You know when you have a cat that likes to go around wearing a shark outfit, and like to supervise the vacuum cleaner.
That’s a cool cat. This is really odd, but I was strangely captivated by it. I hope you like it too.
Happy Friday.
Tag: just
Robin Williams and a sad end
I want to say something substantial about the life and death of Robin Williams, but I’m still reflecting on it. It’s too big.
My brain is stumbling and stuttering on it all.
Here’s a short something that’s been percolating today and I hope to find more thoughtful things to say later. It’s just sad and it’s hard to write when I’m sad.
A life cut short is sad and tragic. But, a life negated (taken. i.e. in a murder of one’s self) instead of lived is incomprehensible. Incomprehensible to a healthy mind.
The instinct to live is so primal that we avoid accidents and death reflexively. A deer crosses our path and we slam on the brakes without ever thinking that we are making the choice to save our lives. We duck when we hear loud sounds.
But, too much thinking that can go badly.
Depression is illness. One that kills. It grabs hard and won’t let go. Chronic depression is like a blindness that never really ends until you do. You can get through life, but you are impaired the whole time.
Having struggled with it in fits and stages since early adolescence, I’m more devastated by the idea of depression beating Williams than I thought I’d be. I also compensated for it all by trying to be the funniest person in the room.
Eventually, I looked for healing instead. Sometimes I feel like I’ve found it, at least in part.
“[of Depression] All it wants is to get you in a room alone and kill you.” –Harvey Fierstein
May his soul be now at peace.
Funny Friday: Lifeguard Pig (video)
When terror strikes and a rescue is needed, you need some one with a cool head.
You need someone who can think and act quickly and expertly, with a keen intelligence.
And, if someone is drowning, you need a good swimmer to lifeguard!
In this case, you need just the right pig.
How about these swimming skills?
Post by Heart 107.3.
Dispatch from Prison: The Question I Couldn’t Answer
“Why don’t people from your church come and help you here? It says it the Bible to visit us…”
A man asked me this question at the end of class.
He was an inmate: a lifer.
Prison is a place of lasting aloneness. A place where you are reminded that you are forgotten.
Trying to overcome it is a big deal.
Volunteer groups are cherished by inmates like fresh air. They thank us each time we come.
I didn’t know how to answer him. I sort of felt crushed.
Not just that he would ask, but that the truth was so simple and unreachable.
He suggested I speak to my church and invite them to participate. I already had.
“It does say that is the Bible. You’re right. I don’t know….
I’m sorry,” I told him.
“What keeps them from coming?” another man asked.
“Maybe because all people know about prison is what they see in movies. Maybe they are afraid.” I said.
That comment incited and 3 page letter the prisoner brought back the next week to help convince people from our church that they were not violent and they were also Christians who love the Lord, were re-paying their debt to society, and wanted the support and Christian brotherhood.
But, nothing like that can be taken out of a prison. (It’s a felony.) He had to keep his correspondence. I thought he was going to cry when he explained that he needed to keep what he wrote. Abandonment? That was probably what I was on his face.
It’s heartbreaking.
But, I also wondered if some of the reasons were really a greater indictment on Christians and human nature.
• Laziness
• Lack of compassion
• Self-centeredness
• Distain for outcasts
Could this be it?
If I asked people from my church, face-to-face this time, what keeps them from being involved, they might say,
“I’m just too busy.”
Or “I’m not really interested in that (in them).”
Or, “I don’t like criminals. They deserve to be where they are and we shouldn’t make things easier for them.”
or maybe,
“I’d rather be doing two million different things than that!”
And whatever the reasons, good or not, they hamper the work of Love.
Funny Friday: Best Man #FAIL (Wedding Disaster)
You wait for your special day for what seems like an eternity.
You what everything to be just perfect…
or you realize that perfection is impossible.
This brief video is basically horrifying as far as “perfect weddings” go…but the only choice for the bride is to have a sense of humor about it.
Why?
There aren’t any options left.
Sure she could be heartbroken, angry, bitter, or embarrassed (or all of the above) but what happened was out of her control and adding drama won’t make anyone feel any better.
Better to admit the humanity of it all, have a good laugh, and make the best of it!
Then, try to have a great party.
(What she did afterward didn’t make it to the footage, but I’d love to know what happened next. Maybe the groom should have jumped in and they could all continue together.
Also, was the aisle buttered of something? CRaZy!
Post by Mustang 87.7.