Book Review: Fun In the Garage on a Rainy Day

I am happy to share with you my review of a great new book for families and children (of all ages).

It is with great pleasure that I heartily recommend to any boy or girl—or to the parents of any boy or girl—the newly re-released book by Dr. Seymour Shrack, Fun In the Garage on a Rainy Day (©2011 Posthumous Press, Posternack, NJ, $24.99).

Shrack, long known for his long-winded speeches and his prolific scientific pontifications in numerous national medical and scientific journals, with this publication has managed to tame his usual sophisticated, academic and elaborate language and speak very effectively in the vernacular of children and tweens.

Children will thrill at the twenty "tricks," as he calls them (I say they are really more like “treats”) that Shrack describes in a down-to-earth manner.  For instance, he shows how to soften a wishbone so that it is impossible to break for the purpose of deciding who will be lucky.  Just imagine the fun that could lead to at Thanksgiving!  Other tricks describe how to create invisible ink (and how to make it visible again), how to make a cat's fur stand up on end (with no harm to the cat, of course), how to make gravel float (on water or in the air!), plus many more.

Shrack's little gem of a book will be the perfect antidote for those times when youngsters say they are bored, or when their parents are fed up with them playing video games or otherwise being glued to the computer.  Each trick is safe, uses no dangerous chemicals or matches, and can easily be preformed using common household items.

This reviewer especially appreciated the practical nature of the tricks Shrack describes.  Even though it is aimed at children, adults will find at least one trick which they, too, will want to try.  I found this particular trick to be very intriguing:  Shrack has devised a simple and effective way to pull an April Fools Day trick on a whole group of people; one trick, many victims.  You will want to get your own copy of the book to learn the trick.  But, here is a hint: it involves writing an article based on fictional characters gleaned from an episode of The Andy Griffith Show.  Perhaps you can already imagine how much fun that might be!

So be sure to look for your own copy of Dr. Shrack's book, Fun In the Garage on a Rainy Day, available at all the finest booksellers, as well as online book sources.  Looking for it is half the fun, and you will be glad you did, and so will your children.

This review is © 2011, James A. Harris

Take a Look at My Art Wall at Skyline Cafe & Art

If you have not yet discovered Skyline Cafe & Art you need to!  Just head out East on U.S. 33 from Harrisonburg, and you'll find it... directly across from the entrance to the Massanutten Development (beside Brown Memorial Church).

My paintings are displayed on a wall in the "Tea Room" just to the right of the front door.  After you have seen them (and perhaps made a purchase or two!), head on back to the dining room where you will find more art, jewelry, pottery, glass art, jams, jellies, etc.  Stop at the counter and order lunch, or at least coffee (they have wonderful coffee, and I particularly love their quiches).  Relax, chat with Lisa, the proprietor, or any of the other wonderful folks there. 

Meanwhile, here's a sneak peak at my work that's there.

     

         

Why I "Re-Create" My Earlier Paintings Upon Request

Since I only sell original paintings (and small greeting cards featuring those paintings), and I do not sell prints or reproductions (except in very rare cases), I am willing to re-create a painting that I have produced earlier.  The only stipulation I put on this is that the new work, while it will closely resemble an earlier painting, will be clearly different and unique, so both the owner of the first work and the owner of the second work will have their own special painting, and no else has another one exactly like it.

I sell my paintings for unbelievably reasonable prices because my goal is for ordinary people, those who might not otherwise feel they could afford to own an original painting, to be able to do so.  Most of my original works actually cost less than prints of other artists’ paintings, plus those prints have to be framed to be displayed in a person’s home.  I am able to sell for less in part because I usually paint on gallery-wrapped canvases, which are designed to be displayed without a frame, although an owner of my work can choose to frame it.  If my work is framed it is usually less expensive than framing a print, because acrylic paintings on canvas are not to be displayed under glass (the canvas and paint need to “breath”), and glass is often the single most expensive (and weighty) part of a traditional frame.  I know what I am talking about because I am a certified framer, trained by Michael’s Frame Shop, well-known for professional, well-done framing.

Today I completed two re-created paintings.  Visitors come webpage, http://jim-harris.artistwebsites.com/, look around and sometime find works marked as “sold” that they wish they had been able to own.  They send me an email from the site, and I then offer to paint them their own version of the painting they admired.  Below are the first and second paintings of two different themes.  I think you can see that while each of them are of the same subject, they are, in fact, different and unique.

