Arthur Conan Doyle: His Muses and How They Amused Him

Arthur Conan Doyle created a literary icon, Sherlock Holmes, the quintessential detective who utilized his ingenious methodology of analyzing the facts and through a priori reasoning solved the 56 cases Doyle wrote about swiftly.
Doyle credited his antecedents Edgar Allen Poe, Wilkie Collins and Emile Gaboriau; as his muses.
In Collins' masterpiece "The Moonstone" Sergeant Cuff
Mr. Bruff hired a boy Gooseberry to stand watch for Luker. Likewise, Holmes hired street urchins to aid in his pursuit in "A Study in Scarlet"
Godfrey Applewhite in disguise received the Moonstone the night it disappeared from the heiress' room.
In "Monsieur Lecoq" Lecoq examined footprints in the snow outside a bar and ascertained by their strides the height and size of feet of several of the main characters involved in a triple murder. Lecoq meticulously followed the patterns of their adventures both during and after the crime. He spent over four hours tracing their footpaths.
Eventually their trail ended on a highway and through his deductive reasoning Lecoq brilliantly formed a theory about the females who were escaping the crime scene.
The perpetrator of the murder May was finally allowed to escape and Lecoq disguised himself as a street gamin to pursue May unbeknownst to him.
Finally after a long ordeal May jumped a fence at a palatial estate and Lecoq couldn't figure out what happened to him.
Eventually he went to seek counsel from Monsieur Tabaret who aided the French police when they couldn't solve a crime.
Tabaret advised Lecoq, "Always distrust appearances; believe precisely the contrary of what appears true, or even probable."
In conclusion Tabaret prophetically summarized his methodology, "Always distrust what seems probable."
These influential detective stories served as the models for Doyle's creation of Holmes and his methodology. Doyle wrote in his "Through the Magic Door" that if I had to name a few books which have really influenced my own life I should have to put Poe's fall of the House of Usher second only to Macaulay's Essays. I read it young when my mind was plastic. It stimulated my imagination and set before me a supreme dignity and force in the methods of telling a story." He hailed Poe as the master in deployment of "strength, novelty, compactness, intensity of interest, and a single vivid impression left upon my mind." He was "the supreme original short story writer of all time. His brain was like a seed-pod full of seeds which flew carelessly around, and from which sprung nearly all our modern types of stories. Just think of what he did in his off-hand, prodigal fashion, seldom troubling to repeat a success, but pushing on to some new achievement. To him must be ascribed the monstrous progeny of writers on the detection of crime -- 'quorum pars parva fui!' " This is in reference to Aeneas when he said to Dido about the Trojan war and its close was "quorum magna pars fui" (of which things I was a great part) according to Owen Dudley Edwards in his book "The Quest for Sherlock Holmes" When Doyle visited the United State in 1894 he insisted to the New York "Herald" interviewer that Poe's detective and not his own was the greatest in literature. In "A Study in Scarlet" Holmes tells Watson "No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin...Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after of a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine" and then goes on to describe Gaboriau's Lecoq as "a miserable bungler...That book made me positively ill." Arthur Guitermann's rhyme "The Case of the Inferior Sleuth" mocked Doyle: "Holmes is your hero of drama and serial; All of us know where you dug the material Whence he was moulded - 'tis almost a platitude; Yet your detective, in shameless ingratitude -- Sherlock your sleuthhound with motives ulterior Sneers at Poe's Dupin as "very inferior!" Labels Gaboriau's clever "Lecoq", indeed Merely a 'bungler', a creature to mock, indeed! This, when your plots and your methods in story owe More than a trifle to Poe and Gaboriau, Sets all the Muses of Helicon sorrowing. Borrow, Sir Knight, but be decent in borrowing!" Doyle's response entitled "To an Undiscerning Critic" "Have you not learned, my esteemed commentator, That the created is not the creator? As the creator I've praised to satiety Poe's Monsieur Dupin, his skill and variety, And have admitted that in my detective work I owe to my model a deal of selective work. But is it not on the verge of insanity To put down to me my creation's crude vanity? He, the created, would scoff and would sneer, Where I, the creator, would bow and revere. So please grip this fact with your cerebral tentacle: The doll and its maker are never identical." Another influential writer for Doyle was Robert Louis Stevenson, according to Jacqueline A. Jaffe, who wrote "Arthur Conan Doyle." "Robert Louis Stevenson was and continued to be one of Doyle's most important models; he held both Stevenson's philosophy and his writing in great esteem. His regard for Stevenson as a theorist is evident with the similarity of their literary concerns and the coincidence of certain themes in their works. His respect for Stevenson as a craftsman can be more clearly seen in the obituary Doyle wrote for the "National Review." "He describes Stevenson, along with Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, as one of the three greatest short-story writers of the 19th Century. Even the personal philosophies of Stevenson and Doyle were remarkably similar; they both felt that physical activity verging on actual hardship was intrinsically exciting, and that this excitement imposed a reality of its own that was more important than internal motivation, or, as Robert Keily says of Robert Louis Stevenson, that "motion counted more than direction." (from his biography "Robert Louis Stevenson" "Furthermore, they both felt that the power of the imagination was supreme and should be used to transport the reader away from the all-too-grim reality that comprised ordinary life. Certainly Stevenson's comment 'As I live I feel more and more that literature should be cheerful and brave spirited, even if it cannot be made beautiful and pious and heroic," could be taken as Doyle's dictum. Doyle achieved his first critical success in July 1883, when "Cornhill" magazine bought his story "Habakuk Jephson's Statement". Doyle wanted the accolade of being accepted by James Payn, the demanding editor of that prestigious magazine. He also desperately wanted to be in the company of other writers that he admired, and the "Cornhill" formerly edited by Thackeray and the publication that had printed Edgar Allan Poe's stories, and more recently, the works of Stevenson, provided access to this inner sanctum of literary excellence. James Payn, "the warden," as Doyle described him, of "the sacred gate", was to be a mentor whose influence was to be felt in all Doyle's works for most of his life. As an early indication of Payn's standing with Doyle, he tells us that "(what) for the first time made me realize that I was ceasing to be a hack writer and was getting into good company when James Payn accepted my short story." After the publication of "A Study in Scarlet" Doyle claimed that the character of the detective was largely inspired by his recollections of one of his medical school teachers, Dr. Joseph Bell. Dr. Bell's famous exhortations to the students to use their inductive and deductive powers before making a diagnosis was no dContinoubt a factor in Doyle's creation of Holmes, but the literary antecedents, the detectives created by Eugene Vidocq, Edgar Allan Poe, Emile Gaboriau, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, are clearly the true sources for Holmes. In "Arthur Conan Doyle, A Memoir" the Rev. John Lamond, wrote, "Whilst studying under Dr. Joseph Bell in Edinburgh, and acting as his out-patient clerk, young Doyle was often startled by the extraordinary deductions made by that celebrated surgeon from simple attitude or movement on the part of the patient which had entirely escaped Conan Doyle's own observation and the observation of his fellow students. He reports one special case in which these deductions were correct. A civilian patient had been brought in. "Well, my man," said Dr. Bell, "you've served in the army." "Aye,sir." "Not long discharged?" "Aye, sir." "A Highland regiment?" "Aye, sir." "A non-com officer?" "Aye, sir. "Stationed at Barbados?" "Aye, sir." "You see, gentlemen," he would explain, "the man was a respectful man, but he did not remove his hat. They do not in the army, but he would have learned civilian ways had he been long discharged. He has an air of authority and is obviously Scottish. As to Barbados his complaint about elephantiasis, which is West Indian and not British." According to Lamond, "It was this rapid deduction from some simple circumstances as applied to the detection of crime that Conan Doyle developed on the part of Sherlock Holmes, and which has led to the formation of several schools of detectives founded on this method." Also mention his mother's influence and the black man he met on the ship.

