Rainey Blogs on Some Days

Ash Wednesday . I got up in the morning and decided to fast until dinner after reading that this was the practice of earlier Christians. Since I'm quite conscious of Muslims now and know they fast for Ramadan from sunrise to sundown, I figured it was the least I could do for Ash Wednesday was to fast for one day. On the way to work, in the spirit of the practice I did know about Lent —giving up something during those forty days as a form of self-sacrifice—I randomly decided to give up listening to the radio on my commute to work in the morning. This would mostly knock out National Public Radio . (How was I supposed to know the Japanese earthquake and tsunami would hit right after and the temptation to find out what was happening would be too great to overcome?) But on that first Wednesday, I completed the readings and prayer of repentance. On the way to work I listed to a tape—yes, that's an actual tape. My car has a tape player!--of the Bible and thought about going to an As...

I feel so retro sitting in the Newark Airport waiting to board a flight to Louisville to meet Marcia and the girls. People playing with electronic gadgets and listening to music or podcasts all around me. I almost brought my CD player, but that also would have seemed old fashioned, so 1990s, carrying around a Sony Walkman in these iPod days. But I could have listened to NPR this morning if I had it. Something else to mention--I'm writing on a steno pad! Who writes on a steno pad in this day and age? I should have a laptop computer, but I'm using a steno pad with a ball point pen, just like George Washington probably did when he wrote. This is so embarrassing. People sometimes look at me funny when I do this. "What's he doing?" they probably say to themselves. "I'll bet he's writing a letter to his mother." Or they think, "Why is that guy taking notes on paper in an airline terminal? I wonder if he's a terrorist, taking notes on how...