No Disclaimers

March is National Cheer Safety Month

2011-03-18T22:23:00.003-05:00

When I was in high school, a cheerleader in the class behind me fell during a stunt and broke both her elbows. It was a terrible injury, and she struggled for months just trying to live her life with two broken elbows. That was 1988...and things have gotten a lot more dangerous since then.

Cheerleading is now the most dangerous sport at the high school level, with about 60% of all serious and/or catastrophic injuries. At the college level, it accounts for 66% of all college women's athletics injuries. And cheerleading injuries are often serious and/or catastrophic, involving concussions, spinal cord injuries, broken bones, and internal injuries.

Every parent has to decide whether to allow their child to participate in an activity where they could get hurt. I let Sabra be a cheerleader for a couple of reasons. One is that the coach and cheer squad are very attentive to safety concerns, and no lifts or throws are allowed that aren't set up for maximum safety. The girls themselves are very attentive to this, and if a cheerleader even hints at cutting corners, the others override her loudly.

The other reason is that if we kept our kids from doing anything where they might get hurt, they'd never do anything. We're not supposed to be teaching them not to take risks. We're supposed to be teaching them how to manage risk in their lives. We can't keep them safe; we can only keep them as safe as possible. I know people who won't let their sons play football, because it's too dangerous. I can't judge that. I can only do the best I can.

Anyway, for obvious reasons--namely my daughter and a few friends of hers that I love like daughters--I am very concerned about cheer safety, and I do all I can to manage the risk of their involvement and keep them as safe as possible. The National Cheer Safety Foundation is set up for just that sort of thing, directed mostly at middle and high school parents and coaches. They have resources for safety and emergency plans, reporting injuries, and even health and heart screenings.

If you haven't given much thought to the health and safety of these women athletes, I don't blame you--I might not have, either, if my daughter weren't a cheerleader. But these girls and women, like all athletes, put a lot on the line in order to represent their schools, communities and squads, so during National Cheer Safety Month, I hope you'll say a prayer for their safety.

El Chupacabra Spotted in Texas?

2010-07-15T22:43:00.003-05:00

You might not know what El Chupacabra is--although if that's the case, your knowledge of the unexplained, or of retread Scooby-Doo episodes, is sadly lacking. El Chupacabra is a cryptid, a creature roughly analogous to Bigfoot who is said to live in Mexico, Puerto Rico, South America, and the southwestern US. Its name, chupacabra, means "goat sucker," because it feeds on the blood of goats and other livestock.

There have been hundreds of sightings of El Chupacabra since about 1990, and some have been proven to have purely natural explanations. For example, 3 bodies of bizarre, ugly, doglike creatures were found in Texas, and while the local population were quick to call them chupacabras, DNA testing proved that they were actually a breed of coyotes, though they must have been severely diseased to look as they did. Other sightings have never been explained.

The recent sightings in northern Texas involve an animal control officer finding a couple of scary looking creatures. From the AOLNews article:

"All I know is, it wasn't normal," Animal Control Officer Frank Hackett, who shot one of the animals in a local rancher's barn, told WOAI. "It was ugly, real ugly. I'm not going to lie on that one."

Scientists are sure that when DNA testing is complete, these creatures will prove to be simply deformed coyotes, like others before them have been. Some others, at least. People who have experienced these frightening creatures aren't so sure.

Bruce Rahtjen, 1933-2010

2010-06-23T01:15:00.003-05:00

You can read more about Fr. Bruce here, if you like. He was fishing in a lake outside Topeka Sunday, when he disappeared. Searchers looked for him for 2 days, and his body was found this morning (Tuesday).

Fr. Bruce was the pastor of St. Mary's when Matt and I started going there. He married us in 1993, as well, and helped us get to seminary. He was a renowned Biblical scholar and former professor, who had done some groundbreaking work on...was it Ephesians? Anyway, if you read any contemporary books on Paul's letters, they all quote Bruce Rahtjen's work.

I hope he finds the peace he was seeking. Please pray for him, as well as for Joanne and his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. We probably won't go to the funeral, but I'm sure it will be a lovely one.

John Adams and the Pursuit of Greatness

2010-06-10T15:10:00.003-05:00

John Adams and the Pursuit of Greatness

I've been reading and watching a lot of stuff about John Adams, our second president. It was a John Adams Christmas at our house, and I received the old PBS documentary from 1976, The Adams Chronicles, as well as the new HBO miniseries starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. I also got several books, including 1776 by David McCullough, and America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918, by Richard Brookhiser.

I first fell in love with John Adams in high school, when a friend introduced me to the Broadway musical, 1776 (the director's cut DVD was one of my Christmas presents this year). It starred William Daniels as Adams, in the role he originated on Broadway. From the first time I heard that soundtrack, I took one of Adams' principles as a guiding force for my life: Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory.

It helped me to understand, young as I was, that pain is temporary and sacrifice in the service of something higher is worth it. Here's the full quotation, which John wrote to his beloved wife Abigail, on July 3, 1776, the day after the Declaration of Independence was signed:

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all the means; that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even though we may regret it, which I trust in God we shall not.

In my renewed, adult study of John Adams, I have come to love him even more. As a youth, I saw him as a hero and a romantic, the ultimate patriot and husband. As an adult, I see more of his faults. He was a devoted but absent husband and father, adoring his wife from afar, and often feeling forced to choose between his duty to his country (even before it was a country) and his love for his family. He felt he should use his gifts for Justice and Liberty, but what he wanted most was to let other people deal with it while he stayed home and enjoyed the comforts of home, hearth, and family. He knew he fell short of his ideals in the private arena due to his pursuit of his ideals in the public arena.

He was so very human. He was cranky, resentful, petulant, and insecure. But he had a strong sense of duty, an ideal ingrained in him from birth and before, that those who have been privileged with a good family, decent means of support, and a good education had a reponsibility to achieve greatness. According to Brookhiser, "The Adams family wished to be judged, and constantly judged themselves, by the standard of greatness...Great men have large and positive effects on their times and on the future, either through their actions or their thoughts." (p 9)

All of John's hard choices were based on this ideal. He was in a position to have a large and positive effect on his fellow man and on the future of the whole nation; for John it would have been the worst sin to turn down greatness for his own preference or comfort.

I think we've lost this ideal of greatness in our time. In Adams's era, people were encouraged to make their marks by improving the lives of others to the greatest extent their gifts and influence allowed. Ambition was encouraged and engrained in young people, because the more you develop your gifts, and the higher you rise personally, the more good you can do for others—even if you have to sacrifice to achieve that level of success.

I don't think our culture teaches this ideal any longer. If someone declared that they had ambitions to be "great," we would only hear, "greater than you." I see everywhere the opposite ideal, that people are entitled to be considered just as good as anyone else simply because they exist. But that isn't right...not everyone's as good as everyone else. Everyone is equal before the law, but if anyone wants to be as good or great as someone else, they have to work for it. It won't just come because they were born.

In other words, the world doesn't owe you anything. A great person, such as John Adams, understands that he, in fact, owes the world, and spends his life trying not only to repay that debt, to give back all he's gotten from society, but to give society even more than he received. For Adams, birth, social status, inherent gifts and talents, and education, made him a person with a huge debt to pay, and he would only achieve the greatness he desired when he had gone far past simply repaying it.

Those were the values our country was founded on. Every one of our heroic founders felt it was his duty to work for personal greatness, so that the whole society would be better when he left it than it was when he came. We've come so far since those days...and that's not a great thing.

Which would be worse...

2010-05-26T21:15:00.003-05:00

...never being able to laugh, or never being able to cry?

For all that I love to laugh, and laughing is very good for you, I think I would say never being able to cry would be worse.

There's a lot of laughter in our house. My kids are very funny and are always performing for us, and my sweetie and I still make each other laugh and we have a great time.

But the profound moments of our life have always been marked by tears more than laughter. Abby graduated from 8th grade last week, and is now officially a high schooler--I cried through the whole ceremony. I cry at every choir concert, gradeschool program, and centimeter of growth. It's not only sadness; it's also joy, pride, heartbreaking love, and an overwhelming sense of time passing too fast. Every one of those ordinary moments is one more moment slipping through my fingers.

I also think it's important to cry for those who have nobody else that cares what happens to them. For instance, a friend of Abby's ran away from home this weekend because his father beat him. The sheriff's office was sent out after him and took him home again. Back to his abusive father. I know these kids, and I cried for him. That isn't all that has been done, some parents have contacted DFS and the town police and made plans for if it happens again, but if we can't cry for the ones that get hurt again and again, what will happen to us? I think the worst thing would be to lose our collective ability to cry at someone else's pain.

I guess the question doesn't say that just because we don't cry or laugh means we don't have the associated feelings. I hope not, because I hate the thought of never laughing again, too.

Prayer for Pentecost

2010-05-23T23:10:00.004-05:00

Come, thou Holy Spirit, come:
And from thy celestial home send thy light and brilliancy.

Come, thou father of the poor,
come who givest all our store,
come the soul's true radiancy.

Come, of comforters the best, of the soul the sweetest guest,
sweetly and refreshingly.

Come, in labour rest most sweet,
shade and coolness in the heat, comfort in adversity.

Thou who art the Light most blest,
come fulfill their inmost breast, who believe most faithfully.

For without thy Godhead's dower,
man hath nothing in his power, save to work iniquity.

What is filthy make thou pure,
what is wounded work its cure,
water what is parched and dry.

Gently bend the stubborn will,
warm to life the heart that's chill,
guide who goeth erringly.

Fill thy faithful who adore,
and confess thee evermore,
with thy sevenfold mystery.

Here thy grace and virtue send,
grant salvation in the end, and in heaven felicity. Amen.

Latin Hymn, 13th century

Sermon for Pentecost

2010-05-23T23:01:00.003-05:00

This seems like a really short sermon for me, but here it is:

It is possible to argue that the birthday of the Church was not Pentecost, as we so often like to say, but rather, Easter.

I have argued that in the past, and I know some of you have heard it preached here before, that it was Easter that caused new life to come into the world, it was Easter that allowed a crucified Christ to become a risen Christ, it was Easter that took a frightened band of faithless followers and made them Apostles to the world. It was Easter that gave us a glimpse of just what salvation is, and just what the future holds for those who believe. And if those things don’t constitute the Church, the community of believers, the Body of Christ, I don’t know what does.

And maybe next year, I will go back to that argument, because I like it. Y’all know that Easter is a big deal for me. It’s THE big deal. Easter is the single most important event in the history of the universe, so it makes sense to me that it’s the thing that makes us who we are, and helps us be who we claim to be.

But today, I know that some of you will be relieved to hear, that I am going to argue the other side of the case, that it is in fact, Pentecost, which is the birthday of the Church.

I don’t know that you can say that the disciples gathered together in that upper room after Jesus’ ascension to heaven were the Church yet. They were the Church in waiting, what tradition has called the Church expectant. They knew they were going to have work to do, because Jesus had given them the commission to go out and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But they weren’t doing that work yet. They were waiting and praying and excited.

They needed the Holy Spirit, and they couldn’t do what they were called to do without him. They were waiting for their Comforter, their Advocate, their inspiration. They were waiting for the power from heaven which would enable them to tell the world about the resurrection of Jesus, to declare to the world that Jesus is Lord and that he loves them.

They couldn’t be a Church unless they could do those things, and they couldn’t yet do those things.

One theologian wrote in a reflection on Pentecost that, “Our theology would improve if we thought more of the Church being given to the Spirit than of the Spirit being given to the Church.”1

I like that. I have said before that we should think not of inviting Christ to share our life, but of accepting Christ’s invitation to share in his life, and this seems to be the same kind of reversal. If we think of the Church not as a body that has received the Holy Spirit, but as a body that has been given to the Holy Spirit to do with what he will, our thinking changes.

The same theologian goes on to say, “we are in danger of perpetuating the irreverence of picturing God’s Spirit as a grant of superhuman power or guidance, like a fairy sword or magic mirror to equip us for our adventures. The promised power from on high is not of that kind at all. The primary effect of the Pentecostal experience was to fuse the individuals of that company into a fellowship which in the same moment was caught up into the life of the risen Lord.”

I like his insistence that the Holy Spirit is not just one more tool in our tool box for living the Christian life. Rather, we are one more tool in the Holy Spirit’s tool box…his primary means of telling the world the things God wants it to know…that God loves them, that Christ is risen, that death doesn’t get to win any more, that sin has lost its power, and that Jesus is Lord.

Those things are what the Church is for, what the Church does. Those things are why the Church was born on this day and given into the care of the Holy Spirit who would raise it with gentle nurturing and discipline and help it grow fully into the image of the risen Christ.

We’re not there yet. It may be our birthday, but we’re not grown-ups in the life of the Holy Spirit, and we still need his guidance and discipline. The New Testament makes it very clear that in order to be part of the Church, a believer has to be baptized into the Holy Spirit’s life, and the fact that we are part of his life is what makes us a Church.

That’s the difference between the Church and other organization that do good things. It’s the difference between the Church and the Rotary Club, for instance. The Church has the Holy Spirit—or, rather, the Holy Spirit has us, and in the Holy Spirit, we are called and strengthened to do what the Holy Spirit does—proclaim to the world that Christ is risen, and live a life that declares that Jesus is Lord.

Prayer for Summer

2010-05-23T22:49:00.002-05:00

This is from a website called Appleseeds.

Long warm days...
The pace of life slows...
A time for picnics and rest in the shade...

Lord,
help me to rest awhile in the cooling shade of your presence.
Slow down my restless heart and fill me with gentle compassion for all your people.

Amen.