Normalcy

"Rcckon we'll ever be normal?" Charley "Pretty Boy" Floyd asked his accomplice in a bank robbery.
"I don't know about you, bud," Birdwell said. "I am normal. I been pretty much normal ever since I was born."
"Applesauce," Charley said. "You ain't a bit normal."
"We just watched a ball game," Birdwell pointed out. "Ain't that normal."
"Not if you rob a bank first, it ain't," Charley said. "If all we done was watch baseball, that'd be normal."
"But robbin' the bank was normal, too," Birdwell insisted. "We're bandits -- bandits gotta rob something, and banks are a helluva lot easier than trains."
"How would you know?" Charley asked him. "The James boys robbed trains. I guess we could too, if we tried."
"I did try, once," Birdwell told him. "That damn train wouldn't stop. The engineer didn't have the imagination to figure out I was trying to rob him.
"Banks ain't moving objects," he added. "That's why I favor banks and there's another thing to consider."
"What?" Charley asked.
"Most normal folks is bored shitless," Birdwell informed him. "They just sit around the house watchin' the grass grow, yellin' at each other, mostly."
Have you ever met a normal person?
Most of us think we're either normal and everybody else is an oddball, or we know we're not normal and we're still looking for a normal person.
I've never watched a ball game after robbing a bank, so maybe that qualifies me as being normal.
Normally I watch ball games while sipping on a tall cool one.
Football season is just 11 days away and then all of us Razorback football fanatics will be spending every Saturday in front of the boob tube hoping the Hogs flip their season around from last year's debacle and turn 4-8 into 8-4.

The Jesus Christ conundrum: Why the Jews didn't acknowledge Yeshu ha'Notzi as the Messiah

