HIGHLIGHTS AND FEATURES
INSIDE WE HAVE:
EYEWITLESS NEWS
Amigos® ANTICS
MISSPELLED WURDS
DANGLING PARTICIPLES
SPLIT INFINITIVES
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
JOURNAL
104 South Village Ave. Lionville, PA 19341
610-363 6264
.
The Newsletter of St. Paul’s
Property Committee
John Ward Chairman
Don Mullings, Editor
Amigos...whoever shows up
September 25 2016
Editor: …[email protected]
Sometimes weekly, often late, but always…full of it.
Volume XXI , Issue 29 Fiscal Week 39
The purpose of this paper is to help folks understand what it takes to keep our Church buildings and grounds in service; to let you know
what’s happening and why, (if we can find out for you, which is sometimes like pulling teeth, or your leg, on occasion). As a matter of
policy, the word "work" is forbidden on these pages, being replaced with "fun" or "joy", which mostly it is.
THE LAST OF SUMMER
…It fell from an overpowering gasp of
sweatshop humidity to a delightful sunny
and cloudless day of light
breezes, and cooler air. Last
Thursday marked the
official transition into the
first weeks of the fall
season.
Although some leaves
have previously been
scorched brown and
dropped as a result of a
brief drought period, none
of the colorful display
typical of what we think of
as autumn has yet had time
to arrive.
We are in that period when we feel that
first nip of morning frost and yet on some
days it suddenly returns to midsummer
heat.
My favorite season…It gets
even better as we get into the
sensations of sight, textures,
and sounds; tastes of apple
cider, pumpkin pie, of red and
yellow leaves, football and
slightly off-key marching
bands, birds overhead heading
south in symmetrical
formations, and even cool,
drenching rainfall, sometimes
for days, late vacations after the
kids are out of the nest, the
occasional whiff of an outdoor
tailgate grill, the bite of frost, and the warm
feel of a tartan blanket … all bring back full
memories of happy times, and the
anticipation of more soon to come.
Engineering Fact: An opinion without 3.141596 etc. is an onion.
VISIT OUR WEB PAGE <http://www.stpaulslionville.org/>
PROPERTY JOURNAL 9/24/2016 PAGE 2
AMIGOS ANTICS…Thursday, Sept 22, 2016
PROJECTS:
Miscreants: Carol Vreim, Joey Clark, Chris Frost, Linda Dierksheide, Dan Dierksheide,
Kirk Berger, Tilly and Dick Hujsak, Jim Lammey, Chet Henricksen, and Don Mullings.
Weather: Perfect! 70F, Blue Skies
Jim L, with Dan assisting, further pursued his
project of adding shelf supports to one wall of the
tractor storage shed. Aligning these amidst the
existing sprinkler / heating pipes that slope, has
proved challenging. They measured and leveled
and measured some more. Nearly done with that
first shelf, the next ones will go easier.
OTHER STUFF:
Garden watering wasn’t needed, as we had nearly
2” of rain a few days ago.
The preschool entry door continued to be a
problem, as it resisted latching without gorilla
force against the new seals. Chris discovered more
seals on the back edge that needed adjusting,
reseated them, and finally lubricated the latch
pawls and catch with “Pam”, a non-toxic vegetable
lube not harmful to the groping hands of small
children.
Joey and Chris ran a light bulb patrol that
yielded no burned out ones again this week.
Don added a shaker peg to the main hallway
kiddie’s coat rack. There was an unfilled gap there
due to the extension he added last week.
John B (absent today) has sanded off faded and
peeling safety paint on the exterior stairway top
Tilly and Dick .paint a pole. ….
and bottom steps, then he painted them a new
bright yellow and/ or handicap blue.
John B also got parsonage drainpipes corrected
(by our building contractor) that were misrouted
during the sprinkler system installation last year...
Linda spent some time on office chores,
shredding papers with the help of Joey. Then she
cleaned up the parsonage coffee corner, and other
chores over there.
Kirk sharpened up a pair of limb loppers, and
trimmed branches out of the southeast corner,
where out old spruce trees are crowding the
building.
Kirk also helped Don clear up the Amigoshop
by emptying trash cans.
Dan took the tractor out along the south
cemetery fence, cut the weeds low, and noted
some damage to the chain link fence there.
Carol weeded flowerbeds, and carted off the
carcasses to our dumpster.
Tilly and Dick did preventative rust painting on
the mounting bolts of the parking lot light poles.
They sanded and painted (red) a utility stool
from the parsonage porch.
Chet probably recycled old office papers this
week (He said he would via email)
Jim L. Betwixt the pipes…
Kirk limb lopping
PROPERTY JOURNAL 9/24/2016 PAGE 3
SOME MORE THINGS WORTH PASSING ON (Continued From two weeks ago)
1. Today, I kissed my dad on the forehead as he
passed away in a small hospital bed.
About 5 seconds after he passed, I realized it was
the first time I had given him a kiss since I was a little
boy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------2. Today, in the cutest voice, my 8-year-old daughter
asked me to start recycling. I chuckled and asked,
"Why?" She replied, "So you can help me save the
planet." I chuckled again and asked, "Why do you
want to save the planet?" Because that's where I keep
all my stuff," she said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------3. Today, when I witnessed a 27-year-old breast
cancer patient laughing hysterically at her 2-year-old
daughter's antics, I suddenly realized that I need to
stop complaining about my life and start celebrating
it again.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Today, a boy in a wheelchair saw me desperately
struggling on crutches with my broken leg and
offered to carry my backpack and books for me. He
helped me all the Away across campus to my class
and as he was leaving he said,
"I hope you feel better soon."