Here We Go Again

2010-05-18T11:58:00.003-05:00

Well, it's the end of the term, and paper-grading time, so you know what that means. Yes, it's our bi-yearly plagiarism report.

Here's the memo I just sent to my World Religion students:

Plagiarism--Pay Close Attention

Taking the work of someone else and changing a few words here and there IS STILL PLAGIARISM. If you "forget" to write down a certain source that you took most of your text from, I will still find it. I have already failed 2 of you for this. I hope it's not more. And if you are now thinking, "Did I do that?" chances are, it's very possible.

If anyone wants to rewrite their papers and get them to me by tomorrow night, I will throw out your old paper and start fresh. There will be a 10% late penalty, but that's better than 0, don't you think? You will have to email them to me, so make arrangements.

I'm very disappointed in a few of you. I thought better of you than this.

For those of you who put the work into your papers, thank you. It's hard-working students like you who keep us teachers going when we have to deal with this other stuff.

58 Signs You May Have Been Abducted by Aliens

2010-05-13T23:05:00.002-05:00

I'm not going to post all 58 here, because they belong to another writer, and you can find them on his site, 58 Possible Signs of Alien Abduction.

However, having this information does put an interesting new spin on some pieces of my life. For example, Sign #2 is unusual marks on your body or scars you can't remember where they came from.

Check.

I also qualify for:

#4. Unexplained medical problems: Sudden illness, sinus problems, fatigue, migraines, or rashes. I have all of those except the rashes!

#22. Psychic abilities. Now this author thinks that means that you get a feeling that something's going to happen,then it does. But in my case, I get a feeling something's going to happen, and it NEVER does! See? I can predict with certainty what won't happen! If I get a feeling about something, you can bet it's NOT that!

#24. Startled. You awaken in the night with a feeling of panic or anxiety for no apparent reason. In my case, since my husband has the fan on so loud you wouldn't hear a tornado, I'm usually convinced that someone's in the house and I just can't hear him.

#42. Headaches. Since I get every possible type of headache, I'm sure one of them is covered in this.

#51. Difficulty trusting. I thought this was just cynicism born from the experience of being screwed over too many times, but now I know the real reason.

#54. Locking doors. You double and triple check locking up at night to prevent someone or something from getting into the house. Check.

I confess that I do find elements of this list amusing, because everything has some other explanation. But the guy who wrote this up has had a really hard time in some of his struggles, and I don't mean to mock him. I don't know whether I believe in aliens or not, or the whole alien abduction thing. I do know that a lot of strange stuff goes on in the world, much of consistent across history and culture, and much of it inexplicable by post-Enlightenment standards. So, who knows...?

Obama Orders Assassination of US Citizen

2010-05-08T13:11:00.002-05:00

This may be old news to some of you, but I'm betting some of you have never heard anything about this. You can find a lot more about it in articles here, here, here, and here. Please notice that those sources aren't the type to find fault with the current president.

The situation involves a Muslim cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki, 38, who was born in New Mexico and currently resides in Yemen. It isn't quite clear what al-Awlaki has actually done, but he's been under surveillance by the intelligence community for a long time. He is said to have ties to both the Ft. Hood shooter and the Christmas "panty bomber.". He is suspected of being an al-Qaida recruiter in both the US and Yemen.

Al-Awlaki says he isn't any such thing, and his parents are trying to convince him to turn himself in--something that's hard to do now that there's an assassination order out for him.

Here's the thing. From everything I've read, this guy probably is a real threat. But he's an American citizen--probably a really bad one, but he's a citizen. An American citizen has rights to due process. If the CIA and other members of the intelligence community have the evidence they claim they have, al-Awlaki should be arrested and tried for treason, and then executed as a traitor.

But right now he's just suspected of being dangerous--however likely that is. And the president has decreed that he can be killed, no questions asked, no evidence required. I don't like this guy; I'm not on his side. But the last thing I want to see is the United States becoming a place where the ruling administration can target someone for death based on their religion or their politics, without giving that person a chance to defend himself.

Because what's next? Look, I'm pretty religious, and my religious beliefs cause me to be extremely critical of the current administration and its policies. Here I am doing so in a published format, in fact. Am I next? Or will it be Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or Mark Levin? What about Sarah Palin...you might not like her, but her religious convictions and politics cause her to be vocally and publicly opposed to the current administration. Rather like al-Awlaki. Should she die for it? Should anyone?

Not in the US, we shouldn't. In other countries, those kinds of executions are standard--but we're not supposed to be like that. We're supposed to be living a better way. In our country, a citizen has a right to his own faith and worship, he has a right to oppose the government, he has a right to hang out with people who may be complete lunatics or criminals. If he commits a crime, he is innocent until proven guilty, when evidence is brought against him, and he has the right to defend himself.

And when the evidence shows that he is guilty, then, and ONLY THEN, do we execute his treasonous ass.

Makes Me Proud

2010-05-08T13:01:00.002-05:00

Today my entire family is spending the whole Saturday (except for the time we took to go to David's soccer game) working at the food pantry.

Today is the Post Office's annual food collection--you leave food on your porch and the mail carriers take it and deliver it to the food pantry. So the church needs lots of volunteers to receive, weigh, and organize the food. So that's what my crew is doing today.

I'm proud of my husband and kids. They have good hearts. And I'm proud of the mailmen, too! Good job, guys!

Teaching Christianity and Islam

2010-05-08T10:15:00.004-05:00

In my World Religions class, the hardest unit for me to teach is the Christianity unit, followed closely by the Islam unit.

The Christianity unit is hard because people either a) are some kind of Christian themselves and think they have nothing to learn (no matter how many times I warn them against it, this is always the unit with the highest number of students who skip); or b) they disdain Christianity and will not believe any information that might even hint at putting Christianity in a positive light.

For example, this week we were discussing Islam, which of course always has to include a discussion of terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, and one student says, "But all that terrorism is no worse than all the stuff Christians did in the past. I mean, what about the Inquisition?"

Seriously? It wasn't the point in the discussion where I could stop and say, "What do you actually know about the Inquisition? Have you researched it for yourself, or are you just believing the vague condemnations you've gotten from television?"

So I just said, "Um, no." The Crusades get used the same way, as an example of aggressive acts of Christian terrorism against an otherwise tolerant and peace-loving people who never hurt anyone. Whatever. It's very frustrating to try to teach to people who already think they know everything.

The problem with teaching Islam is both religious and cultural. There are about a billion Muslims in the world, maybe 1.1 billion, and about 90% of those would not participate in, support, or approve of, any sort of violence. My son's little girlfriend is Muslim, her parents are a doctor and a dentist, and I can assure you, they're not a little domestic sleeper-cell.

The difficulty is in trying to teach the "most don't but some do" aspects of Islam. There is a strand of the Muslim tradition that supports the use of violence and/or military action to spread the teachings of the Prophet and bring the world under submission to Allah. Some Muslims, about 10%, choose to embrace that piece of their tradition. They aren't ashamed or apologetic about this--why should they be? They live in a culture where strength is respected, tolerance and dialogue are weaknesses, and if God's on your side, he'll enable you to force others to convert.

But Western minds can't grasp the cultural shift from "live and let live" multiculturalism to "God wants the world to submit, and we're going to make sure they do." But again, though 10% of a billion is a pretty significant number, it's still only 10%. 9/10 of Muslims are faithful people just trying to live in the world like the rest of us. We have to know what the other 10% are doing and what they believe--our safety and freedoms depends on it, and the threat is real, but we can't leap from there into saying that all Muslims should be classified with that 10%.

But in saying that, I'm afraid--or I was this week--that I allowed students to leave class with their anti-Muslim prejudices confirmed. That wasn't what I intended to do. Of course, they also do that in the Christianity unit, and I guess all I can do is to offer the real facts. I can't forcibly pry someone's mind open with a crowbar (though the thought has some appeal!). I hope that some of the real picture of both Christianity and Islam sinks into their brains over time.

Which would be better?

2010-05-05T22:43:00.002-05:00

Being a preacher, or being a popular Las Vegas Entertainer?

Okay, well, I've done the preacher thing. And it's not half bad. I believe the whole Christian deal, and I get really excited about it, so I think that came through in my preaching. I like to talk about it, and I think my people liked to listen.

However, in the 13 years I've been ordained, there's only been a period of about 2 years when I made a living wage at it. I don't buy the whole "Do it for the love of the Lord" garbage people try to give you when they're declining to pay you enough to pay your bills, or the mountains of student loan debt you got into just so you could get this job that doesn't pay enough to pay the loans back.

Do popular Las Vegas Entertainers make more money than preachers? I guess it depends on the preacher and the entertainer.

Celine Dion and, say, me? Yeah...

Lunch shift show-girl and Joel Osteen? Not so much.

Now, does it matter which one makes more money? Yes and no. There's no shame in choosing a career that will allow you to support your family and give back to the community, and maybe even have a few nice things every now and then. Sometimes, preachers do attain that, and there's nothing wrong with it.

But being a preacher isn't in itself morally superior to being a singer, dancer, or magician. The question in the book is trying to lead the readers to ask, "Is it better to be popular or to do God's will for your life?" Well, what if God's will for your life is for you to be a popular Las Vegas entertainer?

Nobody ever considers that possibility...

A Morning Prayer

2010-05-02T18:50:00.003-05:00

Let me today do something that will take
A little sadness from the world's vast store
And may I be so favored as to make
Of joy's too-scanty sum a little more.

Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed
Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend.
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,
Or sin by silence when I should defend.

However meager by my worldly wealth,
Let me give something that shall aid my kind--
A word of courage, or a thought of health,
Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.

Let me tonight look back across the span
'Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience--
Because of some good act to beast or man--
"The world is better that I lived today."

--Paul P. Bova

May Observances

2010-05-02T18:31:00.002-05:00

Monthly Observances

ALS Awareness Month

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

Better Hearing & Speech Month

Borderline Personality Disorder Month

Brain Tumor Awareness Month

Clean Air Month

Creative Beginnings Month

Family Wellness Month

Fibromyalgia Education and Awareness Month

Go Fetch! Food Drive for Homeless Animals Month

Haitian Heritage Month

Heal the Children Month

Healthy Vision Month

Huntington's Disease Awareness Month

International Audit Month

Latino Books Month

Motorcycle Safety Month

National Allergy/Asthma Awareness Month

National Arthritis Month

National Barbeque Month

National Foster Care Month

National Good Car Keeping Month

National Hamburger Month

National Hepatitis Awareness Month

(World) Lyme Disease Awareness Month

National Meditation Month

National Mental Health Month

National Military Appreciation Month

National Moving Month

National Osteoporosis Prevention Month

National Photo Month

National Physical Fitness & Sports Month

National Salad Month

National Stroke Awareness Month

National Vinegar Month

Older Americans Month

Personal History Month

Strike Out Strokes Month

Tay-Sachs and Canavan Diseases Month

Ultra-violet Awareness Month

Women's Health Care Month

Young Achievers of Tomorrow Month

National Family Month (5/10 to 6/21)

Weekly Observances

Pen Friends International Week: 1-7

Be Kind To Animals Week: 3-9

Drinking Water Week: 3-10

Flexible Work Arrangement Week: 3-9

Goodwill Industries Week: 3-9

National Anxiety & Depression Awareness Week: 3-9

National Family Week: 3-9

National Hug Holiday Week: 3-9

National Pet Week: 3-9

North American Occupational Safety & Health Week: 3-9

Teacher Appreciation Week: 3-9

Update Your References Week: 3-9

Dating and Life Coach Recognition Week: 4-10

National Wildflower Week: 4-9

National Nurses Day and Week: 6-12

National Tourism Week: 9-17

National Nursing Home Week: 10-16

National Police Week: 10-16

National Return To Work Week: 10-16

National Transportation Week: 10-16

National Women's Health Week: 10-16

Reading is Fun Week: 10-16

National Etiquette Week: 11-15

Salvation Army Week: 11-17

Universal Family Week: 11-17

Children's Book Week: 11-17

National Stuttering Awareness Week: 11-17

National Dog Bite Prevention Week: 17-25

National New Friends, Old Friends Week: 17-23

National Safe Boating Week: 17-23

World Trade Week: 17-23

EMS (Emergency Medical Services) Week: 18-24

National Effectiveness Week: 18-25

National Medical Transcription Week: 18-24

National Backyard Games Week: 18-25

Work At Home Moms Week: 18-24

Daily Observances

Executive Coaching Day: 1

Keep Kids Alive! Drive 25 Day: 1

Law Day: 1

Mother Goose Day: 1

New Homeowner's Day: 1

School Principals' Day: 1

Silver Star Day: 1

Stepmother's Day: 1

Space Day 1:

Tuba Day: 1

Astronomy Day: 2

Join Hands Day: 2

Kentucky Derby : 2

Join Hands Day: 2

National Scrapbooking Day: 2

Paranormal Day: 3

World Press Freedom Day: 3

Melanoma Monday: 4

Asthma Day: 5

Childhood Stroke Awareness Day: 5

Childhood Depression Awareness Day: 5

National Teacher Day: 5

National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy: 6

National School Nurse Day: 6

No Diet Day: 6

No Homework Day: 6

Nurses Day: 6

Occupational Safety & Health Professional' s Day: 6

Children's Mental Health Awareness Day: 7

National Day of Prayer: 7

World Red Cross Day: 8

Child Care Provider Day: 8

Military Spouse Appreciation Day: 8

Birthmother' s Day (Saturday before Mother's Day): 9

Letter Carrier's Food Drive Day: 9

National Babysitter's Day: 9

National Train Day: 9

Stay Up All Night Day: 9

World Fair Trade Day: 9

Lupus Day: 10

Mother's Day: 10

Limerick Day: 12

Fibromyalgia Awareness Day: 11

Library Legislative Day: 12

National Night Shift Workers Day: 13

Receptionists Day: 13

National Chocolate Chip Day: 15

International Virtual Assistants Day: 15

National Bike to Work Day: 15

National Pizza Party Day: 15

Armed Forces Day: 16 (3rd Saturday in May)

NASCAR Day: 17

Victoria Day: 18 ( 3rd Monday in Canada )

National Employee Health & Fitness Day: 20

National Wig Out Day: 22

Brother's Day: 24

Neighbor Day: 24

National Missing Children's Day: 25

Memorial Day: 25 (Observed)

Prayer for Peace Memorial Day: 25

National Senior Health & Fitness Day: 27

Hug Your Cat Day: 30

Memorial Day: 30(Actual)

Hey, it's Pen Friends' Week. Do people still have pen friends? And why aren't we calling them pan pals any more? Is that offensive now? I can never keep track...

