jubilata in the desert

A Modest Proposal

2010-04-28T11:17:00.003-05:00

So here's my little plan. Get together a bus load of elderly, white, middle and upper middle class folk. Leave even our driver's licences at home. Go to Phoenix, Arizona. With excellent media coverage of course, deposit ourselves at police headquarters in Phoenix. Tell them, each one of us, that we have no papers on us identifying us as citizens, or as having a right to stay in the United States.

Remind them that by law they are now required to arrest us on suspicion of being illegal immigrants unable to produce papers showing our right to be here. I mean, how much more suspicious can you get than having someone tell you they have no papers.

Demand to be arrested, and repatriated to our countries of origin. In my case, they can choose between Canada, France, Scotland, England, and an Indian Reservation, though I might not tell them the latter, as it would be too cheap for them.

Result: Either they 1) do as we ask and we all get a one way ticket somewhere nice for a holiday and return home at our own expense or 2) refuse to do as we ask and reveal the law in all its racist and unworkable glory.

They could arrest us for wasting police time, but what a grand court case that would make, wasting police time by trying to make them obey the law???

Whoohoo - on to a winner here!

Exercise Guide for Older Adults

2009-09-03T09:45:00.002-05:00

Editor's note: In these tough times we need to take extra good care of ourselves, so here's some sage advice ...

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side.
With a 5-lb. potato sack in each hand, extend your arm straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can.
Try to reach a full minute, and then relax.
Each day, you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.
After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb. potato sacks.
After a couple of more weeks, move up to 50-lb. potato sacks.
When you have mastered this, try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb. potato sack in each hand and hold your arms staight for more than a full minute.
After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each of the sacks.

Spirit Lightener

2009-09-03T09:25:00.002-05:00

It has been known that I can get caught up in visions of the past (the happy, the miserable, or just the excruciatingly embarrassing) and plans for the future (a great trip, or just now, do I really want replacements of both knees and all the risks that brings?), caught up to the point where I can be almost oblivious to the "now".

And yet, that now is all we have. It is only in "the now" that we even have any of the past (and by now it's often so reinterpreted as to be unrecognizable to anyone else who was there).

Heck, the universe itself started with a huge "now" - the Big Bang - a Big Bang which we are simply riding in the middle of, as it spreads itself out, rather like one of those red explosions behind the tumbling lead actors in a TV adventure. We are travelling on one of those bits of wood chips in the middle of the flame, so to speak. It is always "now".

Which reminds me of this great poem by William Stafford in "The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems"

You Reading This, Be Ready

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval
you spent reading or hearing this, keep it for life -

What can anyone guive you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn
around?

Who Knew How Much It Hurt??

2009-08-28T17:53:00.002-05:00

Amazing new book "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (I read the Brit edition, Allen Lane publishers):

50 years of research has gone into this book. The researchers began simply trying to look at the health of the poor in 20 of the world's richest nations and all 50 states in the US, but when they put all their discoveries against graphs of income equality and inequality, eureka, there it was. The most equal societies had the best health, the least equal societies the worst. And not just among the poor.

In the least equal societies rates of mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity, teenage pregnancy, homicide are all higher; literacy, life expectancy, and children's educational performance are all worse ... and this is across all income levels. Levels of the stress hormone cortisol are higher across all levels. (The rich, at very least, are frightened of the poor.) Scandinavia and Japan have the smallest differences between high and low incomes, and the best health. The richest countries with the widest gulf in incomes and the highest rate of social and health problems are Britain, Portugal, and the United States.

There's something to put in the health reform bill!!

This short mention can not do justice to this amazing book, by the way.

I'm back ...

2009-08-28T17:41:00.002-05:00

From a new British book, "Obama's Blackberry" (Sphere GBP 9.99) Kasper Hauser Comedy Group LLC

Text message to Michelle Obama

BarackO: hey hon, we need 2 remind sasha not 2 leave toys in oval office.

FirstLady2U: ?

BarackO: just found tickle me elmo under my desk.

FirstLady2U: not sasha's

BarackO: ?

First Lady2U: check tag.

Barack0: "george"

FirstLady2U: I've started a box to mail to laura.

The Amazing Story of Prisoner 00235 and His Escape from Burma continued ...

2007-09-13T12:27:00.001-05:00

So, imprisoned for nothing, Htein Lin continues to be the artist he is. Word gets around. Another prisoner working in the office manages to get him some enamel paint. When that was gone, Lin used the color dyes used for staining the doormats made in the prison, or color powder left over from a Hindu festival.

Lacking tools, he would often just use his bare hands to apply any medium, though he also found toothpaste and medicine bottle lids, toothbrushes, and cigarette lighters helpful.He realized the long white cotton prison outfits would be useful, and he would buy them from prisoners being released for 10 cigarettes. His family brought him a tarpaulin to sleep on, and he used that to paint on, gradually tearing off strip after strip.

What survives of what he created from all this is amazing. Some paintings provide a striking account of life inside the prison: prisoners shackled, lining up for food, waiting on death row. Some are of mega-themes like the eclipse and the millenium.

Lin hid his paintings in his bedroll until he could smuggle them out with friends or family, often bribing the guards. Not everything survives, because, for example, one warder took the money, opened the paintings, assumed they were elaborate escape maps, and burnt them all.

Not to mention that, after a government purge led to a review of thousands of cases, when he finally got out of prison in November 2004 (for his escape is not from prison, but from danger later), his wife (whom he later divorced) turned out to have sold all the paintings he had done on paper to a scrap paper merchant for recycling!

Still, the work done on the prison uniforms survives, and was to be Lin's key to freedom. But how is still an amazing story ... check in tomorrow.

The Amazing Story of Prisoner 00235 and His Escape From Burma

2007-09-11T23:54:00.000-05:00

There is so much horror in the world: Darfur, Iraq, decapitations on video in Germany, the anniversary of 9/11, drug deaths, so much, so much. Maybe that's why I'm also glad occasionally to hear of the flowering of life somewhere, too.

Though I grant you, this one is amazing. I mean, have you ever been reading some novel or other and you hit one fantastic plot twist too many? I've even thrown the book across the room, muttering, or shouting, "Oh, come ooooonnnnn!!"

To be more accurate, I used to do that. Until I'd lived long enough to see that, no matter how amazing the plot turns the novellists come up with, they can't approach real life for weird wonderfulness.

Take the true story of Prisoner 00235 in Burma. Locked up for 6 and a half years in a Burmese military prison.

His crime? None. Just the fact that his name showed up on a list other people thought they might contact.

Born in 1966 in a small village in the north of Burma, Lin knew he wanted to be an artist. But there were no art schools to attend, so he went to University in Rangoon to study law. In the "democracy spring" 0f 1988, in which Aung San Su Kyi emerged as leader, Lin, like many other students, was expelled.

But the internal squabbling in the pro-democracy movement convinced Lin he wanted nothing further to do with politics. He dedicated himself to his art from that point on with his first exhibition in Rangoon in 1996.

Unknown to Lin, in 1998 a letter between two former student colleagues was intercepted, in which they had a list of people to check in with to see if they wanted to be involved.

Simply because his name was on that list, Lin was arrested and, sentenced to seven years, spent the next seven months on death row.

He was still an artist. Many families brought food to their loved ones, and Lin would beg for the plastic bags and the paper labels when they were done eating, and began tracing designs with his fingernails. It was the start of his amazing escape. More tomorrow ...

"Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust" Might Be More Interesting than We Think

2007-09-07T13:04:00.000-05:00

From the dust storm pictures above, to the microscopic study of a bit of dust NASA kindly provides below, and in our homes whether we like it or not, we are surrounded by dust. (Perhaps me more than most, after I discovered that my short-sightedness would allow me the simple pleasure of removing my glasses and being unable to see it! Tip, for those of you out there with myopia!)

Anyone addicted to Kim and Aggie, BBC America's "How Clean Is Your House" stars, and their exploration of households heaped with dirt will know, there's a lot of living stuff in there among the dust.

Insects, germs, mites, all collected on Aggie's little Q-tips and sent off to the lab, only for the agar plates and computer files to return with the horrifying truths. "A normal household kitchen counter will have 500 to 1,000 of Bacteria X, yours has 2 billion!" (A true quote, even if I did forget the name of the bacteria!)

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" doesn't sound so good, does it.

But, hold on, once again science comes to the rescue. For they have now discovered that non-organic dust, when held in the form of plasma in zero gravity, can take on the characteristics of living organisms in space.

Huh? Yep. An international panel including the Max Planck Institute in Germany (to whom I have sold books, yay!), the University of Sydney, Australia, and the Russian Academy of Sciences have found that galactic dust can form spontaneously into helixes, and, wait for it, double helixes (the famous pattern of DNA) in space, held together by electromagnetic forces, and that these inorganic creations have memory (contain a code comparable to the genetic information held in organic matter) and the power to reproduce themselves (this code can be transferred to the next generation).

I promise, I am not making this up. And I am grateful to the London Sunday Times and reporter Robert Booth for bringing it to my attention.

Indeed, here in the U.S. the National Research Council, an advisory body to the US government, is recommending NASA begin searching for what it describes as "wierd organisms". (Have they tried their local UU society? Whoops, sorry.) Actually, they are to look for organisms that lack DNA or other molecules found in life on earth.

Professor Greg Morfill of the Max Planck Institute says "The question now is to see if it can evolve to become intelligent." These findings have provoked speculation that the helix could be a common structure that underpins all life, organic and non-organic.

Wow! "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" may be a whole lot more exciting than I thought!

Guess What's In the Picture??

2007-09-05T20:58:00.000-05:00

Now here's a question - what do you think is in each of the pictures above?

You probably got the first one OK. It's a carpet. Well, not exactly a carpet as you know it, or get it down at the wholesale warehouse. But it is a fabulous rug.

But now what's the next? Well, yes, it's a rug, too. A fantastic sculpted rug.

And the third? You might just be able to make out the floorboards underneath, and guess, yes, a rug again! Metal, this time, woven throughout.

And the last? A supernova? A fancy dancy ceiling, lots better than flourescent stick-ons? I mean, it can't be, it couldn't be, no, no, no, but it IS - it is a rug!

The latest thing, evidently, in rugs is rugs with LED lights woven into them. Forget the tacky fairy lights hanging over your bed (well, you would want to forget them, wouldn't you?) Here is something else. My new glowing carpet.

Well, not mine, actually, but one fabulous creation among all the others (all the rugs here are from Top Floor Rugs). Gotta love 'em, even if I'm sure I couldn't afford 'em. I know, I know, totally non PC, haven't even considered their carbon loading ... but I still like 'em. Must be the burgeoning fabric artist in me!

Where Have You Been, Juffie Girl???

2007-09-04T22:42:00.000-05:00

Hi all! Just back from two weeks in this spectacular scenery ... down the back behind Moab, Utah, in a canyon by the Colorado River. This is the view from the front porch of our cottage. And the quilt photos were taken on the back porch, which is about 10 feet from the Colorado River, with a giant red rock canyon rearing up just past the river into the sky. We're 17 miles into the canyon ... and 17 miles from a cell phone signal because of that ... so blogging was out of the question.

While there I finished my eldest grand-daughter's quilt. She is an animal fanatic, particularly wild animals, and I had found this fabric full of wonderful African animal faces. These were "fussy cut" individually, and set in fabrics with the green of the Serengeti plain grasses in spring, a gentle spotted fabric rather like leopard but much smaller and more delicate, some wonderful big grass stripy fabric, and some weathered gray wrinkly elephant skin-like fabric.

Two pillows made just of the faces went with the quilt, but I moved while photographing them, so they're too blurry for public view.

Now I'm back and the book sales have begun again with a vengeance (shipped 18 today, already have 8 orders for tomorrow) - my quilting bee has got me going on the baby quilt for the next expected grand-child, not to mention several others - church is getting going again (I do need to let this go - I'm finding the energy level can't sustain it along with the rest of my daily life) - and so on and so forth.

My desk is piled with blog materials, so you can expect to hear from me regularly for quite a while from now on! Like it or not!

Choices, choices, choices, in other words, let's not do anything at all

2007-08-11T23:06:00.001-05:00

And my sweetie's home, huzzah hurrah, after a long delay in Dallas where there was a change of equipment for his flight, followed by a change of crew, one member short, she arrived, whoopsie, the co-pilot was caught coming in from Mexico and a computer was down in customs ... but eventually they took off, and he arrived, sooooo nice.

But today's blog is about something else entirely. It's about the deleterious effects of too much choice. No, no, not, not on the young, not on "this generation", gawd I haven't hit old fartdom that hard ... yet.

Today's blog is about the deleterious effects of too much choice on me. And I wonder about you.

I first noticed this at the UUA's General Assemblies. If there's one great thing on, I'll go. Two great things, I'll choose one and go. Three great things, I'll dither, but probably choose one and go. Four great things and ... well, it's just too painful to decide so I'll go back to the hotel and rest. Or take a little trip to Mount Hood. You know the sort of thing, perhaps.

And I've just worked out that's where I am with my quilting. Got the Mystery Quilt to assemble, get quilted and finish; got the quilt for my eldest granddaughter to finish the binding on; got the quilt for my second granddaughter mostly cut, and some assembled, but have finish the assembly and then do the applique, which I've never done before; got the quilt for the new baby to get started on, have the pattern, have the fabric, need to get going, babies don't wait; the quilt for my eldest grandson, designed, but no fabric even purchased yet; have the lap-quilt for my daughter-in-law to do the next three stages of cutting and assembly on; have the quilt for the orphanage in Juarez to finish designing and cutting before assembly and quilting; and, of course, the Christmas table runners to make for everyone, let alone the lap quilt I have already designed in my head for friends.

Is this profligacy of choices why I've been watching the odd old Perry Mason, and the crazy ladies on the BBC's How Clean Is Your House? Hmmm. I do suspect so. Nevermind, in a couple of weeks vacation will be over. That'll turn the tide, won't it?

And it came, and it came and it came until finally it came

2007-08-10T00:48:00.000-05:00

What a beautiful storm we have just had. Take the artist's impression, just above my writing, and darken it by a factor of, oh, several thousand. Then place that in front of the mountains out my front window (top picture). I watched those grand, 9,500 foot mountains in the late afternoon as they disappeared behind the blackest of black curtains of rain, with black skies horizon to horizon advancing upon us.

The mailman hadn't yet arrived. And I have to get on my mobility scooter to run a block to the cluster boxes at the end of the street. Finally the mailman came. I dashed (glad the thing will do 12 miles an hour, and not the 4 most of them do ... fitting since I once drove rally cars in England) and just got back into the house as the first drops fell.

What a crashing, pounding thunder lightening heavy rain evening we had. Glad all our skylights held! When people think of the desert, they don't really think of such things, but they are very common in fact.

With my bones hurting, and David still away with his son, I was in no mood to cook -- until you are impaired, you probably never think how much standing and walking is involved with cooking! -- so it was out to grab a bite from somewhere with a drive-up window.

Since the streets here are the drains, driving through the downhill intersections was quite an adventure. (There were flood warnings out.) Even the car park at the fast food joint was deeply flooded -- folks were coming out to cars parked neatly when they went in, now found water halfway up to their knees.

Home fine - all in all a lovely evening, if you see what I mean.

Ain't It Odd How Talk Changes; Isn't It Weird How Language Develops; It is Not Unpeculiar How Human Speech Forms Evolve

2007-08-08T22:35:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you've heard all kinds of reports, been told in your studies, noticed yourself, that language changes. Language is not a static thing, as any college sophomore struggling through Chaucer in Middle English soon learns.

One of the weirdest changes afflicting British English at the moment is the complete misuse of the word "prevaricate". Even the most precise writers like Faye Weldon and John le Carre (if I remember right) have joined the parade.

How on earth could you misuse the word "prevaricate", which means "lie" as in tell one, or usually several, untruths?

By confusing it with the word "procrastinate", meaning to put off, delay, not do something you could, and maybe should, be doing.

Now I grant you, often when we are procrastinating we wind up prevaricating -- "Yes, I've started on it but it's quite difficult, you know", "I was just going to", "I rang but you weren't in", that sort of thing.

But common British parlance now uses the word prevaricate for the delaying, for the putting off itself.

Makes me feel like someone who writes letters to the newspaper signed "Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells".

Partly because I hold procrastination so dear myself, I suppose. I was delighted to know that procrastination has even been the subject of scientific study (what we don't do for those grants!) And it seems there is even a formula, discovered by Piers Steel of the University of Calgary after much study (did he ever put a day of it off, I wonder). The formula is:

To learn how strong your desire is to complete a task (U), you factor in your Expectation of Success (E), multiply this by the Value of Completion (V), divide by the Immediacy of the Task (I) multiplied by the Personal Sensitivity of Delay (D).

U = ExV/IxD in other words.

I've had a lot of fun looking back over my ministry putting various situations through the formula. Quite accurate, it would seem, for me anyway.

Personally, I'm more kinesthetic and visual than mathematical, though. So I just think of some of my procrastination like the ostriches above, but luckily most of it looks more like the smiling picture below that. And one great thing about being retired is, you no longer have to prevaricate if you procrastinate!

Though no one will read your blog if you procrastinate so long you don't write it!

