Asparagus Heads

May 5, 2010

No, the title does not directly refer to the leaders of the main UK political parties on this last day …

atlanticcrossings@mail.com.

This writer sure as heck doesn't know everything, so disagreement is expected. For up to 90 days after a post, comments may be offered. (After that, well, that's that. Blogs are also about timeliness, remember. If one has to draw a line somewhere, 3 months sounds reasonable.)

Thus well-expressed alternative views and interpretations are more than welcome, for that's how we all learn more in this life. Which means that vulgar and/or obscene comments will probably be deleted. So please phrase all abuse politely, and if in doubt refrain from any colorful metaphors and get thee to a thesaurus.

If you have never commented before, please note there will be a delay of however long before your comment appears. It is merely being held for first-time approval.

(As this blog is a one-man band, review may not happen "instantly". Your patience is appreciated.) Afterward, assuming you follow the modest guidelines above, your comments will appear immediately.

"But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and lie. We can tell them the moment we see them. They always throw out a few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their throttle valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth! Their central idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant and humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory! They will not let you know anything. They sneer at your most inoffensive suggestions; they laugh unfeelingly at your treasured dreams of foreign lands; they brand the statements of your traveled aunts and uncles as the stupidest absurdities; they deride your most trusted authors and demolish the fair images they have set up for your willing worship with the pitiless ferocity of the fanatic iconoclast! But still I love the Old Travelers. I love them for their witless platitudes, for their supernatural ability to bore, for their delightful asinine vanity, for their luxuriant fertility of imagination, for their startling, their brilliant, their overwhelming mendacity!"

Mark Twain, in "The Innocents Abroad."

1 In this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid down grade.

2 Church work and church attendance mean the cultivation of the habit of feeling responsibility for others.

3 There are enough holidays for most of us. Sundays differ from other holidays in the fact that there are fifty-two of them every year. Therefore, on Sundays go to church.

4 Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in a man's own house as well as in church. But I also know, as a matter of cold fact, that the average man does not thus worship.

5 He may not hear a good sermon at church. He will hear a sermon by a good man who, whith his wife, is engaged all of the week in making hard lives a little easier.

6 He will listen to and take part in reading some beautiful passages from the Bible. And if he is not familiar with the Bible he has suffered a loss.

7 He will take part in the singing of some good hymns.

8 He will meet and nod or speak to good, quiet neighbors. He will come away feeling a little more charitable toward all the world, even toward those excessively foolish young men who regard churchgoing as a soft performance.

9 I advocate a man's joining in church work for the sake of showing his faith by his works.

	Expatriate Archive C… on Expat or Immigrant?
	Robert on Starting To Think The New York…
	rob on Starting To Think The New York…
	dougindeap on “Americans United”…
	justturnright on Starting To Think The New York…

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Apr				Jun »
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

Atlantic Crossings

~ Between the Hudson Highlands and the South of England...

Daily Archives: May 5, 2010

Asparagus Heads

Follow “Atlantic Crossings”