QUARANTINE BLOG # 396

April 30, 2021

Today is our monthly look back at history as it happened on “this day.”

On April 1, 1789, the first U.S. House of Representatives, met in New York City, and elected Pennsylvania Representative Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg as its first speaker.  He presided over the Pennsylvania ratifying convention of 1787, and then served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1789 to 1797.  He was speaker during the first and third Congresses.

Jeannette Pickering Rankin, the first woman ever elected to Congress, took her seat in the U.S. Capitol as a representative from Montana on April 2, 1917.  Following her election as a representative, Rankin’s entrance into Congress was delayed for a month as congressmen discussed whether a woman should be admitted into the House of Representatives.

Annie Hall, a romantic comedy by Woody Allen, won the Oscar for Best Picture on April 3, 1978, beating out George Lucas’ Star Wars.  In addition to Best Picture, the film won Oscars for Allen as Best Director and Best Original Screenplay and for Diane Keaton as Best Actress. With his win in the Best Director category, Allen became the first director to win an Oscar for a movie in which he also starred.

Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.  The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike.  King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital.  He was 39 years old.

On April 5, 1984, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored the 31,420th point of his career, breaking the NBA’s all-time scoring record, which had been held by Wilt Chamberlain.  With less than nine minutes left in the game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Utah Jazz, Abdul-Jabbar scored his 22nd point of the night and 31,420th point of his career. Abdul-Jabbar retired from pro basketball at age 42 in 1989 with 38,387 points.  He remains the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.

Melvin David Sisler and Mary Elizabeth Bittinger were married on April 6, 1946.  Their wedding guests were their parents, Stella and Floyd Laudermilk (Dad’s mom and step-dad) and Orville and Grace (Mom’s dad and step-mom) Bittinger.  Their lineage includes 2 sons, 2 daughters-in-law, 6 grandchildren (5 grand spouses), 13 great grandchildren, and 1 great, great grandchild.

On April 7, 1970, the legendary actor John Wayne won his first – and only – acting Academy Award, for his star turn in True Grit.  Wayne appeared in some 150 movies over the course of his long and storied career.  He earned his first Oscar nomination, in the Best Actor category, for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). The Alamo (1960), which Wayne produced, directed and starred in, earned a Best Picture nomination.

Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th career home run on April 8, 1974,  breaking Babe Ruth’s legendary record of 714 homers.  A crowd of 53,775 people, the largest in the history of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, that night when he hit a 4th inning pitch off the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Al Downing.

In Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865,  Robert E. Lee surrendered his 28,000 Confederate troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Forced to abandon the Confederate capital of Richmond, blocked from joining the surviving Confederate force in North Carolina, Lee had no other option.

On April 11, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, abdicated the throne, and was banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba.  He fought during the French Revolution of 1789 and rapidly rose through the military ranks. By 1799, he had established himself at the top of a military dictatorship. In 1804, he became emperor of France and continued to consolidate power through his military campaigns, so that by 1810 much of Europe came under his rule.

One of the most famous calls from space happened on April 13, 1970, when astronaut Jim Lovell radioed, “Houston, we have a problem.”  200,000 miles from Earth oxygen tank No. 2 blew up on Apollo 13. Astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise had left Earth for the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon but were forced to turn their attention to simply making it home alive.

President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865.  The assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is avenged,” as he jumped onto the stage and fled on horseback.  Lincoln died the next morning.  And the United States has never been the same.

At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the British ocean liner Titanic sank into the North Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada.  The ship, which carried 2,200 passengers and crew, had struck an iceberg two and half hours before.  The iceberg ruptured at least five of the so-called water tight compartments, and they filled with water, pulling down the bow of the ship, causing the bow to sink and the stern to be raised up to an almost vertical position above the water.  Then the Titanic broke in half and sank to the ocean floor.

The Ford Mustang was officially unveiled by Henry Ford II at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York, on April 17, 1964.  The Mustang was conceived as a “working man’s Thunderbird,” according to Ford.  The first models featured a long hood and short rear deck and carried a starting price tag of around $2,300. 