The German's call it Schadenfreude, I just call it laughing at something that is no laughing matter, except it is

2007-08-08T01:15:00.000-05:00

Deep under the earth near Geneva, Switzerland lies the CERN particle accelerator. (See picture one, which shows an added mark where the large and small loops of the accelerator run for miles and miles under the surface of the land.)

The new structure of the machine, subject to four engineering reviews between 1998 and 2002, is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) (see picture two for part of it) which aims at nothing less than to re-create the conditions of the Big Bang at the beginning of our universe 14 million years ago (ie smash together protons at nearly the speed of light).

It was scheduled to begin doing this in November. Now, well, maybe next Spring. Because, alas, a little basic error in the designers' mathematical calculations led to a not so little explosion in deep under the earth which lifted a 20-ton magnet (like the one in picture three) off its mountings, filled a tunnel with helium gas, and forced an evacuation.

Now all the 24 such magnets located around the 17 mile accelerator must be stripped down and fixed. And the helium? A simple little matter of using pipes filled with liquid helium to cool the tunnels to the required -268C for the process. Boggles the mind if all you've ever done with helium is fill a few balloons and make your voice go crazy.

Those of you who know me know I love all this stuff for real ... cosmic theology and all that.

But I did have to laugh. I mean, don't you see the irony? Researching the Big Bang when wallop, a big bang!?

So That's Why I Moved To New Mexico!

2007-08-07T00:12:00.001-05:00

Your Inner European is Spanish!

Energetic and lively. You bring the party with you!

Who's" Your Inner European?

So That

2007-08-07T00:12:00.000-05:00

Not Only Is What You See What You Get, But What You Already Have Is What You See

2007-08-06T23:47:00.000-05:00

"What you see is what you get" they say, usually meaning someone is genuine, exactly as they appear. Though don't necessarily take this as a compliment -- they may be meaning the person referred to is too uncultured, too gauche, too crass, to observe even the little social niceties that make life go so well.

I am fascinated by how often "What you already have is what you see" also, even moreso, seems to be the rule. Like, sorry guys if you can't identify here, but every mother will know what I mean, like how when you are pregnant (especially if you don't particularly want to be), or when you want desperately to be pregnant and it isn't happening, pregnant women are everywhere. I mean, everywhere.

I can't really believe that there were all that many more women suddenly pregnant when I was. But it sure looked like it. (Actually, there were all that many more women suddenly pregnant in one congregation I served, come to think of it. I got pregnant, then three other women did too, and our much loved organist resigned. Well, she already had four children, and didn't really want any more. She felt it was too dangerous to stay around! Three weeks later she was back. Not only had it been too dangerous, it had been too late. Thus it was one little congregation grew by five!)

Anyway, just as you see what you already have (the dishonest person lives in a world of only sharpers, the depressed person in a world of only tragedies, the way nastiest person on Design Star accuses everyone else of having a rotten personality, etc. etc.) - now I am seeing death.

My husband David got a call yesterday from his son. David's first wife had died suddenly and unexpectedly at home, with a neighbor calling the police when she hadn't seen her for several days. David has flown out to be with his son, their only living child, to be companionship in dealing with all that follows such an event.

And then I'm reading along, something light in a time of low concentration, and damn, I discover one of my favorite authors, Michael Dibdin, died in April, just before his sixtieth birthday. Damn, damn, damn.

As for me, I'm OK, just very very very very sore - my helpmeet is away, and while I can pretty well manage for myself when I have to, the pain level soars, too little rest, too much tearing of tendons by my inner Iron Maiden of osteophytes. Never mind, if I have to have death on my mind, I'm off the watch my tape of tonight's episode of The Closer. Love that woman.

Newsflash ... everybody is not a rat ... it is not all terrible ...

2007-08-05T00:35:00.000-05:00

So much harsh news - from war zones, from famine and starvation draughts, from monsoon floods, from sports with drugs in baseball and cycling, and purposeful blocking of a "too-successful" Formula I motor racer - on and on it goes.

So I thought I'd bring you some more than good news ... some beautiful news, in fact. It's all about Fordhall Farm. If you look here you'll see the whole story.

A brother and sister (see above) were faced with losing the farm they inherited from their parents, a farm which had begun to work organically before any of us had probably ever even heard the term. This beautiful, natural, care-filled farm (see above) was about to churn through the market and get industrialized, pesticided, antibiotic-ed, soil depleted, animal factoried, you name it, not only was the loss of their home and farm staring them in the face, but the loss of a better way of doing things. Better for them, for us, for the earth, for the world, for hope, for the future.

They hit the internet. Ain't it a wonderful tool? They used it to tell their story. And sell shares in their farm. It worked! 8,000 folk and counting now own this farm, a true co-operative. (See some of them volunteering on the farm above.)

If this story doesn't warm your heart, your fears are right, you are dead.

Oh, and say a prayer for them, too, won't you (even humanists know what to do, you can think good thoughts, can't ya?) because foot and mouth disease has just been discovered again in England. Their farm is a long way away -- but last time (2001) it managed to ravage the whole country. I love their story, and my theology is a whole lot less important than sending them good energy whatever you call it! That's how I feel, anyway.

It Would Be Good If It Were True Any Longer, But It's Not, At the Moment Anyway ...

2007-08-02T19:17:00.000-05:00

When a person moves to the desert, as we did, what do you think they move there for? Escape from the snow, oh yea, as a minister I've done too many funerals for men who were out shovelling the snow. Indeed, one fine gentleman of not too many years was simply sweeping, with a broom, about half an inch of light powder when it did him in. The extremely cold air that often follows such storms, you see, gets in the lungs and ... well ...

OK, so we don't have much snow. And when we do get an inch or so, gone by noon, it's alternately hilarious and terrifying to watch the "locals" drive in it, no snow tires, no experience, hilarious from a distance, terrifying if you actually have to be out in it.

What the h$%^ is she doing talking about snow in the middle of summer? Well, there's something else lots of us move here for. It's called "It's not the heat, it's the humidity (or even humididity)".

It is true. High temperatures are a lot easier to take when the air is dry, and there's a marvellous desert breeze. If you perspire it's evaporated straight off you, cooling you down in the process, just the way the body is supposed to work.

Until global warming, that is. Suffering through another week of diabolical humididity, I might as well be in Florida this summer. Thunderstorms everyday - and even if it doesn't actually rain, though it has every day for ages, the clouds and humidity hover and exhaust.

Now there's always been a "monsoon" season out here - hot dry days with thunderstorms in the late afternoon or evening. But this is all day, every day, with no hot dry about it.

In other words, welcome to the rainforest. Not what I signed up for when I moved to the desert, but you know, ::singing:: "You can't always get what you want ... "

Which reminds me, did you know I once MC'ed for a show where the Rolling Stones were performing? Well, Mick Jagger and his group anyway, at the University of London when he was still a student there, if my memory is not totally gone.

The things we don't know about our ministers!

I Have a Thing - and Can It Get Me Into Trouble ...

2007-08-01T13:50:00.001-05:00

Yes, I do, I have a thing about the stiff, perfectly balanced, stuck in place so solidly they can not move, floral arrangements often favored here in the States. I've tried to find an image of exactly what I mean without success, but the first picture here is a close approximation.

I don't like this kind of arrangement.

Maybe it's all those years spent living in Europe (20 years of my adult life in four segments spread over 40 years: Switzerland, England, Holland, England again), but I prefer floral displays to look like a most varied bunch of flowers you've just picked from the garden, and plunked in a vase (again, I couldn't find exactly what I mean on-line, but the second picture is at least an approximation). For those of you who watch PBS, the floral display that begins the mystery program Rosemary and Thyme, well, that's it, really.

I haven't thought about this much of late, florists here do very stiff, formulaic displays so I've given up on flowers in my house, something I was never without in Europe, but a phone call with my son this morning reminded me.

Discussing what I might like for my birthday, I was saying no flowers (because of how they would come!) ... when up popped into my mind a scene from many years ago in the church I was serving.

I got a phone call telling me that this was the year for the Odd Fellows (a sort of fraternity for adults, I suppose you could say) would be visiting our service. It seems they went to a different church each year for Odd Fellows Sunday, or some such.

Ever the agreeable soul, I said, sure, come along. (Anything to fill the empty pews in that beautiful old New England congregation seating 400, current congregation well less than a quarter of that.)

But when I got to the church Sunday morning, the place was still empty but the flowers had been delivered the day before. EEEEEEEEK! As stiff a formal display as you could imagine, a sort of carpet of flower heads, all the same height, they hadn't even had the sense to vary the dimensions!

Well, I would soon fix that. So up I stalked (sorry, bad pun) and started rearranging. The flowers made a pair of nice, height varied displays, though they were all the same bloom, and not enough greenery, so it still wasn't the best, but it sure was better.

Soon the congregation arrived, including the Odd Fellows. Massive consternation. Several members raced to the front, and began wildly rearranging my rearrangement, back into the stiff, flat horror it was before.

Only then did I notice the letters IOOF (International Order of Odd Fellows) the red flowers made against the white flowered background.

At least they never came back, there's that to be said for having a "thing".

Getting a Life ain't the Problem ... Having it, now there's the thing

2007-07-31T01:09:00.000-05:00

No, I haven't actually been any place like this recently, alas ... but I have been too busy living my life to blog just for a bit.

The Tour de France was on, and, with my bones too exploded to fly to Europe any more, well, what's better than three weeks in France courtesy of the Versus Channel on television, and yes, well, I love the cycling race too. We would settle in to watch the DVR (well, I'm not getting up at 4:30 am, there are limits even to love), with our sandwich au jambon (French mustard, of course), and our Cafe au Lait (yes, I know, dead naff to drink this in the afternoon, but tough), some crudites, and have a lovely visit.

Then it was off to deal with bumper book sales, nearly a full-time job at the moment. Phew.

And a lot going on in the church I consult for.

Some time back my friend Biddies wrote about getting up in the morning and reading the news and how upsetting that can be.

Well, we never, never, ever do that. We awaken to silence, we meditate, we have a cup of tea, we stare for a while just in noticing mode, we do a little work, we listen to music. No news until at least mid-afternoon.

This is nothing compared to what I did the whole time my children were young. We'd go to our cottage on the lake (those were flusher times, then) for six weeks and the rule was simple. No television, no radio, (most UUs are with me up to this point), no newspapers, no magazines (some are fading, but a lot of UUs are still with me), and no books. (The last one loses just about every blessed and unblessed UU).

Our motto for our six weeks was -- "Something Is Happening, and We Are It!" A corrective against all those who currently clearly believe that what is reported on television is more real than their own lives, indeed, all those who clearly these days believe that if they aren't themselves on television, they aren't really alive.

And so I say unto you (as preachers like to do) Something Is Happening, and You Are It!

MySpace or Facebook, and who are we anyway?

2007-07-18T21:52:00.000-05:00

So, the news is out. Social scientists have discovered that MySpace and Facebook in fact mirror class divisions in US society quite neatly. Well-to-do, stable American teens with "good prospects" wind up on Facebook, while poor, queer, marginal and non-white teens end up on MySpace. Even in the military "grunts" tend to be on MySpace and officers on Facebook - guess which one the military banned! For more, click on the word "news" and see fascinating quotes from Danah Boyd's paper.

Just an interesting little insight, you might think. But recent research by both the Sutton Trust in England and the London School of Economics reveals that out of all technologically and economically advanced countries Britain has the lowest rate of social mobility (no real surprise if you've lived there) - and the United States, yes, that's right, the "land of opportunity", has the second lowest rate of social mobility of all the countries studied. Peter Lampl of the Sutton Trust writes: "In no other country were the prospects of those from non-privileged backgrounds more limited".

Reminds me of another study whose source alas I can no longer find, a few years ago, which discovered that while most American's believe social mobility exists as a possibility for them, more than 95% stay right exactly where their parents were.

These new researchers at the London School of Economics found two main reasons for this social stuck-ness. First, the increasing level of income inequality and second, education that disproportionately benefits the better-off.

Countries that do well in social mobility, Sweden and Canada for instance, have far lower income disparities between higher and lower earners. And the quality of education varies less according to parental income.

It's not just what on-line friendly web-site we use, after all.

Wisdom in Graffiti

2007-07-17T23:31:00.000-05:00

If you Google "graffiti" for images, you'll mostly get a weird dichotomy of "graffiti art" and "methods for removing graffiti". We don't seem entirely in agreement on this subject, folks.

Some like the color and splash added to often bleak urban landscapes by colored spray paints artistically applied. Others feel it is the beginning of the end for their neighborhood. And all in all, both may be right. Though I do think locking up the spray paints at HomeBase and Lowe's etc., as we have around here, so even the lovely young woman wanting to remake a rescued table from the rubbish can't buy them, is overkill.

Yet there still can be much wisdom in unofficial messages. I love the creativity of the Moss Graffiti on this old wall - there are even instructions for growing your own moss message if you wish to.

And I love the chalked graffiti above: "Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest; Come taste the sweet berries of the earth; Come roll in riches all around you; And for once never wonder what they're worth!"

But most of all I love the graffiti on the wall above the bar in a British army mess in Iraq - a commentary on how we got them all into this mess:

Yee-Haw is not a foreign policy

Can I hear an Amen?

The Law of Unintended Consequences

2007-07-16T23:33:00.000-05:00

You've all heard about the law of unintended consequences, no doubt ... in Iraq (see above); in easy money (see above); in that bitter little motto "No good deed goes unpunished"; and so on.

If I had my life to live over again, I think I'd be a lawyer, cause I just love the crash between human reality and the attempts to make it fit rules.

Lately the case of the will of Tom Watson, Jr. of IBM fame and fortune has caught my eye, and my imagination. The massive fortune of Tom Watsons Sr. and Jr. passed to Jrs. widow upon his death, and upon her death was intended to be divided into trusts for their 18 grandchildren, as I understand it.

However, one of TW Jrs. daughters, OW, a lesbian, was partnered for years and that partner, had, she says, and I have no reason to doubt this, given up her own career in order to live in her partnership. But she then feared what might happen to her if OW were to be, say, killed in an accident.

And all these good people who have fought against gay marriage, or even civil partnerships for decades, centuries, then indirectly brought about what happened next.

There being no way to be civil partners, and certainly not married, at the time, OW did what many gay couples were doing at the time - she legally adopted her partner.

Trouble was, they broke up within a year. But upon the death of TW Jrs. widow, as the money was about to be divided among grand-children, this adopted "child" of OW said, hey, I'm a grandchild too!

It's all in the courts in two states, and still there, as far as I can find out. To further complicate matters, OW has now repartnered, and she and her new partner have adopted two little boys, who are counted among the grand-children.

Oh, man, there are enough unintended consequences in this story to make a lot of lawyers very rich, sadly. The people who ought to pay are, perhaps, those who have prevented the simple civil rights and acts available without a second thought to all the rest of us who happen to be wired differently.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr but how strange

2007-07-16T00:21:00.000-05:00

Grrrrrrr. Among the dozen books sold today is a lovely book on Passive Solar home construction, I remember listing it well. Only one problem. Despite a gonzo filing system for the 1300 books we have listed, we can not find the d$%^ed thing.

I'm actually feeling physically sick.

All of which puts me in mind of this afternoon's watching of the Tour de France (we are wild cycling fans), and the amazing run of Australia's Michael Rogers, out in front, well away from the folks expected to be winning, making a stonking ride ... until ... a slide in a corner during the descent (these guys get up to 70 miles an hour), straight into the Armorall fence. He got up, continued, but there were too many injuries, there was too much pain, and he is out of the race. They use that terrible word "abandoned" when this happens.

How he wished the cameras were anywhere but there as his head slumped over his handlebars and his shoulders shook with his sobs.

Imagine, a whole year of 12 hour training days getting ready for this three week race and, one week into it, when you're leading, boom.

Frustration! As my English friends would say, I wouldn't like to be living in his head at the moment.

And here I am with my little frustration - well, it should be little, but it ain't. It will be something of a miracle if I have a hair left on my head by tomorrow morning.

Oh, you ask, but your title mentions "strange". Yea, cause I just think it's strange how minor frustrations can really get us riled up (well, me anyway) ... I tend to handle disasters somewhat better. Odd, that.

2007-07-14T20:56:00.000-05:00

So here's the new quiz result:

You scored as Harry Potter, You can be a little reckless and hot-headed at times, but a more brave and courageous friend would be hard to find.

Harry Potter

85%

Albus Dumbledore

75%

Hermione Granger

70%

Sirius Black

55%

Remus Lupin

55%

Ginny Weasley

55%

Severus Snape

45%

Ron Weasley

45%

Draco Malfoy

40%

Lord Voldemort

35%

Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...?
created with QuizFarm.com

But what I want to know is how does Harry Potter feel being defined as "Love in the Time of Cholera"? (I refer you to my most recent post.) I love to take all these quizzes for interest sake, but even more, I love to see how impossible it is to line up all the results side by side and have anything that makes sense.

But now I suppose I'll have to read the last Harry Potter (I found the most recent two unfinishable, I confess) if only to find out if he sticks to bottled water - the advice from my last quiz.

Makes me think of the hoard of books recently dropped off for sale by a stranger. As my beloved shelved all these books once they were listed on-line, ploughing through all the self-help books, and meditation books, and books about various religious approaches, and more books on the soul, he remarked, "I do hope she's finally found it, whatever it was she needed so badly, and was looking for so hard."

And I hope none of us are looking for salvation in these quizzes! Sure is fun, though.

