Somebody Say Grace: Short Story Spiritual Meditations

Jane Finley marked it as to-read Dec 07, Jane marked it as to-read Dec 07, There are no discussion topics on this book yet. About Mary Ann Finley. Books by Mary Ann Finley. Trivia About Somebody Say Grac No trivia or quizzes yet. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Thicker Than Blood Mar 30, Available for download now. Available to ship in days. Thicker Than Blood II: The Rahsurrection Dec 15, Short Story Spiritual Meditations Nov 24, Provide feedback about this page.

There's a problem loading this menu right now. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. Mysticism is a transcendental form of common sense. Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair. From time to time, as we all know, a sect appears in our midst announcing that the world will very soon come to an end. Generally, by some slight confusion or miscalculation, it is the sect that comes to an end. Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.

The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice. It is ludicrous to suppose that the more sceptical we are the more we see good in everything. It is clear that the more we are certain what good is, the more we shall see good in everything. No sceptical philosopher can ask any questions that may not equally be asked by a tired child on a hot afternoon.

It is assumed that the sceptic has no bias; whereas he has a very obvious bias in favour of scepticism. Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making truth the test. The sceptic feels himself too large to measure life by the largest things; and ends by measuring it by the smallest thing of all. A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it. Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions. When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any.

• DYING, SURVIVING, OR AGING WITH GRACE!
• The Strongman?
• Layla.
• 5 Pillars of Success.
• Similar authors to follow?

He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around. A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man. It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them. The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice. It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong. There'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners. The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens. I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish. He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.

An Episcopal church in Goffstown, NH

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is. It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. Ageing isn't that bad if you consider the alternatives. The average man does not know what to do with his life, yet wants another one which will last forever. We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. How many observe Christ's birthday! How few his precepts! Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but live for it. I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows. Anthony, women's rights leader How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all other philosophers are jackasses.

He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself. Mencken, American journalist, essayist, satirist Browne, American humorist Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. The secret of success is this: Life is just one damned thing after another. Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not. Don't be so humble; you are not that great. Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.

A person more interested in himself than in me. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing. I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time. Life is what happens while you are making other plans. The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory. Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. Heinlein, science fiction author A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain-- then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity.

Is that the system? In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: I think it's ironic that the only people who claim that humans are too advanced to have evolved naturally are the ones who demonstrate the least advanced mode of thinking.

Religious belief is a fine guide around which a person might organize his own life, but an awful instrument around which to organize someone else's life. The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish. Philosophy is a set of questions that may never be answered. Religion for most people is a set of answers that may never be questioned. We seem to have enough youth. How about a fountain of smart? There is only one way to find out if a man is honest: If he says yes, you know he is crooked.

Add a few drops of malice to a half truth and you have an abso-lute truth. God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts. Lead me not into temptation. I can find it myself. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to the garage makes you a car. A wise man never knows all; only fools know everything. It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

People who think they know everything are very irritating to those of us who do. How many different Christians does it take to change a light bulb? Charismatics - Only one: Hands are already in the air, Praise Jesus!

See a Problem?

One to change, nine to pray against the spirit of darkness. God has predestined when the lights will be on and off. One to call the electrician, and nine to say how much they like the old one better. One man to change the bulb, and nine wives to tell him how to do it. United Methodists - We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey, you have found that light bulbs work for you, that is fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your relationship with your light bulb, and present it next month at our annual light bulb Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.

Southern Baptists - Change?!?!? How many egotists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? He holds onto the light bulb and waits for the world to revolve around him. How many Marxists does it take to change a lightbulb? The lightbulb contains the seeds of its own revolution. How many Zen Buddhists does it take to change a light bulb? None, they are the light bulb. I keep trying to lose weight I have a weight problem: I can't wait to start eating!!!

Some people are afraid of heights. I'm afraid of widths.