The most perplexing conundrum regarding the Bible to a devout Christian is why didn't God's chosen people, i.e. the Jews, accept God's plan of sending his Son Jesus Christ as the Messiah?
To Jews who studied the scriptures Jesus did not measure up to their conception of what the Messiah was supposed to fulfill upon his earthly presence.
They anticipated according to 12th century Spanish rabbi Moses Maimonides in his "Laws Concerning the Installation of Kings":
"The Messiah will arise and restore the kingdom of David to its former might. He will rebuild the sanctuary and gather the dispersed of Israel. All the laws will be reinstated in his days as of old. Sacrifices will be offered and the Sabbatical and Jubilee years will be observed exactly in accordance with the commandments of the Torah. But whoever does not believe in him or does not await his coming denies not only the rest of the prophets, but also the Torah and our teacher Moses.
"Do not think that the Messiah needs to perform signs and miracles. bring about a new state of things in the world, revive the dead, and the like. It is not so....Rather it is the case in these matters that the statutes of our Torah are valid forever and eternally. Nothing can be added to them or taken away from them.
"And if there arise a king from the House of David who meditates on the Torah and practices its commandments like his ancestor David in accordance with the Written and Oral Law, prevails upon all Israel to walk in the ways of the Torah, and fights the battles of the Lord, then one may properly assume that he is the Messiah.
"If he is then successful in rebuilding the sanctuary on its site and in gathering the dispersed of Israel, then he has in fact (as a result of his success) proven himself to be the Messiah. He will then arrange the whole world to serve only God, as it is said: "For then shall I create a pure language for the peoples that they may call upon the name of God and serve him with one accord." (Zeph. 3:9).
Suffice it to say, none of these occurred during Jesus' one-year preaching, teaching and witnessing to those who came in contact with him.
Initially, when Jesus began his ministry around the year 28, teaching in the synagogue in his hometown, Nazareth, the congregation at first, "spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth." (Luke 4:22).
Then, on hearing more of his preaching, "all in the synagogue were filled with wrath." (Luke 4:28).
Other Jews were moved to follow him, and on one occasion his disciples and others stood about as he sat on a mountain -- the Sermon on the Mount -- at which "the crowds were astonished...for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes."(Matthew 7:28-29)
When Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath, the Pharisees, a Jewish faction, "went out, and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him." (Mark 3:6)
When Jesus seeks to justify himself, citing the authority of God, his "Father," then " the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath but also called God his own Father, making himself equal to God." (John 5:16)
The trial of Jesus and his subsequent crucifixion contributed to hatred of the Jews who were blamed for this tragic moment which sparked a new religion, Christianity following the "resurrection" of Jesus.
 According to Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser in his book "Judaism and the Christian Predicament", on pages 211-243: "Pontius Pilate played the central role in the tragedy of the crucifixion...
"The Gospels, read carefully, offer many indication that the drama surrounding the execution and arrest of Jesus was part of the larger drama of the Roman endeavor to crush Jewish resistance to Roman rule."
In the gospel of Mark 14:43-72, 15:1-15, the arrest of Jesus occurs: "And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the 12, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, 'The one I shall kiss is the man; seize him and lead him away safely.' And when he came, he went up to him at once, and said 'Master!' And he kissed him, And they laid hands on him and seized him...
"And they led Jesus to the high priest; and all the chief priests and the elders were assembled....Now, the chief priest, and the whole counsel sought testimony against Jesus to put him to death; but they found none....And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, 'We heard him say, I will destroy this Temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.'
"Yet not even so did their testimony agree. And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, 'Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?' But he was silent and made no answer. Again the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, 'Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed?' And Jesus said: 'I am; and you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.'
"And the high priest tore his mantle, and said, 'Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?' And they all condemned him as deserving death...And as soon as it was morning the chief priests, with the elders and scribes and the whole counsel held a consultation; and they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, 'Are you the King of the Jews?' And he answered him 'You have said so.' And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, 'Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.'
"But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate wondered. Now at the feast he used to release for them any one prisoner whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in their insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he was wont to do for them. And he answered them, 'Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?' For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, 'Then what shall I do with the man whom you call King of the Jews?'
"And they cried out again, 'Crucify him.' And Pilate said to them 'Why, what evil has he done?' But they shouted all the more, 'Crucify him.' So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabas; and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified."
Jesus' Judgment Day occurred in controversial circumstances. The only people who know what really occurred met behind closed doors, but here's what's been written:
Following his arrest, Jesus is alleged to have been taken to the residence of the High Priest, where he was tried that very night by the council -- the synedrion, as it is called in the Greek original -- with the High Priest acting in the role of presiding officer. But the details of this trial present many irregularities according to Rabbi Bokser who in his chapter "The Perversion of History" in his book "Judaism and the Christian Predicament" on page 217 wrote:
"If the proceedings had been concluded during the night session, why did the council deliberate again "as soon as it was morning"? More baffling is the divergence of this account from the record describing the procedure by which the Sanhedrin conducted its sessions, which has been preserved in the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:1). Here the court is described as sitting only in the daytime, and never on a day of a festival or a day preceding a festival. It is unthinkable that the Sanhedrin would have met on the night of Passover. The Roman authorities themselves exempted Jews from appearing before Roman courts on Sabbaths and festivals and on days preceding them. The Mishnah rules, too, that a verdict of guilty in a capital case could not be promulgated the same day. It was to be deferred for the day following. The procedure also required that the trial begin with a consideration of circumstances favorable to the defendant, and only subsequently was the prosecution to be presented."
As Hugo Mantel has recently shown in "Studies in the History of the Sanhedrin) on pp. 176 ff., 254: "All the evidence in rabbinic sources, moreover, indicates that the presiding officer of the Sanhedrin was a Pharisaic scholar, not the High Priest, and that this Sanhedrin never met in the residence of the High Priest. Its regular meeting place was in the "Gazit" chamber in the Temple precincts."
The Sanhedrin is alleged to have found Jesus guilty of "blasphemy." This is a grave offense in biblical and rabbinic law, punishable by death. If Jesus had really been charged and found guilty of blasphemy according to Rabbi Bokser on page 218: "Most scholars are in agreement that the Jewish courts of that time were competent to impose the death penalty for capital offenses, if of a religious nature. Indeed, according to the Gospel of John, Pilate suggested to the deputation of the High Priest that Jesus be dealt with by the Jews themselves. They replied that it was not within their authority to execute anyone (John 18:31). But how could Pilate have suggested that they perform an act which Roman law itself had forbidden? Pilate's statement becomes intelligible if we assume that he originally judged the complaint against Jesus as religious in nature and therefore asked that the Jewish authorities assume jurisdiction. Some commentators have also found it strange that here (John 18:62) Jesus is quoted as making a public acknowledgment of his messiahship. This runs counter to the general plan of the Gospel of Mark, according to which the messiahship of Jesus was a secret known only to the chosen few, which was to become common knowledge only after the crucifixion.
"We face a more serious difficulty in comprehending the behavior of Pilate, the Jewish leaders, and the Jerusalem crowd. Pilate is here portrayed as a weak but kindly man, one who has a strong sense of equity but who allows outside pressures to deflect him from doing what is right. He is described as convinced that Jesus is innocent and is anxious to release him, but the crowd, instigated by the Jewish authorities, presses him to execute Jesus, and he yields to them."
In conclusion upon these highly controversial consequences suffice it to conclude, according to Rabbi Bokser on page 243 of his book: "The crucifixion of Jesus was an incident in the Roman oppression of the Jewish people. Some Jewish leaders were involved in the events, but they were colonial administrators serving under an occupation government; they were an auxiliary element in the Roman administration. They did not represent their own people; they were, in fact, part of the apparatus by which the Roman administration operated. Jesus was crucified because his movement threatened the stabilility of the existing order, and the existing order in this context was the political order which presided the Roman procurator. The initiative for the action against Jesus in an ultimate sense, however the consequence of events really occurred, was with the Romans whose order was threatened, and not with the Jews who, as a people, were themselves the victims of that order.
Those who converted to Christianity followed the teachings of Paul and didn't let the Jewish scenario interfere with their new-found faith.