2007-07-13T19:29:00.000-05:00

Well, this is what they say:

You're Love in the Time of Cholera!

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Like Odysseus in a work of Homer, you demonstrate undying loyalty by sleeping with as many people as you possibly can. But in your heart you never give consent! This creates a strange quandary of what love really means to you. On the one hand, you've loved the same person your whole life, but on the other, your actions barely speak to this fact. Whatever you do, stick to bottled water. The other stuff could get you killed.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

As the British would say, chance would be a fine thing! I do stick to bottled water, though.

Or then again, as the British would say, pigs might fly!

Which reminds me of the splendid day, a couple of decades ago, when some rock band (Pink Floyd?) wanted a flying pig on their album cover. In those pre Photo-shop days, they had to arrange to actually have one in order to photograph it. So they had the parade folk create them a giant inflatable pig, filled it with helium, and strung it up between the towers of the largest power station in the world in its day, Battersea Power Station, on the south side of the Thames river in London. (see photo - taken on the second attempt to fly the pig)

Alas, before they could photo it properly, the tethers broke, and away it flew, straight up into the flight lanes leading to Heathrow Airport ... to the astonishment, consternation, and confusion of a number of experienced pilots, it has to be said.

Hope they were sticking to bottled water!

2007-07-13T01:03:00.000-05:00

Tonight's blog is fully expressed in the pictures, to save time for those of you who read too much already.

If I'm going to blog, then surely I have a responsibility to have deep thoughts (see picture one).

But actually, since I finished the house-cleaning gig (well, one or two little bits to go, but truly just sorting out a few pairs of earrings for the church nearly new sale) I've just been doing a lot of staring - contemplating - noticing- breathing in - the exquisite desert around me (see picture two) - and its fabulous wild storms - and gorgeous blue and white skies - and the sweetness of the night as the flowers let all their scent go before tomorrow.

Rather like picture three, in fact, open mouth and all.

But then I remember that Rodin's original name for his first ever statue of what we now know as The Thinker was "Despair at the Gates of Hell". Sort of glad I'm not thinking too much right now, I guess. Sorry if you're disappointed.

More on Sicko Two

2007-07-10T11:27:00.000-05:00

And another thing ...

Just because Germany, France, Australia are countries, we tend to think the US, being a country, could do what they do. But they are all much much smaller, in population and geography, than the US. And size can complicate matters.

The population of France is 61m, or one-fifth the size of the US, of Germany 82.5m, just over a quarter the size of the US, of Australia 20.5m or one fifteenth that of the US.

In area, France is slightly less than twice the size of one state, Colorado. Germany is slightly smaller than the state of Montana.

When green Americans (among whom I count myself) blithely complain how we don't use public transport like the Europeans, I can hardly get them to understand the differences of scale and distance between people here as opposed to Europe.

I can not imagine these things would not also play in medical care and development. In Germany and France, for example, you need far fewer pieces of expensive equipment to serve the whole population ... in America with that few pieces of equipment some of the population could easily be 800 miles from the machine needed to treat them.

Or to put it another way, on our journey from New Mexico to northern California to see family, then on to Portland for GA, and straight home the shortest route to New Mexico again, we drove from London to Beirut, Lebanon and back again. See what I mean?

All that said, our system is certainly hundreds of per cent more brutal than it needs to be. But being hard-headedly realistic about the systems we admire even as we work to change things is still not a bad idea.

Yes, it's Sicko, but getting better may be no cinch...

2007-07-10T00:20:00.000-05:00

I hold no brief for our current health system. Big pharma, big medicine, the profit motive, all well deserving of the many criticisms coming their way.

However, it is extremely naive to believe that nationalized medicine somehow means we have left individualism behind for dedication to community, and now share a commitment to take care of each other. Oh, it may have started that way, and many good people serving in the system still want it to be that way.

But faced by the proliferation of possible and exponentially expensive treatments, the motive of nationalized health services in many countries has become a dedication to care, strangely admixed with, and often trumped by, a governmental demand to cut costs.

It's not a profit motive, but the demand to cut costs can have strangely similar effects to those with which we are familiar in our profit-making system.

(Well, only partly profit-making after all. It is illegal for me to sell my kidney, though everyone else who handles it, from the doctors and nurses who take it out to the folks who carry it, and those who put it in someone else, will happily take their profit. Only I can not. Weird.)

The result for individuals of cost-cutting nationalized systems can be very similar to what we know. And even, perhaps, worse.

I know, I know, we want to keep the argument pure, and not, as someone said, "get bogged down in details of how other systems work", but the devil, as they say, is in those details.

If we still lived in England, my beloved husband would absolutely, certainly be blind, and probably be dead. He would be blind because NICE, the body who decides which drugs, already approved for use by the British equivalent of the FDA, can actually be used by anyone in the NHS. And none of the treatments which have saved my husband's sight are approved for use. It is considered that, since those who would have these treatments are elderly, and they are fairly expensive, it's a waste of money on those who will be dead soon anyway. So no go. There are thousands of people right now going blind in England and Wales for lack of the treatments my husband has been able to have here. And his heart condition was treated aggressively and he was home within 45 hours of diagnosis. This might have happened in Britain, too, though our good friend with a very similar diagnosis had to wait 6 months for treatment and only got it then because the fellow scheduled for that day had died.

Yes, our system needs to change, and yes, this is a religious issue - life and death, hey, isn't that our topic? - but please do not get too dewy eyed that a change will eliminate cost concerns. As I write, in England there is debate over the decision of several regional health authorities not only to have an automatic no resuscitation order on anyone 65 or older regardless of their health otherwise, but to prohibit surgery on all ages of smokers and the obese (as those groups have lower success rates) - again, ignoring the overall health of any individual concerned.

Heaven is harder to get to than one prayer.

You Meet a Better Class of People ....

2007-07-07T19:47:00.000-05:00

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo So I've been mouldering along cleaning out, hardly leaving the house in the 100 degree heat, except to sell a few books at the second hand store ...

Minding my own business, in other words, which is seductively satisfying.

The church I belong to (as opposed to the one I serve as a consultant some ways away) is having a celebratory pot luck picnic tomorrow - 200+ members - a real tribute to its current healing and empowering minister. But I won't be there. It's going to be 100 degrees again, folks, and I just can't imagine a) sitting on my mobility scooter sweating it out and b) eating ??? in that heat!

So I will miss seeing any other people, other than my beloved, again. How many days is that now? Three weeks? I have this suspicion I should feel worse about this than I do.

I must be spending too much time on-line, that's for sure. You know what they say, spend too much time on-line and real human beings become quite a problem to withstand. After all, you do meet a better class of people in fantasy, now don't you. Trouble is, they ain't real.

Damn. We'd go if it weren't gonna be so hot. But we can only take so much. See you in cooler times, world.

Oh, sisters ... Oh brothers ...

2007-07-06T10:44:00.000-05:00

************** This morning, as I deal with my non-problem of cleaning out accumulated crud ... I am thinking of my sisters.

My over 160,000 American women sisters who have been deployed so far to Iraq and Afghanistan. (Compared with the 7,500 deployed to Vietnam.)

Research into post-traumatic stress disorder has generally be done on two distinct populations: civilian women who have been raped, and male combat veterans.

But since a 2003 report financed by the Department of Defense revealed nearly one-third of female veterans seeking health care through the VA said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service, 37% multiple times, 14% gang-raped, ::!!!:: it's likely we are currently generating a whole new group -- women who have experienced sexual assault and combat, many before they turn 25. Especially since a study after the Gulf War showed both sexual harassment and assault rise during wartime.

I think of the raped young mother of two, a crumbling wreck since her return, who did not report her rape ... "You don't expect anything to be done about it, so why even try." ... and all her sisters.

And the raped woman only six years short of receiving her military retirement benefits who bailed out after repeated incidents ... "That was my career, and they stole it from me. ... Why is the attitude always 'Just shut up and leave it alone?'"

The Department of Defense has made policy changes designed to address sexual harassment and assault. But of 3,038 investigations made in 2004 and 2005, only 329 resulted in the court martial of the predator. More than half were dismissed for lack of evidence.

The Iraq war has created tens of thousands of female war veterans. Female soldiers have flown fighter jets, commanded battalions, lost limbs, survived stints as PoWs, killed insurgents, and come home in coffins. And been raped. Many already experience the psychological fall-out. As of last April, the VA had diagnosed PTSD in 34,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. (A good-sized town, that is.) 3,800 of these veterans are women. Given that PTSD often takes years to surface, these numbers will grow ... to be joined by those from new deployments.

Who, and how, are we going to be there for these tragedies in the wreckage of this war?

Toss it, grind it, yuck

2007-07-05T01:31:00.000-05:00

Nothing much to say -- spent the day cleaning out files, papers, c$%p, junk, desk office stuff stuff stuff. Threw out 7 pounds of "Sermon Ideas" ... good grief.

But loved putting a couple of beautiful stoles online for colleagues to have if they liked. Passing on the glory.

Pooped now -- off to a taped Jon Stewart, well, you have to, don't you. A glorious spa bath (ask me, if you wish, about the very very very reasonably priced, need no installation, fabulous small personal Spas from Dream Maker Spas) out on our patio under the stars, tonight in the very windy post thunderstorm glory. And then to bed. ZZZZ.

iPhones and Mendel

2007-07-03T01:15:00.000-05:00

So it seems that, no matter how wonderful the newest technologies are, enough to have people waiting outside all night in the rain for a phone they then can't hardly connect to the one provider they can use ...

there is still a time and a place for the old ways. Namely, in a world of laboratories fiddling with genetic material, a bunch out there in New Zealand has done something the old, Mendelian, way ... something that may within just a few years lighten the load on all non-vegans.

What the h#$% is she talking about now?

In a massive $130 million dollar project, involving the screening of the milk of literally millions of cows, scientists in New Zealand have discovered "Marge". Marge is a cow who, and I will call her who out of respect!, naturally makes milk which not only is naturally skimmed, but also high in omega-3 oils. What fat the milk has is almost entirely polyunsaturated. Not the saturated fat that makes whole milk dangerous for the heart and arteries. Butter from this cow has the added advantage of being spreadable straight from the fridge.

"Marge" has been bred, and her daughters do naturally produce the same milk. The scientists are hoping her sons will pass on the trait too - leading to herds of cattle producing healthier foods.

I don't want to get into the vegan, vegetarian, fruitarian, omnivore argument here. I just want to say how delighted I was to discover this development which has ultimately respected normal processes, involved no genetic modification, and worked because of human ingenuity applied to good old fashioned boring, long-term, Mendelian development. Go New Zealand. Think I'll even cheer for you in the America's Cup tomorrow.

Now's a good time, gentle readers!

2007-07-02T00:33:00.000-05:00

If you like books, you might want to check out my on-line shop this week -- see link at right -- one of the first things I've needed to do on getting home again is list some seven enormous boxes full of really great condition, mainly non-fiction, UU type books. They are moving fast, but there are some real gems. If you set the way it lists my 1100 plus books to list the most recently listed first, you'll get to see just the latest ones first.

Other than that, I've gone back to quilting -- but I'm most unusually hating it at the moment. Oh, I enjoy the process, but this Mystery Quilt we made in our quilting bee looks like being the ugliest daughter of a stitch I've ever seen. Sigh. I'll have to plough on and finish it, waste of fabric otherwise, but it's not my style. Watch for a picture of it in a few months, it just occurred to me, it might be soneone else's style!

And about to start our annual house clean-out -- years of moving every year while doing Interim Ministries got us trained. Go through everything you own once a year, and ditch, pitch, bitch. The house will feel so light when you have.

And for goodness sake throw out all those magazines you've been saving to read "one day". Do you think, even if you break both legs twice in a year, they'll have stopped publishing magazines?

P.S. Don't Mention Death

2007-06-30T12:21:00.000-05:00

I'm only a PG rating (see bottom of postings) -- turns out because I have one post with one mention of "Death". Now there's a way to raise healthy children ... in denial before they even learn about it. NOT.

Off-Line, the Unexpected Option

2007-06-30T11:43:00.000-05:00

Despite my Nerd rating - click on the logo to find yours -

I managed to find myself in a variety of unexpectedly off-line situations recently, thus the long silence ... caused by that off-lineness and a bit of other stuff in another post or two to come.

The most astonishing, perhaps, was to find, deep in the Oregon woodlands, but not out of civilization entirely, I could connect, but only by dial-up, with the astonishing rate of 12 mbps, which is, in computer terms, not dial-up at all (usually around 26 mbps), but kind of like blood pressure in the human too low to actually make urine.

So this nerd was without nerdy toys for quite a while.

Oh, and did I mention that my laptop, in perfectly good condition otherwise, has sprung a loose connection in its totally inaccessible hard-drive (Even though I had my trusty mini-Phillips screwdriver with me) Dell hard-drives are abnormal, buried, and made totally useless for adding to an exterior shell etc. if problems occur, be warned.

Just to connect was a matter of shaking the b#$%^rd, flipping the switch, and getting the dreaded "No bootable disc" message for, oh, 45 minutes to an hour or so. Each time thinking, ah, that's the direction of the shake, only for next time that direction to be c#$p, and some other pressure, or shake, or tap, or squeeze to be the one. Since it's also a heavy b#$%^rd, at least I was getting an upper-body workout!

Home now, to great new, also Dell to be fair, computer -- see you again soon!

My Brain Knows Where The Bees Have Gone!

2007-06-12T11:24:00.000-05:00

Oh, some things have been written about the problem of the bees disappearing, I know. Still, most of the human race hardly seems to be aware of the enormous significance and threat to human life of this disappearance. No bees. No pollination. No food. That's basically the chain of events. And as far as I've read, there is yet no scientific agreement as to why (virus? magnetic confusion? bacteria? genetic collapse?) bees are simply disappearing.

I say all this to show I know the seriousness of this threat. But my brain doesn't always respond appropriately.

And so it came to pass that my brain had a little moment recently. Sitting, unusually for me these days, in the midst of a very very big city ... sitting in the midst of a very small, quiet tree shaded glade (for delivery vehicles) in the center of a pretty new collection of office buildings, posh condos, and small elegant shops, my brain figured it all out.

The buzz of people moving about surrounded me. Seeing all the no haste, no crowdedness, just this one and that heading in and out of Starbucks, taking leisurely lopeing along coffee breaks, going back into their offices to serve the KingBee in the big penthouse office; the delivery bees running in and out with pollen, whoops, supplies, my brain said to me...

"No wonder the bees are disappearing. They saw all these bigger bees and their fancy schmanzy hives and said, we're not needed any longer, and faded away. How were they to know we aren't so hot at pollinating!"

That kind of junk, well that's my brain for ya'.

House-hunting or Love-Hunting -- Hot Property!

2007-06-11T10:53:00.000-05:00

Turns out the same rules apply, whether you're house-hunting or love-hunting! At least, according to Shane Watson of the London Sunday Times. She points out that in both cases, though we should be paying attention to pragmatic considerations, we tend to make our minds up early in the negotiations, well before we've had a chance to check for damp/drink problems or neighbors/in-laws from hell. She claims "if you apply the principles of good house-hunting to finding a mate, all will be well". Her tips include:

"Are the foundations solid? This one is non-negotiable. Serious, deep-rooted problems will surface, however, hard you try to paper over the cracks. Do not ignore the signs."

"Does it face north? A sunny aspect is really quite important if you are talking about a long-term investment. Dark is not actually interesting if you have to live with it, whereas light is always life-enhancing."

"Are you being distracted by the furniture and fittings? It's hard, but you really do have to look beyond the tongue and groove. Once you're in, this superficial stuff will seem insignificant."

and my favorite

"Are you panic buying? Well, don't. Remember, you are better off renting than making a mistake you will regret forever.

Isn't life simple?

Here's Just How to Do It, Doc!

2007-05-31T00:52:00.000-05:00

So the new, blessed, human, attentive Doctor comes into the room to give me the results of the X-rays, MRIs etc. on the non-functioning right knee. Well, to be correct, the now somewhat functional, limp short distances, pain there but under control, knee - thanks to what he has already prescribed.

And here is what he said. "You", he said, with a smile emphasizing the 'you', "You have a most impressive amount of intense severe arthritic degeneration in this knee."

He went on to point out that my ostephytes (bony bumps your bone grows trying to compensate for the pain by making more bone to help out), usually small bumps or the size maybe of a fingertip, are actually in some places the size of a whole half a finger to the middle knuckle, especially behind my knee, where the most pain is, and inside my knee-cap (patella), making my knee-cap resemble an Iron Maiden. Let alone the tear in the anterior cruciate ligament, and the resulting crumple in the posterior cruciate ligament.

Now that's the way to deliver the news Doc. With a smile, eye contact, why even though I have a condition f#$% all can be done about, I left that office proud and with a spring in my limp.

Gotta love a doc who can do that!

In My Other Life ...

2007-05-29T22:26:00.000-05:00

Years ago, there was a cartoon called the Nebbish (Yiddish for a weak-willed, timid, or ineffectual person). The cartoon was a simple line drawing in a single panel of a blobbish character who sighed a lot and expressed the inner life of only normally achieving people. (I tried to find a sample on-line, but guess no one has put them up.)

In one cartoon, the nebbish is sitting under a street light musing to himself - "I'm waiting for the meek to inherit the earth."