Mistakes Vs Crimes

2010-04-16T19:09:00.002-05:00

Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes. --Confucius

When I read that quotation by the great Chinese sage, Confucius, I had to think about it a long time. I wasn't sure what he meant by it. How could shame cause a mistake to become a crime?

I finally realized that shame can cause you to choose your action rather than admit your mistake, and then you have to conceal it.

Here was an example I thought of.

Say you're at the grocery store, and you check out, pay, and leave. You're loading your stuff into the car, when you realize that a can of pears is in the corner of the cart, not bagged up with the rest of your things. You don't remember putting it on the conveyor belt. You check your receipt, and sure enough, you didn't pay for it. How could you have missed it? It was right there in the cart!

You feel kind of stupid for missing the can, but you'd feel even more stupid going back in. I mean, how much can a can of pears cost? Eighty-nine cents? So what do you do?

At this point, you've made a mistake, right? But if you're too embarrassed to go back in and make a huge deal over an 89 cent can of pears by admitting your mistake and insisting that you pay for them, your mistake becomes something else. You'll have chosen to leave with that can of pears that you didn't pay for. Only THEN will you have stolen them. That's when you've done what Confucius warns against--you've let your shame turn your mistake into a crime.

I can think of more examples, but this was the first one I thought of and I kind of liked it. Can anyone think of any situations in which someone might let their shame turn a mistake into a crime?

Tragedy for Poland

2010-04-10T09:40:00.002-05:00

You've probably heard by now of the tragic pane crash of a flight that left from Warsaw, Poland and was trying to land in Russia. The flight's passengers were government officials, almost 90 of them, including the president and his wife, army chief of staff, national bank president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers.

They were on their way to a memorial service, to remember the more than 22,000 Polish officers who were massacred by Soviet Troops in the forest of Katyn 70 years ago. Memories are long in that part of the world, and 3 generations later, the Poles have not forgotten their soldiers. The government has been devastated, and the Russians have promised a full investigation, but despite the numbers of important people on board, it seems so far to be simply a terrible accident. The pilot was trying to land the plane in the fog and didn't succeed. I hope that's all that happened.

Now, here's something that struck me forcibly in reading that article. If this happened in the US, what would be the public reaction to the crash of a plane carrying politicians, bankers, and military leaders? I can guarantee it would NOT be the reaction that one Polish citizen had:

"I worry because so many clever and decent people were killed," said high school student Pawel Kwas, 17. "I am afraid we may have problems in the future to find equally talented politicians."

When was the last time that we used the words clever, decent, or talented when speaking of politicians? I'm not saying that's OUR fault--when was the last time we saw a politician acting as though they were clever, decent, or talented? For all Poland's problems--problems increased by this terrible event--they must be doing something right.

The Easter Vigil

2010-04-04T21:23:00.002-05:00

For those of you from different traditions, the Easter Vigil is the ancient service of the Resurrection that takes place between sunset Saturday and sunrise Sunday. It's awesome, in every sense of that word.

It is sunset. The evening is cool and the breeze makes it hard to light the big candle. We are quiet; even though we’re outdoors, any necessary conversation is whispered. It’s been a hard week, and we’re tired. We’ve been through betrayal and suffering and death and absence; we’ve been here every night. We kept watch until it was all over.

The deacon lifts the candle out of the backyard grill that someone brought for the new fire. He holds it out and we crowd around, wanting our share, lighting our smaller candles, passing the flame around until everyone carries one, even children. Especially children. The deacon enters the shadowy church, holds the candle high, and sings.

The Light of Christ.

We sing back.

Thanks be to God.

He sings it again, then again, as he makes his way to the altar. We follow him, shuffling into our pews, quietly, quietly. The church looks foreign. It’s dark and so very clean. There are no flowers, no candles on the altar. The choir, deacon, and priest wear only black cassocks. No hangings, no incense, no sacrament in the ambry. The church is as bare as a rock-hewn tomb.

The deacon places the candle in its stand, and by its light he sings again.

Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels, and let your trumpets shout salvation, for the victory of our mighty King.

The first little tingle of anticipation sparks in our bellies.

This is the night when you brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.

It’s a very ancient hymn, so it’s very long. We shift from foot to foot and take our children’s candles away before they hurt someone. But the words still move us there in the darkness.

This is the night when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.

The excitement tingles a little less subtly now, but we know we have a long way to go. We finally sit, and prepare ourselves to hear the Story. Reading, psalm, collect. Reading, psalm, collect. Reading, psalm, collect. They’re long readings, and the plainchant of the psalms is sometimes difficult. It’s hard to see our service booklets in the dim light. The children grow restless, so we take them out, then bring them back in, and still the Story goes on. It is our story, the story of how God gave us this night.

We have a baptism tonight. An adult, a middle-aged woman, is taking her place in the Story. This is not a Sunday morning baptism. This is no sprinkle on a baby’s forehead, with silver shells and dainty purificators. The font is as big as a trough, in fact it is a trough draped with white cloth, and she kneels in the water, soaking her clothes. Quietly the priest scoops up water into his big hands and pours it over her head. Then he pours oil over her, so that its fragrance fills the church. It runs down her cheeks and her neck.

The deacon and another helper assist her out of the font and pat her with big, soft towels. She’s by no means dry, but she’s no longer dripping. She turns to the priest, and we can see her tears in the candlelight. The priest robes her in white, then leads her to her place in the front row.

We are silent, tense, expectant. We can hardly breathe.

The priest and deacon kneel on the steps in front of the bare altar, and the priest begins the Litany of Saints, another ancient and long prayer. He starts slowly, chanting into the darkness.

Holy Mary…pray for us.

Members of the altar guild rise from their pews and enter the sacristy. We barely see what they are doing, we are chanting.

Saint John…pray for us.

Silently, flowers bloom in the darkness, golden candlesticks glow with the light of the Paschal flame. The altar is adorned with white. We don’t really see this, it’s dark, and we are chanting.

Saint Mary Magdalene…pray for us.

The rhythm picks up, faster and faster, until there’s barely time to say pray for us before the next saint is invoked. Anticipation is building. There is a rumble beneath our feet, it’s so low we almost can’t hear it. The earth seems to be shaking. Slowly it builds, coming out of the organ and up through the floor, up through our bodies and out of our mouths as we nearly shout, pray for us pray for us pray for us.

The earthquake crescendos and the priest leaps to his feet on the last breathless note. As he rises, so does the light, and we gasp at its presence.

“Alleluia! Christ is risen!”

The priest shouts it….we’ve been building to this moment all week, all year, all eternity.

“The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!”

He shouts it again, his fists raised in triumph.

“Alleluia! Christ is risen!”

“The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!”

The glory of it all rolls out of him and over us. He proclaims it again, his voice breaking with joy, challenging us to match him.

“Alleluia! Christ is risen!”
“The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!”

He shouts again and again, and we answer again and again. His hands are raised, his face is flushed. Many of us are crying. Our voices are going hoarse.

“Alleluia! Christ is risen!”
“The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!”

Finally, the organ picks up the cry, swelling from under the priest’s voice, until we are all singing out at the top of our lungs, “He is risen, he is risen, tell it out with joyful voice!”

The priest and deacon leave, and return a moment later in vestments of gold-on-white. The deacon lights the incense and we are soon breathing in what we’re singing about. The newly baptized woman is being hugged by everyone in the church as we all continue to sing. Every sense is alive.

“Death is conquered, we are free! Christ has won the victory!”

The priest stands in front of the altar, framed by candles, surrounded by an overflow of flowers. Lilies and azaleas, gold and silk.

Some of us are still crying, hugging, humming. We can hardly sit still, we can hardly be quiet. It is Easter, and Christ is risen.

The Passion of the Christ, 2004

2010-04-02T15:40:00.002-05:00

This is my review of The Passion of the Christ. It's also posted, with video, on Kat's Film and Book Reviews. It's been rainy all day, but it really started thundering hard at 3:30. Very appropriate for Good Friday.

The Passion of the Christ
2004
Rated R
Directed by Mel Gibson

I was in a unique position for the original release of The Passion of the Christ. I was teaching in a liberal Christian college, which was nestled in a very conservative Christian culture. From my liberal colleagues—most of whom refused to see the film—I heard strongly worded condemnations of the supposed anti-Semitism of the film, and critical, even horrified, assessments of the “unnecessary” violence of the film. From my more conservative church members, I heard the elevation of the film to the level of Scripture--also often before they had seen it.

There’s some justification for considering the film to be faithful to the spirit of Scripture, even if it’s not exactly revelation. With an emphasis on John’s gospel, borrowing from other gospels and certain mystical works, it’s hardly a mistake to consider the film a reliable resource for historical, even theological, information. In that context, the charge of anti-Semitism needs to be addressed.

This is a more complex line of thought than it might seem. The canonical evangelists, all but one of whom were Jews themselves, tended to be very hard on their own people. Their frustration with the Jews was born from the exasperated love for beloved family members who refuse to act in their own best interest. “He came to his own, and his own knew him not.”

But the fact is, the Jews had no power to execute anyone. They were an oppressed and occupied nation. Only the legal authorities of the Roman state, represented by Pontius Pilate and his military support, had any power over rebels, traitors, or insurgents. Both history and Scripture make it clear: the Romans, not the Jews, are responsible for Jesus’ death and punishment. The film does not equivocate in this matter. Pilate was conflicted and compromised, Roman troops ranged individually from compassionate to sadistic, and in that context, Jesus suffered standard Roman punishments.

Though director Mel Gibson doesn’t leave the burden of blame on the shoulders of the Jews, he certainly does fail in exploring the untenable position the Jews were in in relation to Jesus of Nazareth. Gibson plays the Jewish contingent at the surface level, giving his actors very little complexity to attach themselves to. It’s faithful to the letter of Scripture, but misses an opportunity to flesh out the conflict, especially on the Jewish side.

The objection to the violence of the films is another matter, and it’s hard for me to be patient with that line of thinking. I’m reminded of the anecdote about the British lady who objected to the film, because “it makes our Lord’s crucifixion seem so unpleasant.” Whatever one thinks of Jesus, he was both flogged and crucified.

This is no sanitized-needle lethal injection in which the criminal just falls asleep. It’s not even a bloody but quick beheading. It’s one of the most tortuous and violent means of death ever perpetrated by men upon other men. If you’re going to make, or watch, a film focusing on the suffering (and “passion” means suffering) of a historical figure, you’re going to have to deal with that suffering. If you can’t stand it, then don’t watch it, but don’t criticize the filmmakers for being honest to the historical events. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a point of honor; I can’t keep him from suffering, but since he did it for me, the least I can do is watch without turning away.

It’s that devotional impulse—the “he did it for me”—that appeals to the devoted Christian audience. These are folks for whom the same Jesus portrayed by Jim Caveizel is a living, active presence in their lives. To be exposed to the real suffering of the One they love most, to have it taken out of stained glass and Italian sculpture, is an incredibly powerful experience. In that power is the reason for the film’s success. For the faithful viewer, it’s all about the conviction that while Jesus was suffering, he was thinking of me.

Nevertheless, Gibson understands that even those of us who were “washed in the blood,” can’t maintain an emotional investment in non-stop, unbroken violence. Gibson tempers the harshness of Jesus’ suffering, especially as he is more and more disfigured, with flashbacks of Jesus teaching and healing. In these flashbacks, we see Jesus as active, intentional, and above all, strong. This is a masculine, assertive Jesus, with both compassion and joy—and a bit of a temper.

Thank God for that. Heaven knows that between numerous “Jesus films” and the efforts of countless preachers, we’ve had enough portrayals of Jesus that reduce him to a weak, asexual, effeminate being, the “declawed Lion of Judah” we so often get in church—“fit only as a pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.” In addition, Caviezel is beautiful—physically beautiful—in this role. The more bloodied and objectified Jesus gets, the more desperate we are to see the agent Jesus—acting on others, not being acted upon, and full of glowing health and vitality. By the time Jesus dies in ugly horror, we need the Resurrection. It’s a privilege and a profound relief to see our Jesus restored to his intensity and masculine beauty.

Gibson’s film is not above criticism, and it would be a mistake to transfer our love for Jesus to Mel Gibson. Jesus’ suffering seems abstract at points, leaving the viewer to wonder just how much Gibson counted on his viewers to fill in motivation and conflict. The figure of Judas is creepy and pathetic, but we are given little insight into why he betrayed Jesus. The androgynous Satan figure actually works surprisingly well as a symbol of the insidiousness of temptation, though I spent too much time trying to discern whether that was actually the actor’s own voice the figure used. But in the end, the film was made with love for its subject matter, and believers, at least, benefit in the making-real of something that has too often been kept at a distance.