In his book "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus" David Klinghoffer opines: "The Jews rejected the Christian claim for Jesus in large part because God wanted then to see the true Messiah in Jesus, if in fact their eternal salvation was dependent on their making this identification, then He would have made it much clearer, far less open to doubt. God is fair.
"To think he wants Jesus to abandon the Torah and its commandments on the basis of an interpretation of the prophets that seems so tenuous."
Klinghoffer continues, "Even as some Jews argued with one another about philosophy, others argued with Christians. The latter charged that Judaism denied reason, while Jews maintained that the belief in Jesus simply wasn't logical. Here it was possible for the bitterly clashing opponents to argue on equal ground.
"There were two articles of Christian faith that Jews objected to with particular vigor: the Trinity and the Incarnation. In advocating these, Christians asked Jews to embrace beliefs that both contradicted logic and denied certain basic principles about God. Contradictions of that kind, the Jews said, they could not accept."
Jesus' Jewish contemporaries had every reason to scoff at his pretensions, since he did not live up to their minimal criteria for what a messiah was supposed to do -- which was first and foremost to liberate the land and people of Israel from foreign oppression...he failed to meet Judaism's evidentiary standards.
According to Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser in his book "Judaism and the Christian Predicament",  "The Gospel accounts disclose to us that Jesus lived and died as a Jew, within the framework of Jewish belief and Jewish practice."
In Rudolf Butmann's book "Form Criticism": "It must remain questionable whether Jesus regarded himself as the messiah, and did not rather first become messiah in the faith of his community (page 71).
On page 183-184, Bultmann maintains, "A detailed examination of the teachings of Jesus disclosed him to have been within the mainstream of the living tradition of Judaism. The pioneer of critical studies in the Old and New Testaments, Julius Wellhausen categorically declared: "Jesus was not a Christian; he was a Jew. He did not preach a new faith, but taught men to do the will of God; and in his opinion, as also in that of the Jews, the will of God was found in the Law of Moses and in the other books of Scripture." (Wellhausen's "Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, page 113).
"Wellhausen's judgment on the Jewishness of Jesus is fully supported by modern scholarship."
So, how do Jews evaluate who Jesus was?
Jesus is revealed as a former student of Torah who went seriously off the rails and became a spiritual danger to the people Israel.
His mother was Miriam (Mary), a women's hairdresser who was married but conceived the baby Yeshu by another man, Pandira, according to R. Travers Herford in "Christianity in Talmud and Midrash".
About Miriam, it is said that she was of a royal bloodline but "played the harlot with carpenters," suggesting that it was the paramour, Pandira, who was the carpenter -- not Jesus's adoptive father, Joseph, as in the Gospel story, according to a tractate "Sanhedrin" in the Talmud.
Yeshu grew up to be a disciple of a great rabbi, Joshua ben Perachya. On a certain occasion Yeshu and Joshua ben Perachya were staying at an inn. They had a disagreement about a term the mentor used and the teacher took offense and cast him out of Rabbi Joshua's circle.
He was rebuffed on numerous occasions. Finally he went away and started his teachings which were heretical to fellow devout Jews.
At the end of this narrative, the Talmud gives the outcome thusly, "Yeshu ha'Notzri practiced magic and led astray and deceived Israel.
The prophecies in Isaiah 2:4: "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares...nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore," did not reach its fruition during Jesus' time on earth.
In Isaiah 52:13 reads, "Behold, My servant will succeed; he will be exalted and become high and exceedingly lofty," a 12th century commentator David Kimchi retorted, "the only place that Jesus was lifted up and exalted was the tree on which they hung him."
Another passage, Micah 5:1, held messianic significance to both Jews and Christians prophesying that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem: "Bethlehem -- Ephratah -- you are too small to be among the thousands of Judah, but from you someone will emerge for Me to be a ruler over Israel..."
Jesus wasn't a ruler over Israel, or as Kimchi responded, "He did not govern Israel but they governed him" which was in reference to the way the Jewish authorities treated Jesus harshly in his final hours, who either killed him themselves (the Talmud's version) or connived with the Romans to do so (the New Testament Gospels' version). This transcription appeared in Frank Talmadge's "Disputation and Dialogue: Readings in the Jewish-Christian Encounter."
One of the most problematic Christian dogmas, the Trinity is antipathetic to the Jews' belief in God's Oneness, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is the One and Only." (Deut. 6:4)
The early Christians believed in a duality of God, the Father and the Son, which Talmudic rabbis railed against. The Trinity emerged with the Nicene Creed in 325.
Maimonides contemptibly wrote in "Guide of the Perplexed", p.27: "Those that believe that God is One, and that He has many attributes, declare the unity with their lips, and assume plurality in their thoughts. This is like the doctrine of the Christians, who say that He is one and He is three, and that the three are one."
Jesus' Incarnation drew the most scorn from Jews. Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, a 14th century Spanish philosopher wrote in "The Refutation of Christian Principles," on page 35: "Even if we posit that God can become incarnate, this redemption is impossible."
The historian Gershom Scholem writes in "The Messianic Idea in Judaism" "The pages of the Talmud tractate Sanhedrin which deal with the Messianic age drive toward the point that the Messiah will come only in an age which is either totally pure or totally guilty and corrupt."
According to Rabbi Dr. Ben Zion Bokser in his book "Judaism and the Christian Predicament" on pages 161-162, "The Bible affirms the hope that the travail of the centuries will finally bear fruit, that the world will respond to the leadership of God's chosen witness and emmissary, the people of Israel. The world will finally learn to acknowledge God as King over all the earth, and build a world community faithful to the demands of His sovereignty. Sometimes the Bible links this hope with the mediating work of the messiah, a term which means literally an "anointed one," an allusion to the ancient practice of investing a leader in his office by a ceremony of anointment.
"Kings Saul, David and Zedekiah, and even a pagan king, Cyrus the Persian, are called in the Bible meshiah, from which derives the term messiah.
"In other instances the Bible does not refer to a mediating leader, but speaks directly of a golden age of the future which would climax historic development by inaugurating a world order of universal enlightenment and peace (Isaiah 2 and Micah 4).
"It is the messianic hope that inspires the all-pervading optimism of the Hebrew Bible. The present was often bitter and disillusioning, but the biblical writers were always animated by the faith that history was moving, by slow and sometimes faltering steps, away from idolatry and falsehood and unrighteousness toward the ascendant triumph of enlightenment, justice, mercy and peace."
Continuing Dr. Bokser on pages 169-170 writes, "The Rabbis elaborated on the biblical hope for the ultimate triumph of God's plan for human life. These elaborations flow in diverse directions, sometimes not charted by the Bible. The biblical formation of this hope often occurred at a time when the Jewish people was set on its own soil, living as a nation among nations. This hope therefore accented the universal note, the larger liberation of all mankind...The Jewish hope, as expressed by the Rabbis, remained faithful to the biblical ideal. It was a hope for a change in the historical order, for a change in the lives of men and nations. "The messianic age will differ from the present order in the absence of oppressive empires," one Sage declared (Berakot 34b). The messianic age will be characterized, in other words, by a prevalence of freedom and the absence of oppressive violence."
Furthermore, Dr. Bokser writes on pages 333 and 334, "The belief that man's salvation can be effected only by God's "self-sacrifice," by the blood of the crucified Jesus, is for the Jew a reversion to the primitive, which he cannot reconcile with his conviction that "clean hands a pure heart" (Psalms 24:4) is all a man needs to come before his Maker.
"Judaism teaches a belief in the Messiah, but what is primary in the messianic faith in Judaism is its historical content. The core of this belief is the vision of a new world order of justice, freedom, and peace to replace the epoch of oppression of man by man and nation by nation."
Martin Buber in "Two Types of Faith" differentiated the Jewish and Christian conceptions of the messiah in these terms: "If we wish to reduce the schism between Jews and Christians, between Israel and the Church, to a formula, we can say: The Church stands on the belief in the 'having come' of Christ as the God-given redemption of man.
"We Israel, are incapable of believing this. The Church views our declaration either as a case of not wanting to believe, as a very questionable sort of obduracy, or else as a kind of curse, as a basic limitation on the ability to recognize reality, as the blinding of Israel which prevents it from seeing the light...But we...know...that the world has not yet been redeemed. We know it as surely as we know that the air we breathe exists...We apprehend the unredeemedness of the world...For us, the redemption of the world is indivisibly equated with the completion of creation, with the erection of a unity no longer hindered by anything, no longer suffering any contradiction, realized in all the multiplicity of the world, equated, in short, with the fulfillment of the kingdom of God. We are incapable of comprehending anticipation of the consummate redemption of the world, in any partial respect, such as the soul's already being redeemed, however much redeeming and becoming redeemed manifest themselves to us too much in our mortal hours."
Thus, in conclusion for Jews Jesus was not the Messiah they envisioned.
He did not bring back an indwelling of the dispersed Jews.
He did not rebuild the Temple.
He did not reign over Israel as its Davidic-like King.
He did not institute world peace and harmony amongst men.
But his teachings, preachings, healings, resurrections of two dead and his crucifixion and resurrection which are documented in the four epistles, eventually spawned a new religion, Christianity.
To Christians Jesus was the Messiah.
To Jews, they're still awaiting a messianic age.

