No U-Turns, Follow the Map

Tags

basketball, blogs, Books, Contrarian, crafting, health care reform, Hollywood, life in the meadow, March Madness, pedophilia, right wing, Roman Catholic Church, Sandra Bullock, snow, spring

Oh, excuse me. Don’t mind me. I’m just dribbling. A little idea here, a little factoid there. Nothing much to alert the press about. Surely no need to take to the bomb shelter. Just the sleepy weekend fare.

The Contrarian is cooking today. “Stay out of the kitchen, woman–I’m in charge!” Okay, as I creep away, hiding behind a computer. Forewarned is forearmed. Naw. Actually he produces a great meal sometimes, and an edible one at all times. It’s safe to continue.

We got a couple of inches of snow last night. I did not explode in expletives however. I took it in “stride” as my new found peace dictates. I’m embracing the beauty, smiling at the bright blue sky, and recalling the three fat robins perched outside the bedroom window on the lilac bushes. “Agnes, I said we should wait a week. Now we have to get all wet in this mess!”

We are up to our eyeballs in March Madness. It’s the year of the upset. They predicted there wouldn’t be any or darn few. They were wrong. So were  those folks who created the brackets this year. So wrong. Being right, means four one’s end up in the final four. Not this year. Prince charming is gonna have his choice of Cinderellas this year.

The Roman Catholic church continues to grapple for a hold on sanity as it spirals into hell for it’s treatment of pedophile priests. The cover up seems to still be uncovering and it’s dirtying more and more of the higher ups. It’s sad, pathetic, horrific. The harm that they have done is so far reaching as to be nearly incalculable. All Christendom is tainted. I cannot not imagine how this was reconciled as somehow being Christ-like by offending clergy and superiors.

The health care reform bill seems poised to pass amidst all the hoopla. Everyone is counting heads, trying to maintain the suspense. There is no end to the lies and silly walks the opposition seems ready to pull. Now it’s some vast mean offense against God to vote on Sunday. I think Jesus actually spoke to that–the sabbath being created for man and not man for the sabbath? Something like that. But Monday should be interesting. If it passes (as I suspect it will), we shall wait and see if the earth still spins on Monday, or if it is burnt to a cinder by Satan’s minions. Cast your bets.

Sandra Bullock, after making all kinds of speeches about her wonderful husband, Jesse James (the name should have alerted the girl no?), has left him for his years long infidelity. Some people care, and I wonder why. I mean as a human, I am sad she is sad, but beyond that? Doesn’t cross my radar. Yet, we, the great egalitarian society (so we protest against clear evidence to the contrary) continue to place people on pedestals and expect them not to be like “us.” Go figure that one out.

I’ve bogged down in my knitting, which always happens. Remember, I am not addicted to any craft–no passion. So, after a few weeks, I get tired of purling and knitting and yarn overing and all that. I’m poised to return to crochet, some lacy edgings that I can sew together for a spring shawl? I’ll get a quarter or so done, before that wanes too. It’s me, and I’ve come to accept it. Somehow, they all get done, over time.

I’m about to finish a book on Christian women in the fourth century. It’s not as good as I expected. Next on the agenda is a tome on the Reformation. It’s a subject I’m woefully not well versed in. I’m interested in reading some Camus and some Philo as well. I’m itching for a trip to the bookstore next week, if the weather allows it.

I’ve spent some hours this morning reading blogs. It’s so refreshing to do. I learn a lot, am uplifted. I laugh, I nod in agreement, and once or twice, I yelped in horror. Thanks Randal, I really really needed that pic seared into my skull! I try always to spend some time with cheeseburger and hotdog pics. They always make me happy. Jan always has words of wisdom. Madpriest takes us to task on things we should be taken to task for. Dave reminds us of things that fully sensory folks take for granted. Blisterina takes awesome photos that just make the spirit soar. I could go on, but you probably read them all too, and more than me.

So, have yourselves a pleasant Saturday. Remember to take some time to have fun, relax and stop to smell a rose or two along the way.

Wondrously Unique–I Give You Human

Tags

diversity, essay, God, humanity, life, life in the meadow, spring

I guess many people spend Saturday all busy and such, racing around doing chores and running errands. Not me. Even though I have been retired by choice for nearly fifteen years, I still reserve Saturday as a day of relaxed fun.

I love to read blogs on Saturday morning. I learn so much. I make connections I hope with some who probably figure I don’t spend nearly enough time reading what they have to say. I probably don’t, but twenty-four hours only go so far.