On April 18, 1906, at 5:13 a.m., an earthquake estimated at close to 8.0 on the Richter scale struck San Francisco, California, killing an estimated 3,000 people.  The quake was caused by a slip of the San Andreas Fault, and shock waves could be felt from southern Oregon down to Los Angeles.

At about 5 a.m., April 19, 1775, 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, marched into Lexington, Massachusetts, to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green.  British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse.  Suddenly, a shot was fired from an undetermined gun.  When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying.  Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun.

On April 20, 1841, Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” first appeared in Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine. The tale is generally considered to be the first detective story.  The story describes the extraordinary “analytical power” used by Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin to solve a series of murders in Paris.  Like the later Sherlock Holmes stories, the tale is narrated by the detective’s roommate.

According to tradition, the great English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23, 1564.  The exact day is not known, but church records show that he was baptized on April 26, and three days was a customary amount of time to wait before baptizing a newborn.  Shakespeare’s date of death is conclusively known, however: it was April 23, 1616. 

President John Adams approved legislation on April 24, 1800, to appropriate $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress,” thus establishing the Library of Congress.  The first library catalog, dated April 1802, listed 964 volumes and nine maps.  Twelve years later, the British army invaded the city of Washington and burned the Capitol, including the then 3,000-volume Library of Congress.

On April 25, 1990, the crew of the space shuttle Discovery placed the Hubble Space Telescope into a low orbit around Earth.  The space telescope, conceived in the 1940s, designed in the 1970s, and built in the 1980s, was designed to give astronomers an unparalleled view of the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe.

On April 26, 1954, the Salk polio vaccine field trials, involving 1.8 million children, begin at the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia.  One year later, on April 12, 1955, researchers announced the vaccine was safe and effective. In the ensuing decades, polio vaccines would all but wipe out the highly contagious disease in the Western Hemisphere.

On April 28, 1967, Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army and was stripped of his heavyweight title.  Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service.  Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., in Louisville, Kentucky, the future three-time world champ changed his name to Muhammad Ali in 1964 after converting to Islam. 

On April 29, 2004, the World War II Memorial opened in Washington, D.C., providing recognition for the 16 million U.S. men and women who served in the war.  The granite and bronze monument features fountains between arches symbolizing hostilities in Europe and the Far East.  The arches are flanked by semicircles of pillars, one each for the states, territories and the District of Columbia.  Beyond the pool is a curved wall of 4,000 gold stars, one for every 100 Americans killed in the war.

On April 30, 1993, four years after publishing a proposal for “an idea of linked information systems,” computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee released the source code for the world’s first web browser and editor.  Originally called Mesh, the browser that he dubbed WorldWideWeb became the first easy-to-use means of browsing the emerging information network that developed into the internet as we know it today.

👉  Today’s close, “Jesus Revealed in Us,” is by Anne Graham Lotz.

“Those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good” (1 Peter 4:19 NIV)

If our kids always behave and our boss is always pleased and our home is always orderly and our bodies always feel good and we are patient and kind and thoughtful and happy and loving, others shrug because they’re capable of being that way too.  

On the other hand, if we have a splitting headache, the kids are screaming, the phone is ringing, the supper is burning, yet we are still patient, kind, thoughtful, happy, and loving, the world sits up and takes notice. The world knows that kind of behavior is not natural. It’s supernatural. And others see Jesus revealed in us.

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 395

April 29, 2021

Thank you for your prayers yesterday.  As I told you, I was having Mohs Surgery to remove a small skin cancer.  This surgery is done in layers so as not to make a large scar, each layer is checked when the surgeon removes it, and more is done if needed (click on this link if you want to learn more).  My doctor did one pass and said it was one of the smallest he had ever seen.  So early detection, and lots of prayers!

