NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

I was distracted last night as I was preparing supper. In my moment of inattention I had turned on the wrong element on the stove. So when it came time to sit down and eat, i discovered that we would be eating our first course in two courses, with the corn-on-the-cob being the second course all on its own. Not a problem. ‘No harm, no foul’, as they say.  And that should have been the case! However when I noticed that I had turned the wrong burner on, I also noticed that the china spoon rest was on the hot burner. This spoon rest was important to me, not because it was fundamentally valuable but because of who had given it to me. And so my immediate reaction, almost without thinking [although the first instinctual thought that passed through my mind was to leave it there and let it cool gradually!] was to grab a fork from the table and move it off the burner onto the surface of the stovetop. No sooner had the cold fork touched the china surface, than it broke into three pieces,...

I borrowed the title of this blog from a video on YouTube by the same name delivered by Dr. Roger Ray from the Community Christian Church of Springfield MO. You can hear Dr. Ray’s sermon for yourself at https://youtu.be/ZnELmKvEpNg . While I enjoyed listening to Dr. Ray’s sermon and even found myself agreeing with a good deal of it, it is the title that has stayed with me.  ~ A comment I heard on the day following a funeral service made by the wife of the deceased. She said [and i quote] ‘This is my first day as a widow.’  Obviously the funeral rite was necessary in helping her begin to bring some closure. ~ People who never darken the doors of a church on any other occasion want to celebrate their marriage there or at the very least with a clergy person in attendance at another venue. There is something in both the place and the liturgy that speaks to them a way that City Hall doesn’t. They want to mark this important day in a special way. ~ A loca church held firs...

I read the book 'Oliver Twist' many years ago and saw the musical ‘Oliver' more recently.  I read the New Testament in it's entirety only 4 years ago and saw the musical 'Jesus Christ Superstar'  long before that time.   Oliver Twist is the second novel by Charles Dickens, and was first published as a serial 1837–39. The story is of the orphan Oliver Twist, who starts his life in a workhouse and is then sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. He escapes from there and travels to London, where he meets the Artful Dodger, a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin. While I never for a moment thought that the characters of Fagin, the Artful Dodger or even Oliver actually existed, I did gain a great deal of knowledge of what society of the time was like and how they treated their most vulnerable citizens in 19th century England including child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street c...

“What has been is what will be,    and what has been done is what will be done;    there is nothing new under the sun.”  Ecclesiastes 1:9 We were driving through southwester Ontario the other week when I was noticing the free-standing solar panels in the fields.  They made me think of the fields of sunflowers one sees along the trans-Canada just west of Winnipeg and how no matter what the time of day, the sunflowers are facing the sun getting every bit of energy they can to make the most of the short growing season. I wondered if the solar panels also turned to follow the sun? Surely someone had made that same connection as I did. With a little research [via Google] when I got home, I found this: “In relation to photovoltaic panels, solar trackers orient toward the sun to harness more sunlight. Solar trackers are positioned and attached to solar panels… In some cases, solar trackers can potentially make solar panels 25-35% more effici...

I don’t know about you, but I must admit that I watch Jeopardy! [which bills itself as America’s favourite game show] every night - even the reruns. I guess I hope I just might do better getting the answers the second time round! I have lost count of the number of times I have heard a contestant add an extra word, an unneeded piece of information like a first name for example, only to be wrong on the non-essential and lose credit for the answer.  Being terse and succinct wins out every time.  But Jeopardy has taught me something else over the years of watching, something that is both easier and harder to do. I have noticed that when the clue is read usually a word pops into my head, a word that is more times that not the correct answer. The thing that is amazing to me is that I have no idea where or why that word appeared so my immediate reaction has been ignore it and wrack my brain for the ‘right’ answer. Hanging onto and trusting in my intuitive response is incredibly ...