It's Tuesday and I am John Q. Public
Your Thought for the Day:
(I have been reading one of his books, and this one struck me)
What the mind cannot believe the heart can finally never adore.
Bishop John Shelby Spong, “Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism”
On Plans for the Holidays:
South and then North, our own Mason-Dixon Line Christmas. Lots of food, hunting (and you know how much I enjoy that), drinking, and getting to know each other again or in some cases for the first time. Makes us both wish we would have gone to Key West again this year, it always nice to call your family on Christmas, and then head out to get some sun. Other than that cross-country mad dash in inclement weather, we will be relaxing around the manor house in front of the fire drinking egg-nog.
On Food:
I baked bread last night, and put the horseradish-mustard rub on the prime rib (looks great). Put the Memphis BBQ rub on the chickens, and finally started work on the goose (we eat more than one meal when we get together, I think I am one of the few people who travel across county with coolers, but hey its good and everyone in my family can cook, men and women).
On funerals:
It odd, I have buried many family members and not a few friends, its one of those things that as a child my parents did not shield us kids from, we had to go to the funeral home at least once a week, and listen to people say “they sure did a good job on them, they look like their sleeping” “I am so sorry for your loss” “Well they are at peace now”. You know all the things people have say when they don’t really know what to.
When someone passes in my family, everyone knows the party starts after the rosary. We are a family that wakes. The point is to remember the person not the death. We end up telling funny stories about “do you remember when that idiot…” I am not saying its better, but its how we send those we love off (along with two silver dollars, to pay the river-man).
This is the first time I have ever had a woman that I knew, some one who I was with, someone I hung-out with die, and it does stop and make you think. It makes me sad, for her. For what she could have done, what she wanted to do. I don’t know perhaps she was a peace with it all, but the girl I knew was a lot of things, she was not a quitter. I guess it’s that time, when we stop and remember others well.
What do you send flowers? I know how important that is to people to get flowers at their loved ones funeral (my family is big for counting, est. cost, and taking note of who sent it). A few years ago, I started sending meat and cheese trays. If you ever have to hang around a funeral home you know how much your feet start to hurt and how you need both some food and a cigarette, but you can’t leave. I think this makes things a bit easier for the family, and the flowers end up on a compost heap at the grave yard anyway.
Since funerals are really for the living, what do you ask yourself? Will I be remembered, am I remembered? Did I do enough good? Did I matter? I guess that’s for us left behind to answer for them.
Your Bill for the Day:
SONNET 31
Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things removed that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
That due of many now is thine alone:
Their images I loved I view in thee,
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.
Your Quote for the Day:
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
John Howard Payne, US actor & dramatist (1791 - 1852)
Oddly Empty, but Focused, I remain:
JQP
(I have been reading one of his books, and this one struck me)
What the mind cannot believe the heart can finally never adore.
Bishop John Shelby Spong, “Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism”
On Plans for the Holidays:
South and then North, our own Mason-Dixon Line Christmas. Lots of food, hunting (and you know how much I enjoy that), drinking, and getting to know each other again or in some cases for the first time. Makes us both wish we would have gone to Key West again this year, it always nice to call your family on Christmas, and then head out to get some sun. Other than that cross-country mad dash in inclement weather, we will be relaxing around the manor house in front of the fire drinking egg-nog.
On Food:
I baked bread last night, and put the horseradish-mustard rub on the prime rib (looks great). Put the Memphis BBQ rub on the chickens, and finally started work on the goose (we eat more than one meal when we get together, I think I am one of the few people who travel across county with coolers, but hey its good and everyone in my family can cook, men and women).
On funerals:
It odd, I have buried many family members and not a few friends, its one of those things that as a child my parents did not shield us kids from, we had to go to the funeral home at least once a week, and listen to people say “they sure did a good job on them, they look like their sleeping” “I am so sorry for your loss” “Well they are at peace now”. You know all the things people have say when they don’t really know what to.
When someone passes in my family, everyone knows the party starts after the rosary. We are a family that wakes. The point is to remember the person not the death. We end up telling funny stories about “do you remember when that idiot…” I am not saying its better, but its how we send those we love off (along with two silver dollars, to pay the river-man).
This is the first time I have ever had a woman that I knew, some one who I was with, someone I hung-out with die, and it does stop and make you think. It makes me sad, for her. For what she could have done, what she wanted to do. I don’t know perhaps she was a peace with it all, but the girl I knew was a lot of things, she was not a quitter. I guess it’s that time, when we stop and remember others well.
What do you send flowers? I know how important that is to people to get flowers at their loved ones funeral (my family is big for counting, est. cost, and taking note of who sent it). A few years ago, I started sending meat and cheese trays. If you ever have to hang around a funeral home you know how much your feet start to hurt and how you need both some food and a cigarette, but you can’t leave. I think this makes things a bit easier for the family, and the flowers end up on a compost heap at the grave yard anyway.
Since funerals are really for the living, what do you ask yourself? Will I be remembered, am I remembered? Did I do enough good? Did I matter? I guess that’s for us left behind to answer for them.
Your Bill for the Day:
SONNET 31
Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things removed that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
That due of many now is thine alone:
Their images I loved I view in thee,
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.
Your Quote for the Day:
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
John Howard Payne, US actor & dramatist (1791 - 1852)
Oddly Empty, but Focused, I remain:
JQP
posted by John Q. Public esq. at 2:20 AM
<< Home