KU is Outta There!

2010-03-20T19:36:00.003-05:00

I don't follow sports that much, but I do try to cheer on my teams when I can. So, the Royals, the Chiefs, and KU, pretty much. And here was KU, in March Madness, in a tournament where they were highly favored and expected to go all the way--I was so excited! These are my guys (when I'm paying attention).

But they crashed! Against Northern Iowa! I mean, the Panthers have a good record, obviously, or they wouldn't be in the tourney, but STILL! And it was SO CLOSE! So, now Northern Iowa will go on to the Sweet Sixteen, and KU won't.

Here's the article from Rivals.com.

Panthers knock off No. 1 Kansas 69-67

By JOHN MARSHALL, AP Basketball Writer 28 minutes ago
Preview | Box Score | Recap

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)—Ali Farokhmanesh hit another big 3-pointer with 34 seconds left and Northern Iowa pulled off the biggest upset in the NCAA tournament, beating top overall seed Kansas 69-67 in the second round on Saturday.

Northern Iowa (30-4) won the tempo tug-of-war, grounding the high-flying Jayhawks with in-their-jersey defense, then withstood a furious rally to become the first team to beat a No. 1 seed in the second round since UAB and Alabama did it to Kentucky and Stanford in 2004.

The ninth-seeded Panthers led early and made just enough plays late to pull off the biggest win in their history.

Kansas (33-3) trailed nearly the entire game, finally pulling close in the closing minutes behind its fullcourt pressure. The Jayhawks never made it all the way back, though, bowing out early in what was supposed to be another title run.

This Day and Always

2010-03-15T09:19:00.002-05:00

O God of the ages, amidst the ever-changing scenes of life you are the same yesterday, today, and forever. Look down upon up and bless us, and let your face shine upon us. Direct and protect us this day and always. Amen.

AJ and JC

2010-03-09T08:36:00.002-06:00

About 2 Christmases ago, "David" got Abby the Jesus Christ Superstar concept album (I put David in quotes because he didn't exactly go out and buy it, you know?). Being the dramatic young Christian girl that AJ is, we knew she'd really like it. When I was a teenager, I used to play the movie soundtrack at full volume on my back deck while singing and acting out all the parts--and we figured that AJ, not being THAT different from me, would enjoy doing the same thing.

However, in a 2-year fit of contrariness, she refused to listen to the CDs (and yes, she can maintain a fit for 2 years without breaking a sweat). But a few weeks ago, I was listening to it in the car on my way to my classes in Cassville (where AJ likes to come and sit in), and she really started getting into it. Disturbingly, her favorite song is the one that the high priests sing, and I have to admit, it IS catchy. By the time we got to campus, she was belting out, "Must die! Must die! This Jesus must die!"

It was a special moment.

Anyway, she uploaded the whole thing onto her i-pod, and she asked me if we could play the soundtrack in the car again on the way to class Thursday. I admit that I have said once or twice, "I KNEW you'd like it if you gave it a chance!" I am trying very hard not to let that become "I told you so..." but it's not easy.

By the way, did anyone see the 2001 remake of JCSS? I've seen bits of it, and it seems to be as awful as everyone says, but I was interested to see that Rik Mayall played the role of King Herod. Does anyone else remember him from The Young Ones? God, I thought that show was funny when I was in high school.

March Observances

2010-03-08T21:16:00.002-06:00

The month of March is:

* Cataract Awareness Month
* Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Month
* Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month
* Craft Month
* Deaf History Month
* Feminine Empowerment Month
* Foot Health Month
* Frozen Food Month
* Furniture Refinishing Month
* Gardening, Nature and Ecology Books Month
* Hemophilia Month
* Humorists Are Artists Month
* International Hamburger & Pickle Month
* Irish-American Heritage Month
* Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month
* Music in Our Schools Month
* Middle School Month
* Mirth Month
* Noodle Month
* Nutrition Month
* Peanut Month
* Poison Prevention Awareness Month
* Professional Social Work Month
* Red Cross Month
* Rosacea Awareness Month
* Social Worker's Month
* Talk with Your Teen about Sex Month
* Women's History Month
* Youth Art Month

Weekly
First Week in March

* American Summer Camp Week
* Federal Employees Recognition Week
* Pet Sitters Week

Second Week in March:

* Girl Scout Week
* Procrastination Week (Second Week of March)

Third Week in March:

* Campfire Boys and Girls Birthday Week - Observed the week containing March 17th
* Chocolate Week
* Inhalants & Poisons Awareness Week
* Poison Prevention Week

Fourth Week in March:

*Egg Salad Week

Daily

1 National Pig Day
1 Peanut Butter Lovers Day
2 Read Across America Day
3 National Anthem Day
6 Dentist's Day
6 Frozen Food Day
8 International Women's Day
9 Cabin Fever Day
11 Organize Your Home Office Day
14 Potato Chip Day
14 Save a Spider Day
16 Hiccup Day
19 Chocolate Caramel Day
20 Barbie Doll Day
20 Earth Day
22 Goof Off Day
22 National Sing Out Day
24 Chocolate Covered Raisin Day
25 Waffle Day
27 Fly a Kite Day
28 Something on a Stick Day
28 Weed Appreciation Day
30 Doctor's Day

St. David

2010-03-02T10:53:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was St. David's Day, so David got to pick the dinner (hot dogs, mac & cheese, and salad with ranch dressing) and he got a little present (a crucifix nightlight). March is a great month for saints' days--in addition to St. David, there's St. Patrick, St. Joseph, and the Annunciation. All good days to go back to eating meat! It's very exciting. The picture above is of St. David's Cathedral, where he is buried.

Here's some info about St. David from Wikipedia.

He became renowned as a teacher and preacher, founding monastic settlements and churches in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany in a period when neighbouring tribal regions (that were to be overrun by Anglo-Saxon or Frankish tribes over the following three hundred years) were still mostly pagan. He rose to a bishopric, and presided over two synods, as well as going on pilgrimages to Jerusalem (where he was anointed as an archbishop by the Patriarch) and Rome. St David's Cathedral stands on the site of the monastery he founded in the 'Glyn Rhosyn' valley, in Pembrokeshire.

It is claimed that David lived for over 100 years, and he died on a Tuesday 1 March (now St David's Day). It is generally accepted that this was around 590, making the actual year 589. The monastery is said to have been 'filled with angels as Christ received his soul'. His last words to his followers were in a sermon on the previous Sunday. Rhygyfarch transcribes these as 'Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us.' 'Do the little things in life' ('Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd') is today a very well-known phrase in Welsh, and has proved an inspiration to many.

There you have it, my friends. Do the little things in life.

Ash Wednesday

2010-02-17T10:12:00.002-06:00

I've been so bad about blogging! We've had stuff going on, too--like 2 birthdays and interesting weather and all that. But the bright side of my neglect is that it's because I've been so busy with writing work. I have re-connected to a good client who just has all sorts of potential for future work and references to other clients, we have already made 3 times as much income in February as we did in January. My sweetie is helping me, and we're a great team. I have a professional designer working on my website for free (he's a church goer and doesn't have any money to tithe, so this is how he gives. I have no problem with taking that kind of charity!).

I am loving this work-at-home stuff. Matt's home with me a lot, and that's nice--we actually kind of like each other.

It's already Ash Wednesday. We started meatless Lent today--so I had to pack lunches for the kids. David was so excited that he got to take a lunch box, I thought his little head would pop off. I don't think people are supposed to be that happy about Lent. Besides meatless, another change our family is making (to really kick up the suffering) is that Matt is getting a break from cooking. Yes, I am going to cook all throughout Lent. It's going to be quite a penitential time for everyone. If the kids weren't grateful for their father before, they will be by the time Easter rolls around.

Here's a quotation that our bishop sent out. It's written by Henri Nouwen, whom some of you may be familiar with. I like it because it stresses that we don't give up things for Lent because they are bad; rather, we give them up to make ourselves into people who may enjoy many things, but need nothing but the love of God.

The world with its challenges is not a bad place for you.... There is stimulation, excitement, movement and a lot to see, hear, taste and enjoy. The world is only evil when you become its slave. The world has a lot to offer-just as Egypt did for the children of Jacob-as long as you don't feel bound to obey it. The great struggle facing you is not to leave the world, to reject your ambitions and aspirations or to despise money, prestige or success, but to claim your spiritual truth and to live in the world as someone who doesn't belong to it. It is exciting to win a competition, it is interesting to meet influential people, it is inspiring to listen to a concert at Lincoln Center, to see a movie or to visit a new exhibition at the Metropolitan. And what's wrong with good friends, good food and good clothes?

I believe deeply that all the good things our world has to offer are yours to enjoy. But you can enjoy them truly only when you can acknowledge them as affirmations of the truth that you are the Beloved of God. That truth will set you free to receive the beauty of nature and culture in gratitude, as a sign of your Belovedness. That truth will allow you to receive from your society and to celebrate life. But that truth will also allow you to let go of what distracts you, confuses you and puts in jeopardy the life of the Spirit within you....

What's everyone else doing for Lent?

Term is Starting Up

2010-01-18T13:17:00.002-06:00

Well, Matt and I both go back to teaching this week. I have to confess I can't really get that excited about it. I always like it when I'm there, though, so that's a good thing.

I have to put together my syllabi this week--sooner, rather than later, since my first classes are Thursday. And we'll have the talk about plagiarism, which they will either totally forget by the end of the semester or think doesn't apply to them somehow. I feel sort of bad, every new class has to pay for the sins of the class before them...and in some cases, I'm still ticked off about those other classes.

I've got Speech and World Religions at Crowder this semester, but only once a week, not twice a week. Speech once a week means we have to get a ton done on that one night, and the class seems to move really fast. World Religions will be in a format I've never used before--flex time, which means one hour of classroom time instead of 3, and the rest of it online. I think that might be fun, though, because if they read the lectures on their own (I know that's asking a lot), then I can use the class time for video clips, music, discussion, etc. Those are all things I've wanted to do more of in religion, anyway.

Then at Drury, I have my Life and Teachings of Jesus class. I've done this twice now, and the first time, it was a great experience. I had 12 students, they asked lots of questions and we had good discussions. Last time I had 4 students who were not as much fun, energy was low, and it was hard to get any participation. I guess we'll see how it goes this time. It really is one of my favorites to teach, though.

So, Matt goes in tomorrow and I go in Thursday. Wish us luck.

Freaky Human Faced Lamb Born in Turkey

2010-01-14T16:28:00.003-06:00

Have you seen this news story? My sweetie was trying to describe it to me before I saw it, and it was hard to imagine...therefore I am including the pic. This little guy was born dead, and he had no hair all over his body.

Some people are saying that this is what you get when a man has sex with a sheep. I'm no doctor or biologist (I mostly spent high school Biology making passes at Matt), but isn't that sort of impossible? It's clearly some kind of freakish mutation, but what are the odds that a mutation has a face like that?

Of course, you could say it's just a mutation, just a deformation like others that happen in nature, and it's only the human mind that sees shapes and calls them faces. But still...it looks a lot like a face. I wish there were more pics, but this is the only one I can find. It doesn't say what happened to the lamb.

Good People...Bad Things

2010-01-11T15:58:00.001-06:00

And the higher anyone ascends in virtue, the harder this world will bear down on him;
for the more the love of the heart turns from the present life,
the more the opposition of this same world mounts up.

Hence it is that we see so many strive after, and do, that which is good;
yet they sweat under the burdens of their afflictions.
For though they have turned away from earthly things,
they are yet harassed with increasing tribulations.

-St. Gregory

Tough Topics Question

2010-01-08T13:10:00.003-06:00

I think I mentioned a while back that we have these books full of thought-provoking questions. So, here's one of them:

Which would be worse? Getting caught cheating on a test or being forced to tell on a friend who cheated?

It would be worse to get caught cheating on a test.

First of all, how could someone force me to tell on someone? I can't see a teacher torturing me or something extreme like that. If I intend to keep a secret, I'll keep it.

Second, if I'm going to cheat, I hope I'd do it well. This is half my problem with the plagiarizers who come through my class. They don't even try not to get caught. They do it badly. At least take some pride in your criminal activities, people.

But most importantly, if I got caught cheating, it means I cheated. It means that I somehow became a person who would cheat. I have lost all sense of honor and honesty. I don't want that ever to be me. I don't have much that I can claim, but I have my family, a few dear friends, my faith and my honor. Anything else can be taken away, but not those. God help me if I ever choose to give any of those things away of my own accord.

A Prayer for a New Year

2010-01-04T18:38:00.002-06:00

This prayer was written by Paul P. Bova, back in the olden days (1976):

Almighty and Eternal God, we give Thee thanks for the New Year that has just begun. We pray that we may live each day of this year with great faith, great hope, and great courage...expecting great things and attempting great things.

Help us always to live lives of hope and expectancy. Lead us into new ventures of service, as we are challenged day by day to produce our best.

God bless us, everyone. Amen.

New Year's Resolutions

2010-01-04T10:10:00.002-06:00

I didn't really wake up cynical this morning, but as I consider writing about my New Year's Resolutions, I kind of wonder why I bother. For the most part, they're the same as last year: lose weight (because I have serious concerns about becoming diabetic, a real possibility for me)(also, I want my sweetie to think I'm pretty, even though I'm turning 40 this year), and make more money (gotta happen, I have kids starting college in 4 years).

I also want to have a more disciplined prayer life, make some repairs around the house, and finish at least one of the 4 novels I've started.

