My Talking Library shift earlier this week was a dream shift, in some ways: I got to read the articles on the Tony Awards and the French Open, and I didn't have to read "Dear Abby"...but then I completely corpsed on this report of a bear in Knoxville. It was the part about the KPD officer accidentally backing his car into the bear while searching for it that did me in.

(To be totally fair, I could see myself doing that -- but I still couldn't help laughing until there were tears rolling down my face.)

CMApocalypse Bingo

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In other news, I'm preaching the next three Sundays in three different towns, so I spent part of the past hour looking over possible readings. For this Sunday's chalice lighting, we'll be using a text by Arthur Waskow (that's archived at ICUU.net in German and French as well as English):

We are the generation that stands between the fires.
Behind us the flame and smoke that rose from Auschwitz and from Hiroshima,
Before us the nightmare of a Flood of Fire,
The flame and smoke that consume all earth.
It is our task to make from fire not an all consuming blaze but the light in which we see each other fully, all of us different, all of us bearing One Spark.
We light these fires to see more clearly that the earth and all who live as part of it are not for burning.
We light these fires to see more clearly the rainbow in our many-colored faces.
Blessed is the One within the many, blessed are the Many who make one.