I asked him what was the cause and he said, “Overexposure to the sun.”  I laughed and said, “I haven’t been out in the sun in more than 50 years.”  He asked if I had played outside as a child.  I told him, “All the time, all day long.”  He said, that’s the cause.  So.  Let's be careful out there!

👉  Michael Collins, the command module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, died yesterday at age 90 after battling cancer.

Collins “flunked out” the first time he applied to the space program.  He says there are 15 or 20 reasons why he might have flunked, but he liked to tell the story of the famed Rorschach inkblots mishap during his psychiatric exam.

“I leafed through a whole series of them, and then the last one was a blank sheet of paper, pure white, 8 by 10.”  They asked, “So what do you see?” I say, “Well, of course that’s eleven polar bears making love in a snowbank.”  And I could see the examiner’s eyes kind of tighten.  He didn’t think that was funny.  He didn’t like people making light of his card set.  Anyway, for whatever reason, I flunked.  The next year, (in the inkblot) I saw my mother and my father, and my father was slightly larger and more authoritarian but not too much more than my mother, and I passed.”

Collins was selected as part of the third class of astronauts in 1963.  His first mission was on Gemini 10 with John Young.  His second was Apollo 11.

As the command module pilot, Collins remained in orbit above the moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin piloted the lunar lander, “Eagle,” to its successful landing in the Sea of Tranquility.  

“Apollo 11 was the culmination of my career,” he said.  “We were finally able to do what President Kennedy had asked us to do, and so I think Neil and Buzz and I, all three, we felt that this was a culmination of a long, successful series.  And we tried our best to fulfill it.”

👉  I enjoy the theater, dramatic plays, comedies, musicals, it doesn’t matter.  Give me a good story, well performed and it gets a standing ovation from me.  Over the next several issues of the QB – and probably not every day – I’m going to share nut-shells of 7 of my favorites from Broadway.  I’ve already done my # 1 and # 2 plays, Cats (QB 42, and 129) and Mamma Mia (QB 132) so these will not be revisited for this series.  Also West Side Story (QB 133), Music Man (QB 134) and My Fair Lady (QB 140) will not be repeated.  For no particular reason, I’ll do them in alphabetical order (and my apologies if I miss your favorite).

Chicago is set in the jazz age, and is based on a 1926 play of the same name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, about actual criminals and the crimes on which she reported.  Choreographed by Bob Fosse, the original Broadway production opened in 1975 and ran for 936 performances.  Chicago was revived on Broadway in 1996, and that production is the second longest-running show to ever appear on Broadway, behind only The Phantom of the Opera.  The 2002 film version of the musical won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Side note: Phantom has run for 13,370 performances and Chicago for 9,692 as of March 11, 2020 when all Broadway theaters suspended performance because of COVID-19.

In 1924 Watkins was assigned to cover the trials of accused murderers Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner for the Chicago Tribune.  These cases were tried against a backdrop of changing views of women in the jazz age, and a long string of acquittals by Cook County juries of female murderers (juries at the time were all male, and convicted murderers generally faced death by hanging).  A belief arose that, in Chicago, feminine or attractive women could not be convicted.  The characters in Chicago were based either on actual persons Watkins covered, or were a combination of more than one individual.  Both Beulah and Belva were acquitted (as were her creations Velma and Roxie).

Chicago begins with Velma Kelly welcoming the audience to the play, and introduces the first musical number “All That Jazz.”  

The scene cuts to the bedroom of chorus girl Roxie Hart, where she murders Fred Casely as he attempts to break off an affair with her.  Roxie confesses and is arrested.  She is sent to the women’s block in the Cook County Jail, where several women accused of killing their lovers are held, and they perform my favorite number, “Cell Block Tango.”  He had it coming!

The show deals with the themes of corruption in the judicial system and celebrity criminals.  Velma and Roxie are acquitted, but an even more sensational crime than theirs draws the attention of the press and the public away, and they end up back on the vaudeville stage.  Curtain.