In similar mood, one day, Ziggy (a similar cartoon character) mutters to himself "I like fantasy. You meet a better class of people." Is there, shock horror, a UU who has never felt this way about their own congregation? (Oh, say it ain't so...)

Anywaaaaay, today I'm grooving on imagination. My legs not taking me much of anywhere at the moment, and yelping at me when they do, I am still having a ball. Right now I am surfing the Severn Bore.

For those of you who don't know, the Severn Bore is a marvellous wave created by the combination of the moon's gravitational pull on ocean waters and the sudden forced entry of those waters into the narrow path of the tidal Severn River in Britain. This creates, several times a month, and especially at times of Spring and Fall tides, a wonderful sudden wave - the Severn Bore. As Thomas Harrel wrote in 1824 "The river does not swell by degrees but rolls in ... foaming and roaring as though it were enraged by the opposition which it encounters".

Often as high as six feet (arising from nothing all of a sudden), and surging inland at about 10 miles an hour, there are those who love to surf it. Now you might wonder why I would bother imagining and fantasizing about a miserable little six foot wave, but what if I were to tell you that, in this river magic, you can surf the damned thing as far as five miles inland! Now a five mile surfing wave is something else, amen? Let alone surfing miles from the ocean, whizzing upriver, driven by the pull of the moon, cruising past fields, houses and trees! (As described by Alex Wade in a recent edition of the London Sunday Times.)

You have to be careful. Fall off at the wrong place, and the undertow will make exit from the river nearly impossible. Some surfers plan their exits, getting off at a wide place in the river, jumping in a car, driving upstream to pick the wave up in a narrow place again. But for the experts, world records for the longest wave surfed are regularly set on the Severn.

So that's where I've been today. (While the car has been getting major repairs, I quilted some beautiful stuff, and my leg hurt.) Where have you been today? Got a good fantasy going?

2007-05-27T00:54:00.000-05:00

No Towel, but Honor to the Flexible

2007-05-26T01:00:00.000-05:00

Just heard that yesterday (by two minutes out here in the desert) was Towel Day in honor of Douglas Adams.

One day in 1979, standing in a barren kitchenette in an Oxford college, making my cup of tea and beans on toast (cheap protein much used by students, though I was post-grad, visiting, and 40 years old!), I turned on my old green Roberts radio. It happened to come on about five minutes in to the first episode of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (still best of all on radio, regardless of worse and better films). Having never heard of the show, I was suddenly thrust into a very strange world indeed. Couldn't turn it off. Listened every day. When I got home, my local NPR station started it on late Saturday afternoons. Fabulous motivation to finish sermons.

HG was a very philosophical book - by a man who also wrote Last Chance To See, a wonderful tour of important, dying ecological sites, by a man who cared about this earth in reality, not just fantasy.

Sorry I missed towel day, though I have no idea whether my morning (and early afternoon, gawd it did go on) mammogram could have sustained one more weirdness like me insisting on clutching a towel. See, I can't stand up at the moment, so standing for the mammo wasn't possible. The experienced gal who said, oh sure, I can do it with you seated when I booked the appointment was off for the holiday week-end. Sweet, frantic newby in her place. Seated?? What?? Yikes.

But she just got on with it, found a highish stool chair, and off we went. Halfway through, bless her flexible heart and soul, she said, "You know what, this seated business is a lot better." I allowed as how it sure was better for me, because I could hold position instead of falling over. She said, "Yes, but I meant it is better for me too. I like this!"

She made a hard time for both of us amazingly easy, comfortable, and OK. Because she was truly open and flexible, she not only made it work, she let herself learn. Wow. Was I impressed. Now, if I can only learn to do likewise ... at least sometimes.

News from the Technical World

2007-05-24T23:15:00.000-05:00

Good news - no magnetic explosion in my knee -- and my sweetie's head MRI is normal!

Now, on to the business of blogging. Tonight, news from the world of technology.

First: Get ready to use that cell! Right now in Europe, you can get cash with your cell. Say the electric company needs to send you a refund (well, that's the example they give, though could they have chosen a more unlikely one??) They send you a text message with a bar code in it. You go to the Post Office, or a designated site in a store (in the US I'll bet Walmart, Walgreen's, etc. get on board). They scan your cell screen with the bar code, and give you the cash.

Like I say, already happening in Europe. Next, bar codes in your phone that are your credit and debit cards. And cash wages by phone (useful for those without bank accounts). And text coupons to use at the grocery (already done by European Unilever). Here comes your electronic wallet. A little matter of checking identity, of course, still remains, I mean, given how many cell phones are stolen in Europe! But get ready, you may have heard it here first.

Second, also in Europe, real-life police investigations may lead to real-life court trials for on-line rape - rape, that is, in the virtual world Second Life, where some disturbing cases of stalking and attacks have occurred. People who spend days and nights in a darkened room with their computer creating their fantasy being can, and I understand this, feel deeply violated when that on-line being is attacked, raped, savaged. The terms and conditions of joining Second Life, it must be said, prohibit all such activity. Thus the potential to apply real-life laws to those who violate others in virtual reality as well as on the real cement streets.

Oh sigh. Here is a beautiful second world, in which everyone gets to be pretty if they want to be (must explain the preponderence of big busted, long-legged young women, and studly gents)...and what happens? Because we can all go there, it begins to become, gee whiz, just like the real us after all. Full of good and evil, sanity and perversion. Except for appearances. It is harder to recreate the world in the image we would prefer than many wonderful good-hearted activists think.

Miracles of Modern Science? Maybe ...

2007-05-24T00:12:00.000-05:00

What a day ... One of my favorite columnists when I lived in Holland (and was speaking and reading only Dutch) was Simon Carmiggelt. And one of the things he said, which I giggled at without understanding at the time, being only in my 30's, was "You know you're getting old when, instead of meeting your friends at the pub, you meet them waiting at the pharmacist".

Ah yes, or at the doctor's. This week is medical week for both my husband and myself -- today involving his MRI of his head (ouch) and mine of my knee (also ouch, the way things have been lately).

Now we await a call from the doctor for him, and a revisit to the doctor for me next week. Mammogram on Friday, oh frabjous day, callou, callay. I go to the soft mammo place, that uses padding, but you know what, it still hurts!

Meanwhile, new arthritis doc appears to be a peach, a real person, would you believe! And his new pain meds, so far, have got me almost mobile and no longer whimpering! Pain at the moment, but nothing to what it's been. Can this glory last?

Last time I had an MRI, on the other knee, the following morning the whole thing had blown up three times its size, bright red, turning purple over the next few days, about three weeks of yuck. One Australian doctor believes this happens to magnetically sensitive people.

Now I've heard of being charismatic. But magnetically sensitive? Turns out that means, what I've always been able to do since I was a child, and was an adult of 50 before I learned that everyone couldn't, namely, pick up a piece of metal and tell you immediately if it is a magnet. I mean, I just feel it, there in my hand. It's a magnet. Amazes me not everyone can. Hmmm.

Let you know tomorrow how this MRI went!

How do you define "Drugs in Sports"

2007-05-20T23:43:00.001-05:00

What a difference a year makes ... Floyd Landis triumphant, Floyd Landis angry and despairing.

What with baseball records about to be broken, and other sports sitting on similarly explosive stories (Operation Puerto has so far affected cyclists - rumor has it many, many other sports are involved), the whole topic of sports and drugs is in the news.

Blogs on various news sites are filled with screaming angry offerings that can't even spell liar (lier) ... in a kind of knee jerk progression: drugs...eek...bad...kill.

Few seem to remember that the whole idea of not "using drugs" in cycling began out of a simple concern that cyclists not die on route. English cyclist Tommy Simpson died of exhaustion on a hill in the Tour de France in 1967 because he had too much amphetamine and alcohol and too little water in his system.

Now the use of almost anything is called "doping" so it all sounds like the "war on drugs". Ooooo, bad.

Actually, re Operation Puerto, which appears to involve cyclists making autologous blood donations (their own), only to have their red blood cells infused back into them before a race, allowing more oxygen to be processed more quickly by their bodies, well, guys, face it -- there is really very little if any difference between this and training for six months at 10,000 feet, which you do because living at altitude where the air has less oxygen makes your own body make more blood cells of your own. That's how I used to ace my exams when I was at University in Switzerland, for heck's sake. Up to the top of the Jungfraujoch (14,700 feet or whatever) to study for the last two or three weeks, then down just in time to take the exams. A whole bunch of us did that, and our brains were fizzing ... straight alphas (A's).

Should an athlete who can not afford six months of training at high altitude (leaving their day job, extra rent and expenses) be prevented from achieving the same effect using their own blood?

Do women athletes still take the birth control pill in order to control their menstrual cycles (if they still have them, some severe training stops the whole business of course) for big sporting events like they used to? Does testosterone gel to recover after an event actually cause any danger to athletes? Careful science now goes into everything a cyclist eats or drinks for maximum energy output. Isn't that an unlevel playing field - if your team doesn't have the money for that much science? Should all sports people have to eat exactly the same things in the same quantities all the year round or be disqualified? Stupid, eh? But what about the negative health effects of all that protein powder?

I tell you, just calling it "doping, shock, horror", may have cost us our ability to think!!

Instead of a little club of pale males in suits, who create races and make money from them, setting down the law for everyone else, what about a true drugging policy for sports men and women created by those actually playing in those sports, specialist sports doctors, and other medical experts, focussed on what will help, and what might harm, athletes. Radical, I know, but isn't it about time?

Clergy Consultation Service, Abortion, and ...

2007-05-19T17:24:00.000-05:00

What You Ask Me Has A Lot To Do With How I Answer

Elsewhere it has been noted that this is the 40th Anniversary of the Clergy Consultation Service, a pre-Roe v. Wade project through which many of us who were clergy referred women to those who could provide them with the abortion services they needed.

We were very intentional. We referred only to a provider in another state (or country) because it was questionable if state laws would apply to interstate or international transactions. At least in our neck of the woods, every health worker, nurse, lab tech, whatever who came to use our services was asked to provide an extremely thorough health and safety evaluation of the doctor to whom they were referred. Most doctors were scrupulous about hygiene, we stopped all relationships with any doctor who was not. We required all doctors to provide one free service for every five paid services. And raised money for transportation for those needing the free service.

I have a whole book I could write about my experiences in this work. Today, just one reflection. It's about statistics, surveys, and how it is that how you ask can be more important to your answers than anything else.

For although our work may have been legally questionable, a major hospital wanted us to keep statistics, to learn more about the nature of the situation. Thus we had a number of questions to ask the women who came to us.

The answers I got to those questions were vastly different from the answers many other clergy recorded. The simple difference was when we asked the questions. Many clergy began with the survey, thinking it was a way to get to know their client. Fair enough assumption, I suppose. Me, I had been terrified I was pregnant when I didn't want to be. I knew what that felt like. So first I dealt with the woman's terror. That is, we arranged her appointment, she had the date, the address, the whole enchilada in her hand. Then I asked the questions.

Most other clergy recorded almost every pregnancy was the result of the first time the woman had ever had sex. Me, it was part of a long pattern of sexual activity. Most other clergy recorded contraception had always been used. Me, in 450 cases, only 6 had used any form of contraception including withdrawal!

See, if you think they may not give you the information you want, you try to give them the answers you think they want too. Like gee, first time ever, and yes, of course we used contraception. Only when you have what you need will you feel free to tell the truth.

Can't tell you how often I think of this when I hear the results of polls and surveys. Lord knows, it isn't just the formulation of the questions, it's even how, and when you ask!

Pain I Don't Understand Is Different

2007-05-17T22:28:00.000-05:00

Today, folks, I would have given thousands of dollars to walk as well as the folks on this sign.

After nursing things along all week, every day somewhat better, some actually walking without any pain, mostly getting there ... BANG, this morning, I slid out of bed to discover the d#$%^d leg right back where I started. For no d#$%^d reason. No strange motions. No stress. No hurt. But also great pain, no walking, GRRR

Ah, and so the discoveries continue. Every other thing I've got, every one, I understand the cause of that pain. Turns out that makes it a whole lot easier to handle! Or at least for me, to have no bloody idea why this is happening, and be in pain, is not at all a good time.

Sorry to be so unenlightening tonight, but this is, after all, wait for it, drum roll, the Blog of Truth.

Don't Frighten the Horses ... but ...

2007-05-16T23:46:00.000-05:00

I don't know if the two ever met, but Jerry Falwell and former British Prime Minister John Major have been much in my mind of late.

Jerry Falwell, obviously, because of his recent death. John Major, well, this is yet another time of British Prime Ministerial transition.

But that's not why they have met so forcefully in my mind this week, not really.

As so many of my blogging friends, and my chat-with friends spend much time and energy trying to find just the right things to say about Jerry Falwell's death (and some, like Ms. Kitty have found them), and try to come to terms with straightening out what may be a large pot of conflicting opinions and feelings, I can not help but remember the singularly freeing and energizing comment of John Major when asked his opinion on some weighty matter or other.

I have discovered, he said, that I do not actually have to have an opinion about everything. And I do not yet have an opinion on this.

What a revelation this was for me! Good grief, as a born and bred Unitarian Universalist, I had opinions on things I hadn't even heard of yet!

Fancy that. And I have discovered one of the things I have no particular opinion about is the death of Jerry Falwell. Go figure.

A Day in the Life of An Eye

2007-05-15T23:10:00.000-05:00

This beautiful bue and green picture is a tribute to modern technology. What it's a photograph of, well, that's not so beautiful. It's a branch vein occlusion in someone's eye. Believe me, there are amazing pictures now available for our eyes, like architectural side views of our retinas in the red and yellow picture above.

I'd just as soon not know all this stuff, but on the other hand, one of the saving graces of being curious and educated is, when something happens, you may find some weird satisfaction (no, it's not enjoyment, really) in at least learning something new!

As some of you know, my husband, David, awoke one morning in July 2003 and, as he put it, there wasn't a straight line in his universe. Diagnosis, from one enthusiastic, curious and bang up-to-date doctor was retinal angiomatous proliferation. Blindness in as little as three months. But he knew this guy in New York with some new treatment.

Long story short, this new treatment, done in New York, repeated in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Las Cruces, New Mexico (would you believe we happened upon cities with docs who had been part of the NY doctors tests?!), and he is still seeing, and still able to drive.

A new complication, central vein occlusion, has arisen. It is clearing itself, but still there. So it's off for an MRI. My sweet has never had an MRI before -- I was telling him in the doctor's office how noisy they are (bang bang BANG Claattttter) when it suddenly hit me and I burst out, "On "House" they're always so quiet the staff are talking about their love lives - but that ain't real!", and the doctor turned around and burst out laughing. "Sure isn't!" he said.

Human doctors are a blessing too.

Quilting Tips for the Disabled...

2007-05-15T00:52:00.000-05:00

It's been a good four days for quilting lately, despite not being able to get to my Quilting Guild tonight because I couldn't park near enough for my lame self to get there. I've got my mammoth Serengeti Plain quilt, with faces of jungle animals, African plains grasses, very fine leopard print, pale elephant skin grey etc. etc. off to get "stuffed" (quilted). I've nearly finished Chapter Five of our quilting bees mystery quilt, in the colors of our bedroom drapes. I've made progress on my daughter-in-laws, television watching lap quilt, in antique fabrics. And made a good beginning on another grand-daughter's "stack the deck" quilt. Love designing and piecing. But still, quilting can be tough on those with disabilities.

I suppose there's already a book of hints on quilting for the disabled, if anyone knows of it, let me know! Just in case there's not -- here's what I've discovered.

You can cut anything sitting down. Even if you have to cut clear across whole widths of fabric. You just have to fold the fabric differently. Depending on the length this can be pretty easy to do. Just fold from side to selvage (usually it comes like this), but then, do it again. Now you've got four-fold (easy for rotary cutters) and not a long distance to traverse. I've found the simple dining room table makes a great surface (with mat, of course), and the dining room chair height is just fine for this.

Ironing, another bugbear if you've got disabilities. I've tried a little ironing board and mini-iron right by my side at the machine. That's just about OK for little seam pressing, but the better the fabric, the less successful it is. Missing the steam, don't you know. Luckily most ironing boards can be set to a seated height, and man, I can go all day that way.

But my main complaint is the dratted pedal. There is no way my knee wants to go up into the air in order to get enough pressure on my toes to push the pedal down. What works? Having the pedal backwards!! So all I have to do is lower my toes and off we go, no knee involvement at all. Now if the machine manufacturers would just take this to heart, and make a pedal where the cord can be inserted either side, what a treat that would be!

If you know any other good tips, please leave them here in the comments section!

The Blessings of Obsession

2007-05-13T23:57:00.000-05:00

Wonderful day talking on the telephone to my kids and grandkids.

There's been much negative commentary, often well-earned, about activities like Little League baseball -- mostly about adult over-competitiveness, whether it's drill sergeant coaches or fist-fighting parents.

But my enthusiastic, happy, bubbling young grandson reminded me today of all that is right about it, too. Hearing about his home runs, his game while it was pouring down rain, his hopes and fears for future games, his delight, his ability to balance even evaluations of his own performance (and he's still very young) ... well, it was impressive stuff. And reminded me of a rule of thumb I learned with my own sons -- help your child develop an obsession with something they love, whether it be a sport, or singing in the chorus, or acting in the drama club, or taking care of animals as a veterinary assistant, or writing, and you will have taken the first step towards helping them get through the turbulence of their teen years in good shape.

