Category: Uncategorized Page 19 of 71

Way back, I recommended ‘subscribing’ to this or other blogs using an RSS feed to an RSS reader. The link in that post is to a video which helpfully walks one through the steps of setting up such a subscription.

The difference between subscribing versus visiting blogs looking for something new is similar to the difference between getting mail in one’s mailbox versus checking with all your friends daily to see if they have messages for you.

Puzzled? Watch the video.

Many use their Google page as an RSS reader. I prefer a free application for the Mac called Shrook. But there are many options out there.

Another way of getting Somber and Dull delivered to you is to subscribe through email. There is a link in the sidebar that should walk you through the steps for that.

Recently I’ve received some very positive feedback from readers. That is very appreciated. But whether you like this or not, agree or not, I’m gratified to know you read. Thanks.

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UPDATE: I write. I am ill-equipped to proof-read what I right. I mean write. I just corrected a rebellious ‘their’ which had usurped the spot properly belonging to a ‘there’. “Know” often battles for position with “No”, and “I” often ends up sitting where “Me” should sit. I ask your forbearance for it all!

My creative son drew me a cartoon Sunday morning to tape to my study door, already covered with the likes of “Baby Blues”, “Grimm”, “Non Sequitur”, and others.

His cartoon is pretty good, so up it will go.

But the real insight was on the back. He told me that this would be the first in a series of cartoons, and so on the back he drew pictures of each character over a brief description.

Don’t ask me where he learned how to do this stuff.

There are four characters – a mom, a dad, a son, and a daughter. The son is smart and ‘likes all kinds of science.’ Already sounding like a family we know.

The daughter is described as having ‘anger issues’. What 9-year old brother does NOT think his sister has anger issues?

The mom is, appropriately, described as ‘a loving mother sweet and calm’. That’s precious.

The dad? “A work loving dad (& family loving one).”

Uh-oh.

I’m glad for the parentheses, but I can’t escape what has taken top billing.

I took him to Starbucks today for some family loving time!

I’m reminded of Dan Allender’s story in his book Bold Love. Allender is writing a book about love, and so he wonders how much he’s taught his kids about love:

“I wonder how often love is truly taught and lived as the central priority of life. I asked one of my children what she thought was the most important lesson I wanted her to learn about life. She replied, ‘Work hard, do your best, and don’t lie.'”

She said nothing, he noticed, about love.

We can learn a lot when we listen to our kids. I pray for God’s grace to enable me to really, really listen.

Sometimes people show up at Somber and Dull puzzled by the strange name. Who would give a blog such a counterintuitive name?

Well, apparently I did. I understand, though, your puzzlement.

In preparation for a future move of this blog to WordPress, I adapted a previous explanation which I am reproducing below.

In short, the title is meant to be ironic. I hope you find it so!

< < < > > >

The title of this blog is intended to be ironic. but not everyone understands that. I may really be somber and dull, but I’m really not trying to be!

A couple years ago I decided one day to see what was involved in creating a blog. When it comes to things like this, I don’t read up on things. I just jump in and fiddle. At that time, I was only aware of Blogger, so I went to that site and began to create.

I quickly was faced with the fact that I had to give the blog a name.

At the time, I had been reading – re-reading, actually – Alan Paton‘s marvelous novel Cry, the Beloved Country. (Take this as an advertisement. If you are looking for a good book to read, pick this one up.)

The main character in the novel is a poor, black Anglican pastor named Stephen Kumalo (pictured here as marvelously played by James Earl Jones in the movie version of the novel). Paton introduces Kumalo as “a parson, somber and rather dull, no doubt, and his hair was turning white.”

Well, I’m a parson, and my hair is turning white. I’m not black, but the sobriquet ‘somber and dull’ was kind of appealing to me.

So, that was on my mind, and when Blogger asked for a name, in went Somber and Dull.

It has grown on me. I like the ironic tone. Either way it fits. If the blog is indeed somber and dull, the title is descriptive. If the blog is bright and interesting, then it suits the ironic intent. I can’t lose.

Enough of that. Now go get the book and read it.

