently discovered Robert Brault, who writes aphorisms, which are a form of epigrams. I love Robert Brault, maybe because he reminds me of my father.

Dad was the Epigram King. He had one for almost any occasion.

Of course you know an epigram is a BRIEF, witty, interesting phrase or saying.

You can remember ‘epigram’ if you know that teleGRAMs, because you paid by the word, needed to be brief and to the point.

It helps you distinguish them from epiTHEts–descriptive nicknames or terms such as Alfred THE Great or Richard THE Lionhearted, and epiTAPhs which are sayings on tombstones that you may read while listening to TAPS being played.

Here are a few of the sayings I was raised on, and they may give you some insight into why I am The Prude.

-The only difference between a cow chewing its cud and a girl chewing her gum is the intelligent look on the cow’s face.

-To be poor and look poor is twice poor.

-Man’s work goes from sun to sun but woman’s work is never done.

-Be not the first by whom the new is tried, nor the last by which the old is laid aside.

-A place for everything, and everything in its place.

-Start from the known, work to the unknown.

-This, too, shall pass.

-You never have a second chance to make a first impression.

-Share what you’re learning with people thrice, and you’ll find it’s yours for life.

-Don’t sit when you can stand, don’t stroll when you can stride.

-If you can’t say something nice about a person you aren’t trying hard enough.

-Commit all you do to the Lord. He will honor it.

If my dad had known about Robert Brault he would have added Robert's epigrams to his arsenal. Dad would have especially liked these two:

-Love may be blind, but this I’ll state–it’s eagle-eyed compared to hate.

-The young do not follow our preaching; they follow us.

If you have time and inclination, check out Robert Brault.  Because there is always room for one more good epigram.

Cook Like a Man

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I don’t remember my father ever baking but he was not afraid to kick back by the cooktop with a touch of savoir-faire and a scorn for recipes.

This makes it difficult to pass along his favorites to my sons.

But I'll try. Family tradition is, after all, family tradition.

Oatmeal: Serve hot every morning in late fall, all winter, and early spring. Alternate with Malt-o-Meal or Cocoa Puffs if the family starts to whinny and ask that you just put breakfast in a feed bag and strap it around their necks.

Rice: Top rice with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Serve with a hamburger patty on the side.

Pancakes: A mix? Who needs a mix? Play around with flour, milk, leavening and egg proportions. Forget to write the perfect one down so the next time you make pancakes is another adventure.  Shape like bears, sheep, birds, and cows. Don’t worry that they all look like cumulus clouds. Save leftovers, spread with jelly the next day, roll up and eat cold.

Pudding: If you mess with cornstarch, milk, sugar, butter, vanilla enough times you will come up with pudding. Apportion it into individual plates. Take food coloring and dye each one in each child’s favorite color. Hope no one wants deep red.

Hot cocoa mix: Take powdered milk and sugar and creamer and cocoa and salt and vanilla and experiment till you have the perfect concoction. Write it down on the back of an old envelope so you don’t forget. Lose envelope, start over because it could have been better anyway.

Dutch oliebollen: literally ‘oil’ or ‘fat balls'.  Don’t worry about a recipe. You are deep-fat frying balls of dough and rolling them in sugar. You can’t go wrong!

There you go, sons. Your grandpa began a proud tradition. Now carry on. Just don’t throw away old envelopes without checking the back first.

If Life Spills Your Spaghetti, Build a House

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Soon after my first child was born my mom called me and she was laughing so hard she could barely speak.

“You won’t believe what your dad did! He spilled a box of spaghetti on the floor and thought it made such an interesting pattern that he played around with it for awhile. Now he’s on the stool he made and taking a Polaroid.”

According to my little sister the spaghetti scene remained on the floor for almost a week and the household had to leap over or tiptoe through it.

That was my dad. Don’t cry over spilled spaghetti. Walk around it. 

Phillis Ever After

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Historical research can be painful. I renewed my friendship with Phillis Wheatley this past week. Torn from her mother’s arms in Africa in the mid-18^th century, she was brought to Colonial America and purchased by the Wheatleys, a family willing to treat the tiny girl with love and care. They educated her. She learned to read the Bible. She became a believer, and wrote incredible poems, had them published and gained her freedom and married another freed slave and bore 3 children.

Happy ending, right?

Oh no.

Few in America believed a black slave could write poetry so she had to have them published in England. When everyone in the Wheatley family died she was given her freedom and married another freed slave who couldn’t find work. After all, freed slaves were competing with colonists for work. Who do you think received preferential treatment?

Her husband spent his time dodging creditors.

Phillis, never strong, was left to seek work as a servant.

She kept writing poems and tried to get a second volume published but there was still no interest in America for the poems of a black woman.

Her health failed.

She watched 2 of her babies die.

She ended her life in extreme poverty and squalor and died at age 31 only a few hours before her last child followed her.