I am grateful for new beginnings, especially big ones like whole new years. I'm just discouraged that I've never actually kept a New Year's resolution.

One major thing has changed, though. I am no longer pastoring my little church (I'm still a minister, I'm just not working in a church). My sweetie and I have started a freelance writing and editing business. So, a major New Year's resolution is to make that work. We've thought it through, and I think it will work--we wouldn't have taken that step if we didn't. It's a pretty big deal to make such a huge income change, and it's a little scary, but something had to change, and this has the potential of actually going somewhere (unlike part-time teaching or part-time ministering).

So, I guess that 2010 is going to be a little different. That's a good thing. Maybe one of the differences will be that I actually reach some of the goals I've set for myself.

January Observances

2010-01-01T20:21:00.004-06:00

Happy New Year! There are a lot of interesting observances in January; here are some of them.

Monthly

Book Blitz Month
Bread Machine Baking Month
Celebration of Life Month
Coffee Gourmet International Month
Family Fit Lifestyle Month
Financial Wellness Month
Image Improvement Month

International Business Success Resolutions Month
International Creativity Month
International Life Balance Month
International Quality of Life Month
International Wealth Mentality Month

National Be On-Purpose Month
National Cancer Prevention Month
National Clean Up Your Computer Month
National Get To Know An Independent Real Estate Broker Month
National Glaucoma Awareness Month
National High Tesh Month
National Hot Tea Month
National Lose Weight/Feel Great Month
National Mail Order Gardening Month
National Mentoring Month
National Personal Self-Defense Awareness Month
National Poverty in America Awareness Month
National Radon Action Month
National Reaching Your Potential Month
National Yours, Mine, and Ours Month

Oatmeal Month
Senior Women's Travel Month
Make A New Years Resolution to Stop Smoking Month
Walk Your Pet Month

International Year of Fresh Water Month
International Year of Rice Month

Literacy Decade: Education for All Month
Eradication of Colonialism Month

Weekly

1-7 Celebrate Life Week
1-7 Diet Resolution Week
1-7 Silent Record Week
1-8 Lose Weight Feel Great Week

2-9 Someday We'll Laugh About This Week
3-9 New Years Resolutions Week
3-9 Home Office Safety and Security Week
4-9 Women's Self-Empowerment Week
8-14 Universal Letter Writing Week

11-17 Cuckoo Dancing Week
13-16 National No Tillage Week
17-23 International Printing Week
17-23 National Handwriting Analysis Week
17-23 Healthy Weight Week
17-23 Hunt for Happiness Week
17-23 National Activity Professional Week
18-23 National Fresh Squeezed Juice Week

20-24 No Name Calling Week
23-30 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Week
23-29 World Leprosy Week
24-30 National Nurse Anesthetists Week
25-29 National Medical Group Practice Week
25-29 National Take Back Your Time Week
1/31-2/6 Catholic Schools Week

Daily

January 1 - 24 Hours of Living Meditatively Day
January 1 — Bonza Bottler (1-1) Day
January 1 — Get a Life! Day
January 1 - New Year's Dishonor List Day
January 1 - Universal Hour of Peace
January 1 - Z Day
January 1 - National Bloody Mary Day
January 1 - Oatmeal Day
January 2 - Happy Mew Year for Cats Day
January 2 — National Cream Puff Day
January 3 — Festival of Sleep
January 3 - Fruitcake Toss Day
January 3 - Mememto Mori "Remember You Die" Day
January 3 — National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day
January 4 - Dimpled Chad Day
January 4 - National Joy Germ Day
January 4 — National Spaghetti Day
January 4 - National Trivia Day
January 5 — Bird Day
January 5 — National Bean Day
January 5 — National Whipped Cream Day
January 5 - Organize Your Home Day

January 6 — International Respect for Living Day
January 6 — National Shortbread Day
January 6 - National Smith Day
January 6 - Apple Tree Day
January 6 - National Bean Day
January 7 - I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore Day
January 7 - National Tempura Day
January 8 - Midwife's Day or Women's Day
January 8 — National Bubble Bath Day
January 8 — National English Toffee Day
January 8 — Postal Day
January 8 - Show and Tell Day at Work
January 9 — National Apricot Day
January 9 — National Static Electricity Day
January 9 - RV Workers and Workampers Day
January 10 — Volunteer Fireman's Day
January 10 - Weigh-In Day
January 10 - National Bittersweet Chocolate Day

January 11 — National Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friend Day
January 11 - National Hot Toddy Day
January 12 - National Clean Off Your Desk Day
January 12 — National Marzipan Day
January 12 - Thank God It's Monday Day
January 13 — Blame Someone Else Day
January 13 - National Peach Melba Day
January 14 — National Dress Up Your Pet Day
January 14 — National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day
January 14 - Ratification Day
January 15 - Champion of the Month Day
January 15 - Customer Service Day
January 15 - Get To Know Your Customer Day
January 15 - Humanitarian Day
January 15 — National Hat Day
January 15 — National Strawberry Ice Cream Day

January 16 — National Fig Newton Day
January 16 - National Nothing Day
January 16 - Religious Freedom Day
January 17 - Judgement Day
January 17 - Penquin Awareness Day
January 17 — Pig Day
January 17 - National Hot Buttered Rum Day
January 18 - Creole Heritage Day
January 18 — Jazz Day
January 18 — Winnie the Pooh Day
January 18 - World Religion Day
January 18-19 - Eagel Days
January 18 - National Peking Duck Day
January 19 — Archery Day
January 19 — International Sing-Out Day
January 19 — National Penguin Awareness Day
January 19 — National Popcorn Day
January 2 — National Science Fiction Day
January 20 — Basketball Day
January 20 — Home-Baked Cheese Day
January 20 - National Buttercrunch Day

January 21 — Home-Baked Granola Bar Day
January 21 - Just Do It - Make A Connection Day
January 21 - National Hugging Day
January 21 - Squirrel Appreciation Day
January 21 - International Hot & Spicy Food Day
January 21 - Rid the World of Fad Diets Day
January 22 - Answers Your Cats Questions Day
January 22 - Celebrations of Life Day
January 22 — National Blonde Brownie Day
January 22 - Women's Healthy Weight Day
January 23 — Measure Your Feet Day
January 23 - National Handwriting Day
January 23 — National Pie Day
January 23 - Snowplow Mailbox Hockey Day
January 23 - National Rhubarb Pie Day
January 24 — "Just Do It" Day
January 24 — National Peanut Butter Day
January 25 - A Room of One's Own Day
January 25 — Opposite Day
January 25 - National Irish Coffee Day
January 25 - Dinner Party Day

January 26 - Better Business Communication Day
January 26 - Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day
January 26 — National Peanut Brittle Day
January 26 - Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement
January 26 - National Popcorn Day
January 27 — National Chocolate Cake Day
January 27 - National Speak Up and Succeed Day
January 27 — National Toilet Day
January 27 - Thomas Crapper Day
January 28 — National Blueberry Pancake Day
January 28 - National Compliment Day
January 28 — National Kazoo Day
January 29 - Freethinkers Day
January 29 — National Corn Chip Day
January 29 — National Puzzle Day

January 30 - Fun At Work Day
January 30 - Insane Answering Message Day
January 30 — National Croissant Day
January 31 - Inspire Your Heart with Art Day
January 31 — National Popcorn Day
January 31 - National Brandy Alexander Day

The Bigness of God--A Christmas Sermon

2009-12-24T07:11:00.002-06:00

This is my Christmas sermon from a couple of years ago. It's one of my favorites.

Every October, around St. Luke’s Day,
the seminary community at Sewanee
holds a series of lectures.

These are a pretty big deal;
they get big names in the theological community,
and alumni come back from all over the country to attend.

Well, a few years ago,
the lecturer was a certain Dr. Adams,
who was a big deal professor at Yale,
but getting ready to transfer to Oxford
and become an even bigger deal.

Dr. Adams is a professor of Christian ethics
who had just written a book on the theological implications of September 11,
so I thought that these lectures
were going to be really good.

Well, it turns out that Dr. Adams is very very smart.
Way too smart for regular folks like me to understand.

She stood stiff and still behind the podium,
and read her notes word for word
in a tone of deathly monotony.

Her lectures were full of five dollar words that most of us had never heard before—and mind you,
I was on the faculty,
so I was supposed to be one of the smart ones—
and I wasn’t alone in thinking that this lecturer
was so far above me
that it seemed a waste of my time even to try to understand what she was saying.

There was stuff in there about cosmic forces,
and stuff in there about God as a sort of life-force,
the ground of all being.
There was stuff in there about the deep anthropological need planted in all people to connect with the transcendent.

I’m not really sure what all was in there, actually.
All I could get was that Dr. Adams believed in a really really big God.

I am usually on the lookout for heresy,
and I didn’t find any,
though I probably wouldn’t have understood it if it had been in there.

Others around me—intelligent people—
either fell asleep
or struggled to follow her arguments.
When she finally finished,
and it was time for questions,

there was a long ringing silence—
a sound that’s death to a lecturer.

It means that your audience either fell asleep,
or they didn’t understand a word you said.

In this case, it meant both.

The silence stretched on so long it was getting embarrassing,
when finally someone stood up and hesitantly said, “Um…could you explain again about that cosmic transcendence thing?”

“Oh, sure,” she said,
and she stepped out from behind the podium,
away from her carefully prepared manuscript,
and said, “Well, it’s sort of like this…”
and gave us the information using words that we understood,
and ideas that related to our lives and work.

Her face was animated,
her gestures lively,
and her voice reflected the passion
that caused her to make this her life’s work.

Suddenly we understood.
When this brilliant, world-renowned genius
stepped a little closer and got down on our level,
we finally got it.
And she was right, it was really exciting stuff.

Her recap ended with these words,
and unlike the well-prepared portion of her lecture,
these are words I have not forgotten.

“The bigness of God,” she said, “is on our side.”

The bigness of God is on our side.

That is what we’re celebrating tonight.

The bigness of God, everything that God is,
all his perfection,
all his transcendence,
all his power,
all his knowledge,
all his compassion,
all his sheer cosmic hugeness,
is for us.

For us in every sense.
It is for us to make use of
and it is for us and not against us.

The bigness of God is on our side.

God’s people have always known this on some level, though we have from time to time lost sight of it.

We have claimed that our God
is bigger than all the other gods,
and that when he comes,
it’s gonna be a really huge deal.

We were so convinced of God’s bigness, and rightly so, that when a peasant girl gave birth to her first child in a stable in a Judean hick town,
nobody but she and her husband and a few shepherds even knew that anything interesting
was going on at all.

Nobody would have believed
that this rather pathetic circumstance
had anything to do with our very big God.

Knowing how big God is,
we were looking for a big sign—
an army,
a king,
an earthquake,
a political revolution.

In our dedication to God’s bigness,
we nearly missed some of the bigger signs that
were in fact given—
such as a star that shone as brightly as day light, and a sky full of angels singing praise to God.

Those sorts of signs are big,
because God didn’t want us to miss this event entirely.

But in the end,
there’s only one way to show what bigness is for.

Bigness is always manifest in smallness.

Think about it.

Think of the deepest,
most overwhelming, biggest love you’ve ever felt.
A sweetheart or a spouse,
a child or a parent,
a friend or a relative,
or maybe even for God himself.

That love is huge in human terms,
so huge it overflows our hearts,
so what do we do?

Well, tonight’s Christmas,
so how are you showing that love?

Did you buy someone something big—
a skyscraper
or an island
or a planet
or a city?

If you did,
we need to get together and talk about your tithe.

But seriously,
chances are you bought them something small.

A CD they’ve been wanting,
an MP-3 player,
a little-tiny gift card
for their favorite bookstore or restaurant.

Tiny, tiny things compared to the bigness of love.

Or even when it’s not Christmas,
we do little tiny things to somehow communicate the bigness of our love.

We cook a favorite meal,
we get up with the kids so the other one can sleep late, we put gas in their car,
we pick up a card in the grocery store.
We call just to say, hi, I’m thinking of you.

Tiny, tiny things, compared to the bigness of love.

God works the same way.

To show us the bigness of his love,
God stepped out from behind the podium,
out from behind two thousand years of
code and commandment,
out from behind prophecies
and revelations
and signs
and judgments,
and laid it out in a way that we could relate to.

A way we could touch, and hold, and love.

The bigness of God is on our side,
and if bigness is always shown in small ways,
that was never more true than it is tonight.

The God whose love is bigger than the universe
gave us a baby.

A tiny, tiny, helpless, little baby.

Now that is something we can understand,
something we can get excited about.

That’s what it all comes down to.

The bigness of God is on our side,
and is contained in this little person.

He’s dependent,
he’s hungry,
he’s so very small,
but he’s the biggest person ever born.

Even when this little person gets big,
he’s still just one man,
grown from just one baby,
but his Godly bigness flows out of him
and into everyone around him.

That is the great gift of God that we celebrate on Christmas.

Everything that God is,
everything that God does or has,
is for us,
is on our side,
and he wants to make sure we know it.

The smallness of the gift is the proof
that the bigness of God is on our side.
'

I KNEW IT! or Yes, there Really Were Earthquakes

2009-12-23T11:18:00.003-06:00

Here I was thinking I was crazy, and I'm NOT! At least not for this!

I could have sworn I felt the floor, or maybe the bed, shake late at night on a couple of different occasions. I figured it was either small earthquakes or demonic possession, a la The Exorcist (something I try very hard not to think about late at night).