I guess we all behave better if we have something to lose. Something we care about. Something we want enough to moderate other behaviors.

So thank you, tonight, to all those unsung, non-drill-sergeant, caring, helpful folk who make programs like Little League possible. Who knows how many kids you have helped onto healthy paths.

For More Reasons Than You Know

2007-05-12T21:42:00.000-05:00

For more reasons than you know, Mother's Day is painful for oh, so many people. For those who have tried and tried to have a child, even suffering the impoverishingly costly monthly roller coaster hell that is infertility treatment, the cloying sweetness of so many Mother's Day observances is hell on earth. As it can be hell for those who have taken care-filled decisions not to have children, but whom this day makes feel like somehow only part-humans. As it can be hell for those whose children have died, like my friend who, with her son's death, has now outlived all her children. As it can be hell for oh, so many reasons.

Have you ever watched people standing at the card displays before Mother's Day? Unable to find anything among the sugary poesy that even begins to reflect the more gritty and grotty realities of their real family backgrounds?

For me the day is painful because I didn't have a Mother. Oh my biological mother existed, but she was dreadfully physically and mentally ill all of my life. Even my brother, seven years older than I, can never remember seeing her hold me once. I certainly don't remember it.

When I left for school she would be sitting in the corner of the sofa crying. She'd still be there when I got back, to do the laundry, cook the supper, serve the supper, clean up after the supper, and do my homework. I remember her once combing my hair (painfully). That's it. From the age of 8 I was handed a bit of money in late August, and had to, by myself, walk a mile, get on the train, get on the subway, find my way to the department store, and buy my own back to school clothes. I was the weirdest dressed bloody kid. In fact I was 41 years old before a friend, (if you're reading this Judy Wheeler, thank you thank you thank you) went clothes shopping with me and told me what looked good on me and what didn't. 41!! Don't start with not knowing beans about make-up!

The only thing that makes up for all this for me was being able to be a mother myself. I grieve for my friends who have not had this totally accidental good fortune. I apologize profoundly to my own children for all my failings as a mother, well, how did I know what to do, who had had none of it done for me. I do remember the struggle I had taking my children to buy clothes - there was still that little child inside screaming "No one ever did this for me".

The Bible says "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and their children's teeth are set on edge". Well, folks, it's mothers too. I wish you all a day you can get through with as much grace as possible. And I bless my children for their existence.

Ten Truths No One Ever Tells You continued, and What I Did Today

2007-05-11T23:10:00.000-05:00

Ten Things No One Ever Tells You

6. Between writing the first Five Things No One Ever Tells You and the second Five, you will totally forget the second Five. Rats. But luckily, I've just thought of something else!

7. Look! That's one thing I did today, a lot of looking. This past two weeks has been a time of spectacular skies over our high desert. Sun, no clouds, small white puffy clouds, giant thunderheads, great gulley washing storms, hail, it's all happening. And through it all our mountains continually change color, depth, sense of closeness, moving in and out of huge cloudbanks, it is a feast for the eyes. These are the Organ Mountains, on the east side of town, north are the Dona Ana mountains, northwest are the Robledos. Look. Look. And look again. Let where you are, whether you want to be there or not, talk to you through your eyes.

8. And listen! Listen. Today I listened to the vast variety of birds repopulating our new build area as our plantings grow the welcome them. I love to wake to the sound of the mourning doves, though they are not appreciated around here any more than pigeons are in cities. But all kinds of other songs burst through today, and peeps from nests, too. And the wind. And my teen-aged neighbor's joy with his big, unmufflered motorbike. Hey, he doesn't do it at 3am, so enjoy! And the voice of the one I love.

9. Taste and smell the air and what you will. Today I inhaled the scents of the desert which are stronger after the rain. Iodine, flowers, trees, pines, a heady mix. Then go inside and slow down and taste what you are eating. If it isn't good enough to want to taste, go get something fresh instead. An apple, a piece of real cheese, some raw veggies will do you more good than that frozen cardboard thing you were about to put in the microwave. Practice tasting.

10. Touch. Oh, yea, dangerous one here, we do have lots of limits on what we're allowed to touch in our culture. But today I touched so many fabrics as I cut them to move on with three different quilt projects. And the skin of one I love. And my fresh-washed hair. And hot stones that have been in the sun. And my sore arm where I fell.

Whatever you do, please don't go through another day of life without noticing everything you can. More on this tomorrow...

Ten Truths No One Ever Tells You: Part I

2007-05-10T21:43:00.000-05:00

Ten Truths No One Ever Tells You

that have been on my mind today either for obvious personal reasons, or in conversations with friends (spoken or, hey, even unspoken)

1. Being in pain takes energy - you may not have much energy left for anything else. You may not like the situation, but you'd better accept its reality.

2. No painkiller works forever. A frequent useful pattern those of us on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory meds discover is to keep a chart. On it there may be, say, naproxen (Aleve), Celebrex, ibuprofen, Tylenol Arthritis (personally does nothing for me, but hey, if it works for you), Relafyn (nabumetone), Mobic (too tough on my tum) -- whatever. And every three months you might want to switch. Learned this from a sports injury guy (he has them, professional rodeo rider, not just treats them). Certainly true in my experience - they work for a while and either just quit, or the side effects begin to overcome the benefits.

(Thus, the first picture tonight is an aspirin molecule!)

3. Grieving takes a long time - and during that time, you may find yourself suddenly, many times, bursting into tears. Not because anything "reminds you", not because anything bad or sad has happened just now, you may even be sailing along pretty well, and bam! Floods of tears. No, you are not going crazy. This is how it is. Doesn't fit our society's "death of a spouse, hey, I can be generous, why don't you take the whole day off!" attitude, but it's the truth.

4. In non-grieving times, however miserable you feel when you are depressed, or feeling negative, or just grotty, "This too shall pass". I don't know why it is, but I am not alone in tending to feel, when I feel rotten, that it's just going to go on like this forever. Funny, I never assume that when I'm happy! I know that will end. Well, so will feeling terrible, usually, though I think grotty times, being depressed, just like pain, take energy. I don't seem sometimes to have the energy to believe things will be better. Mostly now I just decide to believe that.

(Thus the second picture, an elegant statue for all not in the best shape tonight.)

5. When you're with someone sad, you don't have to be sad too. It's OK to have your own emotional weather. I learned this from a funeral director I worked with many times in a town long ago. He always smiled with people. All the other funeral directors I'd worked with looked for all the world like they were attending their own funerals. Fred stood by the door with a big smile on his face. He told me that, after all, he was not grieving. I was about to speak to him about this improper behavior when the woman going through the door, whose husband had just died, said to him, "Thank you so very much for smiling. Everybody around me is keeping a grim face. Your smile reminds me, life goes on, and even I may smile once again one day."

Thus, just for fun, my favorite laughing horse!

Walls, Fences, Boundaries, and Shibboleths

2007-05-09T23:08:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's been a terrible day. Pain, disability, uninterested doctor, finally a fall. Grrr. Still, it was better than yesterday -- are things improving? Don't know, but ain't it great that the mind and heart can still function!

And I've been pondering walls, fences, boundaries.

I confess, I can get quite grouchy listening to ministers witter on about "boundaries", as in "he doesn't have good boundaries". It's become a shibboleth, folks (check your dictionary if that religious term hasn't crossed your boundaries yet...) And, all too often, stands as shorthand for "He does things I don't like" or "He's doing something too courageous for me to attempt, and I'm trying to justify my cowardice to myself" or just "He pisses me off".

There is nothing inherently morally superior about boundaries, folks. Some of them are just walls, like the wall against Mexicans, and the wall in Baghdad. Harsh, even cruel, unyielding, definitely non-organic.

And yet, yes, as Robert Frost said, there are times and ways in which good fences, good boundaries, make for humane and comfortable living. That fence on the beach lets a lot of sand move back and forth, OK for preserving dunes, but not such a good model for some times in our human lives. Sometimes we need boundaries that are not quite so porous. A friend has finally said "No, I'm sorry, but this must stop" to someone taking advantage of her, and they are both the better for it. And my friend is sorry, and it is right for her to say so, before any "boundaries specialists" write in to tell me she shouldn't have said that part. In this situation it was right and appropriate.

I like to think of the kind of boundaries we need as the lovely Kentucky fence you see above, a boundary through which one is still free to talk, and love, and relate ... totally organic.

Unless, of course, we find a way to make them simply splendid and for fun, like Christo's fantastic early art piece, a color-filled mind-blowing wall made out of thousands of discarded oil drums.

Hell, much relieved by good friends who care, and a fit of the giggles

2007-05-08T23:47:00.000-05:00

Hell, well yes it is a bit like hell ... those handicapped signs look so anodyne, so, oh I don't know, gentle, comfortable.

Well, it's not like that for me. Not now, anyway. It's hell. It all began a week or two ago, with increasing weakness in my right leg, but working out as I do, with quads to die for, I soldiered on and all was really pretty OK.

Until yesterday. When the pain suddenly hit, mainly behind the knee (I've got a tear in the anterior cruciate ligament back there, ACL to you sportsters, has it gone completely??) and the leg became virtually unusable.

Out came the serious walking stick, for the first time in three years, and even then I can't get to the loo in my own bathroom, just the one in the hall. Pain excruciating, walking slow if at all, nooo bending of the knee or I get repaid with complete agony and apoplecty.

Made it to quilting bee this morning, just, sitting and listening and chatting and looking at patterns was worth the pain, just. Being the right leg, driving, let alone getting in and out of the van, well, Satan was somewhere giggling.

But he wasn't the only one laughing. Because there at the bee, as one woman was idly looking through a quilting catalogue she came upon the ironing board cover pictured above. A bit of a hottie, not least because when you are ironing, the heat of the iron makes the towel disappear and things are, well, apparent, apparently.

The half of the quilters who had been nurses growled and grumbled they'd seen enough of that thank you very much. Some others quietly took down the address. But whichever camp they fell into, and camp is probably the right word, they, we, all giggled. Quite a bit.

That, and friends who actually cared that it hurt, well, it doesn't get any better than that. Back in your hovel, Satan, you lost this round.

Now the Music for THIS GA should be spectacular!!

2007-05-08T00:09:00.000-05:00

Wow! I just put it all together in my poor ancient head -- but GA is going to be in Portland, Oregon. That is Portland!!! people. Home of the greatest, most amazing, most independent, most exciting music of the day. In other words, cutting edge music, just right for our cutting edge theology, right?

We'll be in the home of Viva Voce, the duo up top whose new record Viva Voce Loves You is due out just about the time of GA. We'll be in the home of the Gossip, the punk/soul three piece group in the middle, with the inimitable Beth Ditto. We'll be in the home of intellectual rockers the Decemberists (see below). And in the home of the awesome Modest Mouse (bottom of the top, if you see what I mean) - their "We Were Dead Before the Ships Even Sank" entered the charts at number one.

Oh glory, oh wonder, oh excitement! Finally some good cutting edge music at GA -- now what a Ware Lecture that will be!! What's that you say? What???!!! You haven't heard that any of these groups have been booked for GA, or anything like them?

Oh say it isn't so -- UU's striving so hard to be cutting edge in theology (with mixed results it must be admitted), but oh, so, not when it comes to our music? As my friend Biddies in My Brain would say (and sooooo glad to see you back in the blogosphere, Biddies!) ::sigh:: ::sigh:: ::sigh::

Living at the Bottom of the Ocean

2007-05-07T01:01:00.000-05:00

The past couple of days have been filled with dust storms. Here in the high desert, at 4,200 feet, these dust storms do not look like the Saharan sand storms you may have been imagining. For the dust is far finer than sand. In the high Spring winds, our dust just greys out the sky, lowers visibility, and gathers everywhere on your belongings even in the most hermetically sealed household.

Of course it does. After all, we are living here at the bottom of the ocean. Yes, even here at 4,200 feet, we are on the ocean bottom. Or what was the ocean bottom, not so long ago in geologic time. That's why our rocks fall apart so easily - they're only compacted sand and mud after all. And why our mountains change shape as the softer coverings erode away and only the hardest rock peaks remain.

If you look at a map of New Mexico, we sure look a long long way from water. But what is now the Gulf of Mexico reached way up into the landscape here. As the Rockies rumbled and crashed upwards and the land lifted, the water receded. And that ocean bottom is now our landscape.

And so fossil rich it is hard not to become a fanatic about this strange ancient beauty. Geologists fight each other for the chance to come to teach and research at one of our Universities - as one said to me just today - it's the dream location.

And it's not bad for normal humans either. I find it hard to get too verklempt about present day concerns with all this history around. Kinda lengthens my perspective willy-nilly, doncha know.

Illusions, Delusions, and Confusions

2007-05-06T00:12:00.000-05:00

So there I was, watching one of my secret vice TV programs, Flip This House, and there is the lead developer, caught in a mess in one of the worst houses, full of feral cats, enormous rats, giant roaches, you name it. The stress really gets to him. His wife arranges an appointment with a "doctor". He gets there and discovers, ack, it's a psychotherapist.

Still outside, he calls his wife on his cell phone. "I'm not crazy!" After a bit of discussion he says he'll go in, but only for her sake.

The camera follows. We see snippets. He talks. As he hears himself talk, with gentle input from the therapist, he sees that he needs to decide to get on with it, and just get it done. He walks out from the therapist's office, in all senses of the word a new man. On the way out, he takes her card, remarks she said to call her if he wanted to talk, laughs scornfully, and throws the card into the bushes.

Delightful. No, really. He could not more clearly have been helped. Nor more clearly have refused to recognize it.

Reminds me of a late colleague who attended, many years ago, a pre-retirement seminar about two years before he retired. I asked him how it went. "Bloody waste of time!" was his reponse. "Oh?" I asked. "Yea," he said, "they had us sit around and play stupid bloody games. I mean, one of them, they made us list the ten things we liked best to do in the whole world. Then they gave us a bunch of monopoly money, and had an auction! They auctioned off everything we liked to do, but we couldn't bid any more money than we had! So and so bought my preaching, for G-d's sake, and so and so bought my chess playing! And we never even got to good medical care, I'd been out of money for half an hour! Stupid, stupid bloody game."

Now here's the thing. Before he went to this seminar, he was busy building his retirement home in a remote corner of Maine, miles from anything or anywhere, not even a village. When I next saw him, a year later, the Maine property was sold, and a new place purchased, this time in a town in New England with dozens of UU churches nearby, many of them small, and always looking for preachers. A town with an active chess club. And access to excellent medical care.

"That retirement seminar seems to have turned out to have been useful after all," I offered. "G-d, that thing, total waste of bloody time" was the response.

I've attended useless workshops, and even bad counselling in my day. But, my friends, oh but ... what did I think was bad that actually changed my life? And oh my counselling friends, don't take our ingratitude too personally, eh? It's so hard for us to acknowledge that we, even we, may have needed just a little bit of transformation.

2007-05-05T00:19:00.000-05:00

One UU writes in her blog of her sense that children are not welcome in her church. Another writes of hearing an earnest conversation at a District meeting that perhaps, in her area, there were now enough UU societies that there was finally room for an adults only congregation. (I wish I knew how to create links to these comments in this blog, but I am a newbie, and can't seem to make that work, however hard I try.) Both women, understandably, feel discounted, unrespected, anything but recipients of an awareness of their, and their children's, inherent worth and dignity.

These are not, alas, new sentiments among many UUs. For people who think UU worship (they'd prefer the word "program") is all about thinking and intellectual stimulation, and for ministers who value their words above life itself (I am a minister, so I can say this), the presence of children is an issue. As a member of one congregation I served wrote (complaining to the Board about me and my new custom of inviting the children to be part of the first 20 minutes of the service) and this is a direct verbatim quote: "I come to church for intellectual stimulation with my peers, and children are not my peers." So there.

There probably is room for a club without children, even a UU club, though you couldn't call it any more than a club, and I strongly doubt their buildings would be beautiful enough to wind up memorials to their movement, as the Shaker buildings and furniture have (the Shakers were also without children as I recall)! Indeed, I have also heard it said, in reference to some butt-wrenchingly murderous chairs at one congregation -- "They're part of our test for membership, to see if you're Stoic enough to be a UU". No, it wasn't a joke.

But not everywhere, and not every UU fortunately falls into this one-sided, left brain only camp. One of my favorite Unitarian moments was in a small congregation where five women happened to give birth round about the same time, and had taken to sitting at the rear of the sanctuary together with their babes, breast-feeding as needed.

Following one service an elderly gent approached me with the gentlest of complaints. "Um ... you know I do welcome the young people to our congregation ... but I have to say ... during the prayer this morning ... with all that feeding going on ... the silence was a bit too gurgly and snuffly even for me." We did find a wonderful solution, however. He began sitting at the front.

How Come You Don't Have Any Friends?

2007-05-03T22:52:00.000-05:00

A colleague has written in her blog about a friend's anger ... a friend somewhere my colleague used to live, but does not now that she has moved to be with the congregation she serves.

Ah yes, ministry, a place for deep relationships in each place you are ... and no relationships at all when you retire. Well not quite, but man, it can be lonely out here.

You spend years with people, becoming deeply fond of many of them. Then you move. Not only do you not have contact with them any more, you should not. There is another minister there now, and if they are to develop the best possible relationships with that new minister, their energies are best used there, where they are, with the minister they now have. All energy they spend maintaining their relationship with you, now that you are distant, is energy they are not spending where they are, with the people they are now with.

