It’s time for another Wednesday audio delivery of Spark My Muse. This is Soul School Lesson 94 [SSL94]
The feature image photo was taken by me during my fun and friendly stay at Pacific Tradewinds Hostel in San Francisco. Make sure to check them out, on 680 Sacramento Street !
THIS IS A VERY SPECIAL “in-betweener” episode! Check out the other one released this week too. • Rolf Potts here!
The Life After Midday Story…
This Autumn, when the giant Christian Broadcasting Network, Moody Radio, suddenly ended the award-winning and popular show for women called Midday Connection, fans were stunned and so were the four hosts of the program. The show ran strong for decades and dealt with tough topics with trustworthy and transformative authenticity, and now it was abruptly over.
In the weeks and months that followed the news (first conveyed confidentially to the hosts a few months earlier) host Lori Neff struggled to find her footing. What was her identity after losing her dream job , her 18-year career, and the interaction with her friends from her job? What should be the new path for her ministry and her life’s work?
In this beautiful episode, Lori conveys to us with her characteristic authenticity and her deep well of spiritual fortitude what was happening during that time, how she has processed the tumult of the upheaval in a way that has best connected with her values, and she reveals her exciting plans for the future (some of which include THIS show). It is an inspiring and a useful model for any of us in a difficult transition or painful situation. Her message will hearten and delight you.
Scroll down to click on the button to listen and see the shownotes below for links to things mentioned in the show.
We had a LIVE online podcast after-party, scroll to the bottom to view the replay!
Thank you for finding Spark My Muse project and listening in. So much is in store. Wonderful guests, new partnerships, and upcoming ways to connect. (Also, check out the community we started HERE.)
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Welcome new listeners. I’m so happy to have you. Creative types and curious listeners…welcome home. Please poke around and get used to the place.
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One more special announcement: I will be interviewing and exuberant and insightful Nicole Unice soon and sharing that with you. She has a new book coming out Brave Enough and we’ll chat about it. Very exciting!
Today’s episode is brought to you by Soul Care for Creators and Communicators
This book offers a new way to see yourself and your calling.
If you are someone who creates and communicates in everyday life, this is a great read you will enjoy!
WINE SEGMENT
Today, I’m answering the big question I’m asked a lot at the Vineyard: how to avoid a red wine headache and why does it really happen.
…and I’m revealing some other facts about wine grapes.
The real reason people get a headache from red wine? Histamines.
They are found in the skins of grapes, can give some people headaches if they are sensitive to histamines. Red wine will affect a histamine sensitive wine drinker more than white wine because red wine has spent more time in contact with grape skins that host the histamines.
Some people think they get headaches because they are allergic to sulfur. Unlikely. But, only 1% of the population has this allergy.
Other facts: A serving of wine has only 80-100 calories
One Case of Wine
=30 pounds of grapes
=48 glasses of wine
=12 bottles of wine[smart_track_player url=”lisadelay.com/blog/2015/05/27/episode-10-wine-headaches-explained-and-interview-with-emily-miller/” social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ]
Sparking your Muse
Today, we welcome journalist, reporter, and writer…
We also chat about why we don’t hear more good news about the church. Her answer is very compelling.
Plus, we talk about her fascinating work with Hope for the First Nations, a nonprofit she founded with some friends right after she graduated high school. They partner with the Anishinaabe people of the White Earth Reservation. At the last board meeting, she was voted in as president!
Please take part in this anonymous 30-second listener-survey so I can continue to fund and produce the show. Once again, thank you so much for listening.
Spark My Muse is now one of the most popular shows in its category on iTunes
(The Society/Culture- Philosophy category! Just like my hero Krista Tippet’s show On Being.)
Whether it’s an Episode of Saturday Night Live, a late night tv host monologue, a webisode, or humor website, one of the many uses of humor one is to prove a point. People who find themselves funny may often aspire to more elevated forms of comedy:
Satire, wit, or something that seems noble.
If not fully noble, then at least something useful for creating meaningful change.
And if not that, then a comic may just try for old fashion notoriety. But, plenty of people simply settle for infamy.
Cuss words, crude jokes, and whatnot. But, in an effort to avoid thorough banlality the aim might be satire.
In the dearth of well-formed, well-put, well-placed, and well-timed, first-rate satire, many hope their wild comedic jabs will do the trick. They don’t.
True and artful satire is really rare; just like true brilliance is rare.
sat•ire(sătˈīrˌ)
►
n.
A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
n.
The branch of literature constituting such works. See Synonyms at caricature.
n.
Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.
On Satire
Besides that, the difference between satirical prowess and just being mean is more of a fine line. One that rests in the subjective ear of the hearer. Vary the audience and you have a flop. Get it right and you can have an impeachment.
I asked my friend Dougto elucidate us on some of the finer points of comic relief.
If any one put this sort of thing on the map, it was Shakespeare.
(Not Billy Crystall, Whoopi Goldberg, and Robin Williams…which was a fund raising thing.)
Either way, I’m soon out of my depth.
• So, what’s the point of (Shakespearean) COMIC RELIEF?
• How does it work, or not work.
• Does it work now?
A modern audience of non-English majors might not get Elizabethan wordplay…a lot of the problem is that people begin with the general idea that this is serious literature and therefore one is not supposed to laugh.
Not true. Sometimes it gets lost in translation.
While many think of comic relief as a literary ploy to give the audience a break from the latest dramatic event (a murder, beheading, or suicide etc), there is more to it.
For starters, says Doug, take the Fool in “King Lear.”