What always delights me most is the incredible range of post and therefore interest. I learn about prayer one place, and patience another. I am gifted with fine political scholarship, and superb satire. I laugh, I am humbled, I sometimes ache with compassion. I get angry, and I feel hopeless. And then I feel hopeful, and joyful, and curious all over again. That’s thanks to all of you.

It puts me to wondering about the utter uniqueness of the human being. No doubt the same can be said of our fine friend above. For no doubt as his handlers (assuming his captivity) would tell us, he or she is unique to the rest of the troop. And every pet owner will testify to the individualized personalities of each and every pet they are privileged to care for.

Yet humans have something special. Perhaps it is the ability to so dramatically manipulate their environment that allows such a spotlight on individuality to show through. I don’t know. I do know that while we are capable of existing in pretty drastically difference circumstances, we tend to favor and gravitate toward a more median life.

Canada is a great example of this. A monumentally huge country, larger by far than the US, but of small population. And so I am told, something like 90% of the population lives within a hundred miles of the US border. Not because, I am convinced, they like America so much but because they want to stay WARM. All but the hardiest slide down to as close to warmer weather as they can get.

That is probably true of Siberian Russia and the Mongolian icy steppes. It is probably true of Finland and Iceland and other notoriously frigid climes. All but the craziest move south. Yet, some do remain, and you end up having to applaud them for their stick-to-it-tiveness if nothing else.

I think that I have identified the biggest dichotomy in sports among humans. Think of the Alpine skier, and the beach volleyball player. One dressed most of the year in parkas and mittens, wool caps and mukluks. The other dressed in bikinis and beach shorts. Two more opposites could not exist. Two such people could never marry I’m convinced.

You perhaps can think of others. The cerebral English lit professor and the ice road trucker. How’s that for calling both human and of the same species? It would be hard to categorize them together in any other format, other than that they might both sleep in beds and eat peanut butter.

Imagine that God is all humanity and much more, and you start to let your mind soar to places that you get lost in.

I think that people who run homeless shelters for a living, and other such services to the poor and needy are just Mother Theresa’s in disguise. It takes a special kind of person to do that kind of work. Or should I say, fulfill that kind of mission in life. They deal with such pain, and failure, and tragic sadness, yet somehow they are upheld and find grace and joy in their work. Perhaps they do indeed see the face of Christ as he so clearly said we would.

Yet, as much as we might bow down to such folks in our hearts, we know somehow that God has a place for the banker and the undertaker, the sheriff and the meter reader. There is something human and redeemable, and worthy in each and every one of us. Yes, I said EACH and EVERY one of us. Not just the legal and sane, and smart and honorable among us, but in each.

I look upon the face of a man accused of murdering a child, and I feel sympathy. Somehow that human has lost his way, has lost all human control mechanisms in order to do the unthinkable. What must go on in his mind? What horror does he live with? Yet, deeply I know that God is there, weeping at the sheer loss of humanity that has driven this being to unspeakable crime. I have, as always, no answer. I know that somehow, crushed and ruined as this life is, it is still God’s life, not mine to dispose of.

The sun has danced on the meadow for days now, and standing water can be found in places. Bare earth is observed, though still stubbornly cold, hard and dead looking. The snow is no longer quite snow. Lots of it still exists, but it is hard scrabbly granular white stuff now. It too, has somehow died, and is just awaiting its dismissal from the land.

I am feeling the first yearnings of spring finally. Knowing that the mind is awakening, makes it clear to me that lingering under the frost, the seed is stirring beneath the earth. The tree is busily sending nutrients to branch tips, shaking awake the dormant leaflets that are molecularly organizing for a grand opening.

Saturday is a thinking day. A wondrous day. A day to salute the dawn, to slip outside for  a moment with jacket on, but face turned upward to warmth and life. The dogs searched the wood pile for a rabbit. He escaped out the back side and scampered away to den. Life lives while we, alas are looking the other way.

I can but smile, the thoughts of traumatic winter fading quickly from my mind. It is a human trait, this ability, to forget. Ask any new mother.

Ramblings of a Saturday in March.

Plugging the Holes

Tags

animals, blogging stats, fundamentalism, intelligence, Iowa, meatloaf, moral majority, personality, relgiious right, spring, winter

"First Kiss," by Ron Draine, Art.com

I have a bad habit of thinking, and so periodically, I have to post a lot of drivel, just to clear out the debris to make room. I tried using corks to plug up the oozing tidbits of extraneous info, but that both gave me a headache and increased my hat size a bit too much. People were starting to stare, if you get my drift.  So in no particular order:

Animals just continue to freak me out. It’s not just the variety and so many shapes and sizes, so many attributes and such. It’s the personality that, as I get older, gets more and more complex. I realize indeed that we human have just upped the ante a small bit, we are no great leap.