And the same is true for you, the minister, the mover. If, once in your new place, you use a lot of your time/soul energy maintaining distant friendships, you will not be using that energy to make new friendships where you are. And it is very lonely, in a Thich Nat Han sense, not being where you are.

It is often very hard for those "left behind" to understand this. They are not in a new physical place, and so do not usually have the expectation that they should need to use some of their time/soul energy to make a new friend now that you have gone. The void looms large. And all the worse because you are a "minister" which means you must never hurt anyone. And just look how you hurt me. Righteous anger often follows this progression. ::sigh::

To confuse matters even more, while people think they think about ministers as counsellors, teachers, preachers, etc., way at the back of the head what's going on is "father, mother, sister, brother, wife, husband, mistress, son, daughter, lover ... " Whatever one fits best.

That's one reason there's so much trouble when the new minister is more than 15 years younger than the last one. Whole generations of people go from a minister who was father to one who is contemporary; from one who was a contemporary to one who is a son or daughter. Yikes. Let alone those whose minister fit the lover, mistress mode in the stuff of dreams. They've been ditched, abandoned, breach of promise!

For the ministers, meanwhile, there is a landscape left behind, littered with former friends into whose lives we no longer fit. But not necessarily many where we now are. I cannot express the unbearable depth of loneliness this can be.

Wonders of Technology

2007-05-01T22:45:00.000-05:00

Just read on another UU blog that today, May 1st, is a day for some consciousness raising about disablism.

Well, as a disabled person, let me say consciousnesses certainly do need to be raised. Here, there, and everywhere.

But all sorts of good things are happening too. Oh, not with people's attitudes, they still suck as often as not. Like, for about one week after 9/11, it was safe for me to cross the street on my mobility scooter, people would smile, wave, slow down, stop, roll down the window, wish me a good day.

Following week? Honk Honk, drive my Hummer right at you, you embarrassingly weak being with no right to exist cause you scare me that this could happen to me.

Sigh. No, the good things happening aren't so much attitudes, or even conscious attempts at accessibility (there are some, and that's great, there are many others not yet even tried) ... but the assistance the sheer march of development can bring.

Like, I've just bought four great tops. And I haven't had to shop. That is, go into a store on my scooter. (Ever try that? Oh, honey, it's all about filling the aisles with displays to increase sales per square foot these days. Forget gimps getting around.) Let alone trying to get into a changing room???

Now, however, I could shop in the comfort, literally, of my own home. With amazing visual tools that let me zoom in, move the garments around, check every detail. Wizard.

Sure, it doesn't include trying on, but a little honesty about one's own measurements goes a long way to success here. And if not, well, the Post Office is a lot easier to use on a scooter than a store.

I won't stop being a noisy disabled activist, but there sure are some things that help these days.

Lament

2007-04-30T16:56:00.000-05:00

Something that wrote itself:

Lament
(for Rifleman Paul Donnachie, aged 18, killed today in Iraq, and for his mother)

What was it for

All those nights walking the floor

You, tiny, crying in my arms,
Humming to quiet you

Teach you there was help

Comfort

Care

In this world.

What was it for

All those days washing your wounds

Skinned knees, bruised elbows, loose teeth

Talking softly to calm you

Teach you there was help

Comfort

Care

In this world

What was it for

All those days of earnest conversation

Teaching you to be honest

To help

To comfort

To care

For this world

What was it for

It wasn’t honesty that sent you to Iraq

It wasn’t care that will bring you home in a bag

What was it for

What was it all for?

2007-04-29T23:55:00.000-05:00

For those of you who do not live in a borderland, you may not give much thought day by day to what it is like living in one.

But we do live in a borderland. The biggest conurbation in the world straddling national borders is the El Paso, TX/Juarez, Mexico megacity. (Las Cruces, though in New Mexico, is only 40 miles from El Paso/Juarez, and is itself a hop and a skip from Mexico.)

We Anglos "belong" here because our country owns the land - although even the American negotiators of that treaty oh, so long ago, the one that took the land from the Mexicans, did not approve of the treaty, felt soiled by their own work in the negotiations.

We live in the middle of the Chihuahua desert - there may be a clue in that name as to what other people might feel a claim and a lineage in this space. Let alone the people who for so long freely roamed this land, now penned in on "reservations". This borderdom impacts us daily - we can not go anywhere from our home here, north, south, east or west, without having to pass through immigration inspection stations (la migra).

You in the North who would build fences, understand, it may not be so easy or so clear who or what truly "belongs".

My favorite poem on the issue is written by Polish Nobel prize-winning poet Wislawa Szymborska and translated into English by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh:

Oh, the leaky boundaries of man-made states!

How many clouds float past them with impunity;

how much desert sand shifts from one land to another;

how many mountain pebbles tumble onto foreign soil

in provocative hops!

Need I mention every single bird that flies in the face of frontiers

or alights on the roadblock at the border?

A humble robin - still, its tail resides abroad

while its beak stays home. If that weren't enough, it won't stop bobbing!

Among innumerable insects, I'll single out only the ant

between the border guard's left and right boots

blithely ignoring the questions "Where from?" and "Where to?"

Oh, to register in detail, at a glance, the chaos

prevailing on every continent!

Isn't that a privet on the far bank

smuggling its hundred-thousandth leaf across the river?

And who but the octopus, with impudent long arms,

would disrupt the sacred bounds of territorial waters?

And how can we talk of order over-all?

when the very placement of the stars

leaves us doubting just what shines for whom?

Not to speak of the fog's reprehensible drifting!

And dust blowing all over the steppes

as if they hadn't been partitioned!

And the voices coasting on obliging airwaves,

that conspiratorial squeaking, those indecipherable mutters!

Only what is human can truly be foreign.

The rest is mixed vegetation, subversive moles, and wind.

Rain in the Desert ... is Different

2007-04-28T23:54:00.000-05:00

Well, it's night-time here, but it's raining in our desert. A good old thunderstorm, long, hard, crashing nearby and far.

Now rain in the desert is different.

First, you can see it more than you do in cities and hilly grounds. See it coming out of this cloud, over there in the middle of the distance?

Not only that, you can often, during the day, see the rain leaving the clouds overhead, and see how that rain does not actually reach the ground. Yes, it often rains in the sky, but it's all evaporated before it makes the ground. We've even had showers where only the top half of the car's windscreen got any water. Kinda freaks out newcomers from the coasts. They never knew a) you could see rain from the clouds like that and b) it rains without raining.

Another difference is that, not having a lot of rain, we mostly don't have gutters on our houses, but "canales" (see picture on right). They just shoot the rain right off the roof.

We also do not have many, in most places we do not have any, street drains. You know, underground drains that carry water away ... with grates by the curbstones every block or so. No, our streets often are our drains. At the end of our street, at the bottom of the hill, are two huge openings right off the street down into the valley below. Splash onto the land down there.

But the most fun of all in desert rain is how the children, teens, and young adults all run out of their houses and stand on the street corners. Why? Well, if you do, as I did when new here, avoid going too close to them because the street is full of water and you do not want to splash them, for this care-taking, they'll yell scorn and even give you certain hand signs.

They want you to splash them, the bigger the better. It's a desert game. Whoopee! It's raining!!

News From Elsewhere - How We Are Seen

2007-04-27T22:55:00.000-05:00

I don't much like being topical in my blog, seeing as I feel so powerless in the face of all that's going on.

However, I do still receive various publications from other countries where I have lived, and sometimes the news about America that's in those publications at the very least enriches my understanding, and at times just plain startles me.

Now maybe you already know all this, but two things I came across yesterday put a bit of a new light on our American fear and opposition to the spread of nuclear weapons in Iran and in Korea.

As this information is from the London Sunday Times, a Rupert Murdoch publication which could not be accused of being wildly anti-American (to put it mildly), it certainly makes me ponder, at least.

Iran: In an article headed "Iran to hit back at US kidnaps" we read that Iran is threatening action against American interests in Europe and elsewhere in retaliation for the kidnapping of "several" senior Republican Guard officers. The deputy defense minister while he was in Turkey, one in northern Kurdish Iraq, one in southern Iraq, and the head of the Revolutionary Guard in the Persian Gulf, for example. Not to mention an attack on the Revolutionary Guards within Iran itself, killing at least 17. All of which led Reza Faker, a writer close to President Ahmadinejad, to write in Subhi Sadek, the Revolutionary Guard's weekly paper: "We've got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks". Wonderful. But we couldn't respond to a letter from Ahmadinejad?

North Korea: An article headed Crime Keeps Kim In Luxury details the North Korean leader's bank accounts around the world, particularly in Macau, totalling more than $5 billion dollars in external assets (some the result of excellent counterfeiting of US $100 bills and much else not very pretty). Beginning in 2005 the U.S. government had pressured banks to freeze these accounts and cut Kim and family off from their corrupt earnings. Reluctant banks even found themselves under sanctions. Given the involvement of this money in smuggling weapons, even into the US, this is all understandable.

But here's what happened next. When the sanctions became uniform, and cut Kim off completely, bang, October's nuclear test. And in February we heard news that North Korea had agreed, in negotiations, to shut down their nuclear reactor...but we didn't hear the rest ... IF financial sanctions were lifted within 30 days. Alas, alas, that deadline passed in March, without such lifting. Thus when the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency went to North Korea to settle the details, he was sent packing. This information surfaced, according to the Sunday Times, in a report to the US Congress by investigators for Edward Royce, a California congressman. I've been hearing about North Korea not "honoring their agreement" - but as to our role in all this, maybe I've missed it, but it was news to me. In case it's news to you ...

I'll try and be more fun sometime soon.

What Are You Thinking??

2007-04-26T23:01:00.000-05:00

So there I was, in the hairdresser's chair. Who is also my neighbor.

It took me a long time to get there. I mean, I had a hairdresser, nearby, handy, OK ... you know how it is when you just move someplace. Nice gal, good enough job. She didn't dye my eyebrows when she did my hair, though, which was an annoyance, much less would she wax them.

And as for a pedicure - you had to be a contortionist -- no chairs or special equipment.

About two years ago we got new nextdoor neighbors. (Actually, every house around us has sold, more are on the market -- and these are new houses built in 2003 and 2004 with people deciding to move back home to Mom and Dad, or to get a different new house several blocks away, or .... It amazes me how many people can afford to move so often - but that's another blog.)

The new neighbor, Lance (name changed to protect the innocent, and that's not just a phrase as you'll soon learn) runs one of the best hairdressing establishments in town. Why was I so long delaying giving him a try? Well, inertia is a powerful universal force, that's my excuse.

Soooo - There we were, chatting as usual, when Lance allows as how his feelings have been quite hurt in the neighborhood. Turns out his other next door neighbor was doing some yardwork for the lady across the street when she said, "Do you know anything about the people in that house (meaning Lance). Are they drug dealers??"

The lady watches too much television. Her assumption was based on the fact that there are a lot of cars around quite often. Yeaaaaa - Lance is young, single, and has lots of friends. His house-mate/cost sharer Carol is also young, single, and has lots of friends. They have a neat swimming pool and a hot tub. Result -- lots of happy visitors. Considering how early everyone gets up out here in the desert, even their parties are over by 9pm. Good grief. She's seen one too many CSI's where they know it's a drug house because there are several cars outside.

What a comment that is about how many people live today! Hidden behind our woven impenetrable-to-the-eye shades. No cars in the drive-way but our own. Touchy enough that any sounds at all, even happy ones, that remind us there are other people in the world are interpreted as threats, assaults which shouldn't be there. No wonder many people here do not know many of their neighbors, especially in the newer developments. Makes you wonder what assumptions they're all making about each other! And what ones I make about people, too.

2007-04-25T23:17:00.000-05:00

On a colleague's blog, he has posted a video of his search for biodiversity in his church garden.

Reminds me of the project some years ago, a year or two after the first Earth Day, when there was a biodiversity search in London, England.

We found the most amazing plants growing in the grassy islands in the middle of major roads - some at traffic circles (roundabouts), some just traffic dividers. They were not native to Britain, many of them were African, tropical. What was going on? A search of nearby gardens revealed no such plants. Where had they come from?

Then, aha, there she was, an old lady, feeding the birds. One of many folks looking after the wild life that's trying to find a way to survive in our urban creations. Many of these plants would not, of course, survive the winter -- but even then their cousins might well be back next year as new birds were fed by new human neighbors.

Biodiversity is not always, however, a cause for celebration. The spread of biodiversity due to human actions is not always beneficial. Think of the fleas on the rats bringing plague to Europe.

Indeed, today London faces another "plague", this one precisely in the realm of plant biodiversity. It is Japanese knotweed, originally brought to England as a decorative plant by Victorian gardeners. We had a bit in our garden in London, and man, "hardy" doesn't begin to describe it. It grows so quickly you can almost see it. It's roots (actually rhizomes) quickly extend more than 20 feet in all directions, and nearly 10 feet down. And even if you pull it up as soon as it shoots, unless you get every little scrap of root, even if only about half a gram of root should remain down there somewhere, the whole thing will grow again.

It will happily invade your house (see above), and your drains. Worse, they have discovered an amazing mass of acres of the stuff just where the Olympic stadia etc. need to be built for the London Olympics in 2012. It will have to be dug out, and all the soil replaced. Herbicides are not an option, as it requires several years of herbicide application to eradicate this hardy import.

Cost overruns for the Olympics are legendary, but London's look to be stratospheric. Just eradicating the knotweed will cost millions of pounds, but if they don't do it, the stadia will just break up from underneath. Wow! Sometimes I have to love it when the earth fights back.

Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Badly

2007-04-24T22:47:00.000-05:00

Well, so there I was sitting in my quilting bee this morning, cutting away.

It was Community Quilt morning, so we were all working on quilts to give away -- to battered wives and children, to families whose homes have burned down, to the homeless, there are all sorts of people whose lives can be brightened not only by a quilt, but by knowing others are thinking of them enough to actually spend time and effort making them something nice.

Actually, at the moment, every week I work at community quilts. There are two bags of "squares" donated by someone who must have been, to put it kindly, happily sozzled when she cut them. There is much less use for irregular rhomboids and trapezoids in quilting than she must have thought. My job is to recut them into perfect squares so they can easily be assembled into quilts.

As a total novice quilter, just about to finish my only second quilt, I cannot tell you how intimidating I find all these wonderful women and their incredible skills. And they are wonderful. Quilters have an ethic, a code, a morality, a custom, of always being helpful to one another. Don't know how to do something? They will line up to kindly show you how. Make a mistake? They will line up and show you sixteen ways to get out of trouble with it.

And yet, and yet ... damn they know so much, and I know so little. Those who have always thought I was an arrogant sod would be amazed to see this shy intimidatee!

But as we went along today, first one, then another of these elegant gifted creative skilled women cried out, "Drat, how long have I been sewing without a bobbin thread?!" (A sewing machine needs two threads to stitch one line, the needle and the bobbin. Without a bobbin thread, you get a nice line along the top that looks as if you've sewn something, but it's a sham. You've got no connection.)

Now a few times at home I've been sewing along and when I take the piece out, flop, it falls apart, I've run out of bobbin thread. Dumb rube, I've thought.

Can I tell you how reassuring it was that these prize-winning show quilters did the same thing, and laughed with and at each other. I thought, "I might make at least a beginning quilter yet!"

Just reminded me how much we all struggle to look perfect, good, in control ... when so often what helps and inspires others is how our mistakes helps them realize maybe they could do this too.

Haloo Hallay

2007-04-23T23:03:00.000-05:00

Halloo Hallay, it's bicycle racing season again. Started off with a terrific Tour of California, a week long race now beginning to attract top European teams as well as US ones (and US teams are starting to be top teams among the world teams). Won by American Levi Leipheimer. Now the Tour of Georgia is underway, well actually it finished today. TV coverage next week-end.

Next some of the European races, Ronde von Flanderen; Paris-Rubais; Milan-San Remo; Amstel Gold (Holland and Belgium mostly); leading up to the big week, two week, or three week races like the Giro Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta d'Espana. (Sorry, can't get a tilde to work on this machine, one belongs over the "n" in Espana.) Favorite teams are the Discovery Channel team, and CSC led by Bjorne Riis out of Denmark.

We started to watch these races many many years ago, somewhere around 1983, mostly because it is the best free travelogue without smarmy voices selling you restaurants that you can possibly get. Coverage is from motorcycles with the racers, but also helicopters, giving you fantastic overviews of roads, forests, castles, villages, gorgeous.

We continued watching because the commentary is so terrific ... former racers Phil Liggett, the eminence grise of bike commetary; and Paul Sherwin, former racer now running a gold mine in Kenya in his other life. Bob Roll, American wild man racer occasionally appears as well, and Frankie Andreu with technical information.

Like many other things (even, I know you'll wince but it's true, tractor pulls), if you learn enough about any of the wondrous things human beings love to do, you can become a fan yourself. Bicycle racing is deceptively complicated. I'm so glad it's started again. (Thanks Hampton Inns for sponsoring it!)

Now, I wonder what else will become fascinating if I just listen long enough to learn more about it?

PS List of Thinking Blogs still being worked on...coming soon!

Exhaustion

2007-04-23T01:45:00.000-05:00

Lying in the road, flat out of gas.

