Hmm...

Ouch.

I must say, this about sums it up.

True, I Suppose...

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.” - Terry Pratchett

Folly of Mine Youth

Well, it's finally up, over a year after its occurrence. Now, anytime that the desire moves trahere me, I can watch myself hurtle across a video screen into 6' 8" and 260 lbs of Patrick Swanson with enough force to dislocate my left shoulder on impact. Then I get blithely brushed aside--it's pretty impressive--as the rest of the team arrives to rat-pack him to the ground. I still am pretty sure he wouldn't have gone down had he managed to step over me instead of trying to step through me, and tripping. But we'll never know now, will we?

Anyway, click on the title if you haven't seen it and want to. As close as I can tell, my shoulder either goes out when I hit him or when he steps, cause it's out by the time I hit the ground.

Collins: Forgetfulness

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Billy Collins

Wilson's Easter Charge

The Direction of the Offer
Topic: The Lord's Table

In this glorious meal, Jesus Christ is genuinely and truly offered. The divide between historic Protestantism and the Roman Catholic view is not over that—both sides believe that Jesus Christ is truly offered. The difference is not over whether that happens or not. The difference is one of direction, and concerns who receives the offering.

The Roman view is that Jesus Christ is offered again to God, in a repeated (or renewed) sacrifice. Our view is that in this meal God offers Jesus Christ to us. The difference is directional. One view is that Jesus is offered up again, and the other is that Jesus is offered down.

And so, if we were to be asked if we believed in the real presence of Christ, the answer would be that we certainly don’t believe in His real absence. The Lord is present with us, in this meal. He is offered to us, and we partake of Him by faith. And of course, in order to partake of Him by faith, we have to believe that we are doing so. And so we do.

But there are some other important things to note. This is Easter Sunday, and we of course know that we are celebrating the resurrection. But it follows from this that in this Easter communion you are not being offered a dead Christ, but a living Christ. A dead Christ was offered to God so that a living Christ could be offered to you. You are converted. You are now Christians. Why would you want to partake of death any longer? God gave you a death to partake of by faith, so that you might partake of life now, here.