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brookstonalmanac · 3 years

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Events 7.1

AD 69 – Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as Emperor. 552 – Battle of Taginae: Byzantine forces under Narses defeat the Ostrogoths in Italy, and the Ostrogoth king, Totila, is mortally wounded. 1097 – Battle of Dorylaeum: Crusaders led by prince Bohemond of Taranto defeat a Seljuk army led by sultan Kilij Arslan I. 1431 – The Battle of La Higueruela takes place in Granada, leading to a modest advance of the Kingdom of Castile during the Reconquista. 1520 – Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan after nightfall. 1523 – Jan van Essen and Hendrik Vos become the first Lutheran martyrs, burned at the stake by Roman Catholic authorities in Brussels. 1569 – Union of Lublin: The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania confirm a real union; the united country is called the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Republic of Both Nations. 1643 – First meeting of the Westminster Assembly, a council of theologians ("divines") and members of the Parliament of England appointed to restructure the Church of England, at Westminster Abbey in London. 1690 – Glorious Revolution: Battle of the Boyne in Ireland (as reckoned under the Julian calendar). 1766 – François-Jean de la Barre, a young French nobleman, is tortured and beheaded before his body is burnt on a pyre along with a copy of Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique nailed to his torso for the crime of not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession in Abbeville, France. 1770 – Lexell's Comet is seen closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 astronomical units (2,180,000 km; 1,360,000 mi). 1782 – Raid on Lunenburg: American privateers attack the British settlement of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. 1819 – Johann Georg Tralles discovers the Great Comet of 1819, (C/1819 N1). It was the first comet analyzed using polarimetry, by François Arago. 1837 – A system of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths is established in England and Wales. 1846 - Adolphe Sax patents the saxophone. 1855 – Signing of the Quinault Treaty: The Quinault and the Quileute cede their land to the United States. 1858 – Joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society of London. 1862 – The Russian State Library is founded as the Library of the Moscow Public Museum. 1862 – Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, second daughter of Queen Victoria, marries Prince Louis of Hesse, the future Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse. 1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Malvern Hill takes place. It is the last of the Seven Days Battles, part of George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. 1863 – Keti Koti (Emancipation Day) in Suriname, marking the abolition of slavery by the Netherlands. 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Gettysburg begins. 1867 – The British North America Act takes effect as the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia join into confederation to create the modern nation of Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Canada. This date is commemorated annually in Canada as Canada Day, a national holiday. 1870 – The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence. 1873 – Prince Edward Island joins into Canadian Confederation. 1874 – The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful typewriter, goes on sale. 1878 – Canada joins the Universal Postal Union. 1879 – Charles Taze Russell publishes the first edition of the religious magazine The Watchtower. 1881 – The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States. 1881 – General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell and Childers reforms of the British Army, comes into effect. 1885 – The United States terminates reciprocity and fishery agreement with Canada. 1885 – The Congo Free State is established by King Leopold II of Belgium. 1890 – Canada and Bermuda are linked by telegraph cable. 1898 – Spanish–American War: The Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. 1901 – French government enacts its anti-clerical legislation Law of Association prohibiting the formation of new monastic orders without governmental approval. 1903 – Start of first Tour de France bicycle race. 1908 – SOS is adopted as the international distress signal. 1911 – Germany despatches the gunship SMS Panther to Morocco, sparking the Agadir Crisis. 1915 – Leutnant Kurt Wintgens of the then-named German Deutsches Heer's Fliegertruppe army air service achieves the first known aerial victory with a synchronized machine-gun armed fighter plane, the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker. 1916 – World War I: First day on the Somme: On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 19,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded. 1922 – The Great Railroad Strike of 1922 begins in the United States. 1923 – The Parliament of Canada suspends all Chinese immigration. 1931 – United Airlines begins service (as Boeing Air Transport). 1931 – Wiley Post and Harold Gatty become the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a single-engined monoplane aircraft. 1932 – Australia's national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, was formed. 1935 – Regina, Saskatchewan police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police ambush strikers participating in the On-to-Ottawa Trek. 1942 – World War II: First Battle of El Alamein. 1942 – The Australian Federal Government becomes the sole collector of income tax in Australia as State Income Tax is abolished. 1943 – The City of Tokyo and the Prefecture of Tokyo are both replaced by the Tokyo Metropolis. 1946 – Crossroads Able is the first postwar nuclear weapon test. 1947 – The Philippine Air Force is established. 1948 – Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Quaid-i-Azam) inaugurates Pakistan's central bank, the State Bank of Pakistan. 1949 – The merger of two princely states of India, Cochin and Travancore, into the state of Thiru-Kochi (later re-organized as Kerala) in the Indian Union ends more than 1,000 years of princely rule by the Cochin royal family. 1957 – The International Geophysical Year begins. 1958 – The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation links television broadcasting across Canada via microwave. 1958 – Flooding of Canada's Saint Lawrence Seaway begins. 1959 – Specific values for the international yard, avoirdupois pound and derived units (e.g. inch, mile and ounce) are adopted after agreement between the US, the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries. 1960 – The Trust Territory of Somaliland (the former Italian Somaliland) gains its independence from Italy. Concurrently, it unites as scheduled with the five-day-old State of Somaliland (the former British Somaliland) to form the Somali Republic. 1960 – Ghana becomes a republic and Kwame Nkrumah becomes its first President as Queen Elizabeth II ceases to be its head of state. 1962 – Independence of Rwanda and Burundi. 1963 – ZIP codes are introduced for United States mail. 1963 – The British Government admits that former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet agent. 1966 – The first color television transmission in Canada takes place from Toronto. 1967 – Merger Treaty: The European Community is formally created out of a merger with the Common Market, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Commission. 1968 – The United States Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program is officially established. 1968 – The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is signed in Washington, D.C., London and Moscow by sixty-two countries. 1968 – Formal separation of the United Auto Workers from the AFL–CIO in the United States. 1972 – The first Gay pride march in England takes place. 1976 – Portugal grants autonomy to Madeira. 1978 – The Northern Territory in Australia is granted self-government. 1979 – Sony introduces the Walkman. 1980 – "O Canada" officially becomes the national anthem of Canada. 1983 – A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea crashes into the Fouta Djallon mountains in Guinea-Bissau, killing all 23 people on board. 1984 – The PG-13 rating is introduced by the MPAA. 1987 – The American radio station WFAN in New York City is launched as the world's first all-sports radio station. 1990 – German reunification: East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany. 1991 – Cold War: The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague. 1997 – China resumes sovereignty over the city-state of Hong Kong, ending 156 years of British colonial rule. The handover ceremony is attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Charles, Prince of Wales, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. 1999 – The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Elizabeth II on the day that legislative powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh. In Wales, the powers of the Welsh Secretary are transferred to the National Assembly. 2002 – The International Criminal Court is established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. 2002 – Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, a Tupolev Tu-154, and DHL Flight 611, a Boeing 757, collide in mid-air over Überlingen, southern Germany, killing all 71 on board both planes. 2003 – Over 500,000 people protest against efforts to pass anti-sedition legislation in Hong Kong. 2004 – Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini–Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:48 UTC. 2006 – The first operation of Qinghai–Tibet Railway is conducted in China. 2007 – Smoking in England is banned in all public indoor spaces. 2008 – Riots erupt in Mongolia in response to allegations of fraud surrounding the 2008 legislative elections. 2013 – Croatia becomes the 28th member of the European Union. 2020 – The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement replaces NAFTA.

#Events

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pirate-autobot · 7 years

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The Experiment: Ch. 13

Okay. I am sooo sorry this took so long!

The Captain Underpants Gem au is by @angerydj

With infant gems coming into their powers, it did not take long for the teachers and Red Agate to realize some of them would be elemental. A class had to be moved outside because of an embarrassed ruby who got too hot for anyone to handle.

Of course, the humans already had an answer to any problems dealing with interior temperatures. So the scientists and engineers of the colony installed into the school and air conditioning unit that stretched through every hall into every class and every other room, too. Even Red Agates office had it.

Of course the bismuth who explained the system to him reminded him the vent in his office was to keep the infants cool, in case he lost his. He was able to control his rooms temperature on his datapad. Red Agate was also given a little fan to help him cool down if he got too hot.

Harold and Geo-Yellow Sapphire and Red Zircon of course took advantage of the air conditioning not even a week after it was installed. Red Agate shuddered at the horrible stench the school was plagued with.

But now. After all this time. The infants were caught! He had them right where he wanted them!

With Red Zircon and Yellow Sapphire sittings in front of him, he gently dropped the temperature of the room. Red Agate crossed his hands, leaned forward on its desk, and cracked an unsettling grin at them.

“What’s he doing with his face?” Zircon whispered

“I... I think he’s smiling.” Sapphire answered. He shivered slightly at the cold air. “So cold. So cold!” The infants rubbed their arms, trying to warm up. Red Agate chuckled.

“I’ll just let myself in, receptionist gem.” Melvi-Orange Peridot said, striding into the office confidently. The little turtle drone followed him in.

“What is he doing here?” Red Zircon said

“Why, the little peridot has worked very hard on his inventions. But he had another one, a little extra credit piece, that I commissioned myself.” Red Agate leaned closer to the peridot who looked as smug as ever. The little drone stopped in front of the desk.

“I call it the Tattle-Turtle 200.” Melvin picked up the drone to show the gems. “On the outside, it looks like a normal Earth turtle, but inside,” Orange Peridot took the smiling turtle head off of the drone, revealing a camera with a glowing red lens, “oh, look at that, it’s an infant cam!”

Red Agate felt like giggling seeing Red Zircon and Yellow Sapphires looks of pure shock and terror. He had them, he had them!

“Oh Melvin, what a delight! I wonder what it could have recorded!” Red Agate said gleefully.

Red Agate activated the drones holoscreen, getting ready to see what was recorded. He would finally have evidence! Proof that these gems were the worst cuts around! He would show this to the council and... why wasn’t it working?

“Hang on.” He mumbled, trying to figure out how the tech works.

“You just have to-” Orange Peridot started

“I got it.” Red Agate responded, before an error message showed up on the screen.

“It should work for any gem.” Orange Peridot commented

“I think I know how gem tech works, Sneedly.” Red Agate snapped

The screen suddenly showed Red Zircon and Yellow Sapphire huddled behind the toilet invention, tools in hand.

“Screwdriver.” Yellow Sapphire said, fiddling with the inner workings of the invention.

“Is this one ply, or two?” Red Zircon asking, shoving toilet paper into the machine.

“We are so guilty!” Yellow Sapphire softly laughed

“Quiet fives!” They both whispered before crawling away, their work done.

Red Agate smiled at the gems.

“Wow. You can... you can really tell... that’s us.” Red Zircon said in shocked awe.

“That definition... it’s nice.” Yellow Sapphire added

“I can’t believe it. I’ve got you!” Red Agate said happily

“We’ve got them, sir.” Orange Peridot reminded him.

“Of course Melvin, thank you.” Red Agate pulled the extra credit from his shirt pocket Andy tossed it to the peridot, “Extra credit, granted!”

Orange Peridot happily caught it. He smiled at the boy sand bound to the door.

“Extra credited and it feels so good!” He said cheerfully beforehand leaving.

“What are you going to do?” Red Zircon asked

“Tell our parents?” Yellow Sapphire added

They held each other’s hands. They were afraid.

Good.

Not good.

VERY GOOD!

Wait, that’s it!

“No. Obviously, they failed you both when it came to raising you.” Red Agate strode around his desk to stand behind the infants. “I have a more fitting punishment in mind.” He placed his hand s one the back seat of their chairs. “I’m going to have you both placed in separate,” he pushed the chairs apart for emphasis, “Classes!” The infants gasped. Red Agate couldn’t hold it in any more. He started laughing maniacally. “I’m going to annihilate your friendship!”

“You can’t!” Yellow Sapphire begged

“This is cruel! Even for you!” Red Zircon begged

“You see? You won’t be together, you won’t pull pranks, and ruin my life.” Red Agate said with a growl at the end. He went back to his desk to sit down.

“No! This is not fair! I won’t let you do this!” Red Zircon yelled, his gem glowing. Instinctively, he reached for it. To his surprise, he summoned a whip. Red Agate raised an eyebrow.

“Told you it’d be a whip.” Yellow Sapphire commented

But now that he had it in his hand, Red Zircon had no idea what to do with it.

“Really?” Red Agate asked.

He stood up and clicked his heels together. With no effort, he summoned his own, cracking it on the ground as he pulled it from his gem. Geor-Red Zircon shielded his eyes from the sparks.

“You really want to try something, bub?” He asked, “Go ahead.”

Red Zircon looked away. He glanced at Red Agate briefly, but couldn’t bear the heat that was building in the gems form. Yellow Sapphire climbed out of his chair and grabbed Red Zircon hand. The whip vanished from his grasp.

“Didn’t think so.” Red Agate said with a chuckle. “Enjoy your weekend, infants. Because come Monday, your worlds will come crashing down around you.”

#captain underpants #gem au #red Agate!Krupp #mr. krupp #Red Zircon!George #George #Yellow Sapphire!Harold #Harold #Orange Peridot!Melvin #Melvin

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junker-town · 5 years

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9 thoughts I had watching ‘Little Giants’ for the first time

Little Giants takes place in the fictional town of Urbania, Ohio, where everyone has strange food traditions. | Warner Brothers production / SB Nation illustration

This movie is great.

