Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

April 1, 2007

Today’s Announcements

I was going to announce this was the very last Storytime Tapestry Issue and then say April Fools, but I can't be that mean.  I know how much the newsletter means to each and everyone of you, that I just couldn't do it. Happy April Fools Day for our members in Canada and The United States of America.

Happy Birthday Katie Cassady: BJ.Cassady@af-group.com

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Today’s Stories

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ValueSpeak

A Weekly Column

By Joseph Walker

valuespeak@msn.com

THE PERFECT APRIL FOOL

Joe Walker

            In a nationally syndicated news story in 1983, a Boston University history professor named Joseph Boskin explained the origins of April Fools Day.

            According to Professor Boskin, it all started when a gaggle (or should that be giggle?) of court jesters told the Roman Emperor Constantine that they could do a better job of running the empire better than he was doing.  I’m thinking this was a little like what Jay Leno, David Letterman and Jon Stewart do to President Bush in their comic monologues every night, with this exception: if you displeased the emperor you could be playing your next engagement in the Coliseum with a bunch of hungry lions.

            But evidently the jesters caught Constantine on a playful day.  He invited one of them, a fellow named Kugel, to come to the palace, where the emperor turned the scepter over to the jester for one day.  According to Professor Boskin, Kugel didn’t lead any armies into battle or anything like that during his one day on the throne, but he did send out an edict calling for a day of absurdity.  Evidently Constantine liked the idea, and it became an annual event.

            “In a way it was a very serious day,” Professor Boskin explained in that 1983 newspaper story. “In those times fools were really wise men.  It was the role of jesters to put things in perspective with humor.”

            The interesting thing about Professor Boskin’s explanation of the beginning of April Fool’s Day is that it sounds reasonable and logical even though it was completely fabricated.  He made it all up as a sort of historical April Fool’s joke, only the Associated Press picked it up and ran it as an April Fool’s day feature without knowing that it was a joke.  It was weeks before the AP figured out the hoax, but by then the story had already been printed as factual in dozens of newspapers across the country.

            I don’t know about you, but part of me thinks that is pretty funny.  It’s sort of nice to see the media get its self-important nose tweaked every once in a while – especially on April Fool’s Day.  But the other part of me knows perfectly well that if I had been one of those newspaper editors I probably would have printed the story, too.

            What can I say?  I’m gullible.  It’s like Mark Twain said: “April 1^st.  This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.”

            And I’m the perfect April Fool.  I’m the kid who spent an entire day at school looking foolish because I had a “Kick Me” sign taped to my back.  I’m the one child my mother could fool with her traditional April Fool’s Day caper of taking the sugar out of the sugar bowl and filling it with salt (you’d think I’d learn after that first year of eating a big spoonful of salty Corn Flakes, wouldn’t you?  But no – two or three years later I was still falling for it).  And I’m the one member of the family who took a second bite of some April Fool’s Day pancakes into which my wife, Anita, had cooked a nice, round piece of cloth.  In fact, I think I’ve still got a cloth crown on one of my molars.

            So, OK – I’m gullible.  I admit it.  I want to believe, to trust, to rely, to accept.  It’s my nature.  Heaven knows, life gives us enough reasons for doubt and mistrust.   I don’t want to spend even one day of my life looking for ulterior motives in every person, every situation, every Corn Flake and every pancake.

            Either that, or I’m just plain . . . you know . . . foolish.  Like those editors who printed the professor’s story.  In which case I must once again cite Twain: “Let us be thankful for the fools,” he said.  “But for them the rest of us could not succeed.”

            Even if I’m one of “them” instead of one of “us.”

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There Will Always Be ...

Joyce C. Lock

1.) poor health.

2.) unruly children.

3.) financial bondage.

4.) physical and emotional abuse.

5.) difficult people in the workplace.

6.) someone manipulating for dishonest gain.

7.) others quick to judge our heart, action, or motive.

8.) unfairness, unkindness, and some degree of hatred (some how, some way, somewhere); as the list goes on.

There will always be wars and rumours of wars because ... there is no new thing under the sun (Ecclesiastics 1:9c).  In the world ye shall have tribulation (John 16:33b), and that's the way it is.

All these things must come before they can pass, (and thankfully, they do pass) but the end is not yet (Matthew 24:6b).

At any given time, you have the God given right to put an end to your spiritual warfare.  However, freedom isn't yours until you choose it.  And, how to do that is to stop living 'under the sun' and start living in it.

The Lord God is a sun (shield). Psalm 84:11a  The sun is the brightest light, for which 'walking in that light' dispels all darkness: providing one's shield of faith.  Having experienced that shield, I say this, "It is not just a 'piece of metal' in front of us, it is a whole dad-gummed dome!  Absolutely nothing can touch us when walking in His light!"

The Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. Psalm 84:11b

Watch ye therefore, and pray always (get your every next step of instruction from God), that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. Luke 21:36

© 2007 by Joyce C. Lock
http://iam.homewithGod.com/glimpsesofgod/

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Poetry Corner

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On April Fools Day,

Cynthia Groopman

Tricks and pranks, on us, people do play.
Words that are untrue are said,
And we often do the wrong thing, instead.
Silly, we act in what we do and say,
And that adds humor and foolishness to April Fools Day.
We laugh and clown around,
As we rejoice at happiness' cheerful sound.
Although April Fools Day comes but once a year,
We are filled with mirthful cheer.


Cynthia Groopman
Cynthia.Groopman@verizon.net
Copyright ©2005 Cynthia L. Groopman

~**~**~

The Evenings Coolness

Cynthia Groopman

As the radiant sunshine glow begins to gradually fade,

Bathed am I, in the coolness of the evening shade.

Embrace tenderly by a splendid caress of refreshing fresh air,

My weary soul is renewed with sudden flare.

Softness and comfort adorns my heart,

As the stressful events of the day begins to depart.

Oh, coolness of the evening you are so alluring to me,

Enfolding me into Go'ss warm loving arms of love and tranquility.

 Cynthia Groopman

Cynthia.Groopman@verizon.net

Copyright ©2005 Cynthia L. Groopman

 ~**~**~

April Fools Day
Cynthia Groopman

 
An April Sunrise

Oh, April surprise,
Glorious splendor enchants me dazzling before my dancing eyes.
Colorful rainbows of little buds lace the landscape with charm,
As merrily chirping birds chant melodically blissful psalms.
Swimming gleefully all about,
Energetic fish sprightly splash to the breeze's cheerful shout.
Then suddenly overnight,
A fierce winter storm attacks with such overpowering fury and might.
The ground is clad in a frosty white,
Creating a winter February sight.
How can this be?
My thoughts are bathed in deep mystery.
For, to me it is perplexing and rather strange,
That the season should abruptly change.
Winter yearned to have his last dance,
Precluding April to glow with flare and elegance.
To me, this is difficult to fathom and to discern,
But, the mysteriously capricious whims of mother nature,
I still cannot learn.


Cynthia Groopman

Cynthia.Groopman@verizon.net
Copyright ©2005 Cynthia L. Groopman

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