Stuff My Brain Says #69

Went to Mass with my wife and her family. According to the Church calendar, it was the "Feast of the Holy Family".

The priest made a comment during his homily (Cliff Note Sermon), when he was talking about the differences between our families and the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph), that actually made me chuckle out loud. I tried to keep it down, but Lisa noticed. He mentioned the mystery of Jesus being conceived miraculously in Mary's womb, and Mary being conceived miraculously in her mother's womb. Okay, Jesus' conception was miraculous. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit overshadowing the (at the time) Virgin Mary. But to say something similar happened to Mary was hysterical to me.

(NOTE: Please understand that this is based on one comment during a 15-minute or so sermon. The rest of it was beautiful, honest, heart-warming, and challenging to us the listeners. It was a terrific sermon by a man who obviously loves God and His people.}

See, the Catholic Church has deemed that Mary is "ever virgin". She was the mother of God, and therefore HAD to be sinless in order to carry Jesus. The problem with that is that in order for Mary to be born sinless, HER mother had to be born sinless, and HER mother before her, all the way to Eve. She never consummated her marriage to Joseph (which means they lived in sin, doesn't it?!?) so she was "ever virgin". Something that powerful should be pretty clear in scripture. It's not. No where do you find a passage that tells of an angel coming to Mary's mother and telling her, "Behold, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the child that will be conceived will be the mother of God, who will have the Holy Spirit come upon HER, so that the child SHE conceives will be Christ the Lord." If the account of John the Baptist's conception/birth would take so much ink, you'd think something as important as Mary's conception would ALSO warrant a few lines of scripture.

Mary was a young girl, never having known a man, when the Holy Spirit came upon her. Because of this conception, Jesus was 100% God and 100% man. If Mary was conceived similarly, SHE would be 100% God and 100% man as well. That is not true. She herself said that she was in need of a savior. Jesus, on the other hand, did not. She was also not "ever virgin". She gave birth to her "first-born" child. To say "first-born" denotes at least a "second-born". Secondly, later in the gospels it is told of Jesus' brothers and sisters (the word used does NOT translate as "cousin"). And finally, it's difficult to believe that God would want Mary and Joseph to never consummate their relationship.

I understand why the Catholic Church came up with this: it was in response to the concept that if Jesus was born of sinful flesh, He Himself would be born with sin. But the solution given doesn't hold water (referring to Mary's whole lineage needing to be sinless).

I'm surprised that nobody even presented this argument at the time.

Or, maybe someone did. People died over "heresy" often back in the day. ;-)

© Emittravel 2013

Christmas Morn

A gift to my readers, and especially to my biggest fan - my darling wife Lisa. Merry Christmas!

Early morning whispers of snow touched trees
Gentle breezes make soft blankets dance
Ghosts in sunlight twirling through branches
The quiet lingering

Inside you lay sleeping still floating in dream
Curled under covers of flannel and fleece
Gone is the hurried preparedness brings
The silence enveloping

The moment too perfect to shatter with speech
The rays through the window gracing your cheek
Moving ever closer the embrace to extend
The stillness breathing

Christmas morn


J.P. Wiegand
© Emittravel 2013

The Cleveland Tans

In 1945, Arthur McBride founded the Cleveland Browns - named after Paul Brown, the first head coach of the team. They were part of the AAFC (All-American Football Conference), where they won a championship in each of the four years of the league's existence. Later to become a member of the NFL (do I really have to tell you what "NFL" means?!?), where they won a number of championships in the early years, and made the playoffs a total of fourteen times.

In 1995, Art Modell, then owner of the Browns, moved the team to Baltimore, where they became the Ravens. This put the Browns on a hiatus for a few years, resuming in 1999.

On October 3, 2013, former Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown, a member of the Football Hall of Fame, was honored during the halftime show between the Browns and the Buffalo Bills at Cleveland's First Energy Stadium. It was an emotional event, and rightfully so. Only one problem: the wrong team was giving him honor.

Like I said above, in 1995, Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore. Not only did he move the team, but he moved the history as well. A football team's history is an amalgamation of players and staff coming and going throughout the years. When the Browns moved to Baltimore, the history of that team, the players current and former, the coaching and support staff over all of those years, went with it. Jim Brown's famous career went with it. When the Browns started up again in 1999, THEY STARTED ALL OVER. Out with Bill Belichick, in with Chris Palmer. Hell, we can even go as far as saying out with the Cleveland Municipal Stadium, in with Cleveland Browns Stadium (now First Energy Stadium).

The only history today's Cleveland Browns can look back to starts in 1999. The Baltimore Ravens? They can look all the way back to 1945 and Paul Brown. The old Browns/Steelers rivalry? In Baltimore. We can have a "new" one if we want, but it's not the same.

For me? I call them the "Cleveland Tans", because they haven't earned the color yet. I'm still rooting for them, and to eliminate confusion I'm still calling myself a "Brown's fan". Though after the above, you too now know what I mean by that.

(On a side note: Whenever Cleveland and Baltimore play against each other, can it be said that the Browns are "playing with themselves"?)

© Emittravel 2013

The Times, They Ain't a Changin'

Recently, Popular Science shut down the ability to make comments on its website.

You'll notice that there are no comments on that article … uh … yeah … Actually, when I first looked at the article it showed "Comments" with a count of "zero". Now the article has links to Twitter, Facebook, etc. In other words, Popular Science welcomes comments, just not on their site.

This has been a topic of online conversation, blogs, and news, and rightfully so. The main argument I've seen was concerning whether or not this was censorship. Well, for one, it IS a private entity and has the right. It's not a publically-funded entity, where that would be an issue. Being able to make comments on a site is not a "right", but an option provided by the website to stimulate conversation. But unfortunately, spammers, trolls, and people being plain rude have ruined comments. No longer a means of discourse; just a way to be coarse.