I just finished watching Little Giants for the first time, and I’ve got to say it’s an absolute delight. It spreads the message of teamwork and determination, but also the problem with boomers and rampant corn wastage.

If you haven’t seen the movie, lemme give you the elevator pitch: A team of “losers,” coached by a “loser,” band together to beat a team of “winners” in a game of pee-wee football. In the end, everyone learns that friendship and family is the real prize.

Watching as an adult for the first time, here are my thoughts!

Kevin is a sad, sad dude.

Kevin O’Shea (Ed O’Neill) is unquestionably the tragic figure in this film. A star football player, we’re never told what caused Kevin to flame out of the NFL. Everyone talks about his high school career and the fact he won the Heisman, but he obviously didn’t make an impact in the pros. Instead, he moved back to Urbania, Ohio, started a Chevrolet dealership, and exists in a local diner to keep reminding old dudes that he was a legend. Even they’re growing tired of his shtick.

Kevin is a joke to his family, annoys almost everyone around him, and he’s only regarded highly by his brother, Danny (Rick Moranis), and assistant pee-wee coach Harold Butz (Joe Bays). The movie positions him as this winner, which I’m sure resonated with kids watching the movie — but to me, I couldn’t reconcile the inescapable sadness of this dude. He literally has nothing to live for but coaching this pee-wee team to try and cling to his fading glory. I struggle to find anything in this world sadder than people who are in their 30s and 40s excitedly recalling high school stories because they have achieved so little of note in the 20 years since.

It’s OK to dislike Kevin, though, because he’s a sexist asshole. He decides not to pick Becky “Icebox” O’Shea (Shawna Waldron) to be a member of his team, only because she’s a girl. This is his own niece, and Icebox friggin’ owns. She’s better than every kid in town, but she doesn’t make the team because of gender.

“Danny, I hate to break it to you, but Icebox is a girl. Now, maybe if you’d start treating her like a girl, she’d start acting like one.”

Kevin’s wife, Karen, even confronts him at dinner about not picking Icebox and he doubles down on the decision. He’s aptly called a chauvinist, and then we get to the most disturbing moment of the movie.

WHY DOES THE O’SHEA FAMILY NEED SO MUCH CORN?!

At the 13:11 mark of the movie, we’re introduced to an ordinary, run-of-the-mill dinner scene. I’ll admit I’ve never had this kind of nuclear family, serving-dish dinner thing — but this is a mess nonetheless. Four people are at the table: Kevin, Karen, and their daughters, Debbie and Priscilla. Nobody else is expected, and there is no mention of this being a special occasion or gathering.

I stopped multiple times while watching to ensure the veracity of the corn count. The count is solid, the count is good. So why the hell did the O’Shea family prepare 11 ears of corn for dinner? It’s such an oddly specific number. Who goes to the store and is like “11 ears of corn, please”?

This entire dinner scene is a mess. They’re eating ham, turkey, corn, broccoli, salad, rolls, mashed potatoes — there are TWO gravy boats on the table. This is a Thanksgiving spread on a weeknight. No wonder boomers robbed this earth of all its natural resources and put humanity on the brink of extinction.

The unexpected monologue about infertility and miscarriage, in a children’s movie.

At 24:32, Cheryl Berman brings her son, Jake, to the garage for football practice. Jake, a hacking and wheezing nerd, is the son of a hypochondriac who spends A FULL 2 MINUTES explaining to Danny about how Jake was almost a miscarriage.

“You can’t be too cautious. After all, we never thought we’d have children. Not after trying for 13 years. It was me. When I finally did get pregnant, the doctor ordered me off to bed. I spent nine miserable months on my back. If I’d rolled over I could have lost him. And the birth ... God only knows the pain. He weighed only 1 pound, 11 ounces — he spent the first six weeks of his life in an incubator — and I think football is just the medicine for him.”

Hey Little Giants, YOU’RE A KIDS MOVIE. Was this supposed to pull adults in? You know there are so many ways you can establish Jake being a germ kid without his mom giving a damn monologue on how he almost died in the womb. Jesus.

The weirdest grocery store in the world.

In dire need of a quarterbacks, some kids find Junior (Devon Sawa) at a grocery store throwing rolls of toilet paper into a grocery cart. Certified dreamboat Junior is the focus of this scene, but I couldn’t concentrate because of this stores shelves.

How many egg noodles are the people of Urbania consuming? Now, if we’re to assume that Urbania is basically Urbana, Ohio, then the population is somewhere around 12,000. There are 456 visible units of egg noodles on the shelf as Icebox walks past.

I went to my local store in Greenville, NC — population 93,000. There were 30 packages of egg noodles on the shelf split across brands. This means that expected egg noodle consumption in Urbania is 119 times greater than Greenville.

They also need boatloads of vegetable oil and applesauce too, apparently.

The only inference I can make from this is that Oily Apple Noodles is the town dish.

The secret weapon is a roided up child monster.

We’re basically at the midpoint of the movie, and Kevin’s Cowboys are starting to get a little concerned with Danny’s Giants. After a “hilarious” scheme where Danny calls the cops and infers that his own brother is a child molester spying on the kids, both are trying to find an edge.

And yes, there’s a surprise waiting for both of them: Spike, an adult-sized running back who just arrived in town with a flat-top sporting dad who’s bred him into being a football machine through the time-honored tradition of being a horrible parent.

The first time we see Spike on screen, he’s carrying a refrigerator out of the back of a U-Haul and scowling the entire time. This is not a happy child, and yet Danny can’t wait to get him on the team — even lying to ensure it’s a possibility.

Naturally, this all unravels. Spike is too aggressive, can only speak in the third person, and threatens everyone. He is a demonstrably horrible human — and it’s not his fault.

Urbania, home of giant ice.

We’ve already established that this town has some weird food traditions, but it turns out this extends to ice too.

Look at the size of those cubes in Becky’s soda. What is up with this diner that you order a drink and get two whiskey cubes?

Everything in this town is strange.

Enter John Madden and friends.

The Little Giants are at a crossroads. Torn apart by Spike’s attitude, they decide football isn’t fun anymore and walk away from the game. Thankfully, in a stunning case of deus ex Maddena, John Madden and a group of football stars are taking the bus to Canton for a Hall of Fame banquet. Lost, and in dire need of directions, Madden and Co. decide helping a pee-wee football team is more important than their prior commitment and meet with the team.

It’s unclear exactly what the NFL players add to the Little Giants. We’ll get to this later.

Someone PLEASE help these kids understand human sexuality.

So we’ve established that Becky is head-over-heels for Junior. The two meet at the side of the lake and talk about kissing, in a scene designed to tease a potential love angle in the film. Then we get this, utterly baffling exchange.

Junior: You want to learn how to kiss!? Becky: Hey, we’re going to have to learn how to do it sooner or later. I mean, you know, if you want to have kids and get a job and stuff. Junior: You can have kids without kissing. Becky: Yeah, but you can’t get a job.

Oh God, there’s a lot to unpack here. No matter which way you slice it, these kids are woefully confused about what it takes to start a career. Maybe the job market in Urbania circa 1994 was different, but the idea that you can’t get a job without kids is some backwards-ass thinking if even I’ve seen it.

The Battle for Urbania.

With 37 minutes remaining, we finally get to the big game between the Cowboys and the Little Giants, taking place on the world’s nicest pee-wee football field. The Giants are without Icebox, because Becky has decided to be a cheerleader instead of a player in an effort to make Junior think of her more like a girl.

Icebox, if he doesn’t like you for playing football, he doesn’t deserve you.

There is literally nothing else to do in Urbania, because the almost entire town has shown up — and those who can’t be there can listen to it on the radio because there’s an actual radio announcer FOR A CHILD’S FOOTBALL GAME.

This announcer (Harry Shearer of The Simpsons fame) is super inappropriate too. After one of the Giants is kicked in the groin he says:

“Someone’s holding about a pound of Aunt Betty’s nut butter right now.”

SIR, YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT A CHILD!

The Giants get utterly demolished in the first half, and they want to quit. Danny delivers a motivational speech, telling his team that while they might not be better overall, you never know what can happen in a game. Maybe, just maybe they can beat the Cowboys — once. That’s all it takes.

Amped up and ready to go, we hit the second half and the Giants look like a different team. It’s at this point the Giants call the cruelest play in the history of football at any level. Johnny has been established as a fairly somber kid. All he wants is his dad to notice him, but his dad is always leaving on business. Sad woodwind music accompanies all his scenes, and it’s a tragic B plot in the movie.

Johnny gets the handoff and lo and behold, his dad is back and waiting in the end zone. It’s here where Becky yells: “Just run to him!” Yes, the Giants are leveraging Johnny’s feelings of inadequacy and loneliness to win. It’s tragic.

Johnny, Johnny? Yes, papa? Scoring touchdowns? Yes, papa Telling lies? No, papa I love you now. WAA WAA WAA

Finally, after its presence being teased all movie long, we finally get to see “The Annexation of Puerto Rico,” the trick play devised by Nubie (Matthew McCurley) that he discussed with Madden. It’s a hidden ball play with swelling music, and against the odds it works.

The Giants win, Danny is elated. Kevin is utterly devastated because not only did he lose the game and therefore his entire reason for existence, but he also bet his entire car dealership on the game because he’s an idiot.

Think about this for a second: All Kevin has in this life is football and his business. He just lost both. Payback for his sexism and corn wastage, in my opinion.

Danny, merciful as he is, says he doesn’t plan to take the business and asks if they want to coach together. The movie closes with the town water tower being repainted from honoring Kevin O’Shea to “The O’Shea Brothers,” because in Urbania winning a single pee-wee game is the equivalent to a Heisman career.

Final thoughts.

This is a good-ass kids sports movie that I’m angry I didn’t see before now. I 100 percent would have had a major crush on Icebox if I watched this as a kid, because she’s one of the greatest characters in any kid’s sport movie.

The best sports movies have characters you can identify with and make you feel like you’re in the movie. Shoutout to farting lineman Rudy Zolteck (Michael Zwiener) for making me feel like one of the gang.

I give Little Giants nine ears of corn out of 10 plates of Urbania Oily Apple Noodles.

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formerlymarigold · 7 years

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Marigold Reacts

hello and welcome to Marigold Reacts. 1000-word drabbles based on my reactions to scenes/stories i’ve read. mostly inspired by @darkhawkflying’s work on AO3. in fact, almost entirely inspired by that.

the following is a moment that popped into my head after reading Ch.13 of From the Darkness We Come. some SPOILERS for those who haven’t read it yet! all of this mutated out of control when the words, “i’ma kill ‘im!!” sprung to mind ... so ... yeah.

all you need to know is Harold is my anthropomorphic-goose-servant.

now, on with the nonsense!

HARD NO

They laughed and chatted as they climbed out the van and made their way up the drive. It had been another long day of shooting From the Darkness We Come. Successful though; nobody was coming home sore or injured (well, except Ross who was still recovering from an incident with a window and not actually sugar-glass that didn't break when it was supposed to; the bruise on his shoulder still nasty and practically black).

Harold greeted them as they entered the foyer, taking their coats and scarves. Demelza and Elizabeth immediately retreated to their rooms for a much talked-about soak; something Jim would have done had the girls not been so quick to choose the two bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, both housing the largest, most luxurious tubs a person could wish for. That's what you get when you're late arriving to the rental because your boyfriend decides it's a fantastic time to have sex in the men's after a six-hour flight and a botched attempt at joining the Mile High Club.

Harold: (ᵕ ▽ ᵕ) – "Sirs," His tone was dry and expression that of resigned exasperation as it always was in regards to Marigold who – hang on – … was usually there to welcome them … so this was … suspicious.

Ross: "Harold, where's – " But as he went to say more words, Francis walked through the door and suddenly there was a loud, earth-shattering, WHAMP. "What the hell!?"

They whipped around to see Francis unconscious and face-down on the floor. Standing above him was Marigold … wielding an oversized mallet and the fiercest look any of them had ever seen on her.

Marigold: (╬⓪益⓪) – "surprise motherfucker" she growled to the unresponsive lump that was Francis and then grit out, "that is a hard no!" as if scolding a child who tried to sneak a cookie before supper.

Ross: ((((；゜Д゜))) – "Mari, what the fuck!?"

But she was already gone, muttering and gesturing angrily as she stomped down the hall, a dark shadow looming over her.

Jim and Ross continued to stare at poor Francis – Ross nudging him with his toe in an effort to wake him – and tried to figure out what the fuck Marigold was so pissed ab –

– oooh.

The tragedy that was Francis and Elizabeth came to a head in the episode which aired the evening before. She'd likely recorded it to watch (uninterrupted by the running commentary they gave when home and able to watch with her) that morning after they'd left to set. To say it had been brutal would be an understatement.

Jim: "I sometimes wonder if she remembers we're acting."

His brow furrowed as he watched Harold deliver a bottle of whiskey to the room Marigold had stomped off to. The dark shadow seemed to spill out when the door was opened, vanishing again when Harold closed it behind him.

Ross continued to nudge Francis but the man remained still.

Francis: ((( +д+)

Jim: "I would hate to see what happens when she finds out you're scripted to get shot. Again."

Ross' head shot up, a look of panic on his face.