---------------------------------------------------------------------5. Today, I was feeling down because the results of a
biopsy came back malignant. When I got home, I
opened an e-mail that said, "Thinking of you today.
If you need me, I'm a phone call away." It was from a
high school friend I hadn't seen in 10 years.
---------------------------------------------------------------------6. Today, I was travelling in Kenya and I met a
refugee from Zimbabwe. He said he hadn't eaten
anything in over 3 days and looked extremely skinny
and unhealthy. Then my friend offered him the rest
of the sandwich he was eating. The first thing the
man said was, "We can share it.”
The best sermons are lived, not preached.
COMFORT FOOD
When the power failed at the elementary
school, the cook couldn't serve a hot meal in the
cafeteria, so at the last minute she whipped up
great stacks of peanut-butter-and-jelly
sandwiches.
As one little boy filled his plate, he said, "It's
about time. At last - a home-cooked meal!"
INTERNATIONAL BAR
An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a
Welshman, a Gurkha, a Latvian, a Turk, an
Aussie, two Kiwis, a German, an American, a
South African, a Cypriot, an Egyptian, a
Japanese, a Mexican a Spaniard, a Russian, a
Pole, a Lithuanian, a Swede, a Finn, an Israeli, a
Dane, a Romanian, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss,
a Greek, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian,
a Libyan and an Ethiopian went to a night club.
The bouncer said, "Sorry, but I can't let you in
without a Thai."
If you lose one sense, your other senses are enhanced;
that's why people with no sense of humor have an increased sense of self-importance.
PROPERTY JOURNAL 9/24/2016 PAGE 4
LISTENING TO THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE
The sound of stone and
gravel crushing under tires
signaled my escape was at hand.
The small lot sat empty, as it
usually is, and the trailhead stood
in front of me, waiting patiently
as it always does. The asphalt
road, with its winding path to the
impatient world I was running
from, lay behind me. I stepped
out of the car, and soon my feet
touched unpaved earth.
My solitary sentence began.
Such prison breaks have
become increasingly necessary for my soul, as day by
day it seems this extroverted world into which I was
born grows more and more extroverted, thriving on
ever-increasing noise, exposure, activity, and
connectivity; Its Times Square sprawl, its echoing din
far-reaching.
I run from the neon lights, and envy early man
and the quiet he must have known. Imagine a world
so quiet that the sound of a shooting star echoes
across time as the past streaks by in the night sky.
Our ancestors knew such quiet in their souls. That
quiet, however, both in the world and in our souls,
seems to be rapidly disappearing, as are our ways of
escaping it.
The park benches far away from the crowds
where the misfit introverts gather to be independent
together? They used to be relatively safe spots for
quiet. Our open-carry permit for cell phones has
changed all that. Today, I find myself increasingly
playing the role of the involuntary eavesdropper.
The stage changes — the waiting room, the
check-out line, ball field bleachers, or the bus — yet
the noisy play goes on. Perhaps we could bring back
the phone booth, those all-but-extinct props from the
past. Not to provide privacy to the caller, but to give
quiet to the rest of us. Herman Munster was onto
something when he installed that coffin phone booth
in his hallway. I may even follow suit myself, just to
bury the noise.
Though not yet dusk, the Earth is quickly
spinning away from the sun as I set foot on the trail.
Immediately the canopy branching out above me
seems to quicken the Earth’s rotation toward
darkness. Rain from the night before has left the
ground slick, soft, and shoe-suction
muddy. It is not long before my
presence is noticed.
A fly buzzes by my ear and I
swat it away, continuing down the
path. He follows me, though, and
whizzes by my other ear just a few
steps later. I swat again and quicken
my pace. He comes at me still,
louder and faster, whizzing and
whirring — and taunting too, I am
certain of it. The game continues
minute after minute as I
maddeningly slap, swat, and
thwack at the air, a madman alone in the woods. I
walk faster still, but the fly, an extrovert himself, is
persistent, demanding attention, buzzing in my ear.
In nature I had sought refuge from the
extroverted world outside it, and yet nature’s chief
extrovert was sabotaging my retreat. Each buzz was
another Marimba ringtone; each whirr a bannertowing airplane turning the ocean horizon into a
billboard; and each deafening drone just another
device spewing noise from our ever-connected,
mute-neglected, wireless world.
Again, I ran from the noise. Slipping and sliding
along the trail, I came to a stop a quarter of a mile
deeper into the woods. Above my panting breath, I
listened.
All was quiet. I had outrun the extrovert, and I
smiled.
Standing in silence and breathing in the stillness,
the slightest sound behind me caught my attention.
Turning, I saw a black and red butterfly fluttering
directly in front of me. In the quiet of the woods, I
could actually hear her wings beat together. Nature’s
quintessential introvert was talking — perhaps even
singing — and my smile grew. I watched her
extemporaneous dance into the distance. Dance as if
no one were looking. A butterfly must have said that.
Continuing down the path, I became convinced
that God must be an introvert. To hear her, we
simply need to escape the noise, notice the beauty,
and listen to the sound of silence.
When I left the trail and pulled off that gravelly
parking lot, darkness had already enveloped the
Earth.
But my soul was shining.
August 14, 2016 in the “Philadelphia Inquirer” by Michael T. Dolan
The Lord bless thee and keep thee…
The Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee,
The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and… give… thee… Peace.