That's me tonight --

Old dog still in the pulpit, takes its toll some days. I am soooo excited, delighted, awed, honored, to have been named a thinking blog by mskittyssaloon, a blog I much respect and read daily myself, but too tired to move on with naming others, and with thanking her.

More, after naptime. And send your strength and prayers to Biddies in the Brain, she can use 'em, I'll recover after a good sleep and a tough two hours with my trainer tomorrow.

Money...money...money

2007-04-22T00:09:00.000-05:00

"Money doesn't matter

This usually is said

By somebody well-housed

Well-dressed, well fed"

So goes the old rhyme.

Disturbing conversation with my brother today. The man is 74 years old, and has just suddenly lost his wife of four decades to lung cancer spread to her brain. It wasn't even diagnosed until two weeks before the end, though she had complained of chest pains as long as six years ago.

He's very strong, her children are very kind, and he's doing OK. Yes, he wakes in the night hearing her breathing beside him, starts up, turns on the light, and, oh yes, she's gone. Yes, he works at his desk hearing her reading behind him on the sofa, but when he turns, oh yes, she's gone.

Blessed God that is enough for any one to have to deal with. But alas, $$$ also rear their ugly heads, or rather, they don't, because there aren't enough of them around to. Without her pensions and Social Security, he now struggles to live on less than one-third of what used to come in. Any help from social programs? No, they've ruled he only needs $550 a month to live on. In urban California???

He is proudly doing OK for now. And I am glad. But oh, so aware of the large percentage of us gray-hairs who live hand-to-mouth, with shaky hands, and periodontal disease.

Vermont Peaches

2007-04-21T00:50:00.000-05:00

What's that you say?

Peaches come from southern states like Georgia?

Not today, my friends, not today. Today the peaches, peaches, peaches are the Vermont Senate who voted to seek the im-peach-ment (::groan::) of President Bush and Vice-Pres. Cheney.

For some months I have been a-ponderin'. How is it that one President is impeached for losing 18 minutes of audio tape in a cover-up of a small-time piece of political espionage - child's play compared to today's computer hacking and misdirection; another is impeached for a blow job (please accept apologies for indelicate language, but indelicate is as indelicate does); and the third is not (??) impeached for sustained, deliberate, intention subversion of the separation of powers, checks and balances, legislative and judicial branches of the very Constitution he swore to protect?

I suppose it all boils down to if crimes are small everyone can imagine themselves doing them and they are easy to define and take to court; but some crimes are so enormous it's hard to even figure out what to call them, how to define them, and gets confusing even to think about what to do.

I've seen this in churches when the Board spends an hour on what size light-bulbs to have in the hallway (they can get their heads around what's "just like at home"), but skate over whether or not to have a Behavioral Covenant because, well, we've never done that before. And once again time spent is in inverse proportion to the importance of the matter.

So go go go Vermont, you peaches!

No Splenda, saccharin, sugar, Equal, or anything else required

2007-04-19T18:48:00.000-05:00

Well, this picture lies, I admit it. Down here in the desert the sweetness that is the desert Spring is far more advanced than this photo, taken in early March.

The trees are in full summery leaf, and much of desert plant life is busy ensuring its survival, renewal, and offspring. Which is just to say there's a lot of blooming going on.

And with, or without, bloom one of the surprises to a "ferriner" coming into high desert life is the incredible sweetness of all plant life here.

Sweetness everywhere! As in, even standing waiting for my sweetie in a Walmart parking lot (I know, I know, but their bubble envelopes for my book sales are the cheapest by far) I was almost overcome by the outrageous glorious sweetness of the yellow blooming desert bushes that marked off the parking rows.

And as for taking a "stroll" on my mobility scooter around the neighborhood, well, it's a natural gentle perfume store, and we're all sere desert landscapers here, none of that water-expensive grass nonsense for us. And still, and still, incredible sweetness. Some days it sure pays to notice where you are.

Bookstore Open Again

2007-04-18T17:20:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm back, my bookstore is open again. See link at right.

I've had some enquiries about how to find a book you may want. When you click on the link, notice the section in the upper right. I find what works best is to set it to sort alphabetically by title from A-Z the first time you visit. Don't despair when you get to G and all the Grantas, just keep going and so will the listings.

From then on, once you've had your first look at everything (1050 books at the moment), you can just set the sorting device to newest arrivals, and keep up with what's coming in. Happy shopping!

Fear and Loathing

2007-04-18T16:59:00.000-05:00

................... This is not me ....

OK, so now I come clean to you, dear readers. For the past several posts I have been, not at home, but on the road or in Las Vegas. My husband's son, who lives in Boston, will be there this week at the National Association of Broadcasters annual bun-fight, so we all came in early for the week-end. Lots easier for me to drive my mobility scooter to Vegas than to Boston!

Vegas is not my favorite place. OK, we did see Spam-a-lot, and laughed a lot, and enjoyed finding quiet corners in which to have great conversations (well worth the $$ at the deserted beauty shop where we all got our hair cut and could chat down the far end of some subterranean corridor).

But for a place which sells joy - winning, loving, straying (what happens in V...), there's precious little sign of happiness on the actual faces. Most people look like the lady above. At best befuddled and confused, longing, even despairing, all wanting what they spent a lot of money coming here for and finding, instead, crowds of shuffling somewhat purposeless people, all looking for a "good time" - most of them not quite finding it.

Me, I think it would have helped every one of them not to allow the entertainment industry to define "good time" for them. Anyway, it feels good to get back into the quiet, spiritual, healing desert. Now in my windscreen, not my rear view mirror.

ALL the dead, maybe?

2007-04-17T21:18:00.000-05:00

I've come across a few TV screens, facebook screens, whatever with the sentiment that we must never forget these 32 who have been lost at Virginia Tech.

Well, folks, as you probably know, the real number of dead at the Blacksburg tragedy was 33. There seems to be some sort of unspoken I don't know what that the shooter, being wicked, would not, of course, be mourned.

But like most ministers, I've learned everything worth knowing from members of the congregations I've served.

So let me tell you about Annie (name changed to protect those worthy of sainthood). Annie's much loved 16-year old niece was standing in her own family's kitchen, Dad and Mom in the living room watching TV, siblings in their rooms doing homework or whatever, when Annie's niece was stabbed to death by her boyfriend with whom she had been trying to break up.

Annie flew to her niece's town, sat in her niece's closet to breathe in her niece's scent from her clothes, and wept. Then she got up, and went to the former boyfriend's house to console his parents. After all, she told me later, we had all lost a young person we loved very much. Yes, their son was still alive (in jail awaiting trial), but they too had lost their son, that is, they had lost the son they thought they had, they had lost all the future they had so far envisaged for their son, they had entered new, and very lonely territory. Annie went to them to make sure they knew someone understood and cared.

Wow. Having learned from Annie there are other angles of vision one can choose to have in oh, so many situations, I so want us to remember there are not just 32 families grieving the events at Blacksburg tonight, but 33. And that one of those families may have almost no support at all.

Death in America

2007-04-16T21:29:00.000-05:00

When the heart breaks, oh how we want simple answers.

And yes, I was horrified when both John McCain and George W. Bush immediately used the tragedy at Blacksburg to reiterate that great American "right to bear arms". I was horrified not least because this President has seen fit to let the ban on assault weapons expire.

And yet, and yet, if only it were so easy as gun control. I say this as someone who has always fought for gun control. Who wants to see far more of it. And who would like to see some acknowledgement from the proponents of the "right to bear arms" that they themselves don't really mean it. For if they did mean what they say about my right to bear arms, then how come I can't have my own atom bomb?

What's that you say? There have to be some limits? But the right to bear arms is in the U. S. Constitution as a protection for the average person from a corrupt state, so that a corrupt government can be overthrown. What an irony that with the guns we are currently allowed, there's no way any corrupt government could be overthrown, but horrible pain and devastating loss can be inflicted day after day after day, Blacksburg after Columbine. And my own government's email and web page reading programs will probably see enough words in this simple blog entry to register me for surveillance.

Truth is, of course, sadly and alas, even gun control, while it would assuredly have minimized today's damage in Virginia, would not prevents the cascades of human violence on this earth of ours. If you think it would, just refer to England, where it's not guns, but knives, that are killing young adults, teens, even children week in and week out.

Fragmented societies in which people feel rootless, powerless, with nowhere to take their anger, and often, no one to listen to it ... crossed with societies which have taught people from their earliest breathing moments to want it all (for what else are all those TV ads about) ... hard stuff to legislate ... but surely also part of the picture.

Damn I wish I knew the answers to all this, but the thing about true tragedy is, it just sits there, and you have to just sit with it.

It's n.e.v.e.r. too late!

2007-04-15T11:33:00.000-05:00

Last night we went to the theatre, more about that another day, but just to say though this is a new and modern theatre, it has a very steep rake -- great for sightlines to the stage, not so hot for mobility impaired people!

But not to worry - this is the new mobility impaired jubilata ... after her personal trainer got hold of her. And though the steps down were slow and painful (believe it or not, oh you temporarily able-bodied, but down is much worse than up on stairs) - the ones up were done at even a, dare I say it, sprightly pace. So much so that those behind us looked confused and surprised when, once at the top, I climbed onto my mobility scooter!

How is this miracle possible? Enter Brigit, personal trainer extraordinaire. She comes to my house (thus short-circuiting my enormous capacity for rationalization about why today isn't a good time to drive to the gym); and she works with the body you have with enormous intuition. I've referred her to several friends, our routines are all very different as each of us has different needs.

But now I'm throwing around the 30 lb. freeweights, and wearing 20 lb. on each ankle for leg extensions etc., well, hey, it's n.e.v.e.r too late! No, my auto-immune crap won't allow me to walk a mile - but there is still more I can do, and what I can do, I do much better.

So if you've been wondering if you should, you should. And go my triathlon blogging buddy! (See link)

Supporting our troops

2007-04-14T13:05:00.000-05:00

Working as I now do, as a consultant to a congregation literally next door to Fort Bliss, from where so many soldiers have been deployed to our two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to where so many bodies have returned, what I now say may sound trite, banal, a truism ... but at least it is based on experience.

Namely, those who truly support our troops are those who want them home. The very idea that to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and wish to design a timeframe for ending this idiocy somehow does not support our troops is a joke - not just verbally - but look at the evidence.

The self-declared patriots fly flags on their cars and, driving by, shout abuse at the war protestors. It's those who oppose the war who actually run the GI help agency, providing support to GIs and their families as they struggle with the economic, emotional, and other stresses brought on by repeated, lengthened tours of duty in war zones. The self-declared patriots turn up with a band for those who return on their feet. It's those who oppose the war who are busy volunteering their help to GIs with broken bodies, and minds, who can hardly get help otherwise. And who sew the quilts with which they stay warm even in the disaster that is Walter Reed.

I can't speak for everywhere. But when a loyal GI, just going or just returning in whatever shape, wants help in my neck of the desert, it's those who oppose the war who reach out most with their love, their hands, their funds, their help.

For me, that's one trite saying that has become profoundly real. Those who oppose the war are the ones who really support our troops.

2007-04-13T14:17:00.000-05:00

A friend has just returned from three weeks in Mexico. Some at language school, some pootling around, some by the water. He was at first amazed at the driving (terrified, too), but then, he says, he "got it". People were driving without particular expectations of the other drivers. So when the bus realized it was going the wrong way, it could simply do a three point turn in the middle of the road between blocks, stopping traffic in both directions, and everybody stopped and nobody even honked. They just let him do what he needed to do. Once my friend "got it", he said, he could see how much care people were taking with each other, even in what looked, to his lane oriented US eyes, like mayhem.

As they were flying back to the US, his wife remarked "Honey, do you know, in three weeks we have never once heard an angry word?" They both thought about that awhile, and realized it was so. (So much for assumptions about "hot-blooded" Latins!)

They got off the plane in Houston, and the first words they heard on American soil were a US Customs Officer yelling with a snarl at someone, "I SAID stand over there, not over there." His wife turned to him and said, "Welcome home, I guess". So much for happy, welcoming, friendly The US of America!

Makes me think of churches, no, hang on, really it does. And how churches always seem to characterize themselves as "friendly". Never met a congregation that proudly called itself "unfriendly", though I have known a few that had to be secretly proud of it to have behaved the way they did. Once upon a time there was a saying "Beauty is as beauty does", long discarded now in our extreme make-over world. "Friendly is as friendly does" doesn't seem too bad an idea either, though I suppose it's just as out-dated.

Never mind. I come by my old fartness honestly, so guess I'll have to stick with it.

A new respect for what is hidden

2007-04-11T23:06:00.000-05:00

TRAIN!

One of our family's favorite cries is that of "Train!" when the sound of a train is heard in the distance, or when we see one passing by on the long long tracks that wind East from the ports of San Diego, carrying everything you're going to buy in a week or two on its way to you.

We get to call "Train" a lot down here in the high desert -- trains coming in from the West turn North, they come down from the North and turn East, we hear trains afternoon, evening, night-time -- only major roads have automatic gates out here. Many, many smaller roads and gravel lanes have, at best, a red light, or even nothing at all. So the trains must sound their haunting cry as a warning many many times on their journey through town.

All this I knew. And happen to love. But driving around through our continuing dust storms today, I became aware of the enormous amount of work being done on this major route for consumer goods into your town. We saw quite literally millions of dollars worth of huge, heavy machinery working its individual tasks on rails, and sleepers, track and bridges. Wow. Something I've kind of taken for granted for a long time turns out to be one huge job ... inspiring.

One thing I love about life is that no matter how old I get there are always whole new worlds to discover, from quilting to the hidden truth about plain old freight trains. What have you learned today?

All Kinds of Decisions that Don't Matter (But They Do)

2007-04-10T23:56:00.000-05:00

After 43 years of ministry, in a world with Holocausts (yes, plural, WWII, Ruanda, Darfur, Cambodia ... ), wars, destruction, true suffering, many things that people in our everyday world get all upset about seem pretty inconsequential to me.

And yet, and yet, so many of those inconsequential things are with us day by day.

Like laundry. See, I have this mini-problem to do with laundry. Should I do it often, with nice small loads, and not too many of them? Or should I save it up and wait for big loads and do it all in a marathon.

I tend to do the latter. It seems more ecological to use the machine fewer times for more clothes, even though the literature that came with my machine claims it adjusts the amount of water used to the size of the load.

I sure am glad I have a machine though. Had my two children in Europe. Long before the idea of disposable diapers had crept across the Atlantic. So it was strictly cloth. Nor was there any kind of Diaper Service. It was strictly store 'em in a bucket until you do it yourself.

Actually, for my first child, I also did not have a washing machine, indeed I did not even have a water heater. I had to boil them up on the stove in a big copper kettle like some demented cook.

So I am real grateful for my machine. But I still don't like using it too often.

Which leaves me with a different problem. The tiresome hanging and folding of big loads, now more problematical as my auto-immune @#$$%^% works its way along.

Have you guessed yet that today was laundry day?

P.S. And you know what else annoys me about laundry? Even as I am standing there doing it, I am generating the need for more. When I've done the dishes, if I don't eat for another half day, there are no more to be done! But laundry, well, there's an obvious solution, but it's still a bit chilly down here.

Spring is different here

2007-04-09T21:37:00.000-05:00

Oh you who long for the daffodils to bloom, and the lilacs to begin to show themselves - harken to Spring in the desert.

Our daffodils are a mid February event, our trees are already leaving behind the last traces of that wonderful chartreuse early leafing and are entering the full green of summer.

And, the Spring winds have come.

Signs along the highways read "Dust Storms Possible, Next 10 Miles". Most of the year that only makes the tourists take their foot off the accelerator for a minute - we locals know it's unlikely to occur.

But Springtime, well, Springtime in the desert is different. Then the winds whip up, 30 or 50 miles an hour, the air is filled with fine dust, and we can hardly see the mountains which normally fill our distant skies.

Above are the Organ Mountains, from our front window (my quilting room), as they usually appear. Today, and for the rest of this week, they will be instead the vaguest purple shadow behind the white dust-filled sky.

But the sweetness of all the desert life (desert plants must want company - they always seem to have the most delicate of perfumes about them) will remain in the air. Happy Spring!

There's no foolproof way ...

2007-04-08T23:46:00.000-05:00

Now that I've got over 1,000 books in my on-line "shop" (see link), there's the whole question of how to find the ones people order.

Easy, right? Well ...

There are books from several individuals, and from two churches, all of which are sold with proceeds donated to the donors chosen charity or church. So ... you have to know who gave the book, who they want the money to go to, as well as finding the book itself. (With a bunch of separate spread sheets in my computer system to keep track of donors, charities etc.)

The order comes in. Now you've got to find the book. File by author, right? (Editor in a pinch). Yea, well, if the name of the book is long, then the on-line order field is too short to also show the author. Just shows the name. Big hassle to go find out the author's name. File by title then? I don't think so. Your eyes would cross in the "How To" section. Let alone the "Mystery of the..." department.

My beloved spend hours in our totally bookshelved double garage (which is ventilated, cleaned, library-like) sorting by author mostly. Still, it can really catch you out sometimes.

As I look around my house, I seem to have this same kind of problem lots of places. Like, my quilting fabric stash, small, but ever growing. File by color, well yea, but large pattern fabrics may not have one dominant color. And do you file small pieces by color in one place, and large pieces by color in another place, or all together?

