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WITandWISDOM(tm) - September 30, 2005 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: Love is what is left of a relationship after all the selfishness has been removed. Submitted by Dennis Brown ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: The parable of the vineyard workers (Matt. 20) offends our sense of fairness. Why should everyone get equal pay for unequal work? Back in Ontario when the apples ripened, Mom would sit all seven of us down, Dad included, with pans and paring knives until the mountain of fruit was reduced to neat rows of filled canning jars. She never bothered keeping track of how many we did, though the younger ones undoubtedly proved more of a nuisance than a help: cut fingers, squabbles over who got which pan, apple core fights. But when the job was done, the reward for everyone was the same: the largest chocolate-dipped cone money could buy. A stickler might argue it wasn't quite fair since the older ones actually peeled apples. But I can't remember anyone complaining about it. A family understands it operates under a different set of norms than a courtroom. In fact, when the store ran out of ice cream and my younger brother had to make do with a Popsicle, we felt sorry for him despite his lack of productivity (he'd eaten all the apples he'd peeled that day--both of them). God wants all his children to enjoy the complete fullness of eternal life. No true child of God wants it any other way. Robert De Moor Source: Illustrations, http://www.cybersaltlists.org ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: On "You Bet Your Life", Groucho Marx's popular television show, he created a kind of host never seen before," Leo Rosten recalled. "I was backstage one night when one of the contestants turned out to be from a country area. Let's call him Floyd. "Groucho, 'How did you meet your wife?' Floyd, 'Well, I drive a truck.' Groucho, 'You ran over her?' Floyd, 'No, she was in the barn.' Groucho, 'You drove your truck into a barn?' Floyd, 'No, no. Her family had been missing some chickens.' Groucho, 'They were lonely for chickens?' 'No, they had been missing, so they turned on a light in the barnyard, and I'm driving up to get some turkeys, and her father hollers, 'The turkeys are in the barn.' Groucho, 'You married a turkey?' Floyd, 'No! As I go to the barn a big skunk starts for the chicken house, and a girl yells, 'Get that skunk.' So I jumped on it and she fell on it, too - and we both smelled so bad –' Groucho, 'That's the most romantic story I ever heard.'" ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: "Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant." - Mitchell Kapor ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The ethnically divided Bosnian city of Mostar has agreed to erect a new symbol of unity -- a statue of kung fu legend Bruce Lee, worshipped by Muslims, Serbs and Croats. For more: http://tinyurl.com/9dkr9 Source: Reuters, http://reuters.com