Promises were made during Land and Sea when Ross had received a pretty severe wound to the leg after refusing to let the stunties do their job (I'm perfectly capable of doing this myself! were his last words, ever …). Still, he'd opted to try and do his own stunts again this time 'round seeing as FtDWC didn't call for the same kind of violent pyrotechnics or fancy gymnastics Land and Sea had. Looking at it now, thaaat probably wasn't the smartest idea.

Ross: "Oh Christ."

Jim: "I don't think even he can save you … "

Francis finally stirred, bleary-eyed and unsteady, and pushed himself up on his elbows. "What happened?"

Jim opened his mouth to explain but the boom-crack of a door being blown from its hinges erupted from where Marigold had holed herself away, the woman charging down the hall and back to Francis, whacking him into unconsciousness once more. She leaned over him, finger jabbing the air as she barked out a command as one would to a dog that chewed up a new pair of slippers.

Marigold: (╬ﾟ◥益◤ﾟ) – "NO."

Ross: "We are absolutely not telling her about what happens to me, are we clear?" He whispered, watching Marigold tromp away again.

Jim: (ʘᗩʘ’) – he could only nod frantically in response.

#writing #mywriting #drabble #Marigold Reacts #darkhawk #Ross Poldark #Jim Hawkins #Francis Poldark #1000 words #or less ...#AO3 #mytrexhasfleas #From the Darkness We Come

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textsfromwatchpointgibraltar · 7 years

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I have... a lot of word docs open so who wants to see a little bit from each thing! yeah! Also u guys should tell me what u think....

Darkness Falls chapter 2 (Serial Killer Zen):

It did not take long for Zenyatta to realize why the Iris had called him back. He could hear its call all around him, not speaking to him but to everyone, trying to reach out to Genji but with no avail. It was evident that the cyborg hadn’t connected to the Iris at all.

“Well?” Zenyatta lifted his head, watching Genji carefully. He had, after several minutes pulled out one of his throwing stars again, flipping it between his fingers as he watched Zenyatta. Zenyatta watched him, slightly mesmerised. “You’re one of the brothers here, right? Aren’t you going to try and convince me to give into the Iris, to accept what I’ve become?”

There was bite, bitterness in his voice, and Zenyatta momentarily wondered how many of his fellows Mondatta had sent in to try and ‘help’ Genji.

Unnamed Depressed Hanzo fic:

They peep and chirp like baby birds, cling to his fingers when Hanzo holds them out over their heads. Their iridescent blue scales shimmer as small talons reach for him, and Hanzo crouches down, staring at them eye to eye. He doesn’t move until the nanny enters, an hour later, Genji in her arms.

Then, it is only to take Genji from the nanny and hold him in his lap, the pair of them staring at the pair of dragons. Genji coos at them, repeating the newly learned word for cucumber, Kyūri, as Hanzo gently holds his tiny hand out to touch the dragons. He giggles once he touches them, kicks his legs out in joy, and before long the two of them are rolling on the floor, playfully wrestling as the dragons watch.

It’s the happiest Hanzo’s been in days.

Unnamed LifeHacks fic:

“I have another question too—when I use my translocator, the feedback plate hooks into the uppermost implant, but I always feel…sick after I use it. I thought at first it was because I’d messed up when I stole the plans from the gorilla, but he repaired the issues with mine and it’s still happening.”

“It’s with your things, right? I just want to see how it sits on your back…” Sombra sat up as Ziegler left the room, listening to her rummage for her translocator in the pile of clothing she’d left in the changing cubby. “Here—put it on, please.”

Sombra kept her back to the doctor, feeling a chill rush over her bare skins, and swiftly clicked the translocator into place.

Then Ziegler swore.

“You said Winston looked at it?” she confirmed once she was finished spitting fire, and Sombra nodded slowly. “Well, he’ll have to do a few more adjustments. It doesn’t line up exactly with your top implant—there’s about two or three inches that don’t connect to it. You are extremely lucky that this hasn’t killed you.”

Sake, Bourbon, and Other Spirits chapter 2 (ghost AU):

“Some air should help clear your head too, Mei. It’s got to be a bit of a shock…” Ana sighed as they headed towards the living quarters, mapping out the fastest way to Mei’s room in her head. “I’m sure once I wind down, it’ll…it’ll hit me.”

In all truthfulness, it already was. She remembered Gerard’s funeral, the tears and speeches, the fight between Gabriel and Jack over who should take the blame for not realizing that Amelie was a sleeper agent… Ana shuddered, unconsciously pulling Mei closer.

“Ana, are you okay?” she looked down to where Mei was looking at her with sad eyes. “I—I’m sure Gerard wouldn’t want you to be sad, same with Jack and Gabriel.”

Something in Ana’s gut clenched at the mention of Gabriel, how he tried his best to shoot her in Egypt, but she doesn’t mention it to Mei. There was no need to worry her even more.

Unnamed Family Apocolypse AU:

The end of the world, in Jack’s mind, wasn’t the most exciting deal. A lifetime of trashy Hollywood movies had his mind awash with mutants and aliens and earthquakes and the earth literally splitting itself apart. In reality, it consisted more of him and Gabriel gathering up the kids and the cat, jumping into the car—which died about 30 miles out of town— and getting out of dodge once things got a little too hairy.

“We ain’t gonna die, are we, dad?” Jesse asked, the 15-year-old sounding miserable behind his mask as they climbed onto yet another hill, nothing but dust and dirt and empty skies ahead of them. Slightly behind them, Gabriel was helping Sombra onto his back, trying to balance the 13-year-old, the cat, and a backpack.

“Course not. We’ll be fine, right Gabe?” Jack replied, trying to keep any small bits of panic out of his speech. It really wouldn’t do to worry them, even as Jack looked at the scribbled map once again.

His grandfather had been a paranoid man, paranoid enough to have created a bunker in the middle of nowhere, and for once Jack was glad that he’d somehow been his favourite of the grandchildren, despite his old world views of Jack’s relationship and job.

The Boy In Shadow (My Original Project):

“Detective Cain? Call’s come in.”

Harold Cain looked up from his paperwork, a depressing batch of numbers and words that told him the city was getting worse and worse as the year progressed, and sighed. Another murder to add to the statistics, another unsolved mystery.

“Right, I’ll be right down.” After a moment, spent putting the papers back into a semi-organized pile, he looked up at the officer who was still standing in the door way. “Is something wrong?”

“Uh, well…” the officer seemed to deflate. “It’s just, well, gosh I don’t think you’re going to like this case much, sir.”

Harold gave the young man a deadpan look. “Carson, I very rarely head up homicide cases that I do like. I very much doubt anyone working here likes a homicide case. But I will take that into consideration.”

Unnamed D.Va and 76 are friends fic:

The map was Korea, cities placed at every instance where they were in the real world, although Jack faintly remembered Busan having to be moved a few kilometres inland after one of the last attacks. There where no build or buy options, no way to make more units than the 6 he appeared to have pre-made, and there was just one goal.

Survive the attack.

“Each unit is a 6 person MEKA squad. We also have one or two extra training squads, because our rate of turn over is so high, but that wasn’t programmed in.” The fact that she could talk about how many of her fellow soldiers had already, and would, die from the omnic was almost chilling. But she was young, and humour had always helped him cope, so there was no way to say if it was the same for her. “The omnic attacks at the end of 10 turns, and can’t be killed yet, only driven away.”

“Is there anyway to kill it, or is driving it away the only option?” Jack asked, and D.Va shook her head.

Unnamed Sombra is 18 and also Alejandra and looks at 76 like a father figure fic:

Huh. Gangs, gangs Jack could deal with. Quick smash and grabs in Talon warehouses and UN controlled Watchpoints, those weren’t anything new or particularly hard anymore. But Vishkar was a different kind of evil. They hid behind shiny metals, bureaucracy, lawyers, and occasionally strike teams.

“I can think of two people you should have contacted instead of me,” he finally said, and Sombra huffed as she waved her hands in the air.

“Lucio is too…good. He’d see me or my symbol and try to bring the whole gang down on my head. And the Vishkar runaway…Vaswani doesn’t trust easily, and there’s no way she’d trust me. Besides, you already saved me once, so why not save me again?” she’d moved a little closer as she spoke, and it took a moment, but Jack was able to figure out the other emotion playing out across Sombra’s face.

“You’re nervous.”

Unnamed Mei/76 fic:

“Why?” she asked, ready to hear a critique on her fighting skills, which she already knew were sub-par, or her physique, something that at least 3 people had already commented on. “I have just the right to be here as you do!”

D.Va muttered under her breath, shifting in her sleep, and 76 looked at the sleeping teenager before shaking his head.

“That’s not what I mean, Doctor. I should clarify—you shouldn’t be on this field. Winston should have picked someone else to go on this mission. It can’t be good for your nerves.”

Doctor. Doc-tor. Not a single person since arriving in Gibraltar called her Doctor, except Athena and rarely Winston. But 76…knew?

Mei shook her head, confused. “I never told you I had a doctorate…did I?” she asked, suddenly feeling very, very tired.

Familial (Pregnant Ana fic):

“If you go and get anyone about this, I’m going to kill you, Wilhelm.” She said, eyes closed and taking deep breaths.

She could hear the large man dithering behind her, before a loud clanking let her know that he’d crouched down behind her. “Ana, if you are injured at all, I should—“

Well, it wasn’t exactly how she was planning on telling him, or any of the rest of her squad-mates, but…

“I’m not injured, I’m just pregnant, Reinhardt.”

With a sigh, she turned against the wall so she could face the larger German man, and almost laughed at how devastated he seemed to look. “Don’t worry, Jack and Gabriel already know. That’s why they’ve been so insufferable about me keeping off the front lines lately.”

Flowers for Assholes (McHanzo flowershop AU):

It was a great night, in Jesse McCree’s opinion.

The day had started out decently enough—Amelie’d stayed over, but Lena cooked breakfast for the three of them before she had to run to work, and Amelie had been almost pleasant to talk to before she too left the apartment for her job.

That left him with way too much time on his hands, and after making sure Ganymede was fed and Bastion was fully charged and not going to run over anything the roomba’d get caught on, he dressed and made his way out of the house.

Firefish (Mermaid AU):

When Hana woke, she still felt shitty but better than before. There was also something tied around her middle, tugging at her body. Looking down, she realized it was a tether of sorts, a light blue rope that connected her to a piece of the reef her and Satya were sitting at.

“Uh…S-Satya?” Hana coughed a little, clearing her throat of something and nothing at all, and the other mermaid looked up to her. “What’s this?”

“Ah. You started to drift away as you slept, and rather than lose sight of you, I tied you down so you wouldn’t float away. It is safer than letting ourselves sleep and drift from each other.” Satya replied, waving with her hand and turning the rope into blue pixels of light. “I have our course plotted—we should arrive off the coast of Antarctica here—“

Hana swam down to Satya, watching in awe as her fingers pointed out exactly where they needed to go, as well as their speed needed to get there.

Unnamed Resident Evil 2/Overwatch AU:

Gabriel Reyes was running late, something that was beyond annoying to him. He was never late, never! Hell, he’d even set his clocks five minutes late just so he’d leave on time.

But the drive from LA to Raccoon City—some small but growing city in the Midwest— was long, and there’d been a huge crash on the freeway right as he started out of the city limits. Ergo, Gabriel was going to be late.

“Goddamnit—“ he hissed to himself as he raced down the empty highway, the sky starting to turn black-blue as night approached. He was being transferred to help deal with the “disaster” in Raccoon, as his boss had called it. Attacks being called the Cannibal Murders outside of the city, an entire special forces sector of the police detachment claiming it was all because of Umbrella Pharmaceuticals, reports of entire city blocks being quarantined and barricaded…

#Not Texts #LeechPosts #Leechy Writes #I HAVE...A LOT OF WIPS #Dragon AU isn't on here b/c I don't have anything new for it yet

