The Gettysburg Address Stunk

No matter what you do, someone is going to find fault with it. When I feel unfairly rebuked, I remember what was said about a speech of Abraham Lincoln. The Harrisburg Patriot and Union said of his speech, “We pass over the silly remarks of the President; for the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall no more be repeated or thought of.” The Chicago Times said, “The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances” and the London Times remarked, “Anything more dull and commonplace it would not be easy to produce.” Well you might have heard of that speech, it is now know as the Gettysburg Address, one of the most famous speeches in American history. It just goes to show that the critic doesn’t always have any idea what they are talking about. Paul understood that. The Corinthians said of Paul, “his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech contemptible” (2 Corinthians 10:10) Moses knew it as well. The Israelites were constantly complaining about his leadership. Jesus himself was accused of being in league with the devil. (Luke 11:15) Just remember when you are chided, you are in good company.

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I Know All Those Words, But That Sentence Makes No Sense To Me

Let’s say you travel back in time six hundred years or so. Luckily, you happen across a fellow that speaks English. Upon hearing your tale, he describes you as nice, smart, and handsome. Wouldn’t you feel good? You shouldn’t. As Sol Steinmetz in his book, Semantics Antics , explains; Nice originally meant someone who was foolish, ignorant, senseless, or absurd (middle English 1300). Smart for the first 300 years of its use meant causing pain, sharp, cutting, or severe, a sense that survives in the idiom "smart as a whip.” Handsome wasn’t complimentary. When coined around 1425, it just meant easily handled; it didn’t have its current positive connotation until 1590. You might think he said you were a kind, intelligent, good looking bloke, when in reality he said you were a foolish pain easily dealt with. Words have an annoying habit of changing meaning over time in the same language and it becomes even more compli...

Master Your Self

In a contest for the toughest president of the United States, it would be hard to go against Theodore Roosevelt. He was known for his “manly” pursuits hunting big game, climbing the Matterhorn, participating in boxing match while president. (These weren’t play fights, he lost the vision on one eye because of them!) Once before he was about to give a speech an assassin shot him in the chest. Roosevelt refused to go to a hospital and insisted on giving his speech, still wearing his blood-soaked shirt! Teddy might have become tough but he wasn’t born that way. He was a sickly child that suffered from severe asthma that almost proved fatal. As was a young boy, doctors discovered that he had a weak heart, and advised him to get a desk job and not strain himself. He was homeschooled because of his many illnesses and spent most of his time indoors. But then as a teen his father, whom Teddy Roosevelt revered, told his son, “ ...

The Gift You Give Yourself

I always hated buying gifts for my Mom. If I got her something like a new set of pans, it was like saying “Here’s something you can use to go make me something to eat”. A gift for her was seemingly a gift for me. There are however gifts you give that benefit you more than the receiver. For example, forgiveness. When you give it, you are giving it to yourself as much as you are giving it to them. Jesus said that when we forgive others it means God is forgiving us our wrongs (Matthew 6:14-15). I once read: “ Heaven is where everyone's forgiven. Hell is where nobody's forgiven. So, when we forgive we pull heaven down into our lives. When we withhold forgiveness, we pull hell up into our lives ” Give yourself something nice today, Forgive.

Ecclesiastes 12:10

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