June 30, 2021 – davidbruceblog #2

peekayou — Annette Rochelle Aben

Yes, go ahead and
Observe the world around you
It is watching you
©2021 Annette Rochelle Aben
peekayou — Annette Rochelle Aben

They looked and turned away — The Cheesesellers Wife

They looked and turned away
They looked and turned away — The Cheesesellers Wife

They looked and turned away
Londoners afraid to interact
With the girl sitting, weeping
On a stinkingly hot day in the city
Exclaiming that she had gone blind
Oversized suitcase abandoned near her feet
My feet
Someone pushed a cold drink into my hand
A woman’s voice comforted me
A stranger joined me on the step, asked where I was going
Told me that a long hot walk carrying a load
Had affected my sight
Sat until, miraculously, my sight returned
Then left
Pulling myself to my feet
I retrieved the offending suitcase
Slowly made my way to the Tube station
Continued my journey, moving from London to Oxford
Changing university, leaving friends and home city
Aiming for a Doctorate, I should have noted the omen
For I found loneliness and failure

Fist published by Silver Borch Press:

https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/they-looked-and-turned-away-poem-by-kim-whysall-hammond-when-i-moved-poetry-and-prose-series/

David Bruce: 250 Anecdotes About Religion, Volume 2 — Practical Jokes, Prayer

Practical Jokes

• Knowing that yawns are infectious, a group of Quaker girls once played a joke at meetings while at school. Whenever a person of authority — a teacher, an elder, a minister, an overseer — looked at them, one or more of them would yawn. Then they watched with delight as the yawn passed from one person of authority to another. The girls felt that there was nothing wrong with this game, as they played it only when a meeting went past its normal closing time.

• Thomas Aquinas was a huge man, both physically and mentally. Once a brother monk decided to play a joke on him. The monk looked out a window and said, “Come quickly — look at the cow flying.” Aquinas jumped up and looked out the window — and saw nothing, of course. The monk began to laugh, but Aquinas told him, “I thought it more likely that a cow should fly than that a monk would lie.”

• Some gurus are also rascals. One rascal guru got great amusement from his more gullible students — if any of them asked how he had become so wise, he used to tell them that he was thousands of years old. One especially gullible student believed this and said, “It’s amazing how human you are.” The rascal guru replied, “After a thousand years or so, you go native.”

Prayer

• Rabbi Eliezer understood the proper length of a prayer. A man once prayed for a long time, and some people complained, “What a prayer elaborator this man is!” But Rabbi Eliezer replied, “Has he really prayed longer than Master Moses, of whom Deuteronomy 9:25 reports that he once prayed for 40 days and 40 nights?” Then another person prayed for a very short time. This time, some people complained, “What a prayer abbreviator this man is!” But Rabbi Eliezer replied, “Has he really offered a shorter prayer than our Master Moses, of whom Numbers 12:13 reports that he once offered a prayer of only five words, ‘O God, pray heal her’?”

• Christian author Judy Esway was feeling very discouraged, and she prayed, saying that she wished Jesus would walk into her living room, sit down in the striped chair, and say to her, “Judy, why don’t you come over here and sit on my lap and tell me all your problems?” Just then, her husband walked into the living room, sat down in the striped chair, and said to her, “Judy, why don’t you come over here and sit on my lap and tell me all your problems?” Ms. Esway writes, “Thank you for answering my prayer, God. And thank you for my husband, who follows the prompting of your Holy Spirit.”

• During family prayers, some friends of country comedian Jerry Clower took turns praying. When it was the four-year-old’s turn to pray, he started praying for Mr. Clower’s family. He said, “Dear Lord, God bless Mr. Clower, God bless Ray, God bless Amy, God bless Sue, and God bless ….” Here he couldn’t think of the name of Mr. Clower’s wife, so he started all over again — and still couldn’t remember her name. He tried to say the prayer a third time, but even then he couldn’t remember her name, so he finished the prayer with, “Lord, please bless that woman what lives with Mr. Clower.”

• Just before performing on the balance beam during the individual apparatus competition at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, gymnast Shannon Miller said this prayer: “God, I’m in your hands. I’m going to do the very best I can. I know I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t supposed to be — if I wasn’t capable of doing this.” She did her very best on the balance beam — and she won her second gold medal of the games.

• In Eastern Europe, many Jewish prayers showed a familiarity with God: 1) “Dear God, you help complete strangers — so why not us?” 2) “Lord in Heaven, blessed be Thy Name, we know You love the poor — so why do You help the rich?” 3) “Dear God, all we ask of You is a bit of bread to stave off our hunger and some rags to keep out the cold — the whiskey we’ll buy ourselves.”

***

250 Anecdotes About Religion, Volume 2 — Buy

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Music Recommendation: The Routes — “Hotwired”

BRUCE’S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC

Music: “Hotwired”

Album: THE ROUTES — INSTRUMENTALS

Artists: The Routes

Artist Location:

Record Company: Groovie Records

Record Company Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Info:

“That is one of those bands I would love to release myself on VOODOO RHYTHM RECORDS, just to make that clear. I met CHRIS JACK back in Japan when I was touring with my band, THE MONSTERS. The gig in general was amazing and wild. We had naked men and almost naked girls at the show, and a rock’n’roll scene that I dream to have in Switzerland, with lots of girls’ bands.

“I was super impressed, then Chris told me he had a band. He gave me his recordings and I heard that like 20 times a day. It was something like 10 years after I met The Sonics. FUCKING KILLER. Anyway, time went by, and we kept contact all these years. Now THE ROUTES released an album on the fantastic GROOVIE RECORDS, from Portugal. A full INSTRUMENTAL album, a super fox on bass and an animal on drums, with the new Jeff Beck on guitars.

“That is RAW WILD and OUT OF CONTROL guitar instrumentals with sometimes an EXOTIC touch as in “Bossa Hossa Nova,’ in ‘Shove-it’ or in the beautiful ‘Yeti Spaghetti” and SURF instrumentals like ‘Luck Of The Devil’ or the SMASHER ‘Hang Eleven.’

“This album is a super INSTRO KILLER! If you like The Shadows only, it may not be your cup of tea, but if you live in the gutter and drink booze instead of water, this album will be the HOLY GRAIL FOR ALL YOU SURF PUNKS OUT THERE!

“Reverend Beat-Man (Master Of Disaster)”

Groovie Records: “Record label, distributor and music producer, been based in Lisbon since 2005. Since its founding, we have been dedicated to musical research, through compilations and re-releases of rare records, and the production of unpublished records of Portuguese and foreign bands.”