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12
Nov
2022
Thursday October 27, 2022
Ahah, I thought, that’s what used to happen to my wife Joan. She was smart. She was tough. She ran a department with 40 staff. She handled the sale of one church property and the purchase of another, despite all the impediments that two levels of government could throw at her.
But she hated exams.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Coleman, Social Intelligence, exams
Thursday October 20, 2022
The universe will be 6026 years old this weekend. According to Irish Archbishop James Ussher, in 1650, the universe began on October 23, 4004 BCE (Before Christian Era).
It’s easy to make fun of Ussher. Years ago, I had a part in the play Inherit the Wind, a fictionalized treatment of the Scopes “Monkey Trial” of 1925.
During one rehearsal, the actor portraying prosecutor Matthew Brady declared, in a voice like God playing Spencer Tracy, that the earth had been created at “precisely 9:00 a.m.”
And a voice from the audience cracked, “9:30 in Newfoundland…”
The cast erupted in laughter.
Tags: creation, Ussher, 4004 BC
18
Oct
Thursday October 13, 2022
I can picture it clearly. A heavy wood picnic table, cut from raw logs, varnished, perched on a point of land sticking out into the Skeena river. Four of us eat ham-and-lettuce sandwiches – me and my wife and our two children, both under six years age.
I can’t remember exactly when this happened. But I can date it fairly accurately. Because our car is a bright yellow 1962 Plymouth Valiant.
Why do I remember that? It has no relevance to anything in my current life. It simply exists in the hard drive of my mind.
Tags: memories, filing, erasing
Thursday September 28, 2022
There was a fad, a few years ago – maybe there still is – about going on silent retreat. Spending an hour, a day, or a week, alone, in silence. To get in touch with yourself.
I’m not sure what that would do for me.
I live in silent retreat. I live alone, since Joan died. I don’t have the radio or TV on during the day – I don’t like disembodied voices nattering away in the background. I don’t wear earbuds. I don’t sink into my cellphone.
How would a silent retreat differ?
Tags: Retreats. silence
I took my kitten out for a walk, for him to discover the world outdoors. Something launched a filibuster at us out of the catalpa tree.
It took me a while to discern the source. A squirrel. It leaped effortlessly from branch to branch, uttering a stream of profanities that would make a teenager blush.
Tags: Squirrels, invasive species, cute, profanity