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spenfenn-blog · 7 years

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Success—A Journey or a Destination? Success-- A Journey or a Destination? Hartman Rector, Jr. Following the theme that was so masterfully developed this morning by President Tanner, I would like to present a few thoughts on success. Success is that illusive and almost indefinable goal to which all men are looking, but success is hardly ever the same thing to two different people. The dictionary defines success as “the favorable termination of a venture,” which implies it is a risky, daring, or dangerous undertaking. A second definition is, “the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence,” and surely this is the most commonly used definition today. We are prone to apply the term successful to those who look prosperous or wealthy or appear to have scaled the pinnacle of accomplishment in their own particular profession. Whether a man be a doctor, lawyer, financier, builder, politician, an admiral or a general, an actor, an airline pilot, or an athlete, all these and many others have the term success applied to them. But is this really success? Man’s definition of success is, many times, very difficult to comprehend. Some feel to be right is to be successful. Henry Clay said he would rather be right than president. Perhaps he felt successful: he ran for the presidency three times and failed all three times. “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. After some years it can boast a long series of successes.” (Abner-Eschenbach.) “The reasonable man will know that the actual magnitude of success obtained bears no real relation to the amount of pleasure that is conveyed; the man who becomes prime minister or wins a Nobel prize is not really more elated than he who secures a trophy for playing Ping Pong or wins a bronze medal for growing large chrysanthemums.” (Harold Necholson.) The Lord doesn’t seem to measure success in terms of attainment of position or power or wealth. A prophet in the Book of Mormon (where, by the way, the most succinct and unvarnished truths can be found) said, “But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.” (2 Ne. 2:24–25.) If man is that he might have joy, then success to the Lord must include the attainment of real joy. On the basis of this definition, then, no one is really successful who is not happy. If this be the Lord’s definition, then there is precious little success in this world. Success in its practical application seems to be more a state of mind than anything else. Obviously, many people never make it because they are ungrateful. They are not thankful for what they have; therefore, they are unhappy and thus are not successful. I have never seen a happy person who was not thankful for what he had, to paraphrase the Prophet Joseph Smith, who stated that “doubt and faith cannot exist in the same person at the same time.” (6th Lecture on Faith.) It is also doubtful that success and unhappiness can exist in the same person at the same time. Generally speaking, we are unhappy because we are dissatisfied, and this because we pursue after things that cannot make us happy, even if we obtain them. In the words of H. W. Beecher, “Success is full of promise till men get it, and then is as a last year’s nest, from which the bird has flown.” There is a great lesson to be learned here. Some think of success as obtaining “something for nothing” or the securing of a great bargain. The words of James Russell Lowell seem particularly applicable. He said, “Earth gets its price from what Earth gives us.” In order to be happy, it is particularly important that we learn that everything has its price and not expect something for nothing. This seems to be what earth life is all about--to teach us the lesson that as ye sow, so shall ye reap. We cannot receive something for nothing: on the contrary, we will pay for everything we receive. To continue with Lowell’s quote: “Earth gets its price from what Earth gives us; The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in. … We bargain for the graves we lie in; At the devil’s booth are all things sold, Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking. For ’tis heaven alone that is given away, ’Tis only God may be had for the asking. …” (“The Vision of Sir Launfal,” Stanza 3.) How true this is! We pursue after bubbles many times, thinking they will make us happy and that obtaining this particular bubble would make us successful. There are many, many bubbles for sale. This is another word for material possessions, which the world would have us believe are necessary to make us happy. We get the idea from modern advertising that happiness comes from the accumulation of material possessions. We must have a new house, a new car, or a snowmobile, or maybe even a boat. Elder ElRay L. Christiansen tells an interesting story about his neighbor who bought a boat. He really couldn’t afford a boat; but he bought it anyway, because he had a credit card. In order to pay for the boat, he had to take a second job, which meant he had to work on Saturday. This, of course, left one day per week on which he could use the boat. When do you suppose that was? Yes, you are right--it was Sunday. But he loved his boat and invited Brother Christiansen over to admire it, saying, “Isn’t it beautiful? What shall we name it?” (Now, you see, it is a member of the family--it has to have a name.) Brother Christiansen said, “Why don’t you call it The Sabbath Breaker?” (Conference Report, April 1962, p. 33.) Now, please don’t misunderstand me--I have nothing against boats. I have a friend who has a boat, and he calls his boat “Never on Sunday,” which, of course, is a better name for a boat. There is no real joy or happiness in the accumulation of material possessions. There are too many people today who are so miserable in this life that they cannot stand themselves. They are seeking any avenue of escape--to get out of this life, even to taking their own lives. Many of these people have material possessions heaped up in piles all around them--and many of their associates would say they were successful. But material possessions have not made them happy. The Master emphasized this when he said, “For what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26.) And then he added significantly, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt. 6:33.) A young man came to see me recently who had been called by the Lord to fill a mission. He was a fine young man--handsome, strong, sharp--but he said he didn’t want to go on his mission because there were other things that he would rather do. As we visited he told me that one thing he would rather do was drive a dune buggy. We talked about the relative merits of trading eternal life for a dune buggy; and he decided, perhaps, that was not exactly a fair exchange. I suggested to him that if he still wanted to drive a dune buggy after he had filled his mission, the Lord would probably let him do so, since the Lord always grants unto men “according to their desire.” (Alma 29:4.) We must not be misled. The only real joy and happiness we can know here upon this earth, as well as in the eternities, will come through obedience to the Lord’s commandments. Alma’s statement that “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10) is still valid. Again he has said, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” (John 13:17.) He did not say, but could have said, “Unhappy are ye if you don’t.” Sometimes young people get upset because they do not know what profession to follow. They feel it is so vital that they must have a revelation from the Lord, so they will know what to do with their lives. Generally speaking, I’m not sure that the Lord really cares what we choose as a vocation--whether we are a plumber or a librarian--so long as we keep the commandments of God. Of course, it is sometimes easier to keep the commandments when we are happy in our professions, and to that extent it is important that we do something we enjoy. The Lord, through living prophets as well as prophets in earlier times, has made it abundantly clear where real joy can be found, and he has placed the emphasis for real joy squarely on the family. President David O. McKay’s statement that “no other success can compensate for failure in the home” will forever live in our hearts. President Harold B. Lee uttered an equally significant statement when he said, “Now, you husbands, remember that the most important of the Lord’s work that you will ever do will be the work you do within the walls of your own home.” (First Presidency Directive, April 14, 1969.) These statements and others update and reemphasize the Lord’s injunction to Adam and Eve in the Garden when he commanded them to “be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth.” (Gen. 1:28.) Why should they do this? “That ye may have joy and rejoicing in your posterity.” The Lord gives no commandments to his children that are not calculated to make them happy and thus successful. Therefore, he has added to the basic commandment of “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth,” the reason for so doing: that you may have joy and rejoicing in your posterity. Lehi’s statement that “man is that he might have joy” takes on even more significance in light of this and the foregoing statement made by living prophets. And the Prophet Joseph Smith also added to this statement when he said, “Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it. …” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 255.) From what we have considered, that path inevitably leads to the altar of the temple. I have, many times, seen the Spirit lift choice young people who had come to the temple to become a family; and it seemed to me in these instances that the temple became a “heavenly family house,” the sealing room became a “heavenly family room,” and the altar of the temple became a “heavenly family altar.” For as they knelt there, they were joined by the Lord through his priesthood for all eternity and thus were made “one,” a family, in the Lord. The importance of this ordinance cannot be overemphasized, for if we raise a family outside the temple, we may lose it. We have no promise with respect to the continuation of family ties after we leave this life unless the covenants have been solemnized at the altar of the temple. Otherwise, it is only “until death do ye part.” God is the Heavenly Father of the human family. He is obviously concerned with families. If you doubt it, look around you. We are all his children--we belong to him. For this reason, he has commanded that a house be built for his family. Our heavenly and eternal Father wants us to be happy, so he has established and ordained families as the basic unit of his church. Yes--and also of exaltation in his celestial kingdom. Happiness seems vital to success, or is it that success is vital to happiness? Either way. I do not believe I have ever seen happy parents who had unhappy children; and, conversely, I have never seen unhappy children who had happy parents. So, then, what is required of parents, who have been so joined in the Lord’s house, concerning their children? First, they are to love each other--this is so vital; then they are to welcome choice spirits from the Lord and teach them to love the Lord, keep his commandments, and walk uprightly before him. When they do this, they have given these children the foundation for attaining real joy here in this world and in the world to come. For they will have eternal life, which is the ultimate success, and they will be made rich. “… Behold, he that has eternal life is rich.” (D&C 6:7.) May this be our goal, and may we be willing to pay the price to obtain it and not be taken in by all the misinformation which is abroad in the land today about birth control, abortion and sex education, and other Satan-inspired philosophies; that we may look to the Lord and follow his living prophets and oracles today. I pray that we will, for I bear witness that God our Heavenly Father lives, and that he hears and answers prayers, and that he is concerned about his children, so much so that he sent his Only Begotten Son that we might have immortality and eternal life. May we follow him, and may we keep his commandments, and may we be successful, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

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justhaljordanthings · 4 years

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#JustHalJordanThings -- Getting into character for the Ren Faire.

#hal jordan #sir harold of earth 13 #let's be honest this outfit absolutely slaps #justhaljordanthings #infinitecrisis:fftm

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hermanwatts · 4 years

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Sensor Sweep: Crusher Joe, Diana Rigg, Black Ops Cold War, Ambrose Bierce

Forthcoming (Cirsova): We’ve just received Schuyler Hernstrom’s foreword for Endless Summer, and we thought it was too good not to share: Discussing stories is a complicated business. Buried somewhere underneath layers of criticism, commerce, and identity you might find some deep understanding of Misha’s work. But I worry that careless digging will disturb the landscape. I challenge myself to think about his work with the care and sensitivity that he puts into it.

Memorial (The Silver Key): Word spread on Facebook last night that Charles Saunders, author of Imaro, has passed away. It is being reported he died in May. Odd that an obituary search turns up empty. Let’s hope it may be a rumor, but it does not appear that way. Author Milton Davis, who continued in Saunders’ “Sword-and-Soul” tradition, broke the news, and many authors, friends, and peers have chimed in since.

Cinema (Wert Zone): Born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire in 1938, Rigg was raised by her parents in Bikaner, India. Returning to the UK, she trained as an actress and made her stage debut in 1957 and her TV debut two years later. In 1965 she was cast in the first of her three major screen roles on the fourth season of British spy series The Avengers, playing Emma Peel. Peel was an action heroine with a line in witticisms, engaged in a constant battle of comebacks and ambiguous tension with her co-star Patrick Macnee (playing John Steed).

Cinema (Wasteland & Sky): The 1970s are still looked on by movie snobs as the peak of cinema, destroyed by the aforementioned filthy space movie that opened the theaters of the 1980s to juvenile pap. This is of course ignoring that the 1970s were dead, spiritually, and morally, which makes many of those 1970s “classics” more worthless than the juvenile goofy space movie. It actually has a moral point, regardless of what you think of it. 1970s cinema, as a whole, did not.

Games (Bleeding Fool): The new game Black Ops Cold War takes place during Reagan’s presidency during the height of the cold war with communist Russia. The initial trailer features KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov speaking about the communist’s plan to bring down America from within. If you pay attention, you may recognize some of the moves being used by the left today. The trailer urges you to “know your history or be doomed to repeat it” as it flashes images from the cold war across the screen.

History (DMR Books): This past Friday marked the four hundred and fifty-fifth anniversary of the definitive end to the Great Siege of Malta. On September 11, 1565, the tattered and battered fleet of Suleiman the Magnificent sailed away from the tiny island of Malta, utterly humiliated. The Ottoman Turks had disembarked amid imperial splendor nearly four months earlier. Their soldiers were reckoned in the tens of thousands, outnumbering by a factor of four to one–at minimum–the Knights Hospitaller and the Maltese who fought alongside them.

Fiction (Galactic Journey): The book is titled The Wizard of Lemuria but we don’t meet the wizard until Chapter 4. There are 12 chapters. The first quarter of the novella-length book is spent introducing our hero, Thongor of Valkarth. He is, although a lowly barbarian mercenary, both mighty and honorable. The book opens on the aftermath of a wager on a zamph race. Jeled Malkh—an officer and swordmaster—lost the wager, and attacked Thongor rather than pay up. Thongor quickly overcame him, shrugged off the bet, and offered to drink away their differences.

War Gaming (Jon Mollison): Miniature wargames in general, and historical wargaming in particular, are headed down the same road as every other hobby out there. You’d think those with an interest in history would be better prepared to learn from the history of other hobbies, but it doesn’t look that way. A lot of ink is being spilled and chit is being chattered about how to save the hobby from… well, from something that can’t really be shown or identified.

Comic Books (Screen Rant): Heads are gonna roll – as well as fly, disintegrate, and cave in upon themselves, along with pretty much any other violent act that can be inflicted upon a head – in the latest adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian. Originally published in Weird Tales and later adapted by Dark Horse Comics, the story of the legendary Destroyer is now published by Ablaze, a publication that has given Conan a sword more caked with blood than ever before thanks in part to their decision to create a truly uncensored version of his exploits.

D&D (Grognardia): I’ve never been much of a fan of Deities & Demigods, though I owned it, of course. Why wouldn’t I? I have always had decidedly completionist tendencies and being an unabashed TSR fanboy, there was no chance I wouldn’t purchase this book as soon as I was able to do so. It’s true I didn’t get much use out of it, but I still proudly displayed it on my bookshelf, right next to the Monster Manual.

Guns (Frontier Partisans): As will most when forced to fight for their way of life, the Apaches of The War Chief utilized any weapon to which they might lay hand. Some of these they fabricated, with especially skilled artisans becoming highly revered by the tribe. The Apaches ranged a broad swathe of the American West and portions of Mexico, and so various materials fell into their hands — materials they converted into bows, arrows, and war clubs, including the famous jawbone club. These weapons and tools, for centuries, they fabricated themselves from indigenous materials.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Pulpfest): The 2020 Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship (ECOF) Gathering will be held Sunday, October 11 through Tuesday, October 13 in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. Guest of Honor is acclaimed comic book artist and Hollywood illustrator Daniel Parsons. COVID-19 restrictions dictate this will be a small gathering in two large meeting rooms at the Country Inn & Suites located at 1650 Doris Drive. Fort Atkinson is located just 35 miles from Madison or 65 miles from Milwaukee. It’s 100 miles from Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Fiction (Old Style Tales): “Some Haunted Houses” is easily one of Bierce’s most entertaining series of tales. I recommend it as the ideal Hallowe’en reading choice – a collection of pithy short stories that exude the gloomy atmosphere and chilling mood that make stories like Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw” or Poe’s “House of Usher” horror classics. Reading one after another, a strange feeling of uneasiness creeps into your imagination as Bierce’s reporterly prose calmly details what sound like the verifiable details of veridical hauntings.

