Post by Rhonda on May 11, 2006 2:34:19 GMT -5
Claim: A sneeze during a graduation ceremony prompts a response of
'God bless you,' thereby working a blessing into the proceedings.
Status: True.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004]
They walked in tandem, each of the ninety three students filing into the
already crowded auditorium. With rich maroon gowns flowing and the
traditional caps, they looked almost as grown up as they felt.
Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and moms freely brushed away
tears. This class would not pray during the commencements, not by choice
but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it.
The principal and several students were careful to stay within the
guidelines allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and
challenging speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance and no one
asked for blessings on the graduates or their families.
The speeches were nice, but they were routine until the final speech
received a standing ovation. A solitary student walked proudly to the
microphone. He stood still and silent for just a moment, and then, it
happened. All 92 students, every single one of them, suddenly SNEEZED!
The student on stage simply looked at the audience and said, "GOD BLESS
YOU, each and every one of you!" And he walked off stage.
The audience exploded into applause. The graduating class found a unique
way to invoke God's blessing on their future with or without the court's
approval.
****************************
BASED ON A TRUE STORY- according to Snopes.
Origins: The account of a sneeze at a graduation ceremony prompting a
"God bless you!" response that got around a prohibition against an
official benediction being made part of the convocation ceremony is, at
its heart, a true story. However, the e-mailed narratives chronicling
the event have altered the details of what actually took place in a
number of important ways and thus shouldn't be viewed as truthful
accounts of what happened. Perhaps they are best described to others as
"based on" a true story, an appellation that conveys a message of
truth's having been stretched or recast into different forms to make a
more tellable story than a pure narration of the facts would have
provided.
The facts of the story are these: The incident the e-mail is based upon
took place on 20 May 2001 during the commencement exercises at
Washington Community High School in Washington, Illinois. With the help
of the ACLU, the family of Natasha Appenheimer, that year's
valedictorian, brought suit to prevent the inclusion of the invocation
and benediction traditionally given at the school's commencement
ceremony. The suit was decided in the favor of the Appenheimers when,
three days before the ceremony, the court handed down a temporary
injunction barring the inclusion of the prayers on the basis of their
having been deemed "school sponsored" (and thereby an unconstitutional
violation of the first amendment's "establishment clause").
People were angered by the decision, which overturned a tradition of 80
years' standing at Washington Community High. Many found unique ways of
protesting the judge's ruling. Before the ceremony, students organized a
prayer vigil around the school's flagpole. Some 50 seniors clasped hands
in a circle while about 150 underclassmen and members of the community
encircled them. Several students festooned their mortarboards with
religious slogans: "I'm praying now," "Amen," "1 nation under God," "I
will still pray 2 day," and "Let's Pray 01." One parent distributed 120
homemade wood-and-nail crosses among the students.
Yet it was the act of Ryan Brown, a member of the graduating class who
was scheduled to give a speech during the event, that is now celebrated
in the e-mail forward. As his form of protest, he had worked it out with
a handful of friends that when he faked a sneeze at the podium, they
were to cry out "God bless you." The plan was carried out as envisioned,
with everyone who had been in on it playing their assigned parts. (Mr.
Brown also made another protest on his way to the podium - he stopped to
bow in silent prayer, an act that prompted the audience to stand and
applaud. He replied to the crowd, "Don't applaud for me, applaud for
God.")
What with all the personal protests and media attention, it was indeed a
memorable commencement, both for its religious fervor and for its
display of commitment to certain ideals (and for how some chose to
express those ideals). In a defining moment that served to reveal the
nature of the bone being fought over, the teen girl in whose name the
suit had been brought was booed when she received her diploma, an act
that demonstrated that for those doing the catcalling the longing for
prayer to be officially incorporated into the proceedings had been far
more about the desire for the trappings of religion than out of
commitment to its teachings. Christian charity, kindness, and the
turning of the cheek preached by Jesus took the backseat to ire over how
the suit had been decided.
Though the school had said it would contest the ruling that barred it
from sponsoring prayer at its graduation ceremonies, it dropped such
plans in July 2001 once it came to some appreciation of how much such a
legal battle might cost.
A month after the commencement, the online account that is the meat of
this article began to circulate. In that embellished version, the
speaker's sneeze was cast as being accidental, and the response it
provoked spontaneously and unthinkingly issued from each of the
graduating students almost as if they had spoken with one voice. This
marked a tremendous departure from the truth, as the actual sneeze had
been faked and the benediction (which was pronounced by only those few
of the graduating seniors who were in on the plan) had been scripted.
There was no spontaneity to the act, no unwilled inescapable "at-choo!"
that prompted the unpremeditated yet socially-obligated reply of "Bless
you!" - that repositioning of the event was authorial embroidery.
