It began like this.

There was a full page display on the back page of a newspaper listing all the “Godzilla” movies made to date. Of course, which is the best was the expected outcome of all the research.

There have been 30 productions! Thirty! Each succeeding one, I suppose, better than its precedent cinematic achievement.

Thirty! I have not seen any one of them! Look at a “trailer,” it’s more than enough.

Next, there was a study of the evolution of the wild boar shown by Nat Geo Wild TV. In their dry wit, the name Hogzilla popped up, and so the connection. And the stuff, if you remember from last week.

But the connections are important, too. Years ago, Dean Martin told Jerry Lewis a joke at the beginning of their television show. They both stood there in a dead, silent, stare.

My brother Joe said out loud, “I don’t get it.”

Jerry Lewis turns toward the camera and says, with impeccable timing, “Neither do I.”

And all who heard that joke are still laughing. We all “got it.” A connection was made.

Do you get it? Its not about laughing but connecting.

Remember that bit by Carol Burnett and the “dress she saw in the window”?

Or, make the connection with “Fibber McGee and Molly.” The stuff. It’s the stuff that you let pile up and get in the ways you are called by God to hear, to listen, to make the connection.

An elderly Scottish woman was making her way through the countryside.

Each time she came to a crossroads she would toss a stick into the air.

Whichever way the stick came down was the direction she went.

At one intersection, an old man saw her toss her stick in the air not once, not twice, but three times before resuming her journey.

The old man was curious. “Why are you throwing your stick like that?”

“I’m letting God direct my journey using this stick.”

“Then why did you throw it three times?”

“Because,” she said, “the first two times He was pointing me in the wrong direction.”

Don’t let any of the stuff of life get you down.

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears because they hear ... the seed sown on rich soil is the one that hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears ... and yields ... .”