I am very grateful to God for my talent, and very appreciative that others find my work worthy of their ownership.  - Jim

A LASTING IMPRESSION

A Story Appropriate for the Season of Lent:

I grew up in a small community in the mountains of Virginia.  The little church we attended was as simple and uncomplicated in its style of worship as the building that housed it: clean, uncomplicated, unsophisticated, and un-ceremonial.

I became a minister at age 26, and soon discovered how my home church had not prepared me to be a pastor of a more traditional (think “ordinary”) church.  The expectations of the small congregation I pastored in those early years were often for things with which I had no experience.

Nothing illustrates that better than what happened in my very first Ash Wednesday service.  Whatever my intentions and expectations may have been entering the pastoral ministry, as it happens I came to make a truly lasting impression in my very first year.

I had never in all my life been to an Ash Wednesday service, and since I was a student pastor (still in college at the time, after four years in the U.S. Navy) I had not yet taken any courses in how to do the service.  So, I sought the input of a retired minister who attended our services.

He answered all of my questions, and I prepared the service.  Un-fortunately I did not know all the questions that needed to be asked; which is what lead to my leaving a lasting impression.

I didn’t know to ask where I would get the ashes for the service.  It seemed like a no-brainer: I would have to burn something to create them.  And so I did.  I burned a couple of old bulletins that I found in the office, and then I ground the ashes into a fine grain with a mortar and pestle that my dad had given me.

I took the ashes and mixed them with water.  During the worship service I had the people line up for their ashes, where they would receive the sign of the cross on their foreheads.  This was to remind each of us that we were but dust, and we were sinners.  At the close of the service I had them wipe off their ashes because we have all, in fact, been forgiven through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

Here’s where the lasting impression was made.  I had mixed the paper ashes with water.  That formed the acid known as lye.  The acid reacted with the skin on our foreheads, and after the ashes were wiped off, a red rash remained.  Of course it was in the same shape as I had made the ashes: the shape of a cross.

Talk about witnessing!  Everywhere any of us went for the next few days, people knew we were Christians!  After that lasting impression was made the retired minister explained that we are supposed to burn dried palm fronds from the previous year’s Palm Sunday service and use those ashes, mixed with olive oil.

Never again have I left that type of lasting impression on Ash Wednesday.  I’ll never forget the comment of one of my young adult members the day after that service, when I was finally able to laugh about it.  He said, “You really made an ash of yourself last night, Preacher.”

So true, so very true.

THE HOSPITALITY HAT

Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.  Greet all your leaders and all the saints ...”  - Hebrews 13:1, 2, 24a

In the Fall of 2008 my wonderful wife Debbie finally saw things my way (all husbands understand this comment, so please, wives, do not be offended; we need you to be the brakes at time to our eager ideas of what we’d like to spend money on!) and agreed that we really did need a new outdoor gas grill (the old one had at last become unusable). So, the search was on. Within a few days we were in a well-known national home building big box store and saw a great $300.00 grill on sale for $200.00. No one offered to help us decide on a grill, in fact no one paid any attention to us at all. We had some questions about the grill, and we approached a checkout operator to ask those questions.

I simply started that conversation by saying, “We found a grill we are interested in and…”  We were interrupted by the clerk holding up her hand in stop-sign fashion, saying, “Unless you have your own truck there’s a $79.00 charge for delivery.” We stopped dead in our tracks. We lived only ten miles from this store, and even with gas prices above $4.00 a gallon that seemed ridiculous. Debbie told the clerk that we had gotten large items on sale at this chain before and often the delivery was included in the sale price. The clerk went to the manager and then reported that he, too, has said it would cost us nearly $80.00 have them deliver the grill.

Now you need to note this: at no time did anyone attempt to sell us a grill! All that was done in that store that day in the way of “customer service” was to warn us of the new, higher delivery charge. So, we left. There is another store in this chain that was only two and a half miles from our home. We stopped by there on our way back home, and a manager was arranging grills outside for a sale display, and one that looked like the one we had seen at the other store was included. As he was fastening the chain on the grill display I approached and said, “I saw a grill on sale at your Waynesboro store and I was wondering if you have the same model on sale here.” He looked up, never batted an eye, and said, “Unless you have your own truck there is a $79.00 charge for delivery.” We stopped in our tracks, and both of us said not another word, but turned and walked back to our car and left.

We checked for grills at several smaller local hardware stores, but they had nothing of the equivalent. Then a month or so later, after I had abandoned the idea of getting a grill before winter, I was in the ACE Hardware store in Verona . There, in the middle of that small box store, was a beautiful grill, similar to the one I had seen in the other store. It was also on sale for $100.00 off, but it was priced $50.00 higher than the other one because it also had a rotisserie feature. Robin, a delightful twenty-something clerk approached me and offered to show me the grills feature, to “sell” me the grill in fact. So, when I saw that I liked it, I asked about delivery charges, and she asked how far away I lived. I told her it was close to five miles, and she laughed and said, “Oh, there’s no charge for a delivery that close!”