Cinema (Swords & Stitchery): There is a space opera out there that came out back in the day that most of you had never heard of… A bit of background, on the weekends back in the 90s I would get into my car & go down to Wallingford,Ct for a weekend of Anime at a local comic shop. I would spend the weekend with friends & one of the things we saw was this. Crusher Joe was made into an animated film in 1983, and a pair of for-video animated episodes in 1989. The film version won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1983.

Gaming (Future War Stories): There are time when we must ask ourselves when we witness what could have been: how can this not exist? That is how I and many other gamers felt during the recent leak of a Xbox development kit for the Blizzard cancelled StarCraft: GHOST 3rd person action/stealth game for the 6th generation. For many of us, GHOST was going to be first day buy for our OG Xbox consoles…and then there were delay after delay until GHOST was placed on DNR status in 2006 by Blizzard after nearly six years of development that span two studios.

Tolkien (Notion Club Papers): John Garth. The Worlds of JRR Tolkien: the places that inspired Middle-Earth. Frances Lincoln, London: UK, 2020. pp 208. John Garth is one of the best and most important writers on JRR Tolkien. This is his first full-length book since the landmark volume Tolkien and the Great War of 2003; so I knew I would enjoy it. From the title, and the fact that it is a large format, really beautifully-produced, hardback volume; I supposed The Worlds of JRR Tolkien might be dominated by the pictures, maybe even be something like a superior ‘coffee table’ book?

Fiction (Library Blog): This week marks the bicentenary of Sir Walter Scott’s twelfth novel The Abbot, published in Edinburgh on 2 September 1820 and in London two days later. Alone among the Waverley Novels, it was presented not as a stand-alone narrative but as the sequel to an earlier volume, The Monastery, which had appeared just six months earlier. Set in the early years of the Scottish Reformation, The Monastery had sold well but had disappointed many readers and reviewers. Criticism was directed, in particular, at the pivotal role played by the ghostly White Lady,

Cinema (Hollywoodintoto): Reporters have spent days detailing why “Terminator: Dark Fate” became the year’s most embarrassing flop. The movie made just $29 million stateside, and its foreign box office totals are equally weak ($94 million and counting). That’s no way for a franchise reboot to perform. Most observers are writing the saga’s obituary. Those reporters nailed some of the core reasons for its box office woes, from franchise fatigue to recycled story beats. Most missed another crucial factor. The sad decline of Arnold Schwarzenegger, A-list movie star.

Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): So yesterday’s post on Edgar Rice Burroughs and Harold Lamb and the recent post on the canon, coupled with today is the anniversary of the passing of J. R. R. Tolkien and the seventh anniversary of the death of Frederik Pohl, got me to thinking. I referred to Burroughs and Lamb as giants. In the canon post I quoted Newton talking about his achievements being due to his standing on the shoulders of giants. So who exactly are the giants in the field?

Fiction (Tentaculii): There’s a new bibliographic website for prolific British writer Michael Moorcock. The Works Of Michael Moorcock is obviously still a work-in-progress, but the pages for books and shorter fiction appear fairly complete. Moorcock tried his hand with at least one Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but has no overtly Lovecraftian pastiches that I’m aware of. His leftist attacks on many other writers, often described in words such as ‘brusque’ or ‘pungent’, turned out no differently in Lovecraft’s case and with the usual knocks being offered (“astonishingly awful prose” etc).

Fiction (George Kelley): I’ve been a big fan of Hank Davis’s Science Fiction anthologies over the years. Just in time for the Holiday Season, BAEN Books released Space Pioneers, an anthology with just about something for every readers’ taste. In typical Hank Davis fashion, the mix of stories blends Oldies with some newer stories like David Drake’s “Superweapon” (2018). I especially enjoyed Ross Rocklynne’s “Quietus” and Manly Wade Wellman’s “Men Against the Stars.” If you’re in the mood for an entertaining theme anthology, I recommend Space Pioneers. GRADE: A

Fiction (Paperback Warrior): In 2019, Stark House Press generated a commercial and critical hit with the release of The Best of Manhunt, an anthology of stories from the legendary 1950s crime fiction digest. Knowing a good thing when they see it, the reprint publisher has compiled a second volume of blood-on-the-knuckles tales from the popular magazine’s heyday for an August 2020 release.

Writing (Rawle Nyanzi): Recently, I came across an article (archive here) about the evolution of the horror genre in film. While the article is from 2000, and I’m not a horror fan myself, one point stuck with me: how scientific materialism, rather than an understanding of good and evil, became dominant in horror filmmaking, starting with George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. In the materialist worldview, the universe came into being by random chance, and so did the Earth and humanity.

Writing (Kairos): World building is the one element that sets speculative fiction apart from every other category of writing. When designing a secondary world, it’s crucial to establish a foundation of internally consistent principles to help readers suspend their disbelief. Religion in general has been a constant of human existence. Writing a secondary world where there are no and never have been any religions will automatically cause tension between the setting and known history, straining credibility (though it could make for an interesting story hook if handled properly).

Tolkien (Jon Mollison): Listening to the Silmarillion on audiobook, and something occurred to me. The three themes of the Ainur presage the three ages of Middle-Earth. From the Tolkien Gateway: The Ainur’s flawless Music satisfied even Ilúvatar during this early stage. The Second Theme was “like and yet unlike” the First; it gathered new power and beauty. Soon, however, Melkor’s discord rose up against it, and there was a “war of sound more violent than before”. This time, Melkor’s Theme triumphed over that of the others; many of the Ainur stopped singing entirely out of dismay.

Sensor Sweep: Crusher Joe, Diana Rigg, Black Ops Cold War, Ambrose Bierce published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

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marcusssanderson · 5 years

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70 Marriage Quotes On Communication, Hard Times and Teamwork

Looking for inspirational marriage quotes for all phases of the journey with your partner? These marriage quotes will inspire you to express your love and passion and stick together – for better or for worse.

When we get married and we say our vows, they almost invariably include the phrase, “for better or for worse”. But what do people really mean by this?

Often, it feels like they assume that things will always be, “for better or for better,” and never consider how far they are willing to go if they are really challenged.

What if one of you loses your job for an extended length of time and the other must cover all household expenses?

What if you cannot have the children naturally that you always assumed you could? What if one of you comes down with a serious or eventually fatal illness?

What if there is a case of infidelity, but the partner is genuinely remorseful and wants to work on the marriage?

What if the image you had for your life and your marriage is changed in an instant?

These are some deep questions to ask and be honest with ourselves about.

Need some inspiration?

Here are several marriage quotes, marriage sayings, and marriage proverbs that might help give us some much-needed perspective and encouragement.

Inspirational Marriage Quotes About Love and Commitment

1.) “To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.” – Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu

2.) “Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other.

“Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth for the other.

“Now there is no more loneliness, for each of you will be companion for the other.

“Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you.

“Go now to your dwelling place to begin the days of your life together.

“May your days together be good and long upon the earth.” – Apache Blessing

3.) “I first learned the concept of non-violence in my marriage.” – Gandhi

4.) “You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.” – Sam Keen

5.) “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” – Mignon McLoughlin

6.) “My husband and I have never considered divorce… murder sometimes, but never divorce.” – Joyce Brothers

7.) “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” – Theodore Hesburgh

8.) “Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years.” – Simone Signoret

9.) “Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry.” – Tom Mullen

10.) “My advice to you is to get married. If you find a good wife, you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.” – Socrates

Marriage Quotes About Teamwork

11.) “Love at first sight is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.” – Sam Levenson

12.) “Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that’s a real treat.” – Joanne Woodward

13.) “A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ come together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.” – Dave Meur

14.) “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

15.) “The great secret of successful marriage is to treat all disasters as incidents and none of the incidents as disasters.” – Sir Harold George Nicolson

16.) “Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” – I Corinthians 13:7

17.) “What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.” – Leo Tolstoy

18.) “Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.” – Will Ferrell

19.) “There is no remedy for love but to love more.” – Henry David Thoreau

Inspirational Marriage Quotes for Him and Her

20.) “When a wife has a good husband, it is easily seen in her face.” – Goethe

21.) “A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” – Robert Quillen

22.) “I didn’t marry you because you were perfect. I didn’t even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine.

Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them – it was that promise.” – Thornton Wilder

23.) “The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.” – Robert C. Dodds

24.) “Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.” – Joseph Barth

25.) “Love is not something you feel. It is something you do.” – David Wilkerson

26.) “There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye, keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.” – Homer

27.) “I got gaps; you got gaps; we fill each other’s gaps.” – Rocky

28.) “You come to love not by finding the right person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.” – Sam Keen

29.) “You make me happier than I ever thought I could be and if you let me I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel the same way.” – Chandler proposing to Monica on ‘Friends’

Funny Marriage Quotes About Communication

30.) “As for his secret to staying married: ‘My wife tells me that if I ever decide to leave, she is coming with me.’” – Jon Bon Jovi

31.) “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” – Henry Ford

32.) “Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.” – Oscar Wilde

33.) “There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.” – Martin Luther

34.) “One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall back in love again.” – Judith Viorst

35.) “Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.” – Mark Twain

36.) “More marriages might survive if the partners realize that sometimes, the better comes after the worse.” – Doug Larson

Marriage quotes about happiness and positivity

37.) “Happily ever after is not a fairy tale. It’s a choice.” – Fawn Weaver

38.) “The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they’re right if you love to be with them all the time.” – Julia Child

39.) “A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.” – Andre Maurois

40.) “Health is the first wealth, the second one is the happy marriage.” – Unknown

41.) “Ultimately, my greatest achievement is maintaining my career while sustaining a happy marriage and kids.” –Melina Kanakaredes

42.) “We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” —Frederick Keonig

43.) “A happy marriage is the world’s best bargain.” – O.A. Battista

44.) “Marriage is getting to have a sleepover with your best friend every night of the week.” – Christie Cook

45.) “A marriage is a gift. It should be opened up and enjoyed.” – Greg Evans

46.) “Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife.” – Franz Schubert

Positive marriage quotes

47.) “Marriage is a commitment– a decision to do, all through life, that which will express your love for one’s spouse.” –Herman H. Kieval

48.) “If I get married, I want to be very married.”– Audrey Hepburn

49.) “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”– Mignon McLaughlin

50.) “Any good marriage is secret territory, a necessary white space on society’s map. What others don’t know about it is what makes it yours.”—Stephen King, Bag of Bones

51.) “People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.”- Paul Newman

52.) “A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.”-Dave Meurer

53.) “Marriage provides the solace of worked-on friendship and the joy of being known profoundly.”-Imogene Stubbs

54.) “The highest happiness on earth is the happiness of marriage.”-William Lyon Phelps

Beautiful marriage quotes

55.) “Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife.” – Franz Schubert

56.) “When we got married I told my wife ‘If you leave me, I’m going with you.’ And she never did.”— James Fineous McBride

57.) “To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup, Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; Whenever you’re right, shut up.”— Ogden Nash

58.) “What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.”— Leo Tolstoy

59.) “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.” – Benjamin Franklin

60.) “Marriage is like a phone call in the night: first the ring, and then you wake up.” – Evelyn Hendrick

61.) “A good marriage is where both people feel like they’re getting the better end of the deal.” ― Anne Lamott

62.) “Marriage is a huge investment: of time, of energy and of emotion. Protect and keep contributing to your investment.” – Karen Gordon

Other inspirational marriage quotes

63.) “Marriage is not a noun; it’s a verb. It isn’t something you get. It’s something you do. It’s the way you love your partner every day.” – Barbara De Angelis

64.) “Marriage is good for those who are afraid to sleep alone at night.” – St. Jerome

65.) “I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother.” ― Martha Gellhorn

66.) “The older theory was, marry an older man because they’re more mature. But the new theory is men don’t mature. Marry a younger one.”— Rita Rudner

67.) “By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” ― Socrates

68.) “Marriage is a form of discipline involving two people committing to a certain lifestyle and set of boundaries.” – David Khalil

69.) “Marriage, at its core, is all about respect for the other person – and respect goes both ways.” – Dr. Kevin Leman

70.) “Marriage, like a submarine, is only safe if you get all the way inside.” – Frank Pittman

What did you think of these marriage quotes?

How often in life do we find that the greatest rewards are just after the point when we almost gave up? If you are willing to work hard, and to not give up on love, you may find greater rewards than you had ever imagined.

How did you find these marriage quotes? Do you have any other inspirational quotes to add? Let us know in the comment section below.

The post 70 Marriage Quotes On Communication, Hard Times and Teamwork appeared first on Everyday Power.

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thejoydaily-blog · 6 years

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Evangelist Bill Piper: Fundamentalist Full of Grace and Joy

Evangelist Bill Piper: Fundamentalist Full of Grace and JoyDesiring God 2008 Conference for Pastors

Resource by John Piper

Topic: Biography

The title I have given this message about my father is “Evangelist Bill Piper: Fundamentalist Full of Grace and Joy.” That title is meant to carry several apparent incongruities or paradoxes or ironies. I expect you to feel tension between the word fundamentalist and the phrase “full of grace,” and between the word fundamentalist and the phrase “full of joy.” But the lead word is evangelist. Underneath being a child of God, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and justified by faith, and possessing all the riches of the glory of God in Christ—underneath that most basic identity, my father’s chief identity was “evangelist.” Independent, fundamentalist, Baptist evangelist—full of grace and joy.