And it WAS! The ever-active New Madrid fault, just a few hours away from us, has been very active recently. We've been hearing about "the big one" that was coming since we were kids (a very short time geologically), and while they do still say that's coming (the SEMA and FEMA crews are actively preparing for it), what we're mostly getting is small 2.0-4.0 scale quakes...not strong enough to do much damage, but certainly strong enough to be felt.

Add to that the fact that our county, Lawrence County, Missouri, is actually situated on THREE fault lines, I shouldn't doubt myself. I really have been feeling quakes. So there.

The Date of Christmas

2009-12-21T11:03:00.002-06:00

From time to time, people ask me why we celebrate Christmas on December 25. Or, they don't ask, and they believe what they were told. Most people have been taught some version of history that goes like this:

The Romans had a huge Solstice festival called Sol Invictus (the Invincible Sun) and the Christians took it over so they could convert it into a Christian festival and get rid of the pagan Roman practices in the area. So, really Christmas is nothing more than a made-up day designed to use a party that was already in place.

Okay, well...yes and no. The Romans did have a Solstice festival called Sol Invictus. And Christians have often associated the increasing Sun with the ever-increasing Light of the Son. And it's also true that when Christianity spread into pagan cultures, they often kept all the big parties, celebrations, and festivals, but put a Christian spin on them. I mean, why convert to a religion that takes away your parties? And Christianity has always loved a good celebration (despite this weird reputation we have for being joyless prudes--just not historically true).

But every society has had a Solstice celebration, and Christianity no more had any need to take over the Romans' festival than anyone else's. Frankly, it would have made a lot more sense for us to take over Hannukah, but we didn't.

The date of Christmas comes from another source entirely.

You have to remember, though, that dates as we understand them now were much less exact in the ancient world. So, people get confused when they hear that the Solistice is on the 21st, but Christmas on the 25th. Neither of those numbers would necessarily have had any meaning in ancient times.

Same for Jesus' death date. Scholars now put it around April 4-7, probably in the year 29. But that's a very recent development. For centuries, starting from the very first century AD, the date of the crucifixion was thought to be March 25--and it probably was, the way dates were calculated back then. Remember, our calendars have had a lot of adjusting in the last 2000 years.

Why does Jesus' death date matter in the question of his birthdate? It matters because the ancient Greeks (the dominant culture in Jesus' day, even if it was being run by Romans at the time), believed that a Hero lived a perfect life, and that even included that life's timeline.

A perfect life began and ended on the same day--it was full, complete, perfect, with no remainders. And they considered that life began on the day of conception. Therefore, their ultimate Hero, Jesus, was conceived and died on the same day, March 25. We also celebrate the Annunciation on March 25, the day when the Archangel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she had been chosen to be the Mother of Jesus.

And what happens 9 months after Jesus' is conceived? December 25, Jesus is born.

And if there's already a big Solstice party going on, great. There's nothing stopping us from joining in the celebrations.

Christmas Fun

2009-12-18T06:38:00.002-06:00

Apparently there's a guy who does nothing but collect really bad Nativity scenes. It's called The Cavalcade of Bad Nativities. It's awesome! You can go to his blog, Going Jesus, and check out both his pictures of all these truly...interesting...Nativity sets, and the captions he puts under them.

Who knew there were so many depictions of the nativity with animals, for example?

Grateful

2009-11-27T08:27:00.002-06:00

It's the day after Thanksgiving, and we didn't have one of those moments yesterday where we all sat around and asked each other, "So, what are you grateful for?"

If we had, I would mostly have the same answers: my family, my friends, my health, a warm home, a working car, the genius of people who write books, the libraries and bookstores where we can get those books...you know, the usual. Just because those are "the usual" for me doesn't mean I'm not truly grateful. I am. I don't wake up in the morning, whatever challenges the coming day will pose, without being overwhelmed by gratitude at everything and everyone that has blessed my life.

But I want to express my gratitude for something a little more specific today. I am grateful to have been born a Christian, and I'm grateful to have been born in the United States.

The reason I'm so aware of those blessings today is that I've been reading a book called Princess: The True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia, by Jean Sasson. I have been made newly aware of things I knew before, but never in such a vivid and personal way.

So, in honor of Princess Sultana, her daughters, and all her Middle Eastern sisters, daughters of God who don't have the freedoms I have, I'd like to offer a few more things I'm grateful for.

• I’m grateful that I can go to church. Not only is Christianity legal in this country, but women are allowed to walk into places of worship. In some parts of the world, women are not allowed to go into the buildings of their own faith.

• I’m grateful that I don’t have to cover my face. I can look at the unique beauty of other people’s faces, meet their eyes, take in their expressions.

• I’m grateful that I can vote.

• I’m grateful that I can serve my country and my God as I see fit to do, using as many of my gifts as I can. And if that puts me in a position of authority over men, then it does.

• I am grateful that I chose to marry and have children, and wasn’t forced to do it.

• I’m grateful for my education, and for parents who encouraged me to read and learn.

• I’m grateful that my body is whole and has never been mutilated at the hands of others.

• I’m grateful for a husband who loves me, respects me, and doesn’t worry about gender roles very much, a husband who depends on me as much as I depend on him. I’m grateful that I got to choose him myself (though my mother did have some input into that).

• I’m grateful for my husband, but if (God forbid) something happened to him, I’m really grateful that my children and I wouldn’t have to move back in with my dad. Sorry, Daddy, you know I love you, but…

• I’m grateful that domestic abuse is illegal in my country and my religion.

• I’m grateful that my 13-year-old daughter’s biggest concern is raising her science grade and getting her crush to like her. She’s not planning a wedding, and she’ll never be anyone’s third wife.

• I’m grateful that polygamy is illegal in my country and my religion.

• I’m grateful that I can wear jeans.

• I am grateful that I can drive and am allowed to drive.

• I’m grateful that my daughters and my son are equally loved and cherished by all of our family and by our religion.

• I’m grateful for a life that’s been blessed, but just a little bit hard. When my parents told me, “It builds character,” they weren’t kidding. In our culture, you can get handed a lot, but if you don’t put in the work, you won’t succeed. Struggle builds character, and much as I resist it, I’m grateful for it.

• I’m grateful that my husband and I decide together what’s best for our kids. Nobody’s word is law in our house or our country… parents decide together.

• I’m grateful that I’ve never been so poor that I couldn’t protest injustice or mistreatment. I’m becoming more aware that I have to speak up for those who are afraid of losing what little they have by speaking out.

• I’m grateful to the men and women of my country and my religion who have fought to make sure that we have the rights, freedoms and dignity that we have.

• I’m grateful for a country and a religion that hold men and women to the same standards of virtue and citizenship.

• I’m grateful for an incarnational religion that says that bodies are wonderful, miraculous things that should be cherished and respected.

• I’m grateful that I worship a God who would have done everything he did if I had been the only person ever to live. There are no second class citizens in heaven… at least the way my religion understands it.

That’s a long list, and it only begins to cover everything we have to be grateful for. Think about it, and give thanks. And pray for the people who can’t say any of the above.

The Best Laid Plans, or Poor Sick AJ

2009-11-17T14:28:00.002-06:00

Some of you know that last Spring, Abby auditioned for a pretty exclusive regional children's choir, Children's Choir of Southwest Missouri. She made it, of course, because she is awesome, and so every single Tuesday night starting in August, we've driven out to Springfield for rehearsals.

Their concert was this weekend, the thing they have been working for for 4 months. But last Wednesday, AJ came home from school with a sore throat and headache. She missed school Thursday and Friday. She was running a temp of about 102, and her throat was hurting her terribly, she was crying and everything.

We went to the doctor on Friday (our awesome nurse-practitioner, Nancy), and Nancy gave her one of those 3-dose antibiotics because she had a throat infection (not swine flu--we dodged that bullet again!). Nancy told her that if she was going to be able to sing Saturday, she'd have to miss the dress rehearsal and not use her voice at all--not even to talk to us. She had to write everything in notes. It was kind of funny. AJ can be very expressive in writing!

I got permission for her to miss the dress rehearsal Friday night, hoping she'd feel better by Saturday night, and have some sort of voice to sing with. But she really didn't. Her throat was still very sore, her voice was raspy and hoarse, and she kept having coughing fits--which hurt her throat even more. We thought we might try to go to the concert, so she could at least be there for her choirmates, but the coughing sort of precluded that. You can't sit in a choir concert if you're coughing up a lung--it disturbs people.

So, after all those months of work, our poor baby didn't even get to sing in the concert. It was really disappointing for her, and for us, but mostly it was just terrible watching her suffer with being so sick. Poor little thing.

That's not the only sickness we've had this season. Matt had the flu, which really took him out of commission for almost a week, and both girls had terrible sinus infections that kept them out of school for a couple of days. But we're mostly doing okay, thanks to Nancy and a lot of good luck.

And obsessive wiping down of all surfaces with Clorox disinfectant wipes.

So...World's NOT Ending?

2009-11-12T10:19:00.004-06:00

Great...so what am I supposed to do with all my stockpiles?

Here's the article from NASA. Although, how much can we trust NASA? Who knows...

2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?
11.06.09

Remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without much of a whimper because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation. Impressive movie special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know. It will, however, be another winter solstice.

Much like Y2K, 2012 has been analyzed and the science of the end of the Earth thoroughly studied. Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, the science behind the end of the world quickly unravels when pinned down to the 2012 timeline.

Below, NASA Scientists answer several questions that we're frequently asked regarding 2012.

Question (Q): Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
Answer (A): Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.

Q: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012?
A: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.

Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

Q: Could a phenomena occur where planets align in a way that impacts Earth?
A: There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.

Q: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?
A: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.

Q: What is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the earth’s crust does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours?
A: A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-shift to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway.

Q: Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012?
A: The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.

Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of pending doomsday?
A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.

Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.

Happy Veterans' Day

2009-11-11T18:26:00.003-06:00

Thank you to all my loved ones who have served our country so faithfully and sacrificially. I am proud and honored to know you.

Kabbalah Girl Power

2009-11-05T10:24:00.002-06:00

This is from the Babylonian Talmud, a widely used 4th century Kabbalah text.

See how marvelous is a good woman! For it is in her that the Divine Will is exemplified.

Mysteries

2009-10-25T23:24:00.002-05:00

All the greater and wiser thinkers, even if they be not Christians, believe that the reason in man, instead of rejecting all this is deep and mysterious, cannot be satisfied without mysteries; that the reason requires truths which are above itself, just as the eye delights in looking upon an immense expanse of sea and sky.

-F.D. Maurice

Anniversary!

2009-10-23T12:35:00.003-05:00

Today is Matt's and my 16th anniversary! Happy anniversary, sweetie!

I can honestly say that marrying my husband was the best thing I've ever done. I'm a better person because I'm with him than I could have been without him. It hasn't been perfect, and there were a few rocky years, especially in the beginning, but I wouldn't change anything. Even the difficult stuff made us closer and stronger.

I hear other women complain about the men in their lives, and I certainly know that some men can't be trusted or depended upon. And some men leave human destruction in the wake of all they do...things that their daughters and sons will be paying for for generations. I see it, hear it, know that it's out there, but it's very far from my experience. There's nobody in the world I trust more or enjoy more than my husband.

I do a lot of premarital and marital counseling, and one thing I tell my couples is that marriage can be everything you're dreaming of right now. It can be that ideal of friendship, support and passion that we all go into it hoping for. It doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't happen on its own, but it can happen. And it gets better every year.

And, it's not even 1:00 and it's already been a great day. Life is so good.

I love you, sweetie.

Would You Rather...

2009-10-20T10:31:00.003-05:00

The youth group at my church has a book that's full of "Would You Rather" questions. Some of them are kind of goofy, but some are pretty thought-provoking. So, here's today's question:

Would you rather be rich or famous?

This seems like a no-brainer to me. I mean, what's fame for, if it's not to ensure wealth? What's the point of being a famous poor person?

So, obviously, I would rather be rich, if those were my choices. If I were rich, then I could quit my jobs and Matt and I could work on our books (which are terribly hard to complete when have to keep leaving the computer to go to work...) and then we could get famous that way.

But we don't particularly want to be famous, anyway. We mostly just want to be left alone. I don't really need to be rich, either--all I want is to have enough with some occasional extras: a night out, a vacation, a book or CD bought on the spur of the moment...

So, what do y'all think? Would you rather be rich or famous?

Is This a Joke?

2009-10-09T09:59:00.005-05:00

When my sweetie woke me up this morning with the ominous words, "There have been some overnight developments," I had no idea. He said, "President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

I kind of snorted and said, "Yeah, right."

He said, "That was my first reaction, too. I read it on Yahoo, and I had to check the header to make sure I hadn't accidentally gone to The Onion."

I was still kind of sleepy, so I said, "It's not true. Someone has made a mistake or something."

He said, "No, it's true," and he turned on NPR. Steve Inskeeep was in the middle of saying, "...this prize will be controversial to many who do not feel his accomplishments have merited it..."

I was awake then. "For what?" I sorta shrieked. "What has he actually done?"

"Apparently," said my sweetie, "it's for bringing hope to the world and promising to work with other nations. They actually decided it just a couple of weeks after he took office."

"So he gets the Nobel Peace Prize for running for president?" I snapped (as though it were sweetie's fault--he gets to take a lot of my irritation with public figures). "He gets a Nobel Peace Prize for campaign promises?"

Sweetie nodded glumly. "I feel like I've fallen into Wonderland."

He's not the only one. This article, from the Times, says pretty much the same thing. The headline reads: Absurd Decision on Obama Makes a Mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ya think?

The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.

Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.

Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.