Meditations on Family Spirituality

Never tell your mom her diet's not working. Another good weight reducing exercise consists in placing both hands against the table edge and pushing back. I'm a light eater. When it gets light, I start eating. I'm on a day wonder diet. Thus far, I've lost 45 days. Isn't it weird that 'Stressed' is 'Desserts' spelled backwards? A woman's favorite three words aren't "I love you" but rather: How do these celebrities stay so impossibly thin? They have full-time personal trainers, who advise them on nutrition, give them pep talks, and shoot them with tranquilizer darts whenever they try to crawl, on hunger-weakened limbs, toward the packet of rice cakes that constitutes the entire food supply in their 37,square-foot mansions.

For most celebrities, the biggest meal of the day is toothpaste. Taoist sage Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching , ch. Also from Lao Tzu: Those who cluck do not know. Those who know do not cluck. If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature. To boldly go where no chicken has gone before. To prove she could never reach the other side, given that, before she can get there, she must get halfway there; and before she can get halfway there, she must get a quarter of the way there; and before traveling a quarter, she must travel one-eighth; and Maybe she would like to come live with me Did the chicken cross the road?

Did she cross it with a toad? Martin Luther King Jr.: The road, you will see, represents the black man. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and, by golly, that was good enough for us. Those were simpler times, and we were simpler folks. In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long dream of crossing the road.

Well, I understand that this chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so badly.

• Somebody Say Grace: Short Story Spiritual Meditations.
• Dresden Acres.
• Preparation!

So, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not have to live his life like the rest of the chickens. We just want to know if the chicken is with us or against us. No middle ground here. Dick, do you have your gun handy? Wait a minute now, Dick! Make sure that thing's pointed in the right direction, okay? Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on other side of the road because it was crushed by the monstrous wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.

To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American. Because the chicken was gay! The chicken was going to the other side. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay, too. I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What were your feelings about your mother? To escape the crawling horror lurking on this side of the road, a nameless and foetid monstrosity that cannot be conceived save in the dreams of madness. It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of sports history. An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurrence.

Little chicken, who set thee free To wander here on Highway Three? Driven by the lash of economic necessity, it was historically inevitable. I may not agree with what the chicken did, but I will defend to the death its right to do it! You saw it cross the road with your own eyes! How many more chickens have to cross before you believe it? Mulder, calm down, it was a simple bio-mechanical reflex commonly found in chickens. Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road. Moreover, given our curved universe, if the chicken keeps moving in the same direction, it winds up coming once again to the same road!

Because the chicken is moving sufficiently fast, you can either observe the chicken or you can measure the chicken, but you cannot do both. Jean Paul Sartre not smiling: Do you think you could sit with that chicken in a small room for eternity? My mother died today. The world is absurd. In the reappropriation of the original text of this phenomenon, and being utterly open to its subtext of emptiness and the many, as part of our ongoing postmodernist deconstructionist project, we are interested here only in the actual feathers, tissue, beak, claws, and asphault. Jacques Derrida asked the same Q on another occasion: Rogue cops in the L.

Los Angeles Police Dept. You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

I was playing golf with it at the time. The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated. Yesterday I told a chicken to cross the road. On the monster first hole of play, a par-five fully yards long, Moses hit his drive a whopping yards, right down the fairway's center. Jesus then hit his drive even further, an amazing yards, also right down the middle.

As they approached the area where their golf balls had come to rest, each contemplated their second shot: Moses saw that a large pond lay tucked just before the putting green, making a second shot directly to the green over the water well-nigh impossible. So he took out a mid-iron club and, playing it safely to insure a good third shot, he laid up a nice soft shot ten yards before the pond, leaving him an easy yard pitch-shot to the green. Moses then plays his third shot beautifully, the ball drawing to within a foot of the hole.

Jesus then walks out onto the pond and, miraculously, hits the shallowly submerged ball right up out of the pond, and onto the green, where it then rolls to within just 6 inches away from the hole. Meanwhile, a party of golfers that has teed off behind them and is coming up the fairway sees what has just happened. There were about a dozen items in the original version, some of them not so funny. One wild and crazy night, in a bizarre channeling of some demented humor angel in a combination with my own knowledge of world religions and new religious movements, many elaborations on the theme burst forth.

