Palm Sunday 2010

Palm Sunday, 2010
John 12:1-18

Six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazaros was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Lazaros was one of those at table with him. Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. Jesus said, "Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazaros, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazaros also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

The next day a great crowd who had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!" And Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it; as it is written, "Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt!"

His disciples did not understand this at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that this had been written of him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazaros out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.

Additional Readings for Today:
Matthew 21:1-11; 15-17
St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians 4:4-9

A Clear Assessment of Our Current Condition

This article found at AlterNet provides a clear and concise assessment of our current political, economic and moral condition. NO false hopes or Pollyanna saccharine here. If you only read one political article this year this should be the one.
We Stand on the Cusp of one of Humanity's Most Dangerous Moments by Chris Hedges

QUOTE Democracy, a system ideally designed to challenge the status quo, has been corrupted and tamed to slavishly serve the status quo. We have undergone, as John Ralston Saul writes, a coup d’état in slow motion. And the coup is over. They won. We lost. The abject failure of activists to push corporate, industrialized states toward serious environmental reform, to thwart imperial adventurism or to build a humane policy toward the masses of the world’s poor stems from an inability to recognize the new realities of power. The paradigm of power has irrevocably altered and so must the paradigm of resistance alter. UNQUOTE

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Host Rant

I have just returned to the restaurant business after a 34+ year absence, I am now semi-retired and part time hosting suits the ticket. WHAT an education I am getting, folks. I work for perfectly nice, normal Midwestern restaurant owners who seem to think that one is a slacker if one doesn't work manually, with psychotic waiters and customers, all day on one's feet while maintaining a perfect equilibrium and the Wa of a Buddhist monk. We'll see how I acclimate myself to the lay of the land...hopefully things will level out soon.

Great host rant here.

QUOTE Since I am working to this new exciting restaurant currently ... I am learning quite a few things and start to understand why the book "Waiter Rant" is written ....A host/hostess is a person who welcomes the customers at the door and show their tables based on a rotating order divided by the number of waiters in each section. This job is pretty much simple once getting used to the table numbers and know how to divide the sections. However, it needs high strength of self control, fairness and assertiveness. UNQUOTE

All Sweeteners Are Not Created Equal

From the health and welfare department here at The Rosemary Tree - A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain
QUOTE In results published online March 18 by the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, the researchers from the Department of Psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute reported on two experiments investigating the link between the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup and obesity. UNQUOTE
The corn industry has had its PR machine in overdrive on this one for years, but now with heavy hitter Princeton University weighing in, it is only a matter of time before this becomes common knowledge. Actually it has been known intuitively for yeats, to wit, the common phrase for someone who is huge being "corn-fed". Avoid high fructose corn syrup, read those labels.

A Blessed Saint Patrick's Day to Ye

May the good Padraigh and all the Irish saints pray extra hard for ye this day, God knows ye mought be needing it. Mind ye don't drink more than ye can hold, now. HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY! Sláinte mhaith!
Irish graffitti...
"I blew hundreds of thousands of pounds on women and drinking - and the rest I just squandered." -George Best (footballer)

"It has been scientifically proven that people who don't drink and don't smoke live longer - and it serves them right!" - Moss Keane, Irish Rugby

"Apostles of freedom are ever iolized when dead, but crucified when alive." -
James Connolly, Patriot

"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." - Oscar Wilde

"Making peace, I have found, is much harder than making war." - Gerry Adams, Northern Ireland Politician

Countdown to Saint Patrick's Day

2010 Saint Patrick's Day celebrations worldwide!!

Chasing the Wind in a Phone Booth

A bout of ear infections, a new job hosting at Stauffer's, and burgeoning geekly responsibilities (blogs, FB pages, groups to administer, comments to moderate yadda yadda yadda)and another week has flown by. Feel like I am trying to sprint in a phone booth, and so I hope all my friends out there on The Internets are well, happy, have someone to love you and are doing good work.

Peace out, yo.

Here's my prayer for the day, from Ortha nan Gaidheal :

COME I THIS DAY
Come I this day to the Father
Come I this day to the Son,
Come I to the Holy Spirit powerful;
Come I this day with God,
Come I this day with Christ,
Come I with the Spirit of kindly bairn.
God, and Spirit, and Jesus,
From the crown of my head
To the soles of my feet;
Come I with my reputation,
Come I with my testimony,
Come I to Thee, Jesu -
Jesu, shelter me.

Fighting the Lenten Battles

Everyone who enters the Lenten desert consciously and who wills to more fully conform his or her self to the image of the Christos will have confronted by this third Tuesday in Lent, some of their worst inner enemies. We have repentence, penitence and remorse over our sins. The dark shadows of addictions, old wounds and scars, sins and omissions with their karmic aftermath, thought and behavior patterns which are less than exemplary - I have managed to wrestle with at least one of each of them by now this Lent. Some of them several times. But allowing a metamorphosis to take place by the grace of God and by surrendering to a higher power and one's own higher self (soul)is what is required of us. This is not self-help, but rather surrender to the Divine Wow. Metanoia and transformation into a new creature. This is the Lenten Spring.
DJY
Readings for today.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates said that at his trial for heresy.

We cannot procrastinate until tomorrow. For we know not what the next day will bring. Nor should we say, let us conquer a certain habit “little by little”, since this “little by little” will never come to an end
- St. John Chrysostom
photo credit: Loriannloo
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