I can only hope that the president will be embarrassed by this. If he has any class, and integrity, he will decline this award and express his intention to earn it at a later date. I don't have any confidence that he will do that, though, especially after reading this from ABC News:

The president will travel to Oslo in December to accept the prize in person, the White House confirmed.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who woke the president to tell him the news, said Obama was "humbled."

White House press aides said they had heard from news reports weeks ago that the president was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize but they do not believe Obama himself knew of his nomination. The deadline for nominations is Feb. 1, meaning the president was nominated after being in office for just 11 days.

Has everything lost meaning? The Committee guy told Diane Sawyer today:

"President Obama has changed very dramatically international politics," Lundestad told "GMA's" Diane Sawyer today. "We feel he has emphasized multilateral diplomacy, he has addressed international institutions, dialogue negotiations. He has inspired the world with his vision of a world without nuclear arms. He has changed the U.S. policy dramatically. There's a whole list."

So, he's getting a Nobel Peace Prize for not being George Bush. Wow, I'm not George Bush, either, do I get one next?

More of our Vacation: Days 2 & 3

2009-09-20T06:06:00.004-05:00

On the second day of our vacation (which was a month ago now!) we did two major things: the St. Louis Cathedral and the St. Louis Zoo. The cathedral is the reason that we went to St. Louis instead of some other place like Branson or something. Matt's book is sort of set in St. Louis, or at least a based-on-St. Louis location, so we had to go to the basilica (this is also why much of our vacation is tax-deductible). The most important part of that trip was seeing the mosaics in this cathedral. They are simply amazing.

This is the world's largest collection of mosaics, designed by 20 different artists, covering 83000 square feet, including about 41.5 million individual pieces (called tesserae), 7000 colors (I didn't know there WERE 7000 colors). It took 76 years to complete.

If you go to the link above, you can take a virtual tour of the cathedral and see many of the mosaics. Even the children were enthralled, and we actually had to go back another day to see things we didn't get the first time. I think you could spend months in there and not absorb all the detail.

Then we went to the St. Louis Zoo. The St. Louis Zoo is free, and you can have a completely wonderful time and not spend any money there. We, however, at at the cafe, and then we bought passes to the extra things that do cost some money. It was worth it--the passes got us into the Children's Zoo, the train, the carousel, the Sea Lion show, and the 3-D dinosaur exhibit. All of which we did, sometimes more than once (we were hot and tired enough at the end that we rode the train through a couple of times before we got off at our stop).

It was the only really hot day of our trip, but even then it wasn't really hot. Not the usual Missouri-in-August hot that it could have been. It was nice to see the Sea Lions, because they splash cool water on you. I think that was David's favorite part; all day he was, "Can we go see the Sea Lions? Can we go see the Sea Lions? When are we going to see the Sea Lions?" It was pretty cute. I think my favorite part was the carousel and the train--yay for sitting down!

The kids were extremely good and amazingly non-whiney that day. Actually, they were very good and non-whiney for most of the trip. It was nice.

The next day, Monday, we stayed at our condo. We sat through a time-share presentation so that we could get tickets for a free dinner at the Tiger Rescue place--not a problem, since we KNOW we have no money to buy a time-share. Matt and I tried to get some writing done, but then I had a migraine and Matt took the kids out to the town of Farmington, went to WalMart and wasted time so I could lie down. When they came back, I took them to the condo pool for a while. We didn't go anywhere; it was really relaxing and nice. We ate in the condo, and didn't spend much money at all.

9/11

2009-09-11T19:13:00.002-05:00

It's hard even to know how to remember this day. We didn't do anything formal here, no community services or anything, but we did talk about it. The kids don't remember--David wasn't even born and the girls were 3 and 4. Matt and I read this earlier this evening, though, and I thought it was worth thinking about:

"... the only reason 'a box-cutter can bring down a tower' is because on September 11 our defenses against such a threat were exclusively the province of the state. If nineteen punks with box-cutters had tried to pull some stunt in the parking lot of a sports bar, they'd have been beaten to a pulp. The airline cabin, however, is the most advanced model of the modern social-democratic state, the sky-high version of the wildest dreams of big government; it's Massachusetts in cloud-cuckoo land. So on September 11 on those first three flights the cabin crews followed all those Federal Aviation Administration guidelines from the seventies.

By the time the fourth plane got into trouble, the passengers knew the government wasn't up there with them. And, within ninety minutes of the first flight hitting the tower, the heroes of Flight 93 had figured out what was going on and came up with a way to stop it...On the fourth plane, they didn't follow the seventies hijack rituals. On Flight 93, they used their cell phones, discovered that FAA regulations weren't going to save them, and then acted as free men, rising up against the terrorists and, at the cost of their own lives, preventing that flight from carrying on to its target in Washington. On a morning when big government failed, the only good news came from private individuals.

For thirty years, passengers surrendered more and more rights for the illusion of security, and, as a result, thousands died. On the fourth plane, Todd Beamer and others reclaimed those rights and demonstrated that they could exercise them more efficiently than government. The Cult of Regulation failed, but the great American virtues of self-reliance and innovation saved the lives of thousands: 'Let's roll!' as Mr. Beamer told his fellow passengers.

That's been my basic rule of thumb since September 11: anything that shifts power from the individual judgment of free citizens to government is a bad thing, not just for the war on terror, but for the national character in a more general sense."

--Mark Steyn, America Alone

I hope it never happens again, but fear it will. The state, federal, and volunteer emergency management people assume it will; it's just a matter of time. God have mercy on us, and God bless the USA.

Thought for Sunday

2009-09-06T11:34:00.001-05:00

One should never despair too soon.

--Frederick the Great

My Sweetie's Birthday!

2009-09-05T22:05:00.003-05:00

My sweetie's birthday was on Thursday, the 3rd. Actually, it probably wasn't the world's best birthday--though he always says, "This was the best birthday ever!"

I made him breakfast Thursday morning (which most of you know I never do--he usually makes it for me, actually). Then before he had to go into work, we went for an early lunch at Taco Bell, brought our tacos home, and watched an episode of The Office on the computer (The Golden Ticket!).

Then he had to go to work...and Thursday is his longest day of the week. So, he left before noon and didn't get back until after 10 (long past his bedtime). But I let the kids stay up and wait for him, and we gave him his presents. He got some clothes, a book, and his big present--the new DVD/VCR...with a working remote!

So, for two days, he's been playing with the remote...fast-forwarding things and frame-by-framing things just for fun. He watched a bunch of episodes that we couldn't watch before when the old remote didn't work--it's been like having a whole new DVD collection.

Anyway, I coooked dinner last night (Friday, because he wasn't home Thursday). I made Philly Cheese Steak pizza--it was really yummy, if I do say so. I stole the recipe out of a magazine at the doctor's office when we went to see if AJ's hand was broken (it's not). Sabra made him a cake, and David took him to the Mt. Vernon football game.

I guess it wasn't so bad, for a grown-up birthday.

Anyway, Mom and Dad, I just want to thank you for raising him to be so great. He's the best; I love him so much.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie! I love you!

Our Vacation, Part 1

2009-08-20T10:22:00.003-05:00

So, now that we have this awesome new minivan, it makes taking trips a LOT easier. We'd been hoping all summer to take a vacation to St. Louis, and we'd been helped out by our AWESOME friends John and Nancy (who gave us a week in their time share condo that they would have lost otherwise), but we weren't loking forward to cramming the three kids in the back of the sporadically air-conditioned Taurus.

Thanks to my WONDERFUL in-laws, that problem was solved!

So we got up Saturday morning, August 8, because the kids like to be loaded into the car in their pajamas when it's still dark, and we drove northeast. It was a leisurely drive with no stress, no need to "make time," and very little fussing from the kids. We stopped for breakfast at McDonald's and got such good service that I had to call the manager over and let him know. We stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall used bookstore in St. James, and a gas station in some town that had Icees on sale for 25 cents.

For all of our dawdling, we were still at the condo in Farmington (about an hour south of St . Louis) by noon...and apparently check-in wasn't allowed until 4:00 (our bad--you have to read the fine print!). So we drove into the town and ate lunch at a pizza place called Bobarino's. It was incredible!

With time to kill, we wandered around the historic section of Farmington. We went into several antique shops (Farmington is a serious antiquers' paradise), a Christian bookstore (where David spent his own money on a balloon), and a very girlie boutique (which made David and Matt decide to just wait outside). These were all old shops, and you could tell that families used to live above them.

The French-settled areas of northeastern Missouri, most of which are along the Mississippi River, are very old settlements. They have old, beautiful Catholic churches and lots of French names and themes. Later in the week we went to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri (notice the French abbreviation of Sainte--the feminine form of Saint in French), which was another beautifully historic place.

So we finally went back to the resort, killed some time in the golfers' clubhouse (where you could only watch golf on TV--the kids weren't allowed to change the channel!), and finally were allowed into our room. Well, apartment, really--it was a one bedroom deal that was bigger than Matt's and my first couple of apartments! We unpacked, and I took the kids swimming at the condo pool.

It was a really nice start to the vacation. We did a ton of stuff, so there's more to come!

A Thought for Sunday

2009-08-16T23:39:00.001-05:00

It must forever be kept in mind, regardless of how much the modern mind insists on changing morals and beliefs to suit new conditions, that right is right if nobody is right, and wrong is wrong is everybody is wrong.

-Fulton J. Sheen

The 20-Year Difference

2009-08-05T14:47:00.002-05:00

Here's Kat in 1989, age 18:

"Like, oh, maGawd, I would totally never drive a minivan! Those are for, like, suburban soccer moms! No way!"

"Gah, cheerleaders are such bimbos, and they're brainless and a waste of space. What do they even do besides wear too much makeup and show their underwear at football games?"

Here's Kat in 2009, age 38:

"Oh, my God! We got a new minivan! It's gorgeous! I've wanted one for so long! Now I can drive all those kids to soccer practice! This is the best thing ever!"

"Actually, cheerleading is a serious sport that combines athleticism, performace skill and community leadership. And cheerleaders have to be smart--most schools require that they maintain at least a B average to stay on the squad...What's that? You want me to coach a middle school cheerleading squad? Sure, I'd love to do that! I'm so proud that my daughter is a cheerleader!"

Yes, as the song says, time changes everything!

The Answer to Exorbitant Bonuses Given to Bailed-out Execs

2009-07-29T21:35:00.007-05:00

Okay, so a few months ago, y'all will remember, the government started bailing out banks and corporations right and left. And then there was a bit of a stink when it was revealed that AIG, the hugest of all the companies being bailed out, was using our tax dollars to pay its executives these obscenely large bonuses.

My friend Nancy (not the nurse-practitioner, but the one who lives on Martha's Vineyard) is NOT a woman to just sit back and grumble when things like this happen. So, she wrote her senator, John Kerry (yes, I know...but that's a different post) to let him know just what she thought of that.

Many, many months later (this week, actually), Nancy received an email back from Senator Kerry's office basically telling her not to worry her pretty little head about it, because the government was taking care of everything (and yes, that is a paraphrase).

Another of my friends, Kim, didn't think the Senator's post was a sufficient response. Here's how Kim responded:

Well, one good way of preventing abuses like exorbitant bonuses when a company has received a bailout from the government would be... and, I'm just thinking out loud here... DON'T bail out companies!

This whole situation is due to a nation that has developed not only a detrimental sense of entitlement, but one that has morphed Uncle Sam into Daddy Sam. The government's job is not to bail out private individuals when they make mistakes (often knowingly), nor businesses either! Hell, the government can barely manage themselves for goodness sake! They are DEFINITELY not a good example of how a business should be run! Our government had already spent more money than they were going to receive this year by APRIL!!! The EARLIEST in history (usually we don't run out of money until August - which is sad enough!). It's like the blind leading the blind here, for goodness sake!

And, yes, I realize that without bailout funds this could lead to significant economic turmoil - but, seriously, without the threat of utter failure, what's going to keep these businesses in check in the future? In the back of their corporate minds has to be the knowledge that another bail out is possible - equating to riskier (including ridiculous bonuses) fiscal behavior. And, although I know this isn't popular, I think America IN GENERAL needs to feel the ramifications of their gluttonous spending.

There was a time when being an American meant working hard and reaping the rewards from that hard work. Today, we want the rewards up front - we'll work for them later. The abuse of credit is what led us into the Great Depression, apparently we didn't learn our lesson then and it needs to be re-taught. Why is everyone so surprised when history repeats itself?

America is fiscally hemorrhaging and all Congress (both sides of the aisles) wants to do is put a band-aid on it, so they can look like they're doing something about it and keep their seats. What we need is economic surgery - hell, we may even need amputation, if we really want to survive.

To which I responded, AMEN, SISTER! Anybody else have any thoughts on this?