The Yeshu ha'Notzri conundrum

Why did the Jews not acquiesce and recognize Jesus of Nazareth, Yeshu ha'Notzri) as the Messiah?
They based their messianic scenario on Ezekiel 36, 37: 1) gathering of exiles; 2) reign of the Messianic King, a la David; 3)a new convenant characterized by scrupulous observance of the commandments; 4) eternal peace; 5)a new Temple; and 6) the nations recognize God.
None of these transpired during Jesus' time on earth.
Moses Maimonides, made clear in his "Mishneh Torah" a discussion of Jesus appears in the censored 11th chapter "Hilchot Melachim.
The predominate attitude among the most influential Jewish teachers. Jesus is revealed as a former student of Torah who went seriously off the rails and became a spiritual danger to the people Israel.
His mother was Miriam (Mary), a women's hairdresser, who was married but conceived the baby Yeshu by another man, Pandira -- hence one of Jesus's alternative designations in the Talmud, "Ben Pandira", the son of Pandira."

Hostess Twinkies sells out

One of the icons of delicacies, those scrumpdelacious Hostess Twinkies recently declared bankruptcy.
Two buyers made their bids and are going to jointly own the Hostess brand.
The owner of Carl's Jr. and Hardees and the owner of Pabst Blue Ribbon will be the joint partners marketing Twinkies.
Let's just hope they don't decide to add blue food coloring so they can be known as PBT (Pabst Blue Twinkies)!
When I first received my food stamps that's one of the first delicacies I purchased. While I was still camping out in a tent I felt like a king with my Twinkies!
I remember when I worked at Wally World in Bentonville some of the cashiers bad-mouthed people on food stamps who would buy shrimp and other expensive meats.
But you have to be in need to receive food stamps.
I noticed in an article about Paul Ryan's grandiose budget cutting scenario it would impact food stamp program.
I don't think there will be a consensus to stamp out food stamps, pun intended.
Nevertheless, our corporate world continues to consolidate and big companies gobble up other big companies.
Oh, well, at least Twinkies should be twinkling back on the shelves at grocery stories. And we celebrate with a beer, a burger and a Twinkie.
I remember when some gook used the Twinkie defense in his murder trial. He said he consumed too many Twinkies and lost control of himself.
Right!
And others blame their obesity on too many Big Macs.
The world is full of baloney heads!
I'll just stick to Twinkies again when I receive my first Social Security benefits.
Twinkie, Twinkie, little stars, how I wonder where you are.

Dear Abby

One of the icons of journalism posted her last -30- last week.
Abigail Van Buren, nee Pauline Phillips, expiration date ran out last Thursday.
Biblically speaking Pauline adopted the pen name Abigail after the prophetess in the Book of Samuel ("Then David said to Abigail 'Blessed is your advice and  blessed are you' ") and Van Buren for its presidential heritage. Her first column appeared on Jan. 9, 1956, in The San Francisco Chronicle. She received compensation of $20 per week.
Her twin sister, Esther Lederer, earlier wrote as Ann Landers for The Chicago Sun-Times. She was swamped by letters and asked for advice from her sister.
She was forbade from sending letters out of the office so Pauline made inquires from the Chronicle.
Eventually a sibling rivalry ensued and they weren't on speaking terms for five years.
Abby tersely dispensed advise with a quick wit.
In 1976 she confided to People magazine that she had gone to see an X-rated movie. Her sister also wanted to venture forth to see it but was afraid of being recognized.
"How did you get away with it?" Landers queried Dear Abby.
"Well," Dear Abby quipped, "I just put on my dark glasses and my Ann Landers wig and went!"
They established themselves and the quintessential gossip columnists.
Ironically the Super Bowl pans out as a similar battle royale between two brotherly combatants, Jim Harbaugh of the San Francisco 49ers, and John Herbaugh of the Baltimore Ravens.
Ironically, the Ravens garnered their mascot from the avian in Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven."
And that most famous line, "Nevermore," might be wiped out if the Ravens can repeat their Super Bowl feat by capturing their second title.
It should be a defensive tussle. Don't expect John and Jim to talk to each other much until after the Super Him(baugh) Bowl.

Linus, Luke Christmas

Let's all have a Charles Schultz Christmas.
Charlie Brown asked Linus, "What's the true meaning of Christmas?"
Linus dropped his blanket and waltzed over to a Bible and quoted Luke 2:8-11: "And there were in the same country Shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
"And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid.
"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
We watched this video at Central Methodist church during community meals.
That glorious message has nothing to do with Santa Claus or gift giving or decorating a tree or feasting on turkey and ham and dressing.
Jesus is the reason for the season!
We celebrate the birth of Jesus and his mission on Earth: To spread love. Work miracles. Love your enemy as you love yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Then, he endured the penultimate sacrifice. His life. He died to save us of our sins.
Then God performed the greatest miracle and Jesus' human body was resurrected.
The apostles witnessed this and spread the word founding a new religion based on Jesus' and God's love for us.
Our mission should complement Jesus'.
We should spread love throughout our daily lives with everyone we meet.
We should be missionaries converting others or just sharing our life experiences and being a good role model to praise God.
Red Skelton once said: "God blesses us all with a talent. When we utilize that talent that's a blessing to God."
My talent is writing. My New Year's resolution is to continue this blog and hopefully expand it into a book.
I'm just counting down the days when I receive my Social Security benefits and can afford a laptop.
So, everyone have a Joseph and Mary Christmas!

Ethics

"I want to be remembered as a winning coach, but I also want to be remembered as an honest and ethical coach." -- Darrell Royal

One of the coaching icons, Darrell Royal, just entered the football hall of heaven. He joins another legendary icon from Arkansas, Paul "Bear" Bryant.
Two of my favorite stories from the coaching lexicon revolve around these hallowed saints.
Once before a bowl game, Royal was queried if he planned anything different or surprising for the upcoming foe.
He quipped: "It's like when you take a girl to the local barn dance. You dance with the one who brung ya."
In other words, you maintain the offense and the defense that brung ya to the bowl game.
Royal and Arkansas' iconic coach Frank Broyles shared a unique relationship.
They were best friends during the off-season and enjoyed playing golf together. Their families even vacationed together.
That's unheard of in the modern era where some coaches exchange epithets rather than handshakes at the end of a hotly contested game.
The penultimate reward for a coach is to have the football field named after him.
Both Royal and Broyles share that honor.
When Royal announced his retirement prior to the conclusion of the 1976 season, Broyles preferred to forgo his announcement until after the Arkansas-Texas game.
But Orville Henry, the sports editor of the Arkansas Gazette, and a close personal friend of Broyles, thought it would give Texas a distinctive advantage that Royal's announcement might provide inspiration and motivation to the Longhorns, knowing their illustrative coach was bowing out.
So, Henry announced Broyles retirement prior to the game.
Broyles didn't appreciate the gesture because he had only told close friends.
Nevertheless, Texas upended the Razorbacks, 29-12.
Here's another gem from Royal: "You've got to think lucky. If you fall into a mud hole, check your back pocket, you might have caught a fish."
In the 1982 Sugar Bowl, Arkansas clashed with No. 1 Alabama.
"Bear" Bryant remembered a young coach climbing up his tower once during a practice session to try and impress him with a fake punt he'd devised.
Sure enough Bryant remembered that encounter and used that fake punt against Arkansas and Lou Holtz en route to the national championship-clinching victory.
I had the pleasure of covering that bowl game. My assignment was to go to the Alabama dressing room and interview the winning Crimson Tide.
Ugh!
Coach Bryant's quotes were indistinguishable on my tape recorder. He sounded like a bullfrog.
I had to resort to the Alabama hand out sheet to quote Bryant.
I always wondered why or if he ever contemplated coaching at Arkansas. He grew up near Fordyce, Arkansas.
In his biography I read that he was discontented at Kentucky and pondered interviewing for the vacancy position at Arkansas.
So, the Kentucky alumni furnished Bryant with a bottle of whiskey and kept him all night drinking and negotiating. He signed a new contract for $5,000 more.
What if Arkansas had reciprocated?
Oh, my!
Just another day in sports memorabilia.