👉  Coincidentally, today is International Dance Day, a day of celebration for those who see the importance of dance, and a day to enjoy dance and share it with others. It was created in 1982 by the Dance Committee of the International Theater Institute, which is a performing arts partner with UNESCO.  The date of April 29 was chosen because it is the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre, the creator of modern ballet.

👉  Today’s close is from Praying the Psalms, by Eugene H. Peterson.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits” (Psalm 103:2).

Forgetfulness atrophies the muscles of praise and leaves them flabby and passive.  Remembrance internalizes a history of grace and strengthens praise into blessing, so that we act in a renewing way on our environment.

Prayer: What blessings I have experienced! What benefits I have been given!  I will compile my own list of goodness through the hours of this day and give you praise, O God, for each item.  Stir my memory and quicken my tongue, for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 394

April 28, 2021

I ask an interest in your prayers this morning while I am having a small skin cancer removed from my face.  Very many thanks!

👉  Less than two weeks ago, NASA awarded a contract to SpaceX for $2.9 billion to use their launch vehicle, “Starship,” to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon.  

SpaceX’s Starship prototype launching from Boca Chica, Texas.

Last year NASA awarded contracts to three companies for initial design work on landers that could carry humans to the lunar surface.  In addition to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, NASA selected proposals from Dynetics, a defense contractor in Huntsville, Alabama, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which had joined in what it called the National Team with several traditional aerospace companies: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper.

On Monday, Blue Origin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office over NASA’s decision to select only SpaceX for its Human Landing System (HLS) program, arguing the agency “moved the goalposts” of the competition.  The company, in a lengthy filing with the GAO, claimed that the companies were not given the opportunity to change their proposals to reflect the agency’s reduced budget for HLS.  Blue Origin’s bid was $5.99 billion, while SpaceX won with $2.89 billion.  

Artist’s rendition of Blue Origin’s HLS.

Reading about Blue Origin’s protest I remember a quote from the early days of human space flight which has been attributed both to Alan Shepard and John Glenn.

When reporters asked Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for liftoff, he replied, “The fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder.”

John Glenn said, “I guess the question I’m asked the most often is: ‘When you were sitting in that capsule listening to the count-down, how did you feel?’  Well, the answer to that one is easy.  I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts – all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”

Reading about these two space billionaires squabbling over who gets the contract, I remember another quote from Alan Shepard.  After several delays and more than four hours in the capsule, Shepard was ready to go into space on May 5, 1961.  He urged mission controllers to “fix your little problem and light this candle.”  Amen!

Alan B. Shepard, Jr., onboard Freedom 7.

👉  By the time you read this, the FDA may have banned the production and sale of menthol cigarettes, which is a good thing that ought to continue in the banning of all cigarettes (and let’s throw in cigars, pipes, chewing tobacco, and snuff).  The evidence is overwhelming that the use of tobacco products causes cancer.  If the powers that be would ban it because of the smell alone, that would be a good thing, but the lives saved would be an unquestionable benefit to human beings.

The time line of this effort started in 2013 and has had many stops and starts, but now it seems to be gaining momentum, at least according to Delmonte Jefferson, executive director of the Center for Black Health & Equity, because “the racial awakening we had last summer exposed the inequities in our system . . . [and] menthol is just another example of the health inequities that have plagued African Americans for generations.”  NBC News reports that the vast majority of Black smokers – 85 percent – use menthol cigarettes. 

👉  Here are some sayings of questionable wisdom:

Everyone has the right to be stupid but you’re abusing the privilege.

Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

He has delusions of adequacy.

He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends.

How many observe Christ’s birthday, how few his precepts (Benjamin Franklin).

👉  I should have included the following phrase origin in yesterday’s blog, right after the piece about the Kentucky Derby.