The newer items on this list were drafted in by Timothy Conway, Ph. If shit happens, you deserve it. Say Hail Marys as penance. Let shit happen to someone else. Why does shit always happen to us? We pray that no more shit will happen, Inshallah! This shit happened before. No shit ever really happened. Let it arise and pass away. Where were you 1, years before the First Big Shit? This is why we channel so much of it through you.

I am so beautifully free of shit. Shit cannot happen to me! So—you have a choice: Fear shit or Love shit. Then you can experience L. Let there be shit. The feminist retort to patriarchalism: What did the birthday girl say in response? Why should peacekeepers keep the peace for themselves when the world needs it so badly nowadays? Love It Or Leave It! It is time for us to emerge from our fearful and powerless hiding places and see the big picture. We have met the Savior and He is Us. I see all these Children of God praying for Jesus to intervene, but we cannot expect to be fed intervenously forever.

Playful adults, that is. I will tell you. Seriousness is the most serious problem we face on the planet today. Every terrorist act -- not to mention terror itself -- begins with seriousness. Everywhere we look, we are faced with laugh-threatening seriousness. Finally, the Swami outlined his plan for conducting the Blisskrieg and waging all out peace.

While it makes no sense to take up arms against warfare, it makes all the sense in the world to lift up arms and embrace anything that nourishes peace. If war is a necessary evil, why not seek peace as a necessary good? We should be putting at least as much energy and money into secretly plotting peace-- sneaking food and clothing into war-torn nations under the cover of darkness, sending tanks to drought-stricken areas so that they can capture rainwater, sending in comedy troops in an all-out amfunniest assault-- and an even more controversial measure, dropping canisters of laughing gas on persistent pockets of seriousness.

Larry Dossey and others who have studied the healing power of prayer, surgery patients who were prayed for tended to heal more quickly. Not only that, but if the people who were doing the praying were also prayed for, results were even better! And it worked regardless of the language or religion they were praying in.

Regardless of who wins the pray-offs, everyone will benefit. Support the Alter Native Economy. So support the alter native economy-- whatever alters the natives for the better. Our lives are byproducts of what we buy. So if you want to counteract the profits of doom, only buy products with healthful and helpful byproducts. And consider trading in your old Dodge for an Evolvo and running your karma on esteem.

Rising esteem can actually improve the overall atmosphere by causing the heart to warm, and the head to cool. This may be the answer to global warming! Support the Peace Effort on the Om Front. Our lives are so filled up with somethings that we have no room for nothing anymore!

Our minds are filled up with information everywhere we go. After a busy day thinking of everything, what a welcome relief it is to think of nothing. So as part of my work on behalf of inner peace, you can now come to my Om Page and download as much healing silence as you need-- absolutely free! And you can do your part for world inner peace by sending some peaceful silence to a friend.

Sure this is a peacemeal approach, but it works. A little peace here, a little peace there, and pretty soon you have one big peaceful meal everywhere. If we truly want to bring about Nonjudgment Day, we need to do whatever we can to increase the laugh force on the planet. Take the funniest jokes from the internet, and share them on the outernet. Commit random acts of harmless comedy. Practice Fun-Shui by creating playful beauty everywhere. Make sure you spend some time each week laughing with friends and loved ones.

Remember that when it comes to laughter, the more the merrier. And remember too, what goes around comes around. In other words, the laugh you save may be your own. After the funeral for a close elder relative , my wife and children stayed home while I had to leave town for three days. As I was driving to the airport, I got really depressed.

Getting onto the plane, I was so depressed, I said a prayer: Goose bumps appeared on my arms. I knew I was in the presence of a miraculous event. The Minister then repeated his question. All responded this time, except one small elderly lady. Are you not willing to forgive your enemies? Jones, that is very unusual. How old are you? Jones, would you please come down in front and tell us all how a person can live ninety-eight years and not have an enemy in the world?

