I love the “post-dramatic stress disorder”!
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Easy enough – chop California into four states,
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In 1957 Norman Rockwell did a painting of my church called “Lift up Thine Eyes.” The rector is standing by the door and the verger is changing the sign to say “Life up Thine Eyes.” A flock of birds is heading heavenward. But the dejected people walking by are looking at the ground. They look like burned-out commuters!
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Love this!
Today they would be looking at their phones, or in DC, their ereaders.
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Yes, but most commuters either rush from the trains to work or vice versa. Everyone else is plugged in!
This painting by Rockwell was done in 1957 in order to call attention to the decline of religion in this country. 1957! That was when soldiers had returned from the war and were making babies like nobody’s business. And of course we were taken to church. Wonder what Rockwell would think now.
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That weather balloon wasn’t really from china you know…
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Pleasant Green is a skilled scam-baiter–he goes after scammers. So when he was invited to join the Illuminati, he thought, “why not?” Hilarious!
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There once was a man who bought an abandoned farm out in the country. For weeks he worked like a dog on that farm, cutting weeds, fixing fences, pruning trees in the orchard, and many other task as well. Then one day the minister came by for a visit. He was impressed with how nice the farm looked. He said, “You and the Lord have worked wonders on this farm!”
“Me and the Lord?” the man replied. “You should have seen this place when he had it by himself!”
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That joke is similar to a recent episode of “Young Sheldon” in which Sheldon’s dad (the high school football coach) had been working hard coaching his team, and then the young and popular youth pastor comes and prays with the team just before the game. They win the game, and to the coach’s chagrin, it seems like it’s the youth pastor and his prayer that everybody remembers and credits for the victory.
That made me really think … so what if a teacher works really hard (and excellently) to prepare students for an exam - they study hard and do well. Then a parent tells you they were really praying hard for it and are praising the Lord for good results. I can see how that could rub a teacher the wrong way. But any reasonable thinker would know that prayer and action are not mutually exclusive. In fact … quite the opposite!
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There’s similar ambiguity in the recent headline “Canadian man rescues moose with bare hands”. The moose shouldn’t have gone out without his mittens.
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Young Sheldon is one of my favorites. It does go a little far at times at poking fun at religion, but is pretty spot on as to growing up in the culture I live.
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Our family enjoys it too. I actually think it’s only a gentle poking at religion considering what it could be …given Sheldon’s young (and later grown) temperaments! Or even just poking at a religious culture that we all remember (and which I think even most of us insiders would agree probably deserves to be poked at.)
In any case - some of my favorite scenes are with Sheldon and his sister in Sunday school class. Train wreck, to be sure - but his mom is a very human and well-developed character, not just a shallow caricature of a religious person like some truly anti-religious shows might parade around.
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Two Jewish boys were walking to their yeshiva. They realized they were running late, and one said, “Let’s stop and pray.” The other one said, “No, let’s run and pray.”
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There once was a religious a man who looked to the scriptures for guidance. Every day he would open his Bible to some random page, plunk down his finger, and the verse he landed on would be his inspiration… So one day, he landed on the verse that said Judas went out and hanged himself! He was shocked, and decided to try again. The next verse was, “Go and do likewise.” So now he’s really nervous and wants to give it one last try. The next verse was “Do quickly what you are about to do”