👉  A couple of signs of the times to ponder:

👉  Hal David wrote the words and Albert Hammon wrote the music for “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.”  Hammon recorded it in 1975 on his album “99 Miles From L.A.,” but the most famous cover was a 1984 recording by Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson.  It was Iglesias’ biggest hit in the United States and Canada, and Nelson’s biggest European hit.  Nelson and Iglesias were also named “Duo of the Year” by the Country Music Association, and “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” was named single of the year by the Academy of Country Music.  And with that, we’ll wrap up our salute to songs with girls’ names.

👉  Today’s close is by Paul David Tripp.

Think about the words penned by Peter near the beginning of his first New Testament letter: “Now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7 ESV).

As he opens his letter, Peter gives us a past-present-future summary of God’s redemptive plan, but his interest is really in what God is doing right here, right now between Christ’s first and second comings.  Of all of the words that he could use to describe what God is doing now, he selects these three: grieved, trials, and tested.  These are three words that most of us hope would never describe our lives.  None of us gets up in the morning and prays, “Lord, if you love me, you will send more suffering my way today.”  Rather, when we are living in the middle of difficulty, we are tempted to view it as a sign of God’s unfaithfulness or inattention.

Peter, however, doesn’t see moments of difficulty as objects in the way of God’s plan or indications of the failure of God’s plan.  No, for him they are an important part of God’s plan.  Rather than being signs of his inattention, they are sure signs of the zeal of his redemptive love.  In grace, he leads you where you didn’t plan to go in order to produce in you what you couldn’t achieve on your own.  In these moments, he works to alter the values of your heart so that you let go of your little kingdom of one and give yourself to his kingdom of glory and grace.

God is working right now, but not so much to give us predictable, comfortable, and pleasurable lives.  He isn’t so much working to transform our circumstances as he is working through hard circumstances to transform you and me.  Perhaps in hard moments, when we are tempted to wonder where God’s grace is, it is grace that we are getting, but not grace in the form of a soft pillow or a cool drink.  Rather, in those moments, we are being blessed with the heart-transforming grace of difficulty because the God who loves us knows that this is exactly the grace we need.

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 393

April 27, 2021

In case you missed it, on Sunday the 93rd Academy Awards honored movies released in a year of a global pandemic, with a socially distanced ceremony held at Union Station in Los Angeles.  Wall Street Journal film writer Ben Fritz wonders, “whether audiences will return to theaters for the films the Academy Awards typically honor,” which this blogger translates as films most people wait to see for free.  

Anthony Hopkins won the best actor award for “The Father.”  Rotten Tomatoes calls it, “a devastatingly empathetic portrayal of dementia.”  I’ll pass.  Or as Siskel and Ebert used to say, “Two thumbs down.”  Frances McDormand won for “Nomadland.”  Rotten Tomatoes says, “Hang in there with its slow pace and downer of a story.”  Two thumbs down.  And “Nomadland” won the best picture.  Two more thumbs down.  With tickets almost $10, even for old people, and popcorn more than that, I’ll wait for them to stream for free, and then I think I’ll pass.

👉  And now for some good news.  American tourists who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 will be able to visit the European Union over the summer, the head of the bloc’s executive body said in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday.  The fast pace of vaccination in the United States, and advanced talks between authorities there and the European Union over how to make vaccine certificates acceptable as proof of immunity for visitors, will enable the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, to recommend a switch in policy that could see trans-Atlantic leisure travel restored.  

“All 27 member states will accept, unconditionally, all those who are vaccinated with vaccines that are approved by E.M.A.,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said.  The agency, the bloc’s drugs regulator, has approved all three vaccines being used in the United States, namely the Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson shots.

👉  Three comic strips for your amusement:

👉  If you are a horse race fan (“Like to see some stuck up jockey boy sitting on Dan Patch”) the first Saturday in May will bring you “America’s Greatest Race” and the fastest two minutes in sports.  At Churchill Downs this year’s 147th Run for the Roses is back at its regular calendar spot.  Except for last year, the Kentucky Derby has been staged on the first Saturday in May every year since 1947,  missing only last year (the race was run in September).  If you can’t get tickets – and for the most preferred place to watch the gallop, you have to buy more than one – you can take your mint julep and turn to your local NBC station (I’m not sure how they are doing it or what the telecast will look like, but USAToday reports the broadcast will be 5 hours long, beginning at 2:30 p.m.).

