Cheetos Bag o' Bones - Distribution and Relative Possibilitie

Investigation--how many complete cheetah skeletons can I make with a bag of Cheetos Bag o' Bones?

Materials: One 8-oz bag Cheetos Bag o’ Bones
Large bowl
Smaller containers for sorting the bones

Sorting revealed the following distribution:

Skulls: 54

Ribcages: 38

Paws: 51
Longbones: 82

Considering the picture above, a cheetah skeleton is one head, one rib cage, four paws, and four long bones--the limiting factor on skeletal assembly would be paws. This one bag of Cheetos Bag O’ Bones could assemble 12 complete cheetahs.

Another picture on the bag, though,  shows one head, one rib cage, four paws, and eight long bones. In that case, the limiting factor would be longbones, and the bag would only give us 10 complete cheetahs.

I could purchase more bags, but it turns out that the bones are the puffy kind of cheeto, not the crunchy ones I prefer.

So I’ll stick with the observation that the total volume of each kind of bone seemed to be approximately equal.  It’s also possible that bags are filled by mass of each bone, but my instrumentation was limited.  (My kitchen scale has been dropped enough times that its accuracy is unreliable. It's sensitivity with such light objects has never been stellar, either.)

Glitches, Grace, and a Generosity of Spirit

May  5, 1819

William Ellery Channing gave the revolutionary sermon Unitarian Christianity.
Due to his soft voice and the poor acoustics of the church, only the first three rows of folks could actually hear the sermon.

October 5 (and 6), 2014

The Church of the Larger Fellowship switches to their new online worship platform with Adobe Connect. It did not go smoothly. Some elements froze entirely, or went in fits and starts.

And yet, people stuck with it, and it truly felt like community.

Some elements I witnessed (watching quite passively as a congregant) that made it work:

*Clear reporting ahead of time—

•   Why we’re switching to a new format
•  What platforms were supported by Adobe, and what you might need to do ahead of time
•  Recognizing that there might be glitches, and that leadership was committed to working with the vendor to fix things over the coming weeks.
•  Asking membership to please share their experience of what did and did not work. Amazingly, those emails were to be sent to the senior minister, Meg Riley.

*Leaders logged in early and were available for level one tech support.

*Collaborative spirit— Soon enough congregants were joining in with their suggestions and what worked for them

*Personal responsibility and flexibility- some congregants, when one device/browser wasn’t working for them, made the effort to try another way, rather than shaking their heads and leaving

*Reminders that all the video segments would be on YouTube as well, so anything missed was not gone forever! (As I write this, I see links going up on Facebook, directing us to the segments that were hardest to hear/see.)

*And through all the chaos, the message was vitally important and people’s pastoral needs were still being met.

Kudos to the folks at Church of the Larger Fellowship. I look forward to what is to come!

Justice and the Symphony

Today's sermon title was "Finding Courage, William Ellery Channing" -looking at his life and several of the major controversies that required him to find courage (often quite slowly and grudgingly.)  One of my points was that even if he agreed with someone's core ideals, he would shut down completely if their methods were too extreme or chaotic for him.

Sunday morning I woke to this news story, and knew I needed to share it with the congregation. We do not have easy video access in the sanctuary, so my description had to suffice. Several videos are online- here's one.

Last night fifty people purchased tickets to the St. Louis Symphony’s performance of Brahms German Requiem. They put on nice clothes, and took their seats.

As the intermission was coming to an end, two of the people stood and started signing a Requiem to Michael Brown, the young unarmed black man shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri two months ago.

“Justice for Mike Brown is justice for us all. Which side are you on, friend, which side are you on?”

Others in the group joined in the requiem, displayed banners, and joined in a chant – Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter.  And then they peaceably dispersed, no need for ushers or arrests. Video of the event shows some of the audience and the orchestra applauding, others just watching.

“Justice for Mike Brown is justice for us all. Which side are you on, friend, which side are you on?”

William Ellery Channing would have been appalled at this display and this disruption of ‘civilized things’, though let's remember, this happened during intermission, not while the orchestra was performing. But he agreed with the idea to his core—black lives matter. Justice for us all.

KenShuman reminds us - Becoming a peacemaker requires courage, intentionality, & perseverance.  If you decide to become a peacemaker you will have to fight for it in your own life.

Folks, our families, our church, and our world need us to be peacemakers. Let’s find and stay to our courage, and build that better world.  

Earworms

Earlier in the week I used a nonsense word, forgetting that it is featured in an earworm sort of song. My sister cursed me for that, as she then had the song going in her head for much of the next day.

Oops. Does the unintentional nature of the earworming work as a defense? Perhaps in the sentencing stage?

Today I have a song stuck in my head.
More precisely, I have about a twelve-second loop of it stuck in my head.

Thus far, it has not worked its way into the piece I'm writing.
But as I preach tomorrow morning, well, we're just going to have to hope that it doesn't come bursting out.

That Idea Commercial

My sermon is at the scary/awkward/ugly stage right now.
We may not go full peacock, but I'm hoping for presentable?

Rewards

A very good friend taught me that when you take a road trip with children, you should have little prizes to hand out every hundred miles. 

Supposedly when we grow up we develop this amazing self-affirmation tendency where we feel all actualized and awesome and need no further reward.

I'm not there yet.

I need prizes, fabulous and otherwise. Little chocolates, outings, or as seen here, goofy socks. 

I have a wish list online to give myself rewards when I do something I really did not want to do, like deal with a gross veterinary appointment.

And sometimes it's intangibles--taking five minutes to go look at the clouds, read a funny article, or play a sudoku page. Oo, or bubble bath.

Cinematic Multitasking

I am a a champion channel-flipper, especially when commercial avoidance is involved. 

On rare occasions, I find fun pairings of movies to flip between with some common themes. 

Tonight?
10 Things I Hate About You and The 40-Year Old Virgin.

What's your pairing?