The Paradoxical Christian Identity

It seems to me that any serious analysis or exploration of a human being’s life will always deal in paradoxes. It will see tensions. Again and again, the serious effort to understand another person will meet with ironic realities. Here is what I mean by irony: It’s the “incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs." The dictionary gives this example: “Hyde noted the irony of Ireland’s copying the nation she most hated.” In other words, it’s a great irony to imitate the people you like the least.

It seems to me that there are very deep and basic reasons why every serious effort to understand another person—especially a Christian—forces us to deal in irony or paradox. One of the most basic reasons is that Christians are both fallen and redeemed. We are saved (Ephesians 2:8-9), and we not yet saved (Romans 13:11). We are adopted (Romans 8:15), yet we wait for adoption (Romans 8:23). We are pure in Christ, but not yet pure: “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened” (1 Corinthians 5:7). What an irony that unleavened bread should be told to become unleavened.

Our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20); we are sojourners and exiles here (1 Peter 2:11). But the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it (1 Corinthians 10:26); and “all things are yours, whether . . . the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours” (1 Corinthians 3:20-21). We were bought with a price and are slaves of no man (1 Corinthians 7:23). Yet, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution” (1 Peter 2:13). Our lives are hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). Yet Jesus prays that we not be taken out of the world (John 17:15). Indeed, “some of you they will put to death . . . but not a hair of your head will perish” (Luke 21:16, 18). In fact, you have already died (Romans 6:8). So consider yourselves dead (Romans 8:11). How ironic that dead should be told to consider themselves dead.

In other words, irony and paradox and incongruities are found in every Christian life because our very identity as Christians is paradoxical. That’s what it means to be a Christian. If you’re not a paradox, you’re not saved. In fact, I would go even farther and say, if you’re not a paradox, you’re not a human. What could be more basic to fallen humanity—and what could be more ironic—than that those who are created by God in his own image should use that God-like personhood to deny their Maker? Like a digging ant denying the earth; or a flying bird denying the wind; or swimming fish denying the sea.

Bill Piper: Human, Christian

So there are these two great reasons why, as I have pondered my father’s life, I have found him to be a paradoxical person: He is a Christian, and he is a human. Does it not seem like a strange incongruity—perhaps not a real one—that a blood-earnest, soul-winner, who hammered away at the temptations of the world and the dangers of the flesh should in his sixties celebrate the body of his wife with words like these:

Her hair is like an auburn sea, Wind-whipped, waved, mysterious. Her forehead, like a wall of pearl Stands majestic, proud, serene. Her wide-set eyes are like clear, sparkling, hazel-green pools, calm, compassionate, penetrating. Her finely chiseled nose stands firmly between cheeks that are fair, like pillows of down. Her mouth is soft, pleasant and ruby rich. Her skin is like the feathers of a dove. Her breasts are like rose-tipped apples of ivory, And her belly is like a ocean wave, smooth and restful. Her legs are like pillars of granite, strong and firm. And her feet like those of a deer, swift and beautiful. Her breath is like sweet nectar, Her kisses like perfumed flowers, And her love like paradise.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that Bob Jones University should produce soul-winners that write like Song of Songs. Maybe the incongruity is just biblical faithfulness. But almost everywhere I turned in my father’s life, there were these seeming paradoxes. He was human, and he was Christian.

Corporate Paradoxes

And he lived with other humans and other Christians, who together created corporate paradoxes. Does it not seem like a strange incongruity—perhaps not a real one—that the most fundamentalistic, separatistic, worldliness-renouncing school in America, Bob Jones University, where my father graduated in 1942, should have as part of the commencement celebration in those days a performance of “As You Like It” (1939) and “Romeo and Juliet” (1940) both written by William Shakespeare, who in his own day ridiculed the Puritans, and whose Globe Theater was demolished by the Puritans in 1644? Isn’t it a strange irony how three centuries can turn worldliness into “a delightful comedy”—as the BJU program said in 1939?

So whether personal or corporate, my father’s life appears to be permeated with paradoxes. And under the title “Evangelist Bill Piper: Fundamentalist Full of Grace and Joy,” I hope to capture some of them in a way that gives you hope in the grace of God through the gospel of Christ.

An Old-Fashioned, No-Nonsense Rearing

William Solomon Hottle Piper—named after a Bible expositor that his father admired—was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, January 8, 1919. He was the third and youngest son of Elmer and Emma Piper. His father had been a machinist (I couldn’t forget that he was missing half of one finger), but after his conversion, he became a self-taught Bible student and then the pastor of West Wyomissing Nonsectarian Church. My father told me that he wouldn’t have been surprised if his father could quote virtually the entire New Testament from memory. My guess is that this was an overstatement, but it signals the massive priority of the Bible and Bible Study that passed from my grandfather to my father to me.

The upbringing of the three boys, Harold, Elmer, and Bill, was old-fashioned, no-nonsense, and strict. He gives us a glimpse into the discipline of his father in one of his sermons.

Behavioristic psychologists teach that temper tantrums and defiant attitudes are normal and healthy. To curb them is dangerous. If you discipline the child you will develop within him inhibitions and warp his personality.

I’m glad I had a father who believed otherwise. I got “warped” a good many times, but it wasn’t my personality! . . . O, yes, we had plenty of counseling sessions but generally he did the talking and when he finished I said, “Yes, sir.”

Old fashioned? Indeed it was! Scriptural? Absolutely! Right to the letter.

The strictness of his father had some surprising side effects that were profound. He told me about one of them. It turns out that both Bill and Elmer had disobeyed their father. Elmer was the older, so his father said that he was the more responsible and that he would get the whipping for both boys. My father told me with tears in his eyes a few years ago that he could hear the belt on the backside. Though he was just a boy, he said it was one of the most vivid pictures in his life of the substitutionary atonement of Christ in our place.

In a sermon about the salvation of children, he tells us about his own conversion to make the point that young children can be saved.

That children can be saved I know from my own experience. I have a brother who was saved at the age of seven and another who gave his heart to Christ when he was eight. I received Christ as my Savior when I was a boy of six. Certainly there were many things I did not know, nor need to know. I knew enough to be saved. I knew I was sinful and needed a Savior. I knew that Christ was that Savior I needed. I knew that if I would believe on Him and confess Him as my Savior He would save me. That is all I needed to know and that all any child needs to know to be saved. I trusted Christ and he saved me.2

The Call at Age Fifteen

Besides his conversion at the age of six, probably the most decisive event in his teenage life (and I mean even more decisive than his marriage to my mother at age nineteen) was what happened when he was fifteen.

He told me this story face to face several times over the years, and he always came to tears as he said it. He saw it as a moment of supernatural confirmation on his divine calling that never left him and that stamped his entire life. I will let him tell the story from his book The Greatest Menace to Modern Youth.

I can vividly recall the thrills that accompanied the delivery of my first Gospel sermon. I was fifteen years of age and had just surrendered my life fully to the will and service of Christ. The young people of our community had joined together to promote a city-wide revival and had invited a well known evangelist.

For the Saturday night service, the evangelist decided to turn the entire service over to the young people. For some reason I was asked to bring the message and to give the invitation.

I had been reared in a Baptist parsonage. All my life I had heard great preaching but I had never tried to do it myself. This was to be my first attempt. I didn’t know how but I tried. My heart was filled with zeal and I wanted to do my best for the Lord. The big night came. For my message I had selected some thoughts on about a half dozen Gospel tracts. At the time of the sermon I spread these tracts all over the pulpit and I simply preached from one tract to the next.

I don’t recall a thing I said. It probably was a poor sermon. But the thing that mattered was that when I gave the invitation to receive Christ [this is where the tears would inevitably come], ten precious souls left their seats, came weeping to an improvised altar and surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The thrill that came to me then is still with me many years later. I knew that Jesus had walked on the water but I felt as I left the building that night that I was walking on air! Believe me, I was on cloud nine! And, better still, I’ve never come down. What thrilled me most was the sudden realization that I had immeasurable power at my disposal. That the God of heaven, the God of the Bible, was willing to speak through me in such a way as to touch other lives and transform them and change their destinies.

I never dreamed such a thrill was possible for me. I had not known such power was at my disposal. I said then, “God, let me know this power the rest of my life. Let me be so yielded to Thee that I’ll never cease to know the thrill and joy of winning others to Christ.” And I can say with honesty, I am just as excited right now [this book was published in 1980, forty-six years later] about the soul-winning power of God as I was at the age of fifteen.

From that day on, my father’s face was set like flint to be a full-time evangelist.

Beside his name in his senior yearbook are the words: “He wants to be an evangelistic preacher.” He never turned back.

Bill and El: The Gospel Songsters

In the last two years that he and his brother Elmer were in high school together they had their own radio program on WRW in Reading, Pennsylvania, called “Bill and El, the Gospel Songsters.” They sang and preached. Their theme song was a song called “Precious Hiding Place.” Until you hear it, you can hardly imagine how different the teenage world was seventy-five years ago.

Perhaps my wife is right in her analysis: When she saw a video of Bill and El, she pointed out that in 1936 adolescence as a distinct cultural phenomenon hadn’t yet been created. There was no such thing as a vast teen culture. There was no teenage music. Frank Sinatra was born four years before my father. He is usually considered the first teen idol. The beginnings of a distinct youth culture was just about to begin. So when my father was in high school the overlap between the music that mom and dad liked and what teens liked was much greater then than now.

In other words, my father grew up much more quickly than I did. He skipped a good bit of the usually-wasted years called adolescence, or what later was called the “teenage” years—the term teenager did not occur in the English language until 1941. He graduated from high school with his sweetheart Ruth Eulalia Mohn in 1936.

You can see from the note in her senior yearbook that her heart was bound together already in the calling of his life. Hers reads: “She intends to take up evangelistic work.”

Marriage to Ruth, College at Bob Jones

After graduation, my father traveled with the Students’ League of Nations and studied at John A. Davis Memorial Bible School in Binghamton, New York. Then on May 26, 1938, he and his brother Elmer in the same wedding ceremony married Ruth and Naomi. Elmer married Naomi Werner. And Bill married Ruth Mohn. Bill and Ruth were both nineteen.

They moved to Cleveland, Tennessee, to attend Bob Jones College. The school had moved to Cleveland in 1933 from near Panama City, Florida, where it was founded in 1927. Ruth and Bill both enrolled. My father was an average student and a very gifted speaker and actor. He had leading roles in several Shakespearean plays. He developed a deep admiration for Dr. Bob Senior, the founder of the school, and quoted him often the rest of his life. My father loved the education he got at Bob Jones. He never belittled the school as an educational institution. When the time would come for cutting off ties with the school, it was a deeply painful thing.

He graduated in 1942 and entered full-time evangelism. My sister Beverly was born in 1943, and I was born in 1946. That same year Bob Jones moved to Greenville, South Carolina, and our family moved with them. Greenville became the base of Daddy’s evangelistic ministry for the rest of his life. This is where I grew up.

The Rhythm of Leaving and Coming Home

Life, in my memory, was a rhythm of Daddy’s leaving for one week or two weeks or as long as four weeks, almost always on Saturday, and then coming home on Monday. When I dedicated the book Desiring God to him, I wrote

I can recall Mother laughing so hard at the dinner table that the tears ran down her face. She was a very happy woman. But especially when you came home on Monday. You had been gone two weeks. Or sometimes three or four. She would glow on Monday mornings when you were coming home.

He had been elected to the board of trustees of Bob Jones before coming to Greenville in 1946, the youngest board member ever elected at that time. In 1952, the University award him the Doctor of Divinity degree in recognition of the impact of his ministry in the churches of the United States.

Over the next decades, he preached in all fifty states, half a dozen other countries, held over 1,250 evangelistic crusades, recorded over 30,000 professions of faith, and published seven books of sermons.

The Challenges of Full-Time Evangelism

The personal toll this took on him, and what it cost my mother, was extraordinary. What keeps you going to hard new challenges week after week when it means you must leave the ones you love again and again? Here’s what he wrote in his book Stones Out of the Rubbish.

As an evangelist, my work necessarily keeps me away from my sweet wife and children much of the time. Some have asked me, “How can you endure being away from them? Why don’t you get a church and settle down?” There is but one answer. When I was a boy of fifteen, I sold out to the will of God. His will since that day has been the supreme passion of my life. There have been failures, mistakes and sins since then, but His blessed will has remained more important to me than family, home or friends. God called me to be an evangelist. I said, “Lord, this will mean homesickness, separation from loved ones, loneliness and sacrifice, but NEVERTHELESS, if that is your will, ‘I will let down the net.’” The blessings He has given have often been more than I could contain. The fruit I have seen has repaid me a million times over for whatever sacrifices I may have made.”5

Part of the burden he carried was the sordid stereotype of itinerant southern evangelists. It grieved him, but it didn’t stop him.

There is a reason why the words “evangelism” and “evangelist” meet with a feeling of nausea and disgust in the minds of thousands of thinking people today. . . . All emotionalism worked up in the energy of the flesh, deliberately aroused for outward results, or toyfully played upon by the impression-seeking preacher can leave nothing but bitterness in the bottom of the cup.

