Resurrection

I may write again. Still deciding. I do miss my old friends.

March 30th at 9:58 AM ...

We've been busy reproducing again. My neighbor says to keep at it ... eventually we'll get it right. Made me laugh out loud, even though she was only half kidding.



Meet "Q". Quinn. Quinton Zachary. "Quinton" means "fifth child", and even though he's #6, the name for sixth (Sextus) was just too over-the-top ...

The Visionary

In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Man Who Was a Fool, Strength to Love
Atlanta, GA
February 3, 1963

Why?

That's it. Awaiting your comments.

What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?

Great minds ponder a great question.

Warning: Hold tightly to your ears to keep your head from spinning.

give a look

Worthy of a read.

The Evidence Will Show

Whilst (that’s a word -- look it up) painting dining room walls with a good friend a couple weeks ago, we were discussing “paranormal” phenomenon. He related a few recent personal stories of unexplainable happenings. For example, things he knew would happen before they did, and that knowledge somehow assisted in the development of the related events.

I recalled my experience weeks prior to 9/11/01 – not that my knowledge assisted anyone, but I have reluctantly seen this type of thing first hand. Jeanne related a story about the disappearing door. Was it really missing the first time around?

I think 99% of the time there is a rational explanation for these types of things. We are intuitively in touch with connections in our surroundings. Our minds perceive far more than we are aware of. For the sake of survival and sanity, we filter out most of what goes on around us and zero-in on what we believe relevant. This partly explains why people in crisis often describe things going in slow motion: surroundings and perceptions suddenly become more “present”. We never really forget anything. We just conserve our mental (and emotional) energy by spending it in places we believe will provide the greatest safety.

On the flip of that coin, we probably don’t pay attention to a huge amount of this sort of thing. There are times when there is absolutely no rational explanation. Something super-natural has happened. I’m one of those that believe the universe is far bigger than our instruments can measure, and I’m not referring to the literal size of the cosmos. Science itself points beyond science. I think most probably acknowledge this. After all, to believe that daily life-as-we-understand-it is all there is – that’s quite a leap of faith.

What I think is most interesting is that there seems to be just enough evidence. Just enough to either deny or believe. If you want to toss this stuff aside, it’s not so hard to do. If you look for the unexplainable (or in my case, the activity of the Creator), there’s plenty to be found.

I think it’s a shame: there are plenty of examples where we too quickly give in to either side. We don’t like to be caught with our categories down. The rationalist makes just as silly a mistake as the paranormal-addict. “There is a God! Look! I have him here in this box!” Rubbish. If there is a God, he’s far larger than our metrics in columns and rows. And he is.

Broken

Been home with the flu since mid-day yesterday. Ack. I’d forgotten how much fun it can be. Everyone in the house save my 74-year old mother-in-law, and 4-year-old daughter got socked in the gut. Little CindyLou Who wanted to climb in bed with us, but she just got, “We don’t want you to get sick, Avery.” Her answer: “Ok. I won’t.” She didn’t … at least not yet.

The place has finally settled a bit. The Christmas tree is mostly upright, walls are painted, mother-in-law has moved in. I could live without the flu, but there are worse things.

We recently acquired a photo of my father-in-law:

Don left the family when my wife was 5, and shot himself in despair after the “affair with the secretary” proved (I assume) less than fulfilling about 10 years later. What a horrible tragedy … that has lead to other tragedies. I do wish I could have a conversation with him. There’s too much that doesn’t fit. He was apparently often great as a dad, even if he had a hot temper. He’d take the family on daytrips and vacations, they decided to adopt a child together, he loved taking the family out to eat, they sang songs in the car, and got generally silly. Something of an artist, he went right up the ladder at Westinghouse. Somewhere along the line, something went wrong. I suspect it was small and slow at first, each step building on another. I may never know exactly.

Things like that seep back into my thoughts around the holidays. Life is not as it should be. The world is askew. It wouldn’t be so bad for the world to be askew, if I (we) didn’t have this sometimes-overbearing desire for things to be “right” – there is a “way things should be”, and we all know it. I suppose that’s why we get angry and frustrated when we see things go wrong, even if it doesn’t have a direct impact on us.

All this makes me think I need to keep myself in check, and figure out how to see the world as good, even though it is clearly broken in half -- kind of like a family that the father has abandoned. I need to remember that my imperfect sense of “should” probably exists because the target is real. I will give up pretending everything is ok. I will give up abandoning the world as completely lost and ruined. I need to do the difficult work of redeeming the broken-ness of the word, because the world -- that is, other people -- matter, and they are valuable. And my own brokenness is fixed as I go.

I think this is why it is a good thing to be alive.

Merry Christmas

La Fille du Fromage

Our littlest has earned a reputation as the "Cheese Girl" among her siblings for her penchant for cheddar. I found myself referring to her fondly by another blogger’s title. Cute, eh?

Mr Superior

Today I have effectively mocked Pat Robertson, Irish, Swedes and drunks. Some of my favorite people!

Still Looking For Those Marbles

Pat Robertson is ready to call down fire on your town should you vote incorrectly. Beware!

Yoga

Indian vs. Irish. Can you see the subtle difference?