I bought that grill, paying $50.00 more, but actually $29.00 less, since there was no delivery charge. More importantly, ACE got a customer for life. By the way, I told Robin the story of my earlier attempts to buy a grill at the big box store, and she later told her boss, who told them store employees at a meeting that afternoon. When they delivered the grill the next afternoon the delivery guy handed me a brand new ACE hat! He said, “This is from our store manager in appreciation for your business and also for your great lesson on the importance of good customer service.” I wear it with pride!

There’s a lesson here for the church: We also need to be sure to practice good “customer service,” that is, we need to care, really care, about the needs of other who come to worship with us, first-time-attenders and regulars alike. So may I suggest that we all be “ACE” customer service reps by giving those initials, A., C., and E., a new meaning: “A Caring Environment” is what every person should experience at Bridgewater United Methodist Church each and every Sunday. Will you do all you can to help us in that? I hope so! God will bless you and us for being A.C.E.s!

MY MOST EMBARRASSING VALENTINE MOMENT

We all know that young children have a basic and concrete understanding of life.  I was no different when I was a youngster. 

As a third-grader I was looking forward to the class Valentine’s Day Party.  I had taken home the list of children’s names, and Mom had taken me shopping for cards (I was sure my Looney Toons cards were the best!).  I had carefully signed my name to each and every card, and then I had laboriously written each of my class mates names of the envelopes.  I was all ready to go on The Day.  I placed all the cards in my bookbag and headed off to Keezletown Elementary School.

Our teacher had given us a clear instruction about how we were to take the valentines home that we would collect in class that day.  So, as I walked to school I looked carefully in the hedgerow until I found what I thought she was asking us to bring: a stick.  See, my family and I are from Ohio, and way back then we still didn’t know all of the lingo of the South.  One word I didn’t know was “poke” used as a synonym for “bag,” so when the teacher told us, “Now be sure to bring a poke to put your cards in,” I pictured poke a stick through the cards and carrying them home that way.

I was so embarrassed when I didn’t have a bag!  My teacher never could understand why I had brought a stick to class to carry home my cards!

I have never forgotten the other meaning of “poke” since that day!

Why, as a Christian, the Alabama Governor's Comments Concern Me

I think I am among the most blessed people on the face of the earth. Seriously, I do. And I had very little to do with being such a blessed person. I didn't choose to be born in the U.S., but I am so glad I was. I didn't choose to be born of the Caucasian race, but I think - at least in this country - that it is a blessing that I was. I didn't choose to be born into a church-attending, God fearing family, but because I was, I was blessed to be exposed to the teachings of Jesus, and to have thus given my life to Christ.

Think how hard it would be for me to become a Christian if I had been born in a different land, to people of a different faith. I imagine that somehow I manage to come to America, a land that cherishes freedom, especially freedom of religion. After I get here I hear of the Christian faith, but I don't know anything about it. I meet my new neighbors, who look at me suspiciously because I am different. I learn, in time, that some of them attend the Christian churches in the neighborhood. No one ever invites me, I feel their suspicions, and I don't fully understand it. In time I hear bits and pieces of the Christian faith expressed (through conversations, newspaper and television), and I am intrigued by a religion that is based on love and grace and forgiveness. Yet I do not feel loved by my Christian neighbors. I try to live a good and responsible life, and in time I am able to become a citizen of the U.S. I am unable to worship at a place of my birth religion, because so few of us live in the area of the U.S. where I live with my family. I think about maybe going to a Christian church, but I am fearful because I do not know how I am to behave, what is expected of me. Remember, no one has told me that God loves ME, or that Jesus, God's own Son, died for MY sins.

And then I hear the governor of my state say that anyone like me - anyone who is not a Christian - is not in his family. I don't know what that means, but it sounds an awful lot like what the leaders of the religious dictatorship I managed to escape would have said. And I am afraid, very afraid, that I will be denied the protection of this state government that I thought was mine, no matter what my faith. I also think that maybe Christianity is more like my religion than I had thought, and that it if you don't believe like they do you may have no value.

Thank God, that is not my story, but I can take no credit for that fact at all. I can, however, lift my voice and decry prejudice and persecution in the name of religion - even my religion - whenever I see it raise its ugly head.