What to Wear

The moment I wake up

Before I put on my makeup

I say a little pray for you

While combing my hair now

And wondering what dress to wear now

I say a little prayer for you

Or

Tumble outta bed and I stumble to the kitchen

Pour myself a cup of ambition

Yawn and stretch and try to come to life

Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin'

Out on the street the traffic starts jumpin'

With folks like me on the job from 9 to 5

While neither of these actually fits my morning routine, they often do pop into my head as I am laying out my clothes for the next day. I had to really contemplate what I was going to wear today. It’s kind of a special day at the office. The candidates for our new director will be in this week: today, Wednesday, and Friday. Today’s candidate is the favored one at this point in the process. We actually attended the same graduate school, and I want to impress him considering that I want him as my new boss. I hope he holds up to what we think of him so far. One of the difficult things about this process is that we have an internal candidate. And as much as I may like him, I don’t want him as my boss. I don’t think he’s ready for the position. Whoever becomes director, I will only have to deal with them for a few months since I will be out at the end of October. Hopefully, whoever the successful candidate is, I can deal with them for the next six months.

By Himself

And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray. (KJV) ( Mark 6:46 ) 

Prior to this verse Jesus had performed a miracle by feeding thousands with only a bit of food.  His immediate reaction is to draw away to pray and rest.  Praying has a way of filling you up with energy, restoring, and recharging.  It's very important if we have intense schedules or physically demanding duties, we take time to reconnect with God and restore ourselves.  If you are able, take today to draw away, in order to draw close to the Lord.  If today isn't possible, plan a day this week to do this. 

Moment of Zen: That Smile

History

I’m off work today but have to work tomorrow. Do you know what that means? If you’ve been following this blog then you know I’m taking a museum studies class, and I have to go to a museum each week. So if you guessed that I’m going to a museum, then you’d be right. This week, it’s a history museum. I will be going to the Vermont Historical Society. It’s just up the road in Montpelier, so hopefully, it will be a nice trip.

Prohibition Pig

One of the problems in Vermont is there are very few places where you can get really good food, which is why I cook myself more than eating out. Every once in while though you find a real gem. Last night I found one such gem, Prohibition Pig in Waterbury. Prohibition Pig is known for their BBQ and beer. They have their own brewery in the back and brew up numerous Prohibition Pig beers, though they serve it in very small glasses. I don’t drink beer so, I didn’t have any. However, what I did have was their chopped BBQ pork, which was outstanding. It was spicy without being too spicy and their bacon BBQ sauce was delicious. With my chopped pork, I had collard greens, cheddar grits, and hush puppies. The collard greens were good, but not great. The cheddar grits were not grits and in my opinion were close to inedible. The hush puppies, however, tasted almost like my grandmothers, though they were very oddly shaped. Hush puppies should be close to round, these were shaped like ginger fingers. The BBQ pork was definitely the star, along with their delicious sweet iced tea. If you are ever in Waterbury, Vermont, I highly recommend that you check out Prohibition Pig.

The Tree of Knowledge

The Tree of Knowledge

by Shane McCrae

The hastily assembled angel saw
One thing was like another thing and that
Thing like another everything depend-
ed on how high it was the place you saw

Things from and he had seen the Earth from where
A human couldn’t see the Earth and could-
n’t tell most human things apart and though
He hadn’t ever really understood

His job he knew it had to do with seeing
And what he saw was everything would come
Together at the same time everything
Would fall apart and that was humans thinking

The world was meant for them and other things
Were accidental or were decora-
tions meant for them and therefore purposeful
That humans thought that God had told them so

And what the hastily assembled angel
Thought was that probably God had said the same thing
To every living thing on Earth and on-
ly stopped when one said Really back but then

Again the hastily assembled angel
Couldn’t tell human things apart and maybe
That Really mattered what would he have heard
Holy or maybe Folly or maybe Kill

About This Poem

“‘The Tree of Knowledge’ is part of a tiny sequence of poems featuring a being I call ‘the hastily assembled angel.’ A lot of the poems I’ve been writing lately seem to me to be very belated responses to the Martian poetry that briefly appeared in the United Kingdom about forty years ago, and so feature protagonists to whom Earth seems even more strange than it seems to people who live on Earth in a more everyday way. If our country is going to be led by a comic-book villain, our poems might as well be filled with Martians.”
—Shane McCrae

Shane McCrae is the author, most recently, of The Gilded Auction Block forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux and In the Language of My Captor (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York City.

Seeds of Deeds

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise. (KJV) ( Proverbs 11:30 ) 

Has someone done something thoughtful for you lately?  Have they gone out of their way for you?  It's easy to keep moving on or get busy and forget about recognizing them.  However, it's important to express to them your grateful heart.  Put a little thought into how you want to express your gratitude through friendship. 

Daily Devotional App

Moment of Zen: Sauna

When I was in graduate school, we had a great gym at the university and I used to love to go to the sauna and relax after a hard workout.

Goodbye, Mrs. Bush

Barbara Bush, the widely admired wife of one president and the fiercely loyal mother of another, died Tuesday evening. She was 92.

During her husband's 1992 presidential campaign, Barbara Bush stated that abortion and homosexuality are personal matters and argued that the Republican Party platform should not take a stand on them, saying that "The personal things should be left out of, in my opinion, platforms and conventions." Her personal views on abortion were not known, although her friends reported at that time that she "privately supported abortion rights." She explained, "I hate abortions, but I just could not make that choice for someone else.”

Not everyone liked her because she was outspoken and loyal to her family, but I always thought of her as a true lady who spoke her mind.

The Mock Song

BY JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER

I swive as well as others do, 

I’m young, not yet deformed, 

My tender heart, sincere, and true, 

Deserves not to be scorned. 

Why Phyllis then, why will you swive, 

With forty lovers more? 

Can I (said she) with Nature strive, 

Alas I am, alas I am a whore. 

Were all my body larded o’er, 

With darts of love, so thick, 

That you might find in ev’ry pore, 

A well stuck standing prick; 

Whilst yet my eyes alone were free, 

My heart, would never doubt, 

In am’rous rage, and ecstasy, 

To wish those eyes, to wish those eyes fucked out.

John Wilmot (1 April 1647 – 26 July 1680) was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II's Restoration court. The Restoration reacted against the "spiritual authoritarianism" of the Puritan era. Rochester was the embodiment of the new era, and he is as well known for his rakish lifestyle as his poetry, although the two were often interlinked. He died at the age of 33 from venereal disease.