Take our dogs. No, no not literally. First we have Bear, the “A” dog.

Bear is a singular example of the dog in charge. He is willful and stubborn, yet level headed, basically quite kind, and he watches over the girly girl Brandy as any big brother ought to.

He is a stern task master, and during Brandy’s youth, she was tumbled and shaken a good many times until she properly learned the ways of a “B” dog.

Bear will behave, unless he doesn’t wish to. Then you get the blue eye, and well, it’s best to just back off and let it be. Brandy learned that freshly caught game was off limits, sometimes for days. Just because he wasn’t hovering over it didn’t mean she could take a close whiff.

Yet, dear Bear is monumentally afraid of thunder. Has been since day one. It must be embarrassing for him, yet he succumbs to the first rumbles and gets into the house fast, and lays close to any human. Brandy, heck you have to order her in the house. She could care less.

On  the other hand, Brandy has her own oddity.

When the Girly is asleep, everyone treads carefully and away from her. If she is even breathed upon, she erupts a snarling fang bearing behemoth, ready to kill.

All the cats, all the humans, and even the King, Bear, know this and respect it. Bear will even whimper to have help getting around her, should she fall asleep in some way that boxes him in.

In every other respect, Brandy is pure love. The tail never stops wagging, and she has yet to figure out that anyone has ever been mad at her. You can yell your fool head off, and she wags away. She pretends to not know the meaning of any word that would limit what she wants to do, but has an amazing vocabulary of words that symbolize things she likes.

Both are adept at going out alone, barking up a storm, thus enticing the other to come out, then coming in and grabbing the best seat in the house, their couch! Don’t tell me they aren’t smart.

***

I’m given to understand that the religious right is having some name pangs. Seems they can’t settle on how they would like to be addressed. For reasons that escape me, they don’t like being called fundamentalists, though that describes their religious theology quite well I believe. They don’t like  religious right either, again I’m not sure why. They do seem to like Christian Right. Not sure how that’s really different from religious right. They don’t like American Taliban and things like that. I can understand. I guess they have come to realize that the term “moral majority” is a bit presumptuous. They seem to have abandoned that one.  They don’t like extreme right, and well I guess I can see that.

I call them idiots. It seems descriptive to me. Sometimes I call them the wacko right, sometimes the wingnut right. But that is as much political as religious I guess. I guess I’d settle on Extreme Radical Religious Right. I’m sure they won’t like that either. But heck, I don’t find them sensible anyway so why should I care?

***

I’m puzzled as all get out at what has been happening here on this blog. One day I opened up the stats to discover that nearly 400 people had visited. That would be double the usual flow. I checked the forum here to see if there was a bug or glitch. No one else was reporting bizarre numbers, and seldom is a problem singular to A blog. I added another counter, and it is keeping pace as best I can tell.

I’m confused. The second day, it fell off a tad, but was still around 350. Yesterday it fell back to 175, respectable, but still a significant drop. I don’t know if I had some tag that just got picked up or what. I find the “key words” thingie most unuseful in figuring things out. Most of the terms used are artists for some reason, or weird bastardizations of phrases that make no apparent sense.

It’s one of those shrug the shoulders kind of things. Perhaps just more evidence of my universe shopping.

***

It’s cold here in Iowa again. Much too cold for me. I’m through with this chit and ready for spring. I don’t want to see a snow flake again. It would suit me if I never saw one again. That is unlikely as long as we live in Iowa of course.  Less than two weeks until spring by my calculations. March can’t come too soon, and I mean that in every respect. Of course it will come exactly on time no matter what I want or need.

***

It’s meatloaf today. I made up a big batch and will freeze one. I decided to cook both though. Figured it wasn’t a good idea to refreeze raw meat. It will come in handy one day when I don’t feel/have time to cook. The Contrarian loves meatloaf, more for the cold sandwiches afterward, but meatloaf means mashed taters and gravy, and well, if you read yesterday, you know about gravy.  Just a tip on the meatloaf: I don’t use filler in mine, but if you put about 1/2 a packet of unflavored gelatin in your raw mix, it will be nice and solid. I cook mine free standing, having molded it in a bowl or pound cake pan. It slices nicely and holds together well.

Well, the brain feels a bit more comfortable now, room to stretch out a bit. Unburden your heavy brain here if you need to. There seems an endless ream of paper on this Internet. You can write forever and never run out!