Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Tuesday Friends & Refugees, Phamily & ADD Irregulars, Early Birds & Dawn Patrol, Later Dayers & Day Walkers, all of you Conversants, Lurkers and Wanderers at Locals. Time to dive into a new book - The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig.
From the preface: The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a compendium of new words for emotions. Its mission is to shine a light on the fundamental strangeness of being a human being—all the aches, demons, vibes, joys, and urges that are humming in the background of everyday life:
New words for emotions - fits the age we live in were many more people feel rather than think, and of course the goal of integrated living is to posses feelings that inform and color your thoughts without undermining your capacity for reason. I know, I know, that train may have left the station already and a return to reason and rationality colored by feelings and not dominated may well be past this current chapter of fractured humanity. I hope not, because feelings tend to be one of those experiences of being human that has an equal chance of uniting us to others as well as alienating us. Another sermonizing so early in our morning ramble - on to some fun words! And some bonus St. Jerome sprinkled in at the end.
Trumspringa n. the longing to wander off your career track in pursuit of a simple life—tending a small farm in a forest clearing, keeping a lighthouse on a secluded atoll, or becoming a shepherd in the mountains—which is just the kind of hypnotic diversion that allows your thoughts to make a break for it and wander back to their cubicles in the city.
German Stadtzentrum, “city center” + Pennsylvania German Rumspringa, “hopping around.” Rumspringa is a putative tradition in which Amish teens dip their toes in modernity for a while before choosing whether to commit to the traditional way of life. Pronounced “truhm-spring-guh.”
Read that word again, Trum-spring-guh, not Trump-springa. 😉The Donald casts a long shadow in the minds of many. He is the ultimate political boogie man for so many. If he is not on the 2024 ballot, the "worse than Trump'" candidate will be in the running. You know you will hear that term, the Cabal always has to up the ante to gin up the mindless. Whoever you are - Mr. or Mrs. Worse-than, I can't wait to hear about you. Notice that Candidate Worse-than does not subscribe to pronoun madness, but would probably happily will call you whatever name you want to be called. Afterall, name indulgence is often a kindness even if some names might give you cause to smile.😁
Trumspringa - A desire to return to a simpler life, who doesn't want one in these days of chaos and endless intrusion? While I was already a happily distracted soul (one does not celebrate ADD without it) the tidal wave of distractions these days with technology is frustrating. So many things can make noises, often from the same machine (our beloved glow-screens) finding the cause can be aggrevating. It used to be finding the burnt out Christmas light that provide such endless enjoyment, now the adventure is not limited to the Christmas season. What tab or app was that again????
Scabulous adj. proud of a certain scar on your body, which is like an autograph signed to you by a world grateful for your continued willingness to play with her, even if it hurts. From scab + fabulous.
Scabulous!!! Swimming pools in the past were filled with tales of the scabulous. Uncle Marty how did you get that scar?? - "Let me tell you a story little Bobbie. . . " Often times the swimming pool, the basketball court or some other sporting events of the past were we were semi-nude without it being overtly sexualized like it often is today. With so much skin on display, especially for the men-folk, talking about our scars is often akin to mothers watching their toddlers and sharing stories. They have their babies and we have ours. I know so pre-2015 when the battle for same-sex marriage ended culturally and the WOKE broke free from their university containment system.
Scabulous!! "The scars of others should teach us caution." - St. Jerome. While they should teach us caution, they can make for some great stories when we show our scars and don't let them victimize us. This happened to me, this is not me. I am greater than my experiences.
"Catch, then, O catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies!" -St. Jerome Enjoy the day before you and thank Jerry for his quotes. 😇
On to one of the trumspringa places where the inter-web leads me. Happy Tuesday Local friends!
Spring mountain flowers from somewhere on this beautiful little orb.
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
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I have a large number of blue Ball jars that I inherited along the way.
I know a number of people who have collections of the blue telegraph/telephone insulators.
Indiana's most famous natural landmark doesn't exist anymore. We sold it, one shovelful at a time.
The Hoosier Slide was a sand dune about 200 feet tall, standing where Trail Creek meets Lake Michigan at Michigan City. People took trains from Chicago just to climb it. There were picnics and weddings on top of it. Ship captains used it to find the harbor.
Then glassmakers figured out the iron in that sand turned molten glass a unique blue color.
From roughly 1890 to 1920, about 13.5 million tons of the Hoosier Slide left town. Wheelbarrows first, then steam shovels and railcars. Much of it went to Ball Brothers in Muncie and to Hemingray for telegraph insulators.
By 1920 the dune was flat. A power plant sits on the site today. Mount Baldy, now the tallest dune on our stretch of the lake, is about 126 feet.
If you've ...
XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