Do you believe in magic? – John Sebastian

Could it be magic? – Barry Manilow (with help from F. Chopin)

It was like… magic. – Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks)

Don’t trust the magic. – Randy Greenwald

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Leave it to me to be the buzz killer. But actually, in my weekend article for the Bradenton Herald, my intention is to add stability to the spark, not to extinguish it.

Below is the article. Here it is online, though it will be accessible for only a limited time.

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A Few Words about ‘the Magic’

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend – a commercial reminder to those who want a relationship that they don’t have one, and an occasion for those in a relationship to enjoy some ‘magic’.

My counsel to singles: Watch The Return of the King, encourage Frodo up Mount Doom, cheer “I am no man!” Eowyn as she slays the Nazgûl. Eat some popcorn and trust the providence and wisdom of a good God.

To those in relationship, my counsel is different. Do what is appropriate to the day and your relationship status, but do NOT trust the ‘magic’.

In the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks movie Sleepless in Seattle what Annie (Ryan) is looking for and not finding in her relationship with her fiancé Walter is, we find out, ‘magic’. We are left to assume that she finds that magic with Sam (Hanks).

‘Magic’, that surge of romantic energy and emotion, is a wonderful thing. But don’t trust it.

It is possible to generate and program ‘magic’ by the right element of thoughtfulness, conversation, chivalry, and charm. And certainly a good and long term relationship will have sparks of ‘magic’ woven throughout.

But if all you see is ‘magic’, don’t trust it. Long term relationship is not about the ‘magic’. It is about commitment, devotion, and faithfulness.

Long tern love is a matter of daily wanting to have conversation with the one you love. It is a matter of forgiving one another daily. It is about refusing to go to bed angry, daily. It is about serving one another daily. It is about doing all of these things whether one feels like it or not.

Some days ‘magic’ will accompany service and forgiveness and conversation. Most days it won’t.

The movie Marley and Me is purportedly about a dog. But the real beauty of that film is the relationship portrayed by Jennifer Anniston and Owen Wilson as they grow together over time. Yes, there is ‘magic’. But there is also tension and argument and strife, as in any marriage. But there is also conversation, sacrifice, and forgiveness.

I overheard a family talking about seeing Marley and Me. A child commented that he did not think it was real. “The parents kissed too much,” he said.

Too much? I don’t think so. But that they kissed at the beginning and at the end of a long relationship was due more to the work they put into being friends than it was to magic.

Don’t trust the magic.

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UPDATE: I surveyed a number of insightful friends for help on this article. I want to pass on my thanks to them!

A weekend poll for readers of Somber and Dull:

IF I were to get my very own domain name under which to publish this blog, what name do YOU think would be best?

* randygreenwald.com (or .net or whatever)

* randygreenwald.com (again, suffix is not critical)

* randygreenwald.com/somberanddull

I’m not feeling particularly creative here. I need some help. I’m hoping there are some possibilities I’ve not considered.

There could be pragmatic reasons for using my own name and subsuming Somber and Dull beneath it, but it also seems a bit egotistical.

And if anyone out there thinks they can turn a buck by buying one of these and then selling it back to me at a profit, well, that’s not likely.

Thanks!

This is why we so shrink back from risk.

A snippet (emphasis my own):

Creative endeavors are also always fraught with risk. Those risks may not typically be physical or life-threatening, but they certainly include failure and public embarrassment – which is, as a friend said to me recently, “a death you then have to live with.”

To say that my knowledge is spotty is to speak the obvious. I have spots of knowledge in a sea of ignorance. A map of my brain would look like a Dalmation’s coat.

That is why, the other day I heard a wonderful symphonic piece on the radio and found it vaguely familiar. I could not place where I’d heard it, but it was lovely. I quickly ran inside when I got home and turned on the radio there to keep listening and to hopefully catch the name of the piece. Turns out it was a selection from Swan Lake performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and I soon thereafter bought and downloaded the piece from Amazon or iTunes, I can’t remember which.

That was operating in one patch in my brain which was completely disconnected from the patch that knew that we owned on cd the entire ballet performed by the St. Louis Symphony, a cd I discovered while doing some cleaning. This now resides on my computer and iPod.

