Post 25/2023 Saturday 8 July . . . This week I searched through boxes for a folder related to a seminar I helped plan last century. I found it! There it was, at the bottom of one of the boxes tagged, “Portfolio.” (I’m using the word portfolio in the sense of examples of work one has completed or had a hand in creating. I’m going through these materials in a seemingly never-ending toss-or-save exercise.)

Five agencies sponsored the event, Is Religion Good for Your Health? held in October 1998 at Greencroft Goshen. The seminar for pastors and health professionals featured Harold G. Koenig, M.D., director and founder of the Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health at Duke University.

I just reread Koenig’s book, The Healing Power of Faith: Science Explores Medicine’s Last Great Frontier (Simon & Schuster, 1999). It’s worth looking for this and other books Koenig has written and for other details related to Koenig’s research. I cite the search mainly as an example of the value of sorting through materials and organizing one’s Showcase Portfolio, not as a jobhunting display but as a memory jogger.

Another find

In my search of the boxes, I found a memo from a colleague and mentor Stuart Showalter. The subject was Word Choices. Stuart had sent me a short article from The Chronicle of Higher Education. Robert Wolverton, a classics professor at Mississippi State University had asked a hundred students to list the most beautiful and the ugliest words.

The top selections in each category were:

Beautiful

• Love
• serendipity
• lovely
• luminous
• melody
• beautiful
• lavender
• lily
• eloquent
• euphoric
• glorious
• gorgeous
• grace
• happy
• harmony
• heaven
• onomatopoeia
• passion

Ugly

• pus
• vomit
• fungus
• death
• mucus
• puke
• ugly
• cacophony
• hate
• mullet
• phlegm
• pimple
• snot

I responded to Stuart: “Thank you! A long time ago I came across another word that conveys beauty. The word is ‘murmur,’ as in murmuring brook. It can also be ugly as in ‘murmuring behind their backs.’ Always looking for the right word! Today it is, again, Thanks!”

The week in photos

Celebrating a birthday and our anniversary

We celebrated Richard Mishler’s birthday (between me and sister Mary) and the continuing celebration of our 50th anniversary at The Jaywalker on the St. Joseph River in Mottville, Michigan. Next to Marty is Sharon, Richard’s partner, and Gerald, Mary’s husband. Very nice time together.

Corn, beans, wheat, trees bordering the fields

The annual crops in Indiana are advancing according to the workings of nature and its tenders, some soon ready for harvest. Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) shared the long view: “If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence, we could rise up rooted like a tree.”

Parting word

There’s a time to box and a time to unbox. A time to save and a time to shed. A time to savor and a time to say farewell. O sad and happy, wistful, time. ‘Till next time.

-John