About those tickets – and Churchill Downs will be at about 40% of its 165,000 capacity – a second mortgage won’t be necessary, but it will still be expensive to watch in person.  The bargain price ticket, infield-only general admission, is $80 if you buy it by Friday, $85 on race day.  Reserved Box Seating is $725 and you must buy 6 tickets for a total of $4,350.  If you want to be in Millionaires Row or have a Turf Club Table (food and drinks included) prepare to spend at least $1500 for one ticket.  I think I’ll wait for the 6:50 p.m. post time, and turn on local channel 26.  And they’re off!

👉  “I Enjoy Being a Girl” is the showpiece for Linda Low, the lead showgirl in Rodgers and Hammerstein 1958 musical Flower Drum Song.  The musical is a love story about growing up Chinese in America, the clash between the traditional values of the old country and the modern ways of America.  The lyrics praise the traditional values of being a woman who longs to be the object of a man’s affection.  Flower Drum Song was not as successful as other Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, but “I Enjoy Being a Girl” remains popular.

The most unusual cover occurred when Cheryl Ladd and Miss Piggy bashed a dummy and Kermit is set loose in Ladd’s dressing room.

👉  Today’s close is by Debbie McDaniel.

“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Sometimes the needs in our lives seem to mount up high. Maybe you’re waiting, or have been praying, for help, for a breakthrough. Maybe you feel like it’s been slow in coming, or that you can’t see a way out of your current situation. Maybe the needs seem to far outweigh the reality you’re living in. You’ve lost hope, feel alone in the struggle, and the weight of stress seems too hard to keep shouldering.

Whatever the need – physical, spiritual, financial, emotional, relational – His truth reminds us that He’s got “this thing,” whatever it is, that concerns you.

He is able. Fully. To provide what you need.

“And my God will meet (supply, provide for, accomplish, complete) all your needs (necessities, tasks) according to his glorious (bright, majestic, splendor) riches (wealth, abundance) in Christ Jesus.”

Our God who created the entire world and designed you and I with such purpose and intent can provide, will provide, out of His richness, fullness, wealth and treasure, for every single need we have. He gives favor. He lines up our pathways to be in the right place at the right time. He miraculously accomplishes so many things for us every day that we may not even be aware of. And He will bend over backwards just to give to you out of His riches. Whether we realize it or not. Because He loves us.

We will never out give the richness of God for us. Because His provision is really not based on us. It’s based on His character, and He is Jehovah-Jireh, the God who provides.

I’m resting there today. Right smack in the middle of His abundance. Hope you are too.

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 392

April 26, 2021

Let’s start with the stories behind some popular phrases.

The Whole 9 Yards: To do everything that is possible or available.  During World War II, pilots would have a 9-yard chain of ammunition.  When a fighter pilot used all of their ammunition on one target, they would give “The whole 9 yards.”

Spill The Beans: To reveal secret information unintentionally or indiscreetly.  This saying comes from Ancient Greece, where voting was done using beans.  Citizens would put a white bean into the jar of a candidate they support, and a black one for a candidate that they do not approve of.  However, on a few occasions clumsy people would spill the jars, revealing classified information.

Pull Out All The Stops: To make a very great effort to achieve something.  Organ consoles have knobs that are called ‘stops.’  Without them the organist can play at a much higher volume, so ‘pulling out all the stops’ would let the organist squeeze the maximum volume out of the instrument.

👉  And some wise sayings:

A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.

“I was worried that my mechanic might try to rip me off.  I was relieved when he told me all I needed was turn signal fluid.”

A bulldog can whip a skunk, but sometimes it’s not worth it.

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes.  That way if he gets angry, he’ll be a mile away and barefoot.

Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse can happen to you for the rest of the day.

Eat well, stay fit, die anyway. 