Had those spots been earlier connected, I would have saved 99 cents. However, if you want a stirring portion of the ballet, I do recommend the above linked portion!

My mother’s brother, my Uncle Roger, was a prominent citizen of Valdosta in southern Georgia. Not only did he own Roger Budd Chevrolet, but he served for a time, I understand, in the Georgia State Legislature. His funeral was one of the largest I’ve ever attended.

After the funeral service proper, there was a very long procession from the church to the cemetery. What stunned me about the procession through this old southern town was that traffic coming from the opposite direction of the procession stopped. All traffic in both directions would pull over to let the procession through, showing obvious respect for those who were mourning the loss of a loved one, and for the deceased himself.

I have always assumed that this was a southern tradition. I never experienced it growing up in Ohio. And even though Bradenton is further south than Valdosta, Bradenton is not culturally southern. Some people here turn on their lights and cut into processions in order to sneak through traffic lights.

Not all people, of course.

Most of us simply ignore the funeral processions and secretly hope that we won’t get stopped by one if we are in a hurry. But we still have a number of people, no doubt raised in a slower and more respectful culture, who honor the dead and the mourning by stopping.

As a pastor, my car is normally placed in the procession just ahead of the hearse. From that vantage point, I am able to see just how respectful this whole stopping thing is.

Last Thursday I drove in a procession that snaked its way through the busiest parts of Bradenton during a busy time of day. Most drivers ignored us, but there were those who would, even if the road was two or three lanes in both directions, pull over and wait until the hearse, at least, had passed.

One man not only pulled over, but I saw him remove his hat as the hearse rode by. I was impressed. I hope the family saw him. I’d like to thank him.

Call these empty traditions if you want. Call them unnecessary in our busy, disconnected culture. But from the point of view of the hearse, I call this a kind gesture of respect that acknowledges in a small but meaningful way the wrenching realities of death, and the great honor of life.

It’s a tradition that I hope we can regain.

This is a bit creepy.

This article details how drug companies are having to adjust to an uncertain economy by melding technology and drugs.

Some drugmakers are beginning to sell ancillary services tied to their wares. Proteus’s technology, which enables pills to relay data about a patient back to doctors after they have been swallowed, is a prime example.

When one of Proteus’s pills is taken, stomach fluids activate the edible communications device it contains, which sends wireless signals through the body to another chip worn as a skin patch or embedded just under the skin. That, in turn, can upload data to a smart-phone or send it to a doctor via the internet. Thus it is easy to make sure a patient is taking his pills at the right time, to spot adverse reactions with other drugs and so on.

Vitality, an American firm, has come up with a cap for pill bottles that telephones hapless patients if they fail to take their medicine on time.

Curious.

I suppose that this is as good a place as any to reference this observation by C. S. Lewis. In The Abolition of Man he notes this:

“There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike, the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious — such as digging up and mutilating the dead.” (page 77)

There are few men as respected in college athletics as Michigan State University men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo. Having had the most successful run of any coach in school history, one could imagine that Coach Izzo could have his way with just about anything at MSU.

Apparently not so.

Recently word leaked out that he was working with the university president and with Nike to develop a consistent design for a school logo, which had not been consistent for many decades.

The picture here details the suggested changes – the old logo on the left, and the new one on the right. I can hardly see the differences.

For this Coach Izzo has endured a surprising level of criticism. One would think that he had suggested moving the school to Ann Arbor or Columbus judging from the uproar.

I guess when your team is 19-3 overall, 9-0 against the eleven (!) teams of the Big Ten, and ranked fifth in the country, as a fan there is little left to grumble about. So, you pick on the logo.

The church, it seems, is not the only institution resistant to change.

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As a footnote, many years ago, some progressive folk suggested a logo for the PCA. The one favored and put before the General Assembly showed a simple dove form with a single eye over top of an open Bible. I remember Dr. Ed Clowney saying it looked like a bird that had been shot in the head crashing into a book. He was right.

The PCA still has no logo.

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UPDATE: After Tuesday’s shelaccing at the hands of Wisconsin, MSU’s record now stands at 19-4 and 9-1. And I should add that I’ve always preferred the ‘Block S’ logo, but apparently that will be phased out. Bummer.