But.

I read what Phillis wrote and realize that her unhappy ending was transformed into the happiest of ever afters.

On Being Brought From Africa to America

"Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

"Their colour is a diabolic die."

Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,

May be refin'd and join th'angelic train.  

 

The Reverse Reflected Glory Strategy

One of the accumulated ironies of aging is the recognition that, though we pursue worldly delights with less energy and inclination, we realize that sin is more than just vice with vigor. It’s still merrily manufactured in our most secret core, hidden from public view but marketing itself in a clever new package designed to woo the middle-aged miscreant.

Take, for instance, the command that we do good works to glorify our Father in heaven.
I do enjoy doing good.
And I do pray, with as much sincerity as a redeemed, sanctified-but-still-struggling human can, that I do these things to the glory of God.

But even as this prayer is in my heart and on my lips, my sin factory has distracted me with a shiny display shelf chock full of ME. So clever, so consumer-savvy is my sin that before I realize it I’m reaching for ME. I’m filling my cart with ME.
Again the genius. It isn’t tempting me to do anything like, say, steal candy from the PDQ or smoke a cigarette behind the barn or flirt with a gentleman I have no business flirting with. It most definitely isn’t tempting me to NOT perform the good thing. And it even convinces me that I want to give God the glory.


The sales pitch to this consumer is subtle.
“Do this, give God the glory, and maybe, if you play it right, some of that glory will bounce back onto you. Maybe you’ll be shining a little more brightly because of this.”
Oh, sin has done its research into my brand loyalty.
ME.
ME is my favorite brand.

In the face of such clever ploys I’m pretty helpless. No sales resistance.
Such a relief to have a Savior in charge of the purse strings. He hurries me along past ME. He reminds me of all the other times I bought into ME and was disappointed.
And when I still snatch a pack of ME He doesn’t charge it to my account.
He says “I’ve got this’ and shows the  ‘PAID FOR’ receipt in a nail-pierced hand.

Rubbing elbows with the Real World

We seldom recognize what a blessing we’ve been given in the Virtual World of television until we have to spend an entire day at church and dance recitals rubbing elbows with the Real World. And let me tell you, Real World is full of elbows attached to people who are behaving as such.

Why do people like me opt out of Virtual World church and subject ourselves to the constant vexations of Real World church? V.W. church can be accessed from an armchair via a remote control. It can be paused to use the restroom or get a drink. It’s been cleaned up ahead of time, blooper and baby-fret free.
Real World church pastors refuse to freeze in place when I dash out to use the restroom. Rumbling stomachs to the left of me, cranky babies to the right of me and squeaky shoes all around me would never have to be dealt with in my living room.
Am I crazy? Are we all? Why aren’t we at home in our PJ’s, worshiping with comfort and surround sound and a bowl of Fruit Loops?

After people-saturated Real World Church I head to Real World dance recital. It is chock full of humans who talk too loudly, crawl over my knees when arriving late, and whistle shrilly behind my ears. Dancers miss cues and lights don’t work and curtains get stuck.
None of these occur at Virtual World recitals. 
Even though the people dancing on the screen would technically be considered ‘human’, all those annoying people-type characteristics have been deleted.
Even though Virtual World dancers don’t know I exist, everything they do is for my comfort. I pick the best seat from which to watch them. I can make them as loud or quiet or fast or slow or zoomed in or zoomed out as I want. I can pause them mid-air while I go grab a snack (which is absolutely forbidden in the Real World recital) and never miss a plié or a pirouette.

Will we never learn? Will we persist in leaving Virtual World that, although oblivious of us, exists solely for our satisfaction? Will we persist in the dangerous business of walking out our doors to face the elbow-and-baby saturated Real World?
What do we think we are? People?

Anniversary Mashup

Maybe you’ve heard of ‘mashup songs’. 

Mashups are created when two or more already existing songs are seamlessly combined to create a new song. Like medleys, except cooler.
What a great idea. It appeals to my prudish sense of efficiency. It’s the musical version of multi-tasking.
But why stop at music?
2012 marks the 100th anniversary of Japan's gift of cherry trees to Washington DC, of Fenway Park, Girl Scouts and Oreo cookies.
But it’s also an election year. The Summer Olympics are coming up. Everyone is busy, for goodness sake.
So let’s mashup these anniversaries and celebrate them all together!

Flavor the creamy insides of the Oreos with cherry.
Sell them exclusively at Fenway Park.
Hire Girl Scouts only as vendors at Fenway Park to sell the cherry-flavored Oreos.
There you have it. The seamless combination of two or more existing anniversaries into a new celebration.

This idea could go places.
I best start working on the 2013 Anniversary Mashups.
So far my research has yielded that it is the 100th Anniversary of the first Income Tax and the 100th Anniversary of the Chautauqua Bird, Tree & Garden Club.
That will be one doozy of a party.