I Hop to Waffle House

Whenever adversity strikes, I hop to Waffle House!
In the early days of my homelessness, I found myself sleeping in a field.
Whenever it rained I hopped to Waffle House, where they fed me.
Whenever a skunk, Pepe LePew, gnawed his way into my tent, I hopped to Waffle House and they gave me coffee and a safe place to hang out.
Whenever I had to dodge rain drops last weekend and await my Sunday cleanup of Razorback Stadium, I hopped to Waffle House on Dickson and stayed there all night drinking coffee.
So, the moral of the story is: if you need a safe haven, you can go to Waffle House and you'll be in the International House of Passion (IHOP).

Legend died

Sadly "Beano" Cook died today at the age of 83.
I remember when he predicted Arkansas would win the national football championship the year after the Razorbacks upended Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl.
He brought Hog fans into a feverish frenzy.
The Razorbacks were the cover boys of Sports Illustrated.
Alas, that cover jinx hexed the Hogs who didn't fulfill the nirvana dreams we had hoped for.
Kind of reminds me of this year's preseason hype and hoopla.
I thought it was intriguing that Beano never married.
His first love was sports and reporting about it and commenting about it.
He was a lovable man who exuded enthusiasm.
He also was a quick quipster.
When baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn offered lifetime passes to the freed hostages from Iran, Beano jested: "Haven't they suffered enough!"
He will be missed.

Tent city

It's ironic that the Fayetteville police tear down "campers" tents indiscrimately in the woods.
They literally rip them to shreds with their knives.
Those gnarly beasts!
But this week during "Bikes, Booze and BBQ" Dickson Street resembles "Tent City."
You bet your bottom dollar if you participate you'll be down to your bottom dollar!
The price of everything on Dickson skyrockets as the permanent merchants inflate their prices to attract huge profits from the bikers and their babes.
And an influx of entrepeneurly merchants from all over the United States of greed swoop into Fayetteville and erect tents and start cachinging their merchandise.
Is this good?
It all started when some bikers decided to have a poker run to benefit a cancer victim 11 years ago.
Year by year the event has grown by leaps and varooms.
No one really knows how many bikers blast into Fayetteville because there's no official registration. The only guesstimate is made by helicopters taking photos from above.
A good time is had by all, except for a few rowdies who get plastered and end up in Jailbird magazine.
But by and large it's a splendiferous event.
Who profits?
The "Tent City" immigrants and the Dickson Street moguls.
Everyone needs a "Bikes, Blues and BBQ" T-shirt.
Or at least that's what they would have you believe as you stroll up and down Dickson.
Ironically while I was homeless in Rogers and Bentonville a few years ago I dreamed the great American Dream and wanted so badly to come to Fayettenam for the pilgrimage.
Alas, I had no money and no ride.
Now, this week I've been enriched by a Triple Crown.
I labored 10 hours on Saturday helping supervise parking before the Razorback football debacle against Rutgers.
On Sunday I vacuumed for 11 hours cleaning up the remnants of peanuts, popcorn and other festive trash at Razorback Stadium. That job really sucked! (Pun intended.)
And, lastly but greatly I was informed our film "Why I Went to the Woods" won $400 for Sarah Moore and me.
I now have enough money to go down to "Tent City" and enjoy the festivities.
But, my heart and soul just don't feel up to the occasion.
I'd rather ruminate about how some of my brethren are just trying to survive in their own versions of tent city.
For them it's a 24-365 routine.
Just another day in paradise!

Serendipity

Serendipity: The faculty of making fortunate and unexpected discoveries by accident.
Whenever good fortune smiles on us, how do we act and react?
Last Friday exemplified a serendipitous weekend for yours truly.
Much to my chagrin a few weeks ago Mother Nature played a cruel trick on me as I was racing with the wind and trying to escape a torrential downpour.
Alas, when I ventured into the covered shelter at Walker Park, a library book and a DVD suffered the consequences of my misfortune and were dampened despite being sequestered in my backpack.
I meekly waited a week hoping Dame Fortune would smile on me when I submitted them back to the Fayetteville Public Library.
Whoosh! Gadzooks! Shucky darn!
I received letters from the library proclaiming I owed $5 for the DVD and $32.99 for the book.
So, I suffered the consequences and had to forgo using the computer and checking out books and DVDs.
Finally, my wheel of fortune spun in a positive manner.
A very nice lady saw me walking down Dickson Street two weeks ago and buoyantly asked me where I was headed. To the library to read she noted optimistically.
I then related my travails and revealed my library privileges had been suspended due to rain drain.
She pleasantly proclaimed she'd pay my fine. So, meekly and humbly I gave her my card.
When I next checked my library status, much to my manner of well-being I discovered she'd paid $20.
So, last Friday I summoned the courage and pled my case to Second Mile Ministries to see if maybe, just maybe, they could help me out with the remaining balance of $17.99.
The very cherubic lady from College Baptist Church in Fayetteville informed me that was the initial time anyone had made that kind of request.
After some soul-searching, she graciously requested from the treasurer that I be granted a reprieve and a check.
Miraculously, or maybe just a kind gesture of Christian benevolence prompted them to cut me a check for $17.99.
So, my sadness evolved into gladness.
Then, while still floating on Cloud Nine, I went to eat at Seven Hills.
My good fortunes multiplied when I was asked if I wanted to work Sunday helping clean up the upper echelons of Razorback Stadium.
Glory Be and praise the God above!
Saturday I worked seven and a half hours aiding Razorback fanatics park their vehicles.
And, seredipitously one of the parking attendants gave me a ticket to the game.
My euphoria lasted until the Razorbacks committed sooie-cide vis a vis, five turnovers.
Oh, well, I picked up the pieces of my disconsolated spirit after the 52-0 debacle and surged into Sunday to overcome the blow with some furtherance of my monetary gains.
For 12 hours we cleaned Razorback Stadium's plush theater seating area, sweeping up all the popcorn, peanuts and other remnants from the upper decks.
My back still aches from hauling the vac-pack vacuum cleaner, but I garnered approximately $88 which is payable via cash this Friday.
All in all, I earned $165, before taxes, to assuage my depressed feeling from the Razorbacks demise the past two Saturdays.
Originally, before looking up the definition of serendipity, I felt very blessed.
Now in retrospect and with the knowledge of the meaning of serendipity, I realize the serendipity might have been good fortune but maybe not by accident.
So, here's to you Chloe Seal, my good friend from Three Bags in Two Days!
And here's to you my providential benevolent spirit who used to work for Proctor and Gamble (who prefers anonymity)!
And here's to you Bob Wright for recommending me for the clean up job Sunday!
As we took a lunch break I told my co-workers: Once upon a time I covered the Razorbacks from the press box.
Never in my wildest dreams did I envision I would someday be on the cleanup crew!
Now I've penned the exploits of the Razorbacks as a sports writer. Ushered three years ago. Assisted in parking cars. And swept up the trash left behind in the luxurious penthouse suites.
What a roller coaster of emotions I've endured throughout all of this.
But it sure feels redemptive to be making money again.
I feel like I was in the right place at the right time.
Just another day in Hog Heaven!

