Acts of Patriotism and Other Things

1. Instead of watching the State of the Union address I watched an episode of The West Wing. That, my fellow Americans, if Patriotism.  (Sure, I have since read the text* but watching it gives me angina. All that clapping, you know.) Other acts of patriotism I have performed this week:  eating a corndog, my annual reading of the I Have a Dream speech, unfollowing several people on Facebook for putting up ugly political rants. America!!

2.  I woke up in a crabby mood this morning. Don't you just hate it when that happens? What exactly did my subconscious do in the middle of the night to put me in such a funk? Run out of hot chocolate? Too many articles about war? These are things that put me in funks in my waking hours, but who knows what my subconscious is up to. Anyway, I was crabby, and there's nothing worse than trying to teach seminary when you're crabby. So imagine my relief when the kid in charge of picking a hymn for us to sing chose The Day Dawn is Breaking. You just can't feel bad when you're singing that song. The verses plow along at a sharp pace and then you get to that chorus, "Beau-ti-ful DAAAAAAAY of peace and rest." Most of the kids had never heard the song before but we never let that stop us. I just sing loud and they do a good job of following along and by the third or fourth verse they have it. It was a total turn around for me.

3.  You know this actor. He's been in everything but you probably don't know his name. I didn't. But he died last week and he wrote his own obituary and I thought it was lovely enough to share with you. I think writing your own obituary would be a very interesting exercise.

4. Just look at this drawing of David Bowie's hair through the years.

Isn't it magnificent? You can buy it here and hang it in your bathroom, as I would do.

*My favorite part:  " A better politics is one where we appeal to each other's basic decency instead of our basest fears. A better politics is one where we debate without demonizing each other; where we talk issues, and values, and principles, and facts, rather than 'gotcha' moments, or trivial gaffes, or fake controversies that have nothing to do with people's daily lives." Preach it!