👉  Today’s girl’s name song is the last one I’ll do for now (but over the next couple days I’ll do a couple of “girlie” tunes, but not a specific name, to wrap it up).  

“Michelle” was written by Paul McCartney, with a bridge by John Lennon, for the Beatles 1965 album “Rubber Soul.”  Paul said – and here I am going to tell you more than I know – “it written in Chet Atkins’ finger-picking style.  There is a song he did called ‘Trambone’ with a repetitive top line, and he played a bass line while playing a melody.  This was an innovation for us; no rock 'n' roll guitarists had played it . . . Based on Atkins’ ‘Trambone,’ I wanted to write something with a melody and a bass line in it, so I did.”

After seeing some French performers, McCartney asked a friend to come up with a French name and a phrase that rhymed with it.  That was “Michelle, ma belle.”  With that introduction, there follows, “these are words that go together well.”  Paul asked for a French translation and that was, “sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble.”  John Lennon came up with the bridge, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” and “Michelle” became the most popular track on the “Rubber Soul” album.

Here is a cover of Chet Atkins’ “Trambone.”

And a music video version of “Michelle” by the Beatles.

👉  What a way to debut as a pitcher in the Major Leagues.  Kent Emanuel had just sat down in the bullpen during the first inning on Saturday when the phone rang.  Emanuel had pitched in the minors for seven seasons before the Houston Astros pitcher was thrown into his major league debut at a moment’s notice.  Emanuel worked 8 2/3 innings in relief, saving Houston’s bullpen after Jake Odorizzi left early with an injury, and the Astros routed the Los Angeles Angels 16-2.  Emanuel (1-0) allowed five hits and two runs.  The 28-year-old lefty became the fourth pitcher in the modern era to have a relief outing of 8 2/3 innings or more in his debut.

👉  Reading about Emanuel’s pitching performance I thought about a pitcher who threw a perfect game and lost.  The opposing team had no hits, no walks, and the defense committed no errors, but Harvey Haddix of the Pittsburgh Pirates got the loss.  Facing the Milwaukee Braves on May 26, 1959, the “Kitten” pitched amazing 12 perfect innings, still the all-time record.  The Bucs had plenty of chances, pounding out 12 hits in all, but they left eight men on base, unable to come through in a big spot.  In the bottom of the 13th Pirates third baseman Don Hoak booted a routine grounder, and the perfect game was up in smoke.  After a sacrifice bunt, an intentional walk, and a base hit Haddix and the Pirates lost 1-0.

👉  The Tamper-proof Seal

Maybe we lost our national innocence much earlier. If we had not lost it before, we certainly did during three terror-filled days in 1982. Between September 29 and October 1, 1982, Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide killed seven people in Illinois, and a resulting torrent of panic deluged consumer companies.

Following the Tylenol murders all kinds of twisted people seemed to be waiting for that particular door to swing open so they could rush through. Since the days when the ancient Egyptians melted wax over their papyrus, humans have searched for ways to reveal if a container has been opened. In 1989, the Food and Drug Administration established a uniform national requirement for tamper-resistant packaging of over- the-counter products. If a product is accessible to the public its package must have “one or more indicators or barriers to entry which, if breached or missing, can reasonably be expected to provide visible evidence to consumers that tampering has occurred.”

Tylenol, and every other bottle of pills I’ve opened in the last 3+ decades, is now double-sealed with plastic film around the cap, and underneath those layers, the capsules and pills are protected against tampering by a layer of foil. 

Physicist Roger Johnston and his company, Temtec, Inc., test tamper proof seals to see if they really are tamper proof.  If they defeat one of the seals, they suggest ways to make it more secure. When asked if there was such a thing as a foolproof seal, Mr. Johnston answered, “I don’t think such a thing can exist, even theoretically.”

Not so says a traveling tent maker from Tarsus: “You were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance.”

God’s Son said, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”

The impenetrable, unbreakable seal. Free for the asking.

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