As usual, I'm going to look at this from a different angle. One that looks at part of the article (linked above) that has been brushed aside.

PopSci (I LOVE that shortened name, by the way) believes that things like the origins of climate change are apparently without opposing scientific proof. Comments that shed any doubt on the "popular consensus" are detrimental and need to be shut down.

Let me remind you: Whenever you remove dissension to scientific findings, you have removed the validity of those scientific findings.

Take a moment and read that again. Let it sink in. Really. I'll wait.

History has proven that there is no such thing as empirical scientific absolutes. Let me give you an example. For about a century, scientists were convinced that light was a wave. In 1905, Albert Einstein challenged that conviction in that light was not only a wave, but also a particle. Now, according to the majority, Albert Einstein was wrong. Two decades later the dual concept of light was finally accepted. It took two whole decades for the MAJORITY of scientific EXPERTS to admit that they COULD be wrong.

It is this same hutzpah today that plagues the scientific community. Without such men as Albert Einstein challenging the status quo, we would not have the scientific breakthroughs of our day today. I know, "but that was Albert Einstein". In 1905, Albert Einstein was a patent clerk with a passion for physics, not the Nobel Prize-winning man we came to admire much later.

Again, history has proven that there is no such thing as empirical scientific absolutes.

Scientists today suffer the same malady that those in Albert Einstein's day suffered: unmitigated arrogance. They fully believed that those before them were genuine, sincere, but seriously misguided in their understanding of (name the subject), and that they themselves were far superior in their intellectual comprehension of (that same subject).

Until those, and their supporters, understand that those in our future will also consider US borderline Neanderthals in OUR expertise, the true ability for scientific expansion will be arrested. And Popular Science has willingly supplied the handcuffs.

© Emittravel 2013

Wisdom from the Porcelain Pulpit #3

It's J.P., with more "Wisdom from the Porcelain Pulpit".

I was reading a book (and minding my own business … ) called "Living it Up" by George Burns, when a chapter hit me between the eyes. I wanted to share with you the impact it left upon me.

The book was published in 1976. The copy I'm reading is in a compilation entitled "The Most of George Burns" (published in 1991 by Galahad Books - a division of LDAP, Inc. - ISBN: 0-88365-782-1). This is not the first George Burns book I've read, so I was used to hearing his voice in my head as I read. His humor rang loud and clear through his writing so absolute that you couldn't help but hear him. And the same is true with the chapter of "Living it Up" that hit me so hard: "No More Applause".

The first sentence: "On August 27, 1964, Gracie passed away."

Gracie Allen was not only George's partner on stage, but his life off it. George passed away in 1996. That's 32 years after she died - and he never remarried. Gracie was George's inspiration, his joy, and his soul mate. He talks in the chapter of the last few months together, her passing, and how he "coped". I was crying when I finished reading it. I wanted to read it out loud to my wife, one more time, before sitting down to write this, but I couldn't make it passed the first sentence. Who am I kidding? I didn't make it through the first sentence at all. Lisa read it to me - since it would be "fresh" for her. And I cried even more the second time through.

Why did I cry? What was it about their story that struck me so? I never met them. I only know OF them. I've seen some of their work. But I've never known them. So, why did I cry? I think it was that I connected with George on his love for his wife - with the love I have for mine.

George talked about going on after Gracie was gone. I've wondered what life would be like without Lisa - and I have difficulty imagining it. I can't imagine each day, trying to live beyond the eventual routine, without her. I've even hoped that I would go first - so I wouldn't have to deal with the loss. (Lisa has such a stronger character than I, that I figured she would make it fine without me.)

George said that after a time that he stopped crying on his visits to Gracie. He said that he discovered "that there are just so many tears one can cry and that crying is not going to change a thing."

Maybe so. But for now, when I think of life without Lisa, the tears DO make me feel better.

© Emittravel 2013

Stuff My Brain Says #68

I think it is hysterical that man, in all of his evolved genius, cannot create a computer equal to a human brain - which, by evolutionist/naturalist terms, is nothing more than a chance combination of arbitrary chemical reactions. Maybe someday he will, but I wonder how - with a brain that is essentially nothing but an accident. Possibly BY accident?

© Emittravel 2013

Speak Now, Or Forever …

One day I thought it would be fun to experiment with Microsoft's Speech Recognition (MSR) software. I have a Surface RT, which has a decent built-in microphone, so I started the program and played. MSR has the ability to let you do most operations on the unit, along with dictation. For me, the dictation feature was what I was interested in. After all, the Surface RT has terrific touch screen functionality, so outside of the times my hands have recently been coated with hand lotion, touch is great.

I opened up OneNote (one of my favorite apps) and tried to "blog".

Total disaster. Not MSR. That worked very well. I just realized that not only am I terrible at public speaking, but I also stink at private speaking. It is much more efficient for me to express my thoughts through my fingers than my tongue. That's where I find that writing becomes such a valuable tool for self-expression.

As I wrote previously in "Pleased to Meet You, Hope You Guess My Name", writing can be great therapy. People say that you need to get things off of your chest by sharing it with others. Sometimes I think that speaking something can unknowingly give it "power". Kind of like sharing a fish story, the issue can grow with each telling. But with writing, there is a "finality" to it. You craft your thoughts and lay them out on paper (or a screen, as the case may be), and they become solidified. There is a firmness to it. That "finality" becomes a marker. Like a head stone. (Get it?)

When you write, you can't lie as easily either. Every time you reread what you wrote, the lie will glare back at you - and you will get no "deliverance". Writing practically forces you to be honest with yourself. And that's where all healing begins.

If you have something that needs to be expressed, go ahead and write it out. You'll feel better.

© Emittravel 2013