'God bless you,' thereby working a blessing into the proceedings.
Status: True.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004]
They walked in tandem, each of the ninety three students filing into the
already crowded auditorium. With rich maroon gowns flowing and the
traditional caps, they looked almost as grown up as they felt.
Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and moms freely brushed away
tears. This class would not pray during the commencements, not by choice
but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it.
The principal and several students were careful to stay within the
guidelines allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and
challenging speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance and no one
asked for blessings on the graduates or their families.
The speeches were nice, but they were routine until the final speech
received a standing ovation. A solitary student walked proudly to the
microphone. He stood still and silent for just a moment, and then, it
happened. All 92 students, every single one of them, suddenly SNEEZED!
The student on stage simply looked at the audience and said, "GOD BLESS
YOU, each and every one of you!" And he walked off stage.
The audience exploded into applause. The graduating class found a unique
way to invoke God's blessing on their future with or without the court's
approval.
****************************
BASED ON A TRUE STORY- according to Snopes.
Origins: The account of a sneeze at a graduation ceremony prompting a
"God bless you!" response that got around a prohibition against an
official benediction being made part of the convocation ceremony is, at
its heart, a true story. However, the e-mailed narratives chronicling
the event have altered the details of what actually took place in a
number of important ways and thus shouldn't be viewed as truthful
accounts of what happened. Perhaps they are best described to others as
"based on" a true story, an appellation that conveys a message of
truth's having been stretched or recast into different forms to make a
more tellable story than a pure narration of the facts would have
provided.
The facts of the story are these: The incident the e-mail is based upon
took place on 20 May 2001 during the commencement exercises at
Washington Community High School in Washington, Illinois. With the help
of the ACLU, the family of Natasha Appenheimer, that year's
valedictorian, brought suit to prevent the inclusion of the invocation
and benediction traditionally given at the school's commencement
ceremony. The suit was decided in the favor of the Appenheimers when,
three days before the ceremony, the court handed down a temporary
injunction barring the inclusion of the prayers on the basis of their
having been deemed "school sponsored" (and thereby an unconstitutional
violation of the first amendment's "establishment clause").
People were angered by the decision, which overturned a tradition of 80
years' standing at Washington Community High. Many found unique ways of
protesting the judge's ruling. Before the ceremony, students organized a
prayer vigil around the school's flagpole. Some 50 seniors clasped hands
in a circle while about 150 underclassmen and members of the community
encircled them. Several students festooned their mortarboards with
religious slogans: "I'm praying now," "Amen," "1 nation under God," "I
will still pray 2 day," and "Let's Pray 01." One parent distributed 120
homemade wood-and-nail crosses among the students.
Yet it was the act of Ryan Brown, a member of the graduating class who
was scheduled to give a speech during the event, that is now celebrated
in the e-mail forward. As his form of protest, he had worked it out with
a handful of friends that when he faked a sneeze at the podium, they
were to cry out "God bless you." The plan was carried out as envisioned,
with everyone who had been in on it playing their assigned parts. (Mr.
Brown also made another protest on his way to the podium - he stopped to
bow in silent prayer, an act that prompted the audience to stand and
applaud. He replied to the crowd, "Don't applaud for me, applaud for
God.")
What with all the personal protests and media attention, it was indeed a
memorable commencement, both for its religious fervor and for its
display of commitment to certain ideals (and for how some chose to
express those ideals). In a defining moment that served to reveal the
nature of the bone being fought over, the teen girl in whose name the
suit had been brought was booed when she received her diploma, an act
that demonstrated that for those doing the catcalling the longing for
prayer to be officially incorporated into the proceedings had been far
more about the desire for the trappings of religion than out of
commitment to its teachings. Christian charity, kindness, and the
turning of the cheek preached by Jesus took the backseat to ire over how
the suit had been decided.
Though the school had said it would contest the ruling that barred it
from sponsoring prayer at its graduation ceremonies, it dropped such
plans in July 2001 once it came to some appreciation of how much such a
legal battle might cost.
A month after the commencement, the online account that is the meat of
this article began to circulate. In that embellished version, the
speaker's sneeze was cast as being accidental, and the response it
provoked spontaneously and unthinkingly issued from each of the
graduating students almost as if they had spoken with one voice. This
marked a tremendous departure from the truth, as the actual sneeze had
been faked and the benediction (which was pronounced by only those few
of the graduating seniors who were in on the plan) had been scripted.
There was no spontaneity to the act, no unwilled inescapable "at-choo!"
that prompted the unpremeditated yet socially-obligated reply of "Bless
you!" - that repositioning of the event was authorial embroidery.