And here's to you

Of mice and men

I can identify with John Steinbeck's book entitled "Of mice and men"
That sums up my worldly experiences heretofore today.
Last night when I arrived back at my humble abode the power was off.
At first I thought there must be a power outage but the other folks at their respective residences didn't seem to be experiencing a lack of power.
So I checked the power cord connecting my trailer and the adjoining linkage.
Alas, it wasn't unplugged.
So I slumbered restlessly amidst the heat without a fan to cool me off.
I even dreamed I awoke and figured out my dilemma and power was restored. Only in my dreams!
Alas, I awoke and didn't have a clue why I was powerless.
So in the doom and gloom of a pitch-black environment I trod for Fayetteville.
Much to my chagrin it was only 3:10 a.m.
Nevertheless, I boldly traipsed to the University of Arkansas and recharged my phone.
So, I theorize a mouse chewed on the power cord ensconced in my trailer and cut off the power.
I purposely didn't eradicated the little creature because of one of the 10 commandments: Thou shalt not kill.
Now I wish I'd offed the little varmint.
Maybe he was getting revenge on me for playing my television too loud!
Maybe he was reeking revenge on me for not leaving the fan on all day!
Who knows what lurks in the mind of a measly mouse?
So I daydreamed nightmares of my future plight.
There's nothing to look forward to anymore when I get home.
No fan.
No DVD player to entertain me.
No more coffee in the mornings.
No more nuking food with my microwave.
No more reading without a light.
Why me!
Then, some friendly folks intervened and offered me some Good Samaritan deeds.
I got a ride from Community meals to the library.
Another kindly soul is going to give me a ride home later.
I even won "fictitious" money on Zynga poker.
So now I just gotta figure out how to find another power cord to restore my creature comfort of electricity.
And I've got to figure out whether it's nobler to slay the mouse or just forgive and forget!

Be an Andrew

In Central United Methodist Church today Senior Pastor Tony Hollifield challenged his parishioners to be an Andrew this summer.
He was referring to Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, who approached Jesus and Jesus saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?
He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the 10th hour.
One of the two which heard John the Baptist speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.
He first findeth his own brother Simon and saith unto him, We have found the Messiah, which is , being interpreted the Christ.
And he brought him to Jesus and when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jonah: thou shalt be called Cephas, (Peter) which is by interpretation, A stone.
So, Rev. Hollifield challenged us to make a list of seven people who need Jesus.
He implored us to Look Around and make that list.
II. Look Up! Pray for the welfare and the natural opportunities to approach these seven welfare cases.
III. Look Out! Invest time in these people and help them.
IV. Look Forward! Build bridges and go the extra mile for these wannabe Christians.
V. Look After! Stay close to them and encourage them. People don't care what you know until they know you care.
Be an Andrew!
Build a relationship and bring these people into the fellowship of your church.
Indeed.
I have a friend named Andrew who bestows his love on me by offering me a ride home during this long, hot summer.
Now it's my turn to pass it on to some of my fellow men who desire a better life.
That's my challenge this  summer.
I want to be an Andrew!

Try to remember

When was the last time you forgot something?
I don't remember.
Is that an oxymoron?
You can't remember when you forgot something.
To commemorate an iconic essayist Nora Ephron who passed yesterday, I'm reprinting one of her essays entitled "I Remember Nothing" with some of my jestful critiques, asides, besides and otherwise humorous aphorisms.
"Why do people write books that say it's better to be older than to be younger? she wrote in "I Feel Bad About My Neck"
"It's not better. Even if you have all your marbles, you're constantly reaching for the name of the person you met the day before yesterday."

"A couple of years ago, the actor Ryan O'Neal confessed that he'd recently failed to recognize his own daughter, Tatum, at a funeral and had accidentally made a pass at her.
"Everyone was judgmental about this, but not me. A month earlier, I'd found myself in a mall in Las Vegas when I saw a very pleasant-looking woman coming toward me, smiling, her arms outstretched, and I thought, Who is this woman? Where do I know her from? Then she spoke and I realized it was my sister Amy.
"You might think, Well, how was she to know her sister would be in Las Vegas? I'm sorry to report that not only did I know, but she was the person I was meeting in the mall.
"In 1964 the Beatles came to New York for the first time. I was a newspaper reporter and I was sent to the airport to cover their arrival. It was a Friday. I spent the weekend following them around. Sunday night they appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show." You could make an argument that the '60s began that night, on The Ed Sullivan Show. It was a historic night. I was there. I stood in the back of the Ed Sullivan Theater and watched. I remember how amazingly obnoxious the fans were -- the teenage girls who screamed and yelled and behaved like idiots. But how were the Beatles, you may ask. Well, you are asking the wrong person. I could barely hear them."

I digress.
I remember watching that show on television and likewise I could hardly hear the singing from all the gaga girls screaming.
I also remember the movie "It's Been A Hard Days Night."
George Harrison became enamored with one of the cheerleaders in the movie. He approached her. And he boldly asked her, even without an introduction, "Will you marry me?"
Brusquely she retorted, "No!"
He responded, "Well, will you go out with me?"
She remarked, "No, I've got a boy friend."
When she related this to her friends, they rebuked her by saying, "George Harrison asked you out and you told him you had a boy friend! You fool!"
Ironically she later married Harrison.
Then, Eric Clapton, one of Harrison's best friends fell in love with her.
Clapton once asked her to elope with him.
In the same vein as her first encounter with Harrison, she told Clapton she couldn't because she was married to Harrison.
Discontantly Clapton told her if she didn't he would go off and do heroin for three years.
He penned "Layla" in memory of her and went off on a drug-binge.
Eventually Patty, aka Mrs. Harrison, found Harrison cuckolding Ringo Starr's wife and she divorced him and married Clapton.
Why is it I can remember stories like this, but I have a senior moment remembering what I had for lunch yesterday?

Back to Ephron:
"I went to stand in front of the White House the night Nixon resigned and here's what I have to tell you about it: my wallet was stolen.
"I went to many legendary rock concerts and spent them wondering when they would end and where we would eat afterward and whether the restaurant would still be open and what I would order.
"I went to cover the war in Israel in 1973 but my therapist absolutely forbid me to go to the front.
"I was not at Woodstock, but I might as well have been because I wouldn't remember it anyway."

