Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Nation’s Music Ministers Yet Again Downcast When Jesus’ Wondrous Love Fails to Lift Dreadful Curse of Daylight Saving Time
The classic American hymn “Wondrous Love,” first published in 1811 during the second Great Awakening, proclaims, “What wondrous love is this, / That caused the Lord of bliss / To bear the dreadful curse / For my soul.” The nation’s music ministers awoke this morning once more disappointed to discover that the dreadful curse Jesus bears for us so we don’t have to doesn’t include Daylight Saving Time.
“‘Wondrous Love’ is a great Lenten hymn,” mumbled Elmer Morgan, organist at Parkhurst Methodist, over his fourth cup of coffee, “So it’s always disheartening to realize Lent after Lent that Jesus’ wondrous love doesn’t extend to lifting the curse of Daylight Saving Time from our souls.” Down the street at Spiritstone Reformed, the worship band reportedly slammed multiple energy drinks before the main service, noting forlornly that no outpouring of the Holy Spirit had made up for that one lost hour of sleep. Only bassist Chas Tietze abstained from energy-drink consumption, “But that’s only because,” drummer Mark Lorenzo observed, “He can play these sets in his sleep, and frequently does.”
Many pastors urged their congregations to look upon DST as yet another Lenten discipline. This has not escaped the notice of SHAZAM (Secular Humanists of America Zealously Against Morality), an organization bringing suit to claim that DST inappropriately establishes religion by imposing Lenten penance upon Americans regardless of creed. “It’s irrational to claim daylight can be ‘saved’ anyhow,” remarked secular humanist Patrice Whitehead, “So we’re petitioning to have the time change abolished entirely. Failing that,” she chortled, “We hope to at least push the time change back to its old dates, when it was more likely to trip Christians up by happening on Easter weekend rather than toward the beginning of Lent.”
In Salt Lake City, Utah, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir regretted the time change’s effect on its massive soprano section. “Every year on this Sunday, the sopranos are flat. Coffee isn’t an option for us, and other schemes, such as letting ferrets loose in the choir loft, routinely get shot down by church elders,” reported one Tabernacle tenor. He added, “Should the ferrets ever be approved, I will be happy to provide them.”
Meanwhile, churches all across Arizona reported a stunning outpouring of the Holy Spirit this morning. “Ineffable is how I would describe it,” remarked the pianist at Scottsdale’s Bethany Grove Chapel. “God’s Spirit is a wind that blows wherever it will, and today, it’s through Arizona.”
Published in Humor
Meh. Tell your story to the Aussies – see how much sympathy that generates. 😉
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” Douglas Adams
Thanks. I haven’t looked it up since… well, for several decades, but I thought Heisenberg spoke about location and momentum. Since momentum is the product of mass and velocity, I don’t recall if he was suggesting that, having established the location, you couldn’t determine the velocity or couldn’t determine the mass — or if the ambiguity could be in either of those two quantities.
But I’m not going to look it up, and so will remain uncertain about Heisenberg’s Principle.
Yes, that was always exciting, and the music directors really had reason to be grumpy! We usually have extra music for Easter, so we need to start warm-ups earlier than usual that morning. To throw a time change on top of that was cruel.
Also, the people who attend church at Christmas and Easter only looking very confused as they walk into the sanctuary 45 minutes after worship started (thinking they were 15 minutes early).
I did get there at the right time. I did not get the job, which was probably the right decision. Shortly thereafter I took a job in Rochester, NY that ended up working well for us for 18 years.
Comment deleted (redundant)
I thought Heisenberg’s Principle was a recipe for making blue meth, but that may have been a different Heisenberg.
I was going to do a joke about Heisenberg’s Principal, but decided I couldn’t make it work.
Ooh, that’s good, b/c Walter White started out as a teacher! Something about Heisenberg’s Principal caught him in the science lab making meth… c’mon people, we can crowdsource this joke!
At our Anglican church, in the traditional service, we chanted the Great Litany, which took up four full pages of the service bulletin. It was quite an undertaking for a 9am service on the Sunday of the time change.
We arrived 45 minutes early because my husband is in the choir. I sat alone in the sanctuary listening to the choir practice the litany:
As they practiced, the pastor came up the center aisle, chanting (in good humor):
My husband now tells me (I couldn’t hear it) that the choir director chanted back: