QUARANTINE BLOG # 575

October 26, 2021

I closed out “Sayings by Mac” too soon.  And you will be glad I found some more of the collection.

“So after 9th grade and 10th grade you get married?”  No then there’s 11 and 12.   “What?? I thought that was college!”  No. 9, 10, 11, 12 are high school and then college.  “What?  The 13th is college.  What do you do there?  Just walk around?  What if I don’t do my work in 8th grade.  I don’t get to go to high school?”  No.  “What if I’m 100 and haven’t done my work, do I still get to go to college.”  By then I would have spanked your bottom.  “Oh, then I’ll do my work.”

“Mama when you get old are you going to sew?  Cause that’s what old people do, they sew.  And will daddy work on the computer?” [I wonder if somewhere along the line, old people working on the computer was modeled after his Pappy].

👉  I was once a Cub Scout, then a Boy Scout, and when I was in college I joined Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity.  As far as I can remember, those are the only clubs I joined.  I was never a Lion, an Elk, a Moose (remind me to tell you a joke about those clubs), or a Kiwana (the name was coined from an American Indian expression, “Nunc Kee-wanis,” which means, “We trade”).  Those are fairly well-known organizations, but Amy asked about odd clubs to join (she was just curious, not looking for a new personal expression).  

Well, there are some real odd ones out there.  I am not speaking of the Odd Fellows, one of the world’s oldest and largest fraternal Orders which aims to provide a framework that promotes personal and social development (My Granddad Bittinger, Skinny Granny's dad, was an Odd Fellow).  Their goals – friendship, love, and truth – were so different from the norm at the time of the first Odd Fellows association, that they were considered odd or peculiar.

So, here we go.

The Order of the Occult Hand is open to any journalist or writer who can manage to work the phrase “It was as if an occult hand had ...” into their writing and get it published (there is nothing of occult practices in the Order).  

In the fall of 1965, a group of Charlotte News reporters, while purportedly enjoying a few alcoholic beverages, began to critique a recent piece written by their colleague, Joseph Flanders.  Into a “complicated story of evil-doing,” Flanders had placed the phrase “It was as if an occult hand had reached down from above and moved the players like pawns upon some giant chessboard.”  One of the contingent supposedly teased, “Now that is what I call prose.”  From that point on “The Order of the Occult Hand” was formed and Flanders’ colleagues became committed to secreting the phrase into their work.

An actual insertion of an “occult hand”

Their success became their undoing – the phrase was used too often – and so many members moved on, giving up on the “occult hand,” in lieu of a new phrase.  They eventually settled on a phrase currently unknown to the public, and as far as I have been able to learn, there are fewer than two dozen “certified members” of the new secret Order.

The British Lawn Mower Racing Association was founded in 1973.  Lawn mower racing was started back by an Irishman called Jim Gavin, who, with a bunch of mates had gone down to a pub for a few pints to discuss his latest motor sport idea.  Jim wanted to create a form of motor sport that was readily accessible to everyone.  They looked out across the village green and there was the groundsman mowing the cricket pitch.  It was then they realized that everyone had a lawn mower in their garden shed so they said, “Let’s race them”, and they did!  At the first race about 80 mowers turned up.

The main objectives were and still are, no sponsorship, no commercialism, no cash prizes and no modifying of engines.  As their website says, the pastime has “spread like crabgrass,” and now you can join Official Lawn Mower Racing Associations in the U.S., Germany, Luxembourg, Canada, New Zealand and the Czech Republic. 

👉  Some comic strip smiles:

👉  One unusual city name for today – Worms, Nebraska.

The city was not named for bait used in fishing or creatures that live inside your dogs that require medication.  Worms (pronounced “vorms”) was named for Worms, Germany where in 1521, Martin Luther challenged the Roman Catholic Church when he nailed his 95 Theses to the cathedral door.

Central Nebraska consists of a mosaic of ethnic settlements established in the 1870s and 1880s.  European immigrants, many arriving as early as the 1850s, concentrated in certain areas.  Germans settled in the small rural community of Worms, described as a “spot in the road.”

Commerce is not and has not been the strong suit of Worms.  Although the community once had a store, a garage and blacksmith shop to serve area customers, the present retail business is limited to the Nightcrawlers Bar.

👉  My favorite comic strip couple quote scripture:

👉  Today’s close is from The Songs of Jesus, by Timothy Keller.

“Lord, see how my enemies persecute me! Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death, that I may declare your praises in the gates of Daughter Zion, and there rejoice in your salvation. The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug; their feet are caught in the net they have hidden. The Lord is known by his acts of justice; the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands. The wicked go down to the realm of the dead, all the nations that forget God. But God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish. Arise, Lord, do not let mortals triumph; let the nations be judged in your presence. Strike them with terror, Lord; let the nations know they are only mortal” (Psalm 9:13-20).

Never Forget.

This psalm moves suddenly from thanksgiving to a cry for help amid suffering. Life is like that. But David grabs hold of a truth that keeps him from sinking. The core sin is to forget that God is God and that we are not. And this is justice – those who forget God will be forgotten, but those who remember God will be remembered forever.  Christians know of one who remembered God yet was completely forsaken – And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”  (Matthew 27:46). But because Jesus died in our place, we can be even surer than David that God will always be there for us.

Prayer: Lord, so many of my problems stem from not remembering you. I forget your wisdom and so I worry. I forget your grace and so I get complacent. I forget your mercy and so I get resentful of others. Help me remember who you are every moment of the day. Amen.

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