I digress.
My 18th birthday coincided with the first day of Woodstock: Aug. 15, 1969.
In 2009 approaching my 58th birthday, I told interested friends it was the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and the 40th anniversary of my 18th birthday.
A man heard me talking about this and he bragged that his birthday was also Aug. 15 and his father took him to Woodstock on his 12th birthday.
I asked him about his recollections.
He said he didn't remember any of it because his father had him stoned out on LSD.
What a bummer!

Back to Ephron:
"I am living in the Google years, no question of that. And there are advantages to it. When you forget something, you can whip out your iPhone and go to Google. The Senior Moment has become the Google moment, and it has a much nicer, hipper, younger, more contemporary sound, doesn't it?
"The true Senior Moment is nightmarish. The long search for the answer, the guessing, the self-recrimination, the head-slapping mystification, the frustrated finger-snapping. You just go to Google and retrieve it.
"You can't retrieve your life (unless you're on Wikipedia, in which case you can retrieve an inaccurate version of it)."

So, if you can't remember something, just Google it.
But then will you remember tomorrow or will you have to regurgitate Googling?
Nevertheless, here's to you Nora Ephron!

Faith, endurance pays off

"Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." -- James 1:2-4.

Oh, ye of little faith!
So many naysayers were ready to proclaim the Razorback baseball team persona non grata after they lost to Baylor last week, 8-1, in the first round of the Super Regionals.
Well, relief pitcher Brandon Moore sported a wristband with that Biblical passage on it.
And the Razorbacks rallied to bop Baylor twice and burst into the College World Series with mounds of faith and their endurance paid off.
Sometimes a simple little passage can rally a team or an individual through trials and tribulations and that faith produces endurance and the endurance has its perfect result.
After the Hogs bested Baylor, 1-0, in the finals, Moore knelt and prayed before hopping on the Hogs' celebration.
Moore provided more inspiration for the Razorbacks and that bonding process produced the winning chemistry.
Now as the Razorbacks venture into the College World Series they face further enduring encounters.
Lets hope they persevere again.
But we don't need to pray, just root!
In another inspirational testimonial, a friend suffered a very painful motorcycle accident a few weeks ago.
One of his visitors related to me that he couldn't use his right arm.
Well, this man of faith called an inspirational friend and asked him to pray for him.
Lo and behold, following that prayer, he could move his arm again!
Hallelujah!!

Justice

"If you're poor and you commit a crime, the legal system works quickly and leaves you in pieces all over the highway. If you're educated and have money, the process becomes a drawn-out affair, like a terminal cancer patient who can afford various kinds of treatment all over the world. But eventually he ends up at Lourdes." -- James Lee Burke, "Heartwood"

For the uneducated, Lourdes is a Roman Catholic miracle-healing center in southern France, where thousands of wealthy Catholics sojourn.
The poor who get in trouble with the law can't afford an attorney and end up with a public pretender, er public defender, and they make a deal with the prosecution. They both work for the state of Arkansas.
Unfortunately, those with wealth can afford to hire an attorney who will do anything and everything to help them seek another form of justice.
They have a much better window of opportunity to make a deal which precludes the kind of "justice" the more unfortunate receive.
In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, or are incarcerated because they couldn't afford that high, falutin' attorney.

Knock, knock

"suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him'
"Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened...How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" -- Luke 11:5-13.

Knock, knock. Who's there? It is I who is seeking the Holy Spirit and some bread for my friends.
How many of us pray for monetary benefits or just stuff?
God could care less whether you receive more money or a raise or stuff unless it's to benefit his kingdom on earth.
He will grant you his Holy Spirit and grace if you're sincere and desire to benefit others.
We must be altruistic when we ask for something.
Today I walked and walked and walked and then prayed.
A young lady at the University of Arkansas shot footage of me walking to the library and at the University of Arkansas and at Bible study.
We're coordinating our talents for a film contest at the Fayetteville Public Library.
The winner receives a $1,000 bonus.
We're going to donate anything we win towards the construction of a homeless shelter in Fayetteville.
I'm not a movie star, but there were some gawkers who were naturally curious about our film making today.
The executive director of the library was even curious and came to greet us today.
What is your legacy?
I hope my legacy is partially fulfilled in June when the contest concludes.
I've been dreaming and praying and writing since 2008 for the fruition of my legacy: a homeless shelter in Northwest Arkansas.
Please dream with me. Please pray with me. And I'll let you be in my dream, if you'll let me be in your dream!

London calling

2012 is a momentous year for London, England.
London hosts the 2012 Summer Olympics in July and also this marks the Diamond Jubilee of the crowning of Queen Elizabeth who garnered the crown in 1952.
Hallowed be the name of London this year.
In commemoration I'm going to revisit the album, "London Calling" by the Clash.
It's one of my favorites and the louder it sounds.
I remember when I purchased it and cranked up the volume, my roommate, Steve Kirk was flabbergasted at my taste in music.
Nevertheless, the rock and roll gospel, "Rolling Stone" proclaimed it one of the top albums of all time.
While reading "The Times" from London (er, I wasn't in London, I was in the UofA library reading the newspaper, I happened on a humorous pair of lines about London.
"London is full of parks and you can't ever park."

Indeed, Fayetteville similarly has oodles of parks but it costs to park in downtown Fayetteville which has depleted the business at such venerated establishments like the Dickson Street Bookstore and Flying Possum Leather because people  don't want to pay a $1 to buy a 50 cent book.

"A wise man once said that a man tired of London is tired of life, but everyone is tired of hearing about that."
Maybe, some of us might be tired about reading about London by the end of the year, but our hearts will be vicariously thrilling at the exploits of the U.S. Olympic team this summer.
I've never been to London, but to paraphrase W.C. Fields, I'd rather be in Fayetteville because that's where I call it my home, sweet, home.

Benevolence

"He (Mark Twain) had been deeply impressed during his stay in England by English benevolence, by silent acts of charity that seemed characteristic of the English upper class, even of English society as a whole, especially in comparison with tightfisted American sink-or-swim individualism or American charity as self-glorification."
In a dangerously turbulent storm, the captain of the Batavia had orchestrated the rescue of 10 surviving crew members of a wrecked ship.
The Batavia's captain wanted neither praise nor publicity for fulfilling his humane duty to help others in distress, even at great risk.
So, when we do an heroic deed do we seek fame and fortune? And we feel we deserve a pat on the back?
Americans are sink-or-swim individualists. We seek self-glory for our charitable acts.
Not everyone fits into that typecast.
I have friends who have helped me and didn't want publicity.
I disdain publicity.
While going through what I thought to be a job interview, I ended up being interviewed for an article on homelessness.
Someone wanted my input and opinions but not my skills as a writer.
Shucky darns!!
So do you seek a claim for fame when you're benevolent, or do you do out of the goodness of your heart?