QUARANTINE BLOG # 282

January 6, 2021

I did something this morning I have never done before – I woke up in bed with a 74 year old woman.  Explanation: today is Bonnie’s birthday.

If you’ve heard the story, raise your hand.  Sometime before Christmas in 1968 I asked, “Your birthday is January 16th, right?”  With an icy reply my bride of a little over two months said, “No!  That was Judy’s birthday!”  Judy being the girl I was dating when I met Bonnie.  Since then Bonnie has always been saluted twice for getting old.

Happy Birthday, my love!

I’m not sure how old she was in this picture.  Bonnie is on the left, her sister, Patricia, is on the right.

👉  My family and friends who are way more Internet savvy than I have told me about “memes.”  I can’t tell the difference between a meme and an emoji and a plain old picture, but Merriam-Webster says: “meme \MEEM\ noun. 1 : an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. 2 : an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media.”  Anyway, here is a birthday meme for the bride of my youth (and I know it is a meme because it says so at the top).

👉  In QB 274 we looked at the Colosseum where ancient Romans once gathered in crowds of tens of thousands to watch enslaved prize fighters and wild animals fight to the death.  The Colosseum was engineered to create the mystical effect that these fighters and creatures emerged by magic.  A wooden, sand-covered floor had once hid the labyrinth of secret tunnels, or hypogeum, which are today exposed and have been on full view for more than a century.  Italy has now pledged 10 million Euros (nearly $12 million) toward the installation of a new, retractable floor that will revive the arena’s ancient glory.  The undertaking is envisioned to include the trapdoors and the hidden lifts that had once allowed caged animals to leap out and attack gladiators and condemned criminals.  The project is expected to be completed by 2023.

The exposed hypogeum has a small platform to allow visitors to see into the areas that the new project will cover.

👉  QB 279 featured the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.  Amy asked about the difference between its height and that of the Statue of Liberty (Liberty is 52 feet higher – statues only, not the bases or pedestals).  And that question sent me looking for the tallest statue of Jesus.  It is the Monument of Christ the King in Swiebodzin, Poland, which was completed on November 6, 2010.  The figure is 108 feet tall, and along with its mound, it reaches 172 feet overall.  It took five years in total to construct and cost $1.5 million to build, which was collected from donations of the 21,000 residents of the town.

In case you are interested, the world’s tallest statue is “The Statue of Unity,”  a colossal statue of Indian statesman Vallabhbhai Patel, located in the state of Gujarat, India, and dwarfs all others with a height of 597 feet.

Website Touropia gives a list it proclaims as the “7 Largest Statues in the World.”  Well, they are 7 tall statues, but in spite of the claims, these are not the tallest.  To start with “Statue of Unity,” is left off of the list.  Touropia claims that the “Spring Temple Buddha” is the largest at 502 feet, but included in the calculations are a 66 feet lotus throne and an 82 feet building – which reduces the statue to 354 feet.  Impressive, but not the tallest.  And the list leaves off the tallest statue in Europe – I’ve visited this one – which is also the tallest statue (excluding pedestals) of a woman in the world.  And we’ll wrap this up tomorrow with a visit to her.

👉  A comic panel plucked from the Way Back Machine:

👉  And a Sunday strip from 9 Chickweed Lane, with Amos and Edda, my favorite comic strip married couple!

👉  Today’s close is from Greg Laurie:

Give It All You’ve Got

“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.  But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.” (Luke 16:10 NLT)

Maybe you’ve looked at someone and said, “Oh, I wish I had their talent.  I can’t do that.  I wish I had their ability.”

It is not a person’s talent that matters as much as how he or she uses it.  God never demands from our abilities what do not have.  But He does demand that we use to the full the abilities we do possess.

God can do a lot with a little. If you don’t believe me, just ask the boy with the loaves and fishes. He probably was running an errand for his mother when he came upon the scene of the hungry multitude that was listening to Jesus.

Jesus asked one of His own disciples, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” (John 6:5 NLT).

One of them said, “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?” (verse 9 NLT).

Even so, that little boy gave everything that he had to Jesus.  It didn’t seem like a lot.  But Jesus can take a little and bless it and multiply it.  He can use it beyond our wildest dreams.

So maybe you’re saying, “I don’t have a lot to offer.”

That’s all right.  Bring what you have.  God is not looking for ability as much as He is looking for availability.  He is looking for someone like you to say, “Lord, here I am, send me.  I will do whatever You want me to do.”  It’s people like that whom God raises up to do more for His glory. 

Take what God has given you and do the most that you can with it for His glory.

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