A digital commonplace for a Regular Guy called Charlie Pharis
This morning, I’ve been perusing some old posts, and I came across from my comments in November, 2004…
Thanks! It was great hanging with you today. I just created a blog but, I don’t have anything to say, so I might put something down one day.
Who said it? You wouldn’t believe it if I told you!
Interesting post from the “evangelist’s evangelist,” Guy Kawasaki (you do know Mr. Kawasaki is blogging now, right?)…
Check the link for the “expanded” version of the list.
Oh, and this great couplet from Point Number 5…
An �evangelist who cannot give a great demo� is an oxymoron. A person simply cannot be an evangelist if she cannot demo the product.
Selah…
In the words of the late, great Jerry Clower…
If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’!
Just read the story. No, just read it…
Remember that movie Dead Poets Society?
Remember that old musty book that the original DPS used and that somehow got mysteriously passed down to the new crop of DPSers?
Well, I’ve got a book kind of like that one. I got it from my ninth-grade English teacher long after after I graduated and he retired.
Anyway, I was reading through its fragile pages and came across this poem from Thomas Lovell Beddoes. These words have been running through my mind and heart since Saturday…
If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell;
Some a light sigh,
That shakes from Life’s fresh crown
Only a rose-leaf down.
If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,
And the crier rang the bell,
What would you buy?
Run, don’t walk, over to Randy Bohlender’s blog and read this post. It is well worth your and my time this morning because he reminds us that sometimes we do have burdens for places, people, events, etc., that we really can’t explain, except that God has placed them there for a reason. And then there’s this line…
For all of our postmodern ranting about pursuing the mystical side of our faith – the part our modern forefathers supposedly abandon – good luck finding a postmodern speaking much about these two. Why? Because they both carry an overtone of responsibility and others-focus. When most belly-aching postmoderns talk about the mystical, what they mean is the ME-stycal. The current reformation is arguable more self centered than the prior incarnation of the church, particularly in the area of prayer.
What’s your burden today?
Great! All we need is more vindictive mice! Reminds me why Mr. Jinks was right…
I hates meeces to pieces!
I did it, I finally did it! After 15 years – yeah, yeah, I know – I did it! I had a physical on Friday. With Dr. Hussain. No, not Saddam HussEin…Hina HussAin! (BTW, it was the first time I’ve had a physical by a phemale physician…)
You’ve really gotta love a doctor who is (a) a comedian, (b) totally, brutally honest, or (c) all of the above. She did the whole examination thing (“look that way…cough!”) and then when she was giving me her “post-game” wrap-up, she said stuff like “blood pressure, bottom number a little high, heart, OK, etc. etc.” Then this…
But we need to jettison some excess tonnage!
Not “you could stand to lose a couple of pounds.” Not “eat a little healthier.” None of that stuff.
Jettison some excess tonnage!
She’s right, I know. And I got her OK to do the Y thing. And so far it’s paying off…down four pounds since last Monday! But jettison some excess tonnage?
10,000 comdedians out of work, and I get this one…
It’s a classical unwind tonight at the old “Just Charlie” hacienda! And what an unwind it is! Ottorino Respighi’s great symphonic poem Pini di Roma, The Pines of Rome! I first heard this great piece on the field, 1975, played by the very first drum corps I ever saw live and in person, the Muchachos of Hawthorne, New Jersey. It has been one of my favorites ever since! Tonight I’m listening to the greatest conductor who ever lived – Karajan – leading the greatest symphony orchestra in the world – the Berlin Philharmonic! Great stuff!
Here’s a little snippet from my favorite part – I pini della via Appia – The Pines of the Appian Way – but the snippet’s not even the best part of the best part. Know what I mean, Vern? You’ll just have to take my word for it, and find the rest of that section. Chances are, it’ll be a part of your “at bat” playlist, just like it is a part of mine!
“It does look on the surface as if it’s tongue in cheek or ironic,” says Jana Reiss, author of the upcoming book “American Pilgrimage,” a reputable, in-depth study of how Americans worship, sometimes in unconventional ways.
“But there’s a serious strain of spirituality” in some forms of Elvis worship, she continues. “The way some people interact with Elvis, and the way they visit Graceland, it’s the same dynamic that draws people to bona fide saints. There are people who say Jesus is in heaven helping people here on Earth, and so is Elvis, and it’s not my place to laugh at that. There are people who build shrines to Elvis in their homes, Web sites where people post their experiences of going to Graceland.”
Posted sans comment. You can take it from here…