I just outlived them all. I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a thrilling church choir performance, followed by a thunderous prayer meeting, so I bought the sticker and put in on my bumper. I just leaned out of my window and started waving and smiling at all these loving people. I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love. There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a sunny beach I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger stuck up in the air.

When I asked my teenage grandson in the back seat what that meant, he said that it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something.

• ;
• Meditations on Family Spirituality | St. Matthew's.
• Recuperar los sueños (Jazmín) (Spanish Edition).
• Guide to Meditation :: Catholic News Agency.
• Introduction to Meditation;
• You are here;
• Design and Implementation of 3D Graphics Systems.

My grandson burst out laughing, why even he was enjoying this religious experience. A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking towards me. I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended, but this is when I noticed the light had changed. So, I waved to all my sisters and brothers grinning, and drove on through the intersection. I noticed I was the only car that got through the intersection before the light changed again and I felt kind of sad that I had to leave them after all the love we had shared, so I slowed the car down, leaned out of the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away.

Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks! What happens if you cross a Unitarian with a Jehovah's Witness? Someone who goes around knocking on doors—without having anything in particular to say! It creates a hostile work environment! It is a piece of paper that draws the illusion of all mankind. It can buy a House--but not a Home. It can buy a Bed--but not Sleep. It can buy a Clock--but not Time. It can buy you a Book--but not Knowledge. It can buy you a Position--but not Respect. It can buy you Medicine--but not Health. It can buy you Blood--but not Life. It can buy you Sex--but not Love.

And it often causes pain and suffering. I tell you all this because I am your Friend, and as your Friend I want to take away your pain and suffering So send me all your money and I will suffer for you. Along the way, he peers into his widowed mother's bedroom and there, in the dim light, he sees her lying naked on her back, sensuously caressing her thighs, abdomen and breasts with her fingers, moaning, "I want a man! I want a man!

The little boy is puzzled, but continues down the hallway to go relieve himself at the toilet. The next night, during the wee hours, the little boy again is feeling the urge to go urinate. Walking down the hallway, he hears some sounds emanating from his mom's bedroom, and he looks inside to see that his mother is playing amorously with a man.

The little boy does not know what to make of this Then, while urinating, the little boy suddenly gets an inspired idea.

Somebody Say Grace: Short Story Spiritual Meditations by Mary Ann Finley

Finishing off his business, he quickly runs back to his own bedroom, peels off his pajamas, jumps onto his bed, and begins running his fingers along his naked body, moaning: Oh, I want a bicycle!! I have been with a loose woman. The priest sighs in frustration. You cannot attend church for 4 weeks.

Be off with you now. Tommy walks back to his pew. The following conversation ensues: I am 92 years old, have a wonderful wife of 70 years, many children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Yesterday I picked up two college girls hitchhiking. We went to a motel where I had sex with each of them three times. Are you sorry for your sins? What kind of a Catholic are you? Why are you telling me all this? For several minutes they sat silently, then finally the girl looked at the boy and said, "A penny for your thoughts, Ian. The two turned once again to gaze out over the loch. Minutes passed, then the girl spoke again.

Then the two turned once again to gaze out over the loch. After a while, she again said, "Another penny for your thoughts, Ian. Then the two turned once again to gaze out over the loch before the girl spoke again. The young man glanced down with a furled brow. The girl looked away in shyness, began to blush, and bit her lip in anticipation of the ultimate request. And he said, "Din'na ye think it's aboot time ye paid me the first three pennies?

Though they were far from rich, they managed to get by because they watched their pennies. They reached the pearly gates, and St. Peter escorted them inside. He took them to a beautiful mansion, furnished in gold and fine silks, with a fully stocked kitchen and a waterfall in the master bath. A maid could be seen hanging their favorite clothes in the closet.

They gasped in astonishment when St. This will be your home now. Peter to the man. The old man looked around and glanced nervously at his wife. After all, this is Heaven! All you do here is enjoy yourself. We could have been here ten years ago already!