Cambridge poet and scholar Malcolm Guite asserts that, “Shakespeare, with a true understanding of the cross, always puts his greatest wisdom in the mouths of his fools.”
Throughout the early parts of the play the little fellow offers repeated jabs at Lear’s stupidity in attempting to step down from his throne but retain his power.
The idea of “royal retirement” amuses the Fool. Like a standup comedian with no “off” switch, he shoots out one-liners until several different people threaten to have him beaten.
He’s funny. He’s even funny in the howling storm when Lear begins to lose his mind and Edgar pretends to lose his and we do indeed need a break. But the humorous bait conceals a serious barb, both for the characters and the audience. The fool sees what the wise men miss.
Drawing on the common usage of court jester in that day, Shakespeare can deliver a message of great import.
Shakespeare here draws on the origins of the trade. Wealthy people in the medieval world sometimes kept mentally impaired people around because their antics amused their betters.
They could say or do anything and get away with it, basically, on the insanity defense.
Eventually a few very clever people figured out that such a role would allow them to engage in serious political critique without the usual inconveniences of getting exiled or sent to the Tower of London.
The Fool is such a double-dealer, offering a needed message disguised as “mere” comic relief.
Just as it happens today, comedy and the use of humor serves many purposes. Entertainment may be the first one, but a lot more may happen in the process.
In excavating the sites of Elizabethan theaters, archaeologists have found the shattered remains of pottery boxes into which theater patrons would drop their admission fee.
At the end of the night the company would smash the container – like a kid breaking his piggy-bank – and divvy up the night’s take. (This, by the way, is the origin of the term “box office.”)
This little factoid is a reminder that Shakespeare did not so much write for the ages as for the commercial stage. As a professional playwright he had to produce shows that people would pay to see.
His diverse audience wanted action, politics, poetry, and, yes, humor. But with each of these elements he did more than met the eye. His “comic relief” is like drinking sea water: It briefly relieves our thirst for wholeness only in order to make us crave the real thing even more.
It would seem that comic relief still has its place. Jokers ARE wild.
But, whether a comic gives the challenge due diligence is another question.
What’s been your favorite bit of satire, recently?
As promised, I’m giving you a summary of the Wesley Forum I attended on April 7.
Lecturer Dr BenWitherington focused his 3 lectures on The Imago Dei (Image of God)
The 1st session had to do with the Imago Dei seen through archeology.
He spoke about the huge dig at a high place found in Turkey, in 1993, called Gobeckli (click for amazing National Geographic photos and info).
This is probably one of the most significant discoveries since the Rosetta Stone–and I hadn’t even heard of it. Have you?
It invalidates the typical (secular) ideas of how religious and spiritual life emerged among humans.
Social Anthropologists have, until now, thought that religion came after people began farming and wanted to gain control of their unpredictable environment.
It worked like this…so they thought…
• Human stumbles on a new kind of mutated wheat that be more easily harvested.
• They kept the seeds and settled in areas to raise crops.
• They struggled against the harsh elements and began to think of wind, sun, rain, etc as superpowers (i.e. gods)…(superstitious folks).
• They tried to please and apprise the gods to gain better circumstances…and…
• Boom…religion.
You’ve heard this theory before, right?
To Witherington, this recent discovery shows that the need to reconcile with the divine is part of the human experience, not an invention that came at the advent of the agricultural age.
The religion of these high places helped begin civilization, not the other way around.
The oldest part of the Gobecklisite is dated to 10,000-12,000 years ago and is the oldest temple ever found in the world.
That’s old…but how old?
Wrap your brain around this!
It was created before people were living in villages, farming, and before they had domesticated any animals (sheep, dogs, cattle, etc).
People were wandering, gathering, hunting, and trying to connect to the divine…the whole time.
As the highest point in the region and situated between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, I can’t help but wonder if Cain and Able used this very place. It could be just east of Eden. (LD)
Now, think of the age of this place this way:
The site dates to about 6,000 years before the Great Pyramids were created. It’s a time that precedes writing, by thousands of years.
And yes, it’s pre-Noah and the flood.
Giant monoliths, the largest weighing about 50 tons (¡ yikes !), depict a host of detailed carvings of animals. There are also some stylized carvings of people dressed in priestly vestments. Even more tremendous are the enormous erected stones which have holes drilled into them to tie up animals.
But, remember this is a pre-bronze age. Pre-iron age.
How long did it take to make a hole such as this in this rock with just another rock?
These structures are made in a sophisticated fashion. Cave people were smarter than we assume.
It’s astonishing.
But there are not just 1 of these 30 m. circles with 13 massive stones …they have found 17 of them.
Each takes about 3 years to unearth. (Things are just starting to get interesting! In 50 years they still will not be finish. Much more surprises could be in store.)
According to archeologists on the dig, the site was eventually backfilled (purposefully) at a point in human development when villages were being established. It seems that local temples were used at that point.
NOTE: (Witherington believes they were not backfilled purposefully, but that the flood (in Noah’s time) moved sand up to the place from the Tigris River. I, personally, think that the flood would have ruined them and that they were indeed backfilled purposefully [for what specific reason, I don’t know]. To me, this burying is what preserved them so well so we could now find them intact. It’s a crazy amount of work to do such a thing, and I don’t know how they could, but the whole site baffles our understanding, so I haven’t ruled it out.)
Dr Witherington concludes that because of the image of God within us, we desire to commune with God (or gods). We always have.
All the ancient people groups had 3 things:
1. Temples
2. Priests
3. Sacrifices
I will elaborate more on the lectures in the next post and include some of my notes from the other 2 sessions.