If I feel threatened by another’s faith tradition, it only reveals how uncomfortable I am with my own.”
— the Rev. Peadar Dalton
Pithyism #O-O
TO STAY ALIVE ON A bicycle or in a crosswalk, pretend you’re invisible. (The other drivers won’t see you anyway, so you may as well own it.)
Prosatio Silban and the Avid Inspector
WE ALL HAVE THOSE DAYS when everything goes wrong – but not always do we have someone looking over our shoulder while it does.
Prosatio Silban stifled an exasperated sigh. Mustn’t show my impatience, either with her or my circumstances, he thought. After all, it’s my long-practiced livelihood being decided here.
“Why did you turn off that stove-burner?” Nira Llirb asked, arching a disapproving eyebrow. “The beans are still cooking. And what’s this in the blue-rice pot?”
Sacred Comedy
LAST WEEK AT THE GROCER’S, the guy ahead of me in line is good-naturedly chatting up the sales clerk when he catches sight of my yarmulke.
“What happened to the rest of your hat?” he asks.
Without missing a beat, I reply, “It fell off.”
His “damn! he got me!” gesture punctuates our mutual laughter. I love it when we humans play.
Prosatio Silban and the Minor Plague
SOMETIMES, A SMALL MALADY CAN be a big problem.
Prosatio Silban groaned, sat up in his sleeping-berth, and put his head in his hands. If these hiccoughs don’t (hic) end soon, he thought, I will.
To be religious means to be honest, kind, and thoughtful. Anyone who lacks these qualities is not religious, no matter how careful one is in ritual observance.”
— Rabbi Marc D. Angel, introducing chapter 6 of Pirkei Avot
Prosatio Silban and the Maker’s Mark
AS THE OLD SAYING GOES, “No one here gets out alive” – or unmarred.
“Where did you get that scar?” asked the woman with the flirtatious smile, indicating Prosatio Silban’s right hand.
The cook-errant raised one eyebrow and a mouth-corner. “D’you mean the calluses on my thumb and forefinger?” he asked. “That’s from holding a chop-knife all and every day for more than a quarter-century.”