Spreading your wings in a perplexing world
January, 2025 James P. Hurd
Please forward and share this Ezine with others. Thank you!
Contents
Writer’s Corner
Blessed Unbeliever
This month’s story
This month’s puzzler
WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information
Wisdom
Writer’s Corner
Tip for writers: Memoir writers commonly agonize over how to write about bad actors. When a friend complains about what she wrote about them, Anne Lamott suggests telling them, “If you wanted me to write better things about you, you should have been a better person.” That might work, but you might lose a friend. 😊
Task for you: Try writing your whole piece in the present tense, first person. Great exercise but hard to do.
Book of the month: Jim Wallis, The False White Gospel. St. Martins, New York. 2024. Rejecting racism and white nationalism, Wallis uses biblical texts such as Matther 25 to present what Jesus-followers should believe and do. No surprises here for those who have read Wallis before, but a great book “for times such as these.” Here is a person who still calls himself an Evangelical but rejects the false gospel of white American exceptionalism.
BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel
Sean McIntosh left his Fundamentalist childhood and walked the road toward becoming an atheist—while attending Torrey Bible Institute! Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out very well. Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or wherever good books are sold.
New story: “A Blessed Death”
This blog is very personal. On December 13, 2024, I lost my dearest treasure. Here is the edited eulogy I wrote for Barbara’s memorial service. held on December 28.
Each life is sacred to God. Thus, it is fitting that we meet today to celebrate the life and faith of Barbara Ann Hurd (Breneman). She was born during the Great Depression to a strong Mennonite family on a dairy farm near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Farming life taught her the virtue of hard work, a virtue she demonstrated throughout her life and inflicted on her husband and children.
In 1967 Barbara began her work with Latin America Mission when she taught school in Costa Rica. We met each other there and, after a few months, became engaged on a remote airstrip in Venezuela where I was flying for Mission Aviation Fellowship. Later, we adopted our three children from Costa Rica and Colombia.
Barbara never complained about where we lived. , , , ,
To read more, click here: https://jimhurd.com/2025/01/18/a-blessed-death/
Share with others and leave a comment on the website. Thanks.
This month’s puzzler (thanks to Car Talk archives)
Super short.
I lost something recently at a friend’s house. My friend mailed it back to me. But it is of no use to me now, from this time forward, since he mailed it.
What was it?
Good luck.
(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)
Answer to last month’s puzzler:
You guessed it! Recall that a ship’s porthole was nine feet above waterline but the tide was coming in. The question was how high would the porthole be above the water after the tide came in. Of course, the porthole would always be nine feet above the surface of the water because as the tide comes in the boat will float on the higher tide.
Subscribe free to this Ezine
Click here: https://jimhurd.com/home/ to subscribe to this WINGSPREAD ezine, sent direct to your email inbox, every month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.
If you wish to unsubscribe from this Wingspread Ezine, send an email to hurd@usfamily.net and put in the subject line: “unsubscribe.” (I won’t feel bad, promise!) Thanks.
Wisdom
Here is my informal attempt to define these words listed in a previous Wingspread:
Sycophant A self-serving, servile flatterer
Doomscrolling Getting depressed scrolling through social media
Catfishing Creating a fake online identity to deceive and control others
Hacking Breaking in to a computer program or using it in a new way
Clickbait A seductive posting that gets you to click on it
Frenemies Being friendly with someone whom you may dislike
Ghosting Withdrawing from a (social media) conversation without notice or explanation
Phishing Attempt to steal someone’s personal digital information
Troll Constant, unwanted posting on someone’s social media
Blogosphere The world of blogs and social media
Meme Images or words that go viral (see below)
Crowdsourcing Using social media to raise money
Viral post A posting that quickly gathers many followers
Mash-up Combining two or more unlike things
Avatar A computer image identified with a certain person
Argot Slang or jargon of a particular group of people (“teen argot”)
Seen in the paint section of the hardware store
Winston Churchill quotes:
• You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.
• Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.
• A nation that forgets its past has no future.
• Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
• A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.
• A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
• One man with conviction will overwhelm a hundred who have only opinions.
• I’d rather argue against a hundred idiots than have one agree with me.
• An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping he will eat him last.
• Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.
Wingspread 