Could it be, could it possibly be, this refulgent Spring, that life is not completely sortable? And is it possible to stop trying, and go watch The Apprentice? Yippee!

Up, Up and ... well ... back again

2007-04-08T00:23:00.000-05:00

So it's official. The voters of Dona Ana County here in southern New Mexico voted FOR the spaceport - which will be about 40 miles north of our house.

You couldn't call it an overwhelming vote, not with the difference between the Yeas and Nays being a matter of under 300 votes. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised for the Nays to make good on their pre-election statement that they would call for a recall if the margin were under 500 votes.

Richard Branson of Virgin will be happy. Space tourism will be a go. Carbon footprints, anyone?

Don't think I'll be going up for a five minute, or less, experience of weightlessness, much as my over abundant corpus might enjoy it. I'll take a swim and use my imagination.

Perhaps, sitting here on the back patio in sun on a beautiful Spring day in the high desert, I just don't feel a need to escape. It's not that much of an escape anyway, for your vast $$$, not so much up, up and away as up, up, and ... well ... back again.

Never Quite ...

2007-04-06T22:56:00.000-05:00

OK, folks, so here's the real skinny about my kind of quilting.

I know those of you who are purists out there will be wincing, nay, yelping at your computers as you read this, but ... well ... it's never exactly, perfectly right.

I'm working on three quilts right now. And in the mystery quilt (this is a great fun project for quilting bees - you get a Chapter of directions each month, but you have NO idea at all what the final quilt will look like - you just make little bits and try to guess as you gradually piece them together) --- well, in the mystery quilt I'm working on, things aren't coming out exactly to plan -- they are less the exact same size than they're intended to be. To put it mildly.

A friend showed me what to do today. I call it pulling and pushing, stretching and squidging. Because no matter how much I pin, they aren't exactly the same size. So a little pulling, a little squidging takes place to fake them into being the same size.

My friend informs me it's not called pulling and pushing, stretching and squidging. It's called "easing". Oh, so delicate. I say, "Teasing?" She says, "That'll do if you have to".

But you know what, given the current government, I'm in no mood for euphemisms and spin. Me, I push, pull and stretch. Sorry fellow quilters, but there it is.

'Course those of you who know me know there's probably a lot in life I've handled like that!

Where's the Stone Anyway?

2007-04-05T21:37:00.000-05:00

So now it's time to get the sermon finished. There's a well -known poem lots of my colleagues use about how the stone was moved away from the tomb of Jesus (as the story goes). I mean was it moved away by Jesus from the inside, or by someone from the outside, or a mini-earthquake, or ... ??

Me, I'm more interested in where the stone is NOW. I mean your stone, my stone, everybody's got a stone or two, that leaden lump inside that keeps the life force from flowing through us freely and without impediment.

So this week, I'll be handing out stones for Easter. Pretty stones in all kinds of natural colors (more than you see here) that have had quite a journey from their cave homes in Brazil, to a crazy mineral shop on Long Island, to a UPS van, to Las Cruces, New Mexico. And on to El Paso, Texas.

We'll meditate on the stone in each of our hands for a while, and then give to the real stone in our hands the stone in our hearts that blocks our living in full. Guess I'm not so concerned with how the historical stone got moved back then, as with how to move the stones I've got now - like thinking I'm too old, too weak, too scared, you know the kind of stuff.

Oh, ick

2007-04-04T23:54:00.000-05:00

So today is the day I have to choose the hymns for Sunday. It's Easter, I mean, how hard can it be? I mean, even you can probably predict them.

So then how come I put it off and put it off?? I always do with picking hymns. (I do with washing my hair, too, and can't figure that out either.)

I hate picking hymns. Don't ask me why. I have a pretty good voice, so ain't scared of the music. I read music, so I can figure them out. And I'm picky about what we use. Different meter, perfect words, whatever. Music directors often want to pick the hymns, but I have found, in my limited experience, that, with two notable exceptions (you know who you are), Music Directors tend to take the information given to them about what the service will be about rather literally ... like choosing hymns that have one of the words in the service description in the hymn.

But it don't work like that, folks. The most moving love songs you've ever heard I bet don't even have the word "love" in them. Just like Eva Cassidy's tear producing version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbows" never ever has the word "longing" in it, it just is longing.

So ick ick ick, as the feisty Long Islander on Boston Legal would say, ick ick ick, it's been hymn picking day again. You'd think I'd learn that the sooner I get it done the sooner I can quit worrying about it. And it is only Wednesday, which for the younger me would have been early. But, oh sigh, here it comes again.

Whatever the front, there's always a back

2007-04-03T22:45:00.000-05:00

Well, today didn't turn out exactly as planned. Went off early morning to my quilting bee -- worked on recutting literally hundreds of pieces that must have been cut by someone after several bottles of something or other. Our queen bee (or whatever the organizer would be called, who knows, I'm new to all this) doesn't want to throw all these squares out, but they are useless until they are actually squares, and not crazy paving rhomboids.

So I'm new, and it's good practice, so I gave myself this job. After all, when done, they'll be assembled into some of the (this is true) hundreds of quilts we will make during the year to give away -- to every Mom and child at the women's shelter, to every person after a fire in their home, to injured veterans at Walter Reed and our local hospitals, and to families of those who have lost a son or daughter or father or mother in this terrible useless war. Maybe you can see why I sit there and get neck pain cutting and cutting but do not stop.

That's the front of quilts. Then I come home, to the huge complicated quilt I'm making for a grand-daughter (only my second quilt, but have you ever seen the "learning" quilts for newbies - too boring for words, so I designed a challenge instead) ... and it's time to give attention to the back. Lots of loose threads, bits left over from sewing, shards falling out from rough edges, bits the sewing machine caught on the underside and pulled the wrong way that need to be resewn.

And I think about life, all that shiny front side stuff, and how it ain't worth a damn without all those willing to do all that clean-up work on the back as well. This day had both, not too bad I say.

An Alternative Career Missed - Oh, Sigh

2007-04-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

Well, down here in the desert it's been a busy day. As I recover from a nasty virus which got way, way too friendly with my heart, I am getting back on track with the trainer.

Now here's the thing. My mother was very ill all of my childhood, and scared of everything, which meant I was barely ever let out of her sight, except for school. Certainly going out to play with other kids was out. I mean, only in late adulthood did I discover that I was perhaps, for real, the only child who was never, ever allowed on the monkey bars, or the climbing frame, or anything else for that matter.

Add to that the fact that I was, from the age of 7, the family's designated carer (as in doing all the cooking, etc. etc.) - well, you can see that I ate lots, read tons, and exercised not at all.

With retirement came, at last, the time to do something I'd wanted to do forever - namely get me a personal trainer. (They are really an economical option down here in the desert- wouldn't want to try it in a major city!) Enter Brigid Pass, trainer extraordinaire. German, past professional body builder, specialist in working with elderly.

We began with the extra-light broomstick, I kid you not. But I love to push envelopes (those who know me will attest to that) -- so now, suck it up people, I use 30 lb. free weights (dropping down with 25, 20, 15, 10), 20 lb. on each ankle for leg work, etc. etc.

Who knew? I've got great (if totally unused) muscle mass. Indeed, as Brigid has often said to me, if only they'd got hold of me 50 years earlier, I would, these are her words, "have been Miss Olympia for sure for three or more years! You would have been unbeatable."

Now, as a retired minister, that sure is an alternate life to contemplate!

I'm Back -- Gasp

2007-04-01T23:12:00.000-05:00

Wow -sorry for the delay - first it was illness (now all sorted out, thank goodness), then it was the installation of a whole new computer system, plus working with a nearby congregation part-time, and the on-line book sales taking off (see link) ...

Well, it just all got away from me! But I'm back, and planning to stay back.

So today's topic is simple. If you haven't heard Eva Cassidy, well, go buy her CD, or her songs on-line NOW. You'll be glad you did. More substantive remarks tomorrow...and tomorrow...and tomorrow.

If Only Justice Were So Easy

2007-01-02T22:13:00.000-05:00

What I wanted to show you was weather.com's radar picture of our area of the world this morning. What a hoot. After my posting about only half of New Mexico having snow, no, we haven't had snow, but we sure were cloudy.

So I went onto weather.com and looked for the radar of our area. For 600 miles in all directions it was absolutely, totally, spectacularly clear. Except for one tiny dense little green yellow and red mess over, you guessed it, Las Cruces and El Paso.

It seemed like immediate justice for one of my recent posts. Ah, if only justice were so easy. But Saddam, Bush, Massachusetts lawmakers, well, you know the list, prove over and over again that there's no one up there in the sky fixing every little thing. (This does not mean I have no concept of God - rather that my concept of God is about the large processes through and by which the details happen, but not about each detail itself -- indeed my concept of God is to large be encompassed in human language or understood by the very tiny limited human brain, but that's another issue.)

Oh, I bless the universe when a fine parking space opens up, yet again, but I do not delude myself. I also remember the 2,500 women and children who took shelter in a Catholic cathedral in Ruanda and were mown down by machine guns for their trouble. Yes, I know that how one faces a crisis can turn it into an opportunity -- but it didn't for the Ruandan women. And I remember the old Hebrew story of the ancient ship that set sail on the Mediterranean, only to be caught in a storm, broken up, and lost without trace. From that wreck, half the sailors were saved by other boats, but half were lost.

On their return, the saved sailors put up a large brass plaque in the temple, blessing God for His care and their safe return. But one dark night, the widows of the sailors who had been lost snuck into the temple and added their own, smaller, plaque below the large one. It read "Those who do not come back put up no plaques".

Would that justice were as easy as a cloudy day in payback for a whine about the Weather Channel!

Happy Rolling New Year

2007-01-01T11:13:00.000-05:00

So we began our New Year's smooching when it was New Year here, on this street, where I used to live. True, it was a while ago, like 1959-1961. And nowadays, it'll cost you about $3,000,000.00 to buy a small flat here (I kid you not), now that it's called Chelsea and is a tres posh part of London. Back in my day it cost me $6.00 a week to rent a neat room with shared kitchen and bath, and our neighbors up the street were the United Dairies stables (they still used horses for household milk delivery then - my early morning dreams were filled with clip-clop-clip-clop as they all set off) and a two houses connected together male brothel.

We should have started our New Year in Switzerland (I've lived there too), but I didn't think of it soon enough. So we just did England, and Newfoundland, and New York, and Chicago, and finally our own little New Year here in Las Cruces. Old age and exhaustion set in, and we didn't bother with California. There's enough of them out there to do it for themselves.

Since all these time labels are merely of our own making -- gasp!! -- does it shock you to know there is no 2007 out there in the universe? -- why not make use of them, we say!

And by the by, sadly, I'm afraid science education being what it's been of late, I hate to think how many Americans would be shocked to be told there is no 2007 out there in the universe. ::sigh::

We don't have any weather down here

2007-01-01T10:41:00.000-05:00

These snow covered trees have nothing to do with me! Despite headlines like "All New Mexico Snow Bound" -- tain't true. Yea, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Interstate 40 all got hammered, 'tis true, and my heart goes out to all those newly sore muscles and folks dig out.

But, folks, that's only the Northern half of this "Land of Enchantment". Down here in the rosy southlands, even at 4,000 feet, not a flake. True, we had a little frost this morning, but you had to get up before 6 to catch even that. What with the sun, it'll be 60 or so as we go along. And yes, way up in the mountains even down south they've had some snow, but even our 9,500 foot Organ Mountain peaks, such a nice show in our living room, have had snow for only part of one day. No more.

Kinda burns me the way the northern half of this state is so often reported as the whole place! The same way it burns me that the Weather Channel on TV ignores this highly populated area entirely. If you've got a satellite dish for your TV reception, check it out.

If you're on Cable, at eight minutes past the hour, and eighteen, and twenty-eight, etc. you get a little candy called "Local on the Eights" on the Weather Channel, with your local weather. But if you're on DISH or DIRECTTV, then "on the eights" you get a running sequence of weather in cities all over the US. Here's the thing. In that list of cities, you get places that aren't exactly major cities, like Grand Rapids, Michigan -- nothing personal, GR, I've lived there and I like you. But you never see El Paso, Texas. Chew on this, thinkers. Population of Grand Rapids, MI 197,800. Population of El Paso, TX over 700,000 and growing fast. Not to mention another quarter million of Las Cruces and environs. Or the fact that El Paso and Juarez, Mexico are closer twin cities than Minneapolis/St. Paul, indeed, the largest population center on any international border in the world, at over 2.2 million. But can we get any local weather news from the Weather Channel? Forget it.

Check it out, TV spotters. El Paso is the spot where the weather people stand. They turn left and point East, or right and point West (that's how they turn, you see the opposite, oh Gawd this is getting complicated) -- we live under their b......y hips, and never know what the b....y weather's going to be. ::triple sigh::

But not all is golden

2006-12-24T00:13:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the pics being all over the place in my last post -- couldn't get them to move ::sigh::

Meanwhile, not only is grandma not going to see this little jewel at Christmas because of her virus, heart, and nonsense ... but as it happens it's a good thing we're staying put because Beloved noticed his vision deteriorating at the end of last week.

As some of you know, he has two leading to blindness conditions in his only good eye (the other having been hot lasered into oblivion years ago). He has central vein occlusion (blood gets into the eye but can't get out) and Retinal Angiomatous Proliferation. The latter used to be blindness in three months, but new treatments can eke out two years or so. He has been a poster child however, and has now been three years and five months -- so I suppose he was "due".

Luckily the retinal specialists here are great, saw him immediately, and began treatment - which consists first of an injection of steroids into his eyeball (are you wincing yet?!), and, a week later, a very sophisticated treatment involving an extremely light sensitive dye and a cold laser. He then has to stay indoors for five days - even one minute of winter sunlight would be third degree burns, since the dye goes through his whole body, not just his eyes.

Fascinating, what you learn about the body as you age!

So now we've two not so lovely reasons to not see any of our three sons, two daughters-in-law, and four grandchildren for Christmas. Yuck.

On the bright side, I get to do a child dedication as part of the Christmas Eve service tomorrow. Love that.

Newby!

2006-12-23T19:10:00.000-05:00

The Quilt

The Boy

The Pillow

Well, Grandma has finally got it done -- well, almost. Still got a few special little train buttons to sew onto the quilt. But his napping quilt is done -- complete with trains, soccer balls, tartan (well, he is part Scottish, after all), and on the back, which you can't see, a wonderful soft and cozy flannel full of Matchbox cars!

Grandma's first quilt ever -- next one quite different, for grand-daughter Jessica, with the Serengeti animal sanctuary a theme. Quite an adventure for Granma!

Beloved A Star

2006-12-18T22:23:00.000-05:00

Apart from my rascal sons and one of my grandsons, there is my honey, who was a star at our local congregation yesterday. He did an hour-long public issue forum presentation on "A Day in the Life of a Diplomat" which was funny, and serious, informative and droll. He began by talking about how every young diplomat goes out and buys a very expensive attache case which is then used a) to take lunch to work and b) to bring duty-free booze from the comissary home.

His most serious point, however, has been the eradication and elimination of "diplomatic immunity". Oh, it exists in stupid ways, like the Americans in London refusing to pay traffic charges (the Congestion Charge) and irritating the hell out of Londoners who all do have to pay it. But the real diplomatic immunity, that is, where every country guaranteed every other country's diplomats their physical safety regardless of how fraught negotiations, or even warfare, might be ... well, that appears to be long gone.

It seemed to begin with the sacking of the US Embassy in Pakistan (long forgotten now by most folk) - the first egregious violation of the Congress of Vienna. Countries around the world should have protested ... but did nothing. Nowadays it is very sobering to visit our State Department regularly. There is a huge wall of marble plaques carrying the names of diplomats who died serving their country -- you can see from the dates it used to be a name every long once in a while. Nowadays, the dustcloth on the floor is never gone, because another name is always and ever being engraved.

I make no comment about politics, numbers of Iraqi dead etc. etc. here, simply want to notice and honor all those now falling with the collapse of the Congress of Vienna as well as the Geneva Conventions.

And to praise my honey for his fine job on Sunday, and for 30 years for this country.

The Blessings of Limits

2006-12-18T22:12:00.000-05:00

Winter Evening - by Vladimir Belikov

Well, yes, it just happens that I love Russian Impressionist art, and you are likely to see more of it on my blog - even often!

So here I am, on a Winter Evening of my own, here in the desert, where our bright sun, 70 degrees, has been slowly clouding over with rain predicted possibly for tonight -- though often it never actually reaches the ground. Raining up there somewhere, but evaporating before touchdown. I've actually had it rain on my head, when nothing is hitting the pavement at all, and I ain't even tall. But my head gets the tiny tiny remaining touch before disappearance.

Meanwhile - limits. Long calls from disturbed (in many ways) congregant last night. I ended it as quickly as possible, pleading tiredness (true). My contract is for very limited consulting with the congregation I serve. Doesn't include long counselling etc. I am not their minister, but a very part-time consultant. Called congregant back and clarified all today. And will hold to it.

Seem to be getting physically better, and am not about to be stressed out into relapse! About to try a night with less meds ... wish me well! Had a wonderful day working out with trainer, getting on with knitting project, and planning new quilt project. 42 years of thinking as a minister, now's my chance for making stuff you can actually see!!