Not Your Typical Evangelist

My father was not your typical evangelist. He was a doctrinally driven, Bible-saturated evangelist. When he preached to save sinners, he explained doctrine. One outline from his sermon notes goes like this—and it is typical of the sort of preaching he did:

Christ is our redemption

Christ is our propitiation

Christ is our righteousness

Christ is sanctification

Christ is our Example

Christ is our Expectation

Christ is our Completeness

He believed that the best way to call for repentance and faith was to unpack the glories of Christ in the gospel, which meant unpacking doctrine. He had about 200 sermons in his arsenal. He told me that about twenty of them were blessed above all others, and he would return to these again and again. What marked out his evangelistic preaching as unusual was not the stories, but basic doctrines of man’s helpless condition in sin, God’s holiness and wrath and the imminent danger of damnation, the glorious fullness of Christ’s saving work on the cross, and the free offer of forgiveness and righteousness to any who believed.

He was the most Bible-saturated preacher I have ever heard. When he took up the reality of the new birth, for example, the message was full of the Bible.

My father loved the Bible. He believed the Bible. He built his life on the Bible, and he preached the gospel at the center of the Bible with unashamed authority and almost no frills. And God used him mightily in the salvation of sinners.

Separation and Exile

In 1957, something happened that broke his heart and changed the scope of his relationships. I don’t know all the details. I just know that in June of 1957, Daddy called Bob Jones from a meeting in Wisconsin and resigned from the board of the school. The ways parted. I was eleven years old. Before that I had watched soccer games at BJU and seen films that they made. The campus was just across the highway from our home. But after 1957, there was no more connection. We were not welcome.

The larger issue above the particular details was the issue of separation. Christian fundamentalism today is defined largely by the doctrine of separation. The issue of whether to separate from Billy Graham and renounce his work became pivotal in 1957. His New York crusade began on May 15 and ran nightly for four months. The supporters of the crusade were not all evangelical. And the lines of separation became blurred. My father would not renounce Billy. And in the end, there was a division between my father and Bob Jones. This was one of the great ironies of his life. The movement that nurtured him and shaped him, the school that he loved and served, would no longer support him. Only near the end of his life was there a reconciliation as Bob Jones III reached out to my father. It was a sweet ending to a long exile.

Death of Ruth, Marriage to LaVonne

In 1974, my mother was killed in a bus accident in Israel. My father was seriously injured but survived. They had been married thirty-six years. A year later, God gave my lonely father a second wife, LaVonne Nalley. I performed the wedding ceremony in December of 1975.

The effect of my mother’s death and my father’s second marriage was profound on our relationship. It took my father one more step away from closeness to me. LaVonne was a southern lady with deep roots in family and place. In the twenty-eight years of their marriage, LaVonne never came to Minneapolis. My father came twice. Since we only saw each other once a year or so, the relationship with the new relatives was cordial but not deep. It never felt very much like family. So it felt like my father had been drawn into an intimacy that was no longer focused on the family he fathered but the new relationship he had with LaVonne.

My relationship with my father had always been one of admiration and respect and tremendous enjoyment when we played games together or fished. But we never talked much about personal things. And with the death of my mother, and the movement of my father’s heart into a new world of relationships, the distance that I felt grew even greater.

In the Shadow of Evangelistic Effectiveness

It never changed my basic feelings for him. I felt a tremendous affection and admiration for him. In fact, in my adult years, I felt a huge compassion or pity for my father, first because of the sacrifices he made to do the work of evangelism, and then because of the death of my mother, and then because of his increasing dementia. My emotional default reaction to my father was never resentment that he wasn’t home enough. My reaction was: How can I show him that I love him and help him to know how much I esteem his work and the faithfulness he has shown?

I always felt supported, loved, and admired by my father. He spoke well of me. He thought I was crazy for leaving my professorship at Bethel to be a pastor, since he thought I was exactly where I belonged. But when the decision was made in 1980, he supported me and loved hearing news from the church. Most of all he loved hearing stories of conversions.

I have always lived in the shadow of my father’s evangelistic effectiveness. I think it’s been good for me, because my father’s life is like a living parable of the priority that God puts on the salvation of one sinner who repents. “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). My father’s life is a constant reminder of that truth. I am thankful for it.

Homecoming

During the years after my mother’s death and my father’s increasing inability to travel in evangelism, the Lord opened an amazing door with the creation of international correspondence courses that my father wrote. Rod of God Ministries grew up with tens of thousands of people in Africa and Asia taking these courses. That ministry continues today under the leadership that my father put in place. It was a thrilling gift to him as he aged because he was able be involved in writing and teaching into his mid eighties.

Only in the last couple years was his memory so impaired that he couldn’t serve in that way. His second wife LaVonne died August 4, 2003. After a brief stay in independent living in Anderson, South Carolina, near his church, Oakwood Baptist, that cared for him so well, we moved him to Shepherd’s Care in Greenville, owned and operated by Bob Jones University. It was, in my mind and his, a kind of homecoming—to the school he loved and to the fundamentalism he never really left—and paradoxically never really belonged to. I look back on God’s mercy in my father’s final days with tremendous gratitude. The Lord took him on March 6, 2007.

Self-Designated Fundamentalist

After his deepest identity as gospel-glorying child of God, my father’s identity was most essentially evangelist. This defined his life from age 15 to 88. In the last days, his unreality that his mind created at Shepherd’s Care was not casual times with his family but evangelistic crusades. “Across the lawn there is where the meeting will be tonight.” From beginning to end, he was defined by evangelism.

But he was also a fundamentalist. By his own self-designation. It was not a term of reproach but of honor. In the first decade of the twentieth century, liberalism was gaining a foothold in most denominations. The common word for the liberals then was modernists—those who believed that modern science had made some essentials of the Christian faith untenable. My father defined modernism like this:

By “modernists”, we mean ministers who deny the truth concerning Jesus Christ: His miraculous conception, His absolute deity, His vicarious atonement for the sins of mankind, His bodily resurrection, and His personal visible return to this earth. Modernists also deny the need of regeneration by the Holy Spirit and the fact of a literal hell.7

In other words, in the early days of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, the battle was not for marginal doctrines or behaviors but essential doctrine—“fundamentals.” When J. Gresham Machen wrote his response to liberalism in 1923, he did not title it Fundamentalism and Liberalism but Christianity and Liberalism because he believed liberalism was not Christianity at all.8

Two years before my father was born, the four-volume set of books called The Fundamentals was published (1917). In 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick fired his shot across the bow of the ship of the church called “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” My father grew up in this super-charged atmosphere of modernism threatening the very life of the churches in America. In his early sermons in the forties and fifties, he returned to this battle again and again:

Christianity is in the throes of a gigantic conflict with the enemies of the Lord. The followers of Satan have shown their colors and the Faith is being blatantly denied and rejected. Corruption and disintegration have begun in a dozen denominations where the enemy had spread his deadly poison.9

The breach between modernism and fundamentalism keeps getting wider. . . . “The faith once for all delivered unto the saints” has been shunned in favor of bloodless faith which glorifies man, denies his depravity, rejects the absolute authority of the Bible and the Deity of Jesus Christ.10

In fact, by the time my father was ten-years old, most people recognized that the battle to save the mainline denominations from liberalism was being lost. Then the question became how to deal with this, and the debates about degrees of separation altered the meaning of the term fundamentalism in the 1930s. It ceased to mean “orthodox Christianity” over against those who denied essentials, and came to refer one group of orthodox Christians, namely, the ones who believed that the biblical way forward was strict separation from denominations, groups, and relationships that were not fully orthodox and were not separated from those who were not fully orthodox.

Bob Jones University was and is one of the strongest representations of this development of fundamentalism. And my father embraced it and was defined by it—up to a point. For him, the heart of fundamentalism was the true doctrine. His passion was evangelism—saving people from perishing in hell by leading them to the divine Savior and his substitutionary work on the cross. In other words, if the fundamentals were not true, the gospel is a false hope, and evangelism is misleading. Therefore, the note struck more clearly than all notes was the doctrinal importance of fundamentalism:

Though fundamentalists do not agree upon every point of doctrine, they are definitely agreed upon the essential elements of the Christian faith: the total depravity of man, the absolute deity of Christ, the vicarious, substitutionary atonement for sin through the blood of Christ, His bodily resurrection, the need of the new birth and the blessed return of Christ to the earth.11

Another dimension of fundamentalism that he embraced was authoritative preaching that was willing to name evil and defend truth.

Too many present-day pulpiteers are soft pedaling the Gospel. Even many who are robed in the vestments of fundamentalism are void of a semblance of holy boldness in their preaching. They handle sin with kid gloves, avoid great issues and shrink from declaring cardinal doctrines. Pussyfooters in the pulpit! What a tragedy! They are a blight to the Church and a blockade to the Holy spirit’s blessing.

Then there was the fundamentalist vision of separation not just from false doctrine but from all forms of worldliness that weaken the boldness and spiritual power of a Christian.

Every Christian who indulges in the sinful pleasures of this world is a compromiser and a stumbling-block. No dancing, theater-going, card-playing, gambling Christian can hope to be a soul winner or have a testimony for God. If men see this world in you, you will never point them to the next.13

I grew up in a home where it was assumed we would not smoke, or drink, or gamble, or play cards, or dance, or go to movies. We were fundamentalists. So why didn’t I kick against this growing up? I have never thought ill of my parents for these standards. I have never resented it or belittled it. When I was in my early twenties, I was indignant in some of my classes at Fuller Seminary when certain young faculty members were cynical and sarcastic about fundamentalism. They sounded to me like adolescents who were angry at their parents and their backgrounds and couldn’t seem to grow up. I never felt that way about my parents or about the fundamentalism of my past. Why?

Fundamentalist Freedom

I think I know why. My mother and my father were the happiest people I have ever known. This strikes many as an incongruity, a paradox. But this is the key to my father’s influence on me and, I believe, one of the keys to the power of his ministry. The fundamentalist forcefulness in the pulpit, the fundamentalist vision of “the razorsharp edge of truth,”14 the fundamentalist standards that move from the Ten Commandments down to dancing and card-playing—all of this was enveloped in a world of joy and freedom.

Freedom? Fundamentalistic freedom? Yes. I’ll illustrate. When I was in the seventh grade, our class, Mrs. Adams’ homeroom, won the attendance award for the year. The award? The whole class would go a movie at the Carolina Theater on Main Street during school time. My heart pounded. I went home and asked my mother—Daddy wasn’t home—what should I do? She said, “Do what you think is right.” I weighed all the factors, and I went.

The next year, in the eighth grade, a girl called me one night and asked if I would go with her to a dance. It was one of those Sadie Hawkins events where the girls invite the guys. She was a pretty girl. My heart pounded again: Uh . . . I don’t dance, I said. She said, We don’t have to dance, we can just sit and watch. Uh . . . just a minute. I went and asked my mother what I should do. (Daddy wasn’t home.) She said, “Do what you think is right.” Then she checked her calendar, and we were going to be out of town. Saved.

What was my mother, speaking for my father, doing? She was saying: We have standards, son, but they need to come from the inside. If they don’t come from the inside, they are worthless. On these issues, you’re old enough now to discover who you are deep inside. When my parents said, “Do what you think is right,” they were not foolish relativists. They were wise fundamentalists.

“Truthing in Love”

Soon I was old enough to start talking about these issues with my father. Daddy, why is there a split between you and some other fundamentalists? One thing I remember above all about these conversations. He went to Ephesians 4:15 over and over and reminded me that in all our devotion to the truth we must “speak the truth in love.” He used to love to play on the Greek verb and translate it “truthing in love.” He felt as if fundamentalism was losing the battle mainly for spiritual and attitudinal reasons, not doctrinal ones.

Already in the 1940s, there had emerged in my father’s preaching and teaching and writing a warning about the dangers of fundamentalism. For the careless listener, this could sound like he was abandoning the ship of fundamentalism. Some would say he did. He would surely say he didn’t. I don’t think he did. Let me try to capture the spirit of this warning from his own words:

Some professing Christians, often those who boast of their fundamentalism, are given to a grievous censorious and critical attitude toward everything and everybody. As one man I knew has said, “Some people are born in the objective case, the contrary gender and the bilious mood.”. . . For one to profess to know Christ and have real religion and at the same time to manifest a sour, critical, negative attitude is disgusting and abhorrent even to the ungodly. Certainly anyone with such an unsavory nature could never hope to be a “savour of life unto life.”15

Critiquing Fundamentalism

Then there is this amazing passage that folds the critique of fundamentalism in with a much wider concern and shows the scope of my father’s burden. He is not picking on anyone here, he is groaning over the lost power of the church and longing for the day of great revival.

When backslidden Christians confess their waywardness and return to God; when worldly Christians stop their smoking, drinking, dancing, card-playing and show-going and heed again the message of separation; when pharisaic negative religionists who boast loudly of what they do not do, forsake their contemptuous pride, covetousness and carnality and return again to their “first love”; when slothful, sleepy, negligent Christians are filled with the Spirit and feel again the thrill of their salvation; when stagnant fundamentalism is replaced by aggressive evangelism; . . . when anemic sermons are red again with the crimson blood of Jesus; when the average church ceases to be merely a center of social interest and becomes again a source of spiritual influence, does more praying and less playing, more fasting and less feasting, showers of revival fire and blessing will again fall on America.16

He said that there is a world of difference between being separated and being consecrated. If we don’t move beyond separation to consecration, our separation is worthless. This is what my parents were saying to me when mother said, Do what you think is right, Johnny. The issue in this family is not whether we keep separation rules, but whether we have consecrated hearts.

I have seen many Christians who are separated but far from consecrated. They boast pharisaically of what they do not do and fail to see that they are doing almost nothing for God. . . . Consecrated Christians are Christians who are so busy serving the Lord that they have neither time or taste for the things of the world. They have found their joy and complete satisfaction in Christ.17

Fundamentalism ceased to be a term my father could use for himself without profound qualification. And this didn’t change for forty years.

If Christianity, as he said, is not rules and dogmas and creeds and rituals and passionless purity and degrees of goodness, and if the devil himself is a fundamentalist (because he knows all the fundamentals to be true), then what is the heart of the matter? What is Christianity? What was it that undergirded and overshadowed everything else in our home and in my father’s ministry?

Stunned by the Gospel

The answer was gospel-rooted, Christ-savoring, God-glorifying joy. My father was stunned by the gospel. He exulted in the gospel. Everything in fundamentalism was secondary to the glory of Christ enjoyed in the gospel. The gospel meant salvation, and salvation meant, in the end, total satisfaction in Christ:

Other religions are spelled, “Do,” but Christianity is spelled, “Done.” If you would be saved, you must place your trust in the finished and perfect work of Christ on the cross. In Him all sin was punished and God’s holiness was vindicated. God is satisfied with Christ as to the perfection of His life and righteousness, and as to the completeness of His work in the sinner’s behalf. God’s only requirement for salvation is that you, too, be satisfied with Christ and His work.18

Satisfied with Christ

Where did I learn that delight in God is our highest duty? Before Jonathan Edwards and before C. S. Lewis and before Daniel Fuller, there was Bill Piper, unsystematically, unapologetically, and almost unwittingly saying: God’s only requirement is that you be satisfied with Christ.

Long before John Piper read C. S. Lewis’ The Weight of Glory and learned about the folly of making mud pies in the slums because one can’t imagine a holiday at the sea—long before that—he was hearing his father talkabout the cow and the barbed-wire fence by the road.

I have often seen a cow stick her head through a barbed wire fence to chew the stubby grass bordering a highway, when behind her lay a whole pasture of grass. I have always been reminded of Christians who have not learned to completely trust Christ, reaching out to the world for sensual pleasure when rivers of pleasure were at their disposal in Christ.19

“Everyone Wants to Be Happy”

Long before John Piper ever read, “All men seek happiness”21 in Pascal’s Penses, he was absorbing from his father these very truths. This from a sermon in the 1940s: “Everyone wants to be happy. Sinners seek it in pleasure, fame, wealth and unbelief, but they seek in vain. Christians have found the answer to happiness in Christ.”22

And what are these pleasures that this fundamentalist is so ravished by? Like Lewis, my father answered: They are everywhere.

The devil never made a rain drop or a snow flake. He never made a baby smile or a nightingale sing. He never placed a golden sun in a western sky or filled the night with stars. Why? Because these things were not his to give. God is the creator and the possessor of them all and he lovingly shares these things with us.23

Christ Himself, The Supreme Delight

Is it any wonder my father was a poet? Poets are people who see the indescribable glory everywhere and will not be daunted in their passion to make language serve its revelation. My father found reason to rejoice everywhere he looked. He had an invincible faith that all things serve God’s wise purpose to reveal his glory. Even in his final years of dementia, he rejoiced. In the last month that he was able to keep a journal (April of 2004), he wrote, “I’ll soon be 86 but I feel strong and my health is good. God has been exceedingly gracious and I am most unworthy of His matchless grace and patience. The Lord is more precious to me the older I get.”

In other words, not the pleasures that lie strewn everywhere in life, but the pleasures of Christ himself are the supreme delight. “Every believer has in Christ all the fullness the world longs for. Christianity, therefore, far from being dull and dreary or a harsh system of rules and regulations, is a gloriously free, real, victorious and happy life.”24

And, he adds, it never ends:

His grace is infinite. It is fathomless as the sea. In glory, throughout the ages to come, we who are saved will behold an endless display of these riches which we now have in Christ Jesus. [Then, always the evangelist, he says, and I say] I trust that you all are sharing this wealth. If not, you may. Simply place your faith in Christ and start reveling in the riches of God’s grace.25

“Fully Satisfied with Him Alone”

One last thing, lest he fail to get all the credit that he should: He preached a very provocative message once called “Sanctifying God” from Isaiah 8:13(“Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.”). What was his answer to the question, How do we “sanctify” God—how do we esteem him and honor him and set him apart is the supremely valuable Treasure of our lives?

He gives his answer in the form of a very personal discovery: “I knew . . . that God was sufficient, abundantly able to supply my every need and the need of all who would trust Him. But to sanctify Him as such, I realized that day that I must live a contented life, a life fully satisfied with Him alone.”26 Or to quote the echo of the father in the son: God is most sanctified in us, when we are most satisfied in him.

What an evangelist! What a fundamentalist! What a soul full of grace and joy!

Thank you, Daddy. Thank you. Under God, I owe you everything.

Endnotes

1 Bill Piper, The Greatest Menace to Modern Youth (Greenville, SC: Piper’s Evangelistic Publications, 1980), p. 30.

2 Bill Piper, A Good Time and How to Have It (Greenville, SC: Piper Publications, 1964), p. 65.

3 The Greatest Menace to Modern Youth, pp. 22-23.

4 John Piper, Desiring God (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2003), pp. 13-14.

5 Bill Piper, Stones Out of the Rubbish, (Greenville, SC: Piper’s Publications, 1947), pp. 63-64.

6 Stones Out of the Rubbish, pp. 27-28.

7 Bill Piper, The Tyranny of Tolerance (Greenville, SC: Piper’s Publications, 1964), p. 28.

8 J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1923), pp. 49-50.

9 The Tyranny of Tolerance, p. 38.

10 Ibid., p. 19.

11 Ibid., p. 29.

12 Ibid., pp. 10, 11, 17.

13 Stones Out of the Rubbish, p. 62.

14 The Tyranny of Tolerance, p. 10.

15 Bill Piper, Dead Men Made Alive (Greenville, SC: Piper’s Publications, 1949), pp. 28-29.

16 Stones Out of the Rubbish, p. 33.

17 Ibid., p. 62.

18 Dead Men Made Alive, p. 24.

19 A Good Time and How to Have It, p. 48.

20 The Greatest Menace to Modern Youth, p. 22.

21 Blaise Pascal, Penses (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1958), p. 113, Thought # 425.

22 Dead Men Made Alive, p. 30.

23 The Greatest Menace to Modern Youth, p. 39.

24 A Good Time and How to Have It, p. 70.

25 Dead Men Made Alive, p. 62.

26 A Good Time and How to Have It, p. 17.

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brookstonalmanac · 4 years

Text

Events 7.1

AD 69 – Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as Emperor. 552 – Battle of Taginae: Byzantine forces under Narses defeat the Ostrogoths in Italy, and the Ostrogoth king, Totila, is mortally wounded. 1097 – Battle of Dorylaeum: Crusaders led by prince Bohemond of Taranto defeat a Seljuk army led by sultan Kilij Arslan I. 1431 – The Battle of La Higueruela takes place in Granada, leading to a modest advance of the Kingdom of Castile during the Reconquista. 1520 – Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan after nightfall. 1523 – Jan van Essen and Hendrik Vos become the first Lutheran martyrs, burned at the stake by Roman Catholic authorities in Brussels. 1569 – Union of Lublin: The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania confirm a real union; the united country is called the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Republic of Both Nations. 1643 – First meeting of the Westminster Assembly, a council of theologians ("divines") and members of the Parliament of England appointed to restructure the Church of England, at Westminster Abbey in London. 1690 – Glorious Revolution: Battle of the Boyne in Ireland (as reckoned under the Julian calendar). 1766 – François-Jean de la Barre, a young French nobleman, is tortured and beheaded before his body is burnt on a pyre along with a copy of Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique nailed to his torso for the crime of not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession in Abbeville, France. 1770 – Lexell's Comet is seen closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 AU (1,360,000 mi; 2,180,000 km) 1782 – Raid on Lunenburg: American privateers attack the British settlement of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. 1819 – Johann Georg Tralles discovers the Great Comet of 1819, (C/1819 N1). It was the first comet analyzed using polarimetry, by François Arago. 1837 – A system of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths is established in England and Wales. 1855 – Signing of the Quinault Treaty: The Quinault and the Quileute cede their land to the United States. 1858 – Joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society of London. 1862 – The Russian State Library is founded as the Library of the Moscow Public Museum. 1862 – Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, second daughter of Queen Victoria, marries Prince Louis of Hesse, the future Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse. 1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Malvern Hill takes place. It is the last of the Seven Days Battles, part of George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. 1863 – Keti Koti (Emancipation Day) in Suriname, marking the abolition of slavery by the Netherlands. 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Gettysburg begins. 1867 – The British North America Act takes effect as the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia join into confederation to create the modern nation of Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Canada. This date is commemorated annually in Canada as Canada Day, a national holiday. 1870 – The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence. 1873 – Prince Edward Island joins into Canadian Confederation. 1874 – The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful typewriter, goes on sale. 1878 – Canada joins the Universal Postal Union. 1879 – Charles Taze Russell publishes the first edition of the religious magazine The Watchtower. 1881 – The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States. 1881 – General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell and Childers reforms of the British Army, comes into effect. 1885 – The United States terminates reciprocity and fishery agreement with Canada. 1885 – The Congo Free State is established by King Leopold II of Belgium. 1890 – Canada and Bermuda are linked by telegraph cable. 1898 – Spanish–American War: The Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. 1903 – Start of first Tour de France bicycle race. 1908 – SOS is adopted as the international distress signal. 1911 – Germany despatches the gunship SMS Panther to Morocco, sparking the Agadir Crisis. 1915 – Leutnant Kurt Wintgens of the then-named German Deutsches Heer's Fliegertruppe army air service achieves the first known aerial victory with a synchronized machine-gun armed fighter plane, the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker. 1916 – World War I: First day on the Somme: On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 19,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded. 1922 – The Great Railroad Strike of 1922 begins in the United States. 1923 – The Parliament of Canada suspends all Chinese immigration. 1931 – United Airlines begins service (as Boeing Air Transport). 1931 – Wiley Post and Harold Gatty become the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a single-engined monoplane aircraft. 1932 – Australia's national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, was formed. 1935 – Regina, Saskatchewan police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police ambush strikers participating in the On-to-Ottawa Trek. 1942 – World War II: First Battle of El Alamein. 1942 – The Australian Federal Government becomes the sole collector of income tax in Australia as State Income Tax is abolished. 1943 – The City of Tokyo and the Prefecture of Tokyo are both replaced by the Tokyo Metropolis. 1947 – The Philippine Air Force is established. 1948 – Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Quaid-i-Azam) inaugurates Pakistan's central bank, the State Bank of Pakistan. 1949 – The merger of two princely states of India, Cochin and Travancore, into the state of Thiru-Kochi (later re-organized as Kerala) in the Indian Union ends more than 1,000 years of princely rule by the Cochin royal family. 1957 – The International Geophysical Year begins. 1958 – The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation links television broadcasting across Canada via microwave. 1958 – Flooding of Canada's Saint Lawrence Seaway begins. 1959 – Specific values for the international yard, avoirdupois pound and derived units (e.g. inch, mile and ounce) are adopted after agreement between the US, the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries. 1960 – Independence of Somalia. 1960 – Ghana becomes a republic and Kwame Nkrumah becomes its first President as Queen Elizabeth II ceases to be its head of state. 1962 – Independence of Rwanda and Burundi. 1963 – ZIP codes are introduced for United States mail.[12] 1963 – The British Government admits that former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet agent. 1966 – The first color television transmission in Canada takes place from Toronto. 1967 – Merger Treaty: The European Community is formally created out of a merger with the Common Market, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Commission. 1968 – The United States Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program is officially established. 1968 – The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is signed in Washington, D.C., London and Moscow by sixty-two countries. 1968 – Formal separation of the United Auto Workers from the AFL–CIO in the United States. 1972 – The first Gay pride march in England takes place. 1976 – Portugal grants autonomy to Madeira. 1978 – The Northern Territory in Australia is granted self-government. 1979 – Sony introduces the Walkman. 1980 – "O Canada" officially becomes the national anthem of Canada. 1983 – A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea crashes into the Fouta Djallon mountains in Guinea-Bissau, killing all 23 people on board. 1984 – The PG-13 rating is introduced by the MPAA. 1987 – The American radio station WFAN in New York City is launched as the world's first all-sports radio station. 1990 – German reunification: East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany. 1991 – Cold War: The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague. 1997 – China resumes sovereignty over the city-state of Hong Kong, ending 156 years of British colonial rule. The handover ceremony is attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Charles, Prince of Wales, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. 1999 – The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Elizabeth II on the day that legislative powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh. In Wales, the powers of the Welsh Secretary are transferred to the National Assembly. 2002 – The International Criminal Court is established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. 2002 – Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, a Tupolev Tu-154, and DHL Flight 611, a Boeing 757, collide in mid-air over Überlingen, southern Germany, killing all 71 on board both planes. 2003 – Over 500,000 people protest against efforts to pass anti-sedition legislation in Hong Kong. 2004 – Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini–Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:48 UTC. 2006 – The first operation of Qinghai–Tibet Railway is conducted in China. 2007 – Smoking in England is banned in all public indoor spaces. 2008 – Riots erupt in Mongolia in response to allegations of fraud surrounding the 2008 legislative elections. 2013 – Croatia becomes the 28th member of the European Union.

#Events

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