July Observances

2009-07-08T22:24:00.002-05:00

July is:

Monthly Observances

Air-Conditioning Appreciation Days (7/3-8/15)
Bereaved Parents Month
Bioterrorism/ Disaster Education & Awareness Month
Blueberries Month
Cell Phone Courtesy Month
Dog Days (7/3 -8/11)
Family Reunion Month
Hemochromatosis Screening Awareness Month
Herbal/Prescription Awareness Month
International Blondie and Deborah Harry Month
International Group B Strep Awareness Month
National Child-Centered Divorce Month
National Grilling Month
National Ice Cream Month
National Horseradish Month
National Hot Dog Month
National Make A Difference to Children Month
National Recreation & Parks Month
National Share A Sunset With Your Lover Month
National Wheelchair Beautification Month
Sandwich Generation Month
Smart Irrigation Month
Social Wellness Month
Tour de France Month
Women's Motorcycle Month

Weekly Observances

National Unassisted Homebirth Week: 1-7
Freedom Week: 4-10
Be Nice To New Jersey Week: 5-11
Sports Cliché Week: 5-11
Nude Recreation Weekend: 6-12
International Chicken Wing Week: 10-12
Sinclair Lewis Week: 12-18
National Parenting Gifted Children Week: 13-19
Rabbit Week: 15-21
National Ventriloquism Week: 16-19
Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) Education & Awareness Week: 18-25
Captive Nations Week: 19-23
National Independent Retailers Week: 19-25
National Baby Food Week: 21-25
Lumberjack Week: 23-25
Moby Dick Week: 31-8/1
National Get Out of the Doghouse Day: 20
National Hug Your Kid Day: 20
National Lollipop Day: 20
Health, Happiness With Hypnosis Day: 22
Cousins Day: 24

Daily Observances

Canada Day: 1
Second Half of The Year Day: 1
U.S. Postage Stamp Day: 1
Zip Code Day: 1
Halfway Point of 2009: 2
Earth at Aphelion: 3
Stay Out Of The Sun Day; 3
Fourth of July or Independence Day: 4
International Day of Cooperatives: 4
Take Your Webmaster to Lunch Day: 6
Father-Daughter Take A Walk Together Day: 7
Tell The Truth Day: 7
Hot Dog Day: 9
Get to Know Your Customers Day: 16
National Ice Cream Day: 19
National Drive-Thru Day: 24
Tell An Old Joke Day: 24
Cow Appreciation Day: 25
National Day of the Cowboy : 25
Parents' Day: 26

YES!! Parents' Day is coming up! That is AWESOME!

And we didn't miss Hot Dog Day...David will be thrilled.

And I do appreciate cows...truly I do.

But (and I feel like I've asked this before) what do we DO for Zip Code Day?

A Message from Iran

2009-06-25T06:50:00.003-05:00

Many of you know that I am involved in several Harry Potter online discussion groups. One of them has several international members, including two from Iran.

I inquired after them the other day, what with the violence they've been experiencing there, and one of them, a young man named Amir, wrote me back privately. He's written me before, but I hadn't heard from him in a while. Here's his post.

Hi dear Strider.

I saw that you mentioned about Iran in one of your posts. Yes, Iran is dangerous now, but as you know, freedom is something that is hard to achieve. Many of our young people have been killed by the hands of the government, like Neda for example (Neda was a young girl that was killed by anti riot police, I think that you know of her).

Many of our people were tired of Ahmadi Nejad, because not only he was stealing people's money and ruining Iran, He was destroying Iran's relationships with other countries. So, our people went to the other candidate's side, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karrubi. These candidates were the enemies and rivals of Ahmadi Nejad. They wanted to repair all that Ahmadi Nejad has ruined. But you know, government used fraud and cheating in the election. And now, people of Iran are protesting.

BUT, we cannot do this alone. We need support, from all of the people in the world, I didn't mentioned this in the group messages because I thought that it is not good to talk about politics in the group.

Strider, we need support from the U.S.A and Europe, from their people, from their governments. It is time to leave the past and help each other.

Please, tell this to anyone you can, that Iranian people need support from other countries, we need someone to rescue us from the hands of our murderer governments, from the great satan, Ayatollah Khameneii.

Here's what I wrote back:

Thank you for writing to me about this. I wish I had some influence over our government policies; as you know, our President is new and we aren't quite sure what he will do when it comes to the relationship between our countries.

I will tell people what you've told me, and I can always write letters and send emails to our representatives in the government. I'll do whatever I can. You're right, freedom is hard to acheive...but worth the fight, I think.

God bless you and your country,
Strider

Ed McMahon, 1923-2009

2009-06-23T08:44:00.002-05:00

Ed McMahon, one of the ringing voices from my childhood, died early this morning in Los Angeles. If you're interested in knowing more, I blogged about him here.

A couple of fun facts: Ed was Catholic and went to Catholic University, and he was a Marine fighter pilot in WWII and Korea. He first worked with Johnny Carson on a 50's game show called "Do You Trust Your Wife?"

I remember being at my grandparents' house, and if I heard Ed's voice doing his famous, "Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!" then I knew I was up too late. After that it was the Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes commercials and Star Search.

He led a pretty interesting life (I wrote more about it at that other blog), but he'd been doing badly the past few years, including suffering from bone cancer and a broken neck. I'm glad he's free from the pain now.

Rest in peace, Ed.

A Guest Blog By My Sweetie

2009-06-20T22:59:00.006-05:00

The following reflection on Fathers' Day was written by my husband and fellow writer. I thought it contained some pretty important thoughts, and I wanted to share them with you.

So, here it is, Fathers' Day again, and twice in the past twenty-four hours I have heard people—well, men actually; specifically fathers—refer to the day in ways that make it sound like the consolation prize/year's-worth-of-Free-Turtle-Wax version of Mothers' Day.

Yesterday, driving into Kansas City to visit my own father, a disc jockey asked men to call in and tell her whether Fathers' Day was a 'real' holiday or a made-up holiday. The first man to call in was himself a father who affirmed that it is, indeed, a made-up holiday. His wife, he said, deserves her own holiday, but he certainly doesn't. When pressed, he said that she puts up with the kids, works outside the home as well as within, generally makes life nice for everyone in the house, and he doesn't do much of anything.

The disc jockey tried to wheedle him into admitting he does more than he was letting on. “Noooothing?” she asked. “You don't even take out the traaaash?”

“Oh, I do some things,” he said, “mostly around the house and with the car. I do stuff with the kids when she needs a break.”

“But you have a job, right? You bring home a paycheck.”

“Oh, sure, sure. But she does the real work. What I do is nothing. She's the one who needs a special day, not me.”

A few hours later, I was talking with a friend on the phone and he mentioned that his wife is upset because she can't afford to make a big deal out of Fathers' Day this year. Their family finances have been upset by an unexpected death in the family, a long, drawn-out trip to Arkansas, and lost shifts at the hospital. The checking account is bare. At dinner last night, he said, she broke into tears because he gave her a great Mothers' Day and she can't reciprocate. And his response was to put his arms around her and coax a smile out of her by saying, “Sweetheart, Mothers' Day is a real holiday.”

He wouldn't dream of not celebrating Mothers' Day in a big way, he told me. But Fathers' Day? It's enough that she would do something if she could. He really doesn't need anything more than that, because he doesn't really do anything around the house anyway.

These are not isolated sentiments. My own father and both my grandfathers used to say the same thing: Mothers' Day is real, Fathers' Day isn't. And the sense seemed to be that everyday is Fathers' Day when you get to go to work, and deal with the kids only a few hours a day, and come home to a cooked meal, and not go through childbirth.

A massively informal poll I conducted with this one friend on the phone, the guy on the radio, and my two brothers, seems to confirm that men see Mothers' Day as the day they formally thank their wives for 364 days of work (365 if the women have to clean up from their own Mothers' Day breakfast-in-bed), and Fathers' Day is the day they feel guilty—perhaps are purposely made to feel guilty, under the guise of being 'appreciated'—for not doing much of anything. I call this the 'Fathers' Day as Giant Stick to Goad Me Into Doing More Around the House'-theory of the holiday.

Sounds like a conspiracy to me. If it's true. But I don't think it's true.

I think what's going on is that men are trained now, from an early age, to think of their contribution as niggling compared to the contribution made by their wives. This might be an unintended result of the Women's Movement, I don't know. I wonder if it's not the adult male corollary of something I see my children do, when I say to one, “You did a great job on that picture,” and the other will say, “Why don't you like my picture?” Or I'll give one a hug and the other will say, “I'm not special.”

The idea seems to be that love (or praise or whatever) is a commodity, and there's only so much of it to go around. If I give it to one, then there's not enough left for all the others. I have to remind my children that love and praise and appreciation are not limited. They are drawn from a bottomless well; no one will go thirsty just because someone else's bucket is full.

Men—being the either/or, black-and-white thinkers that they are—have gone from thinking that theirs is the only contribution in the house that matters, to thinking that their contribution doesn't matter at all. Now that we celebrate what we used to derisively refer to as 'women's work,' now that we have two-income families and mom is just as likely as dad to work outside the home, there seems to be a sense among men that their contribution doesn't really matter anymore.

“She does the real work. What I do is nothing. She's the one who needs a special day, not me. I'm not special.”

With the men I know, that's not false modesty. They say that because they really believe it. My friend on the phone really believes it; the guy on the radio seems to believe it too.

Perhaps we should take the opportunity this Fathers' Day to remind our fathers that their contributions, however much they wish to downplay them, are real and vital—that their contribution is not less because others are now doing more.

Fathers' Day is not a consolation prize. It's a real holiday, just as real as Mothers' Day. Men should be helped to see what they do as enabling the family to function, in ways every bit as important as what their wives do.

The well of appreciation is bottomless; there's plenty enough to go around.

Spooky Things

2009-06-14T20:39:00.004-05:00

Recently I've been researching things like UFOs and the whole alien myth-or-fact argument. I have discovered that West Virginia is replete with stories of mysterious and spooky things--in my research Mothman and The Cornstalk Curse have been particularly relevant.

I have two friends that live in West Virginia, so I asked them if weird things ever happen where they live. Caina said not really, but she kind of wishes they would! Alicia, however, had a lot to say about it.

Here's what Alicia said:

So many. Most revolve around ghosts, from stories related to small-town, local family stuff (certain houses, roads, old forgotten grave yards, etc.) to bigger ones, like the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (TALA) which decided to profit off that whole "Ghost Hunters" show from Sci-Fi Channel. (Well, the new owners were already renovating and opening TALA to the public for tours, etc. before the show came along, but, still. .. Hell, I don't know why I sound bitter about it. I'd probably try to profit off it, too, haha.) I think any place that has an old abandoned mental health hospital or prison or school will have those kinds of stories.

The old West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville is supposedly ridiculously haunted - it has a reputation for having been a very cruel and unusual punishment kind of place, so...

As far as closer to my neck of the woods is concerned, two of my favorites are my county's courthouse (where Sid Hatfield was killed) and the old Lake Shawnee Amusement Park (in the county beside us). I have no experience with the courthouse being haunted - I worked there for two summers and spent a big chunk of my life there because my mom and my best friend's mom worked there, and I never "saw" anything.

But, Lake Shawnee...freaks me out. The first time I drove by it, I had no idea what it was. I'd never heard of it or been there. All I could see was an old abandoned ferris wheel (maybe a hundred yards from me?) and I just got this overwhelming feeling that I was not in a safe place (actually, my exact thought was "This place is haunted - speed the eff up" - it was around one in the morning and I was alone, haha).

A year or so later, some channel did a show about it supposedly being haunted, and I had no idea where they were talking about until they showed that damned ferris wheel. I freaked out. You can see daylight pictures of the park HERE (and if you read some of the comments, ignore the ones about people hearing carillion bells - my alma mater is just a few miles from this place and has a 48-bell carillion, so, duh, I imagine it wouldn't be hard to hear them on a clear night, ha!).

I think one reason this place (and state in general) is so riddled with ghost stories (and perhaps ghosts themselves? ;) is its age. Maybe not so much its age, but the age of things that are still here. It's very common for public buildings still in use here to date back to some point in the 1800s. Many homes still in use were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s (my parents home, for example, is over a hundred years old).

And, of course, the graveyards. My friends and I use to frequent a forgotten one here in my town when we were kids - high on top of a mountain and with death dates in the 1800s. Never experienced anything scary there, though - it was always daylight :) My dad's family's cemetary (which is actually made up of a couple of old families local to where he grew up - not just his) is also very old; there's a grave marker there for a Confederate soldier.

And on a semi-related note (simply because you mentioned moths, haha), we get some absolutely GIGANTIC ones in this county - I'm talking, wings that span out past your ears big. I haven't seen any that huge in a while (not outside at night as much as when I was a kid growing up here), but I did run into what I think was a Luna moth a couple of weeks ago which isn't all that rare or too huge, but pretty :) I can't figure out how to paste the picture in this email, but HERE is a link to it.

End of Term

2009-05-25T19:37:00.002-05:00

Well, I turned in my grades a few days ago. Spring term is over. I only failed two students for plagiarism this time. (sigh...)

I had some top-notch students this term, and I am so grateful for them, because they really kept me from despairing over the bottom-notch ones. I had students who couldn't put a sentence together. I had to spend a whole class period teaching a 200-level class how to write a 5-paragraph essay (and this was at Drury, a private university, not at the community college).

The co-existence of excellent students with abysmal ones tells me that the problem really isn't with the schools. I think it's in the homes. I think that the difference is students who had parents who took an interest in their school work, who read to them, and who communicated with their teachers. And maybe even corrected their grammar from time to time.

I don't know. I know what my kids are learning in elementary and middle school, and there's no reason in the world for them not to be able to write a short essay by their second year in college.

It's very frustrating, because these students are in training to be our teachers, nurses, and businesspeople. Some of them are going to be great, but some of them should worry us. A lot.

The Problem With The Media

2009-05-09T11:05:00.002-05:00

We were talking about journalism on one of my writing groups, and my friend Kim Wilson posted the following reflections on it. I thought they were pretty insightful, and I'm posting them with her permission for your consideration. I'd love to know your thoughts. --Kat

In my opinion, change within the media needs to start with credibility. My journalism teacher from long ago was from the old-school way of thinking. I imagine he's rolling over in his grave at what our modern day media has become. Anyway, when I think about friendly persuasion, I think about credibility. After all, how can any media source accomplish persuasion if their credibility is questioned by readers/viewers.

For what it's worth, here are some changes I'd like to see implemented among the various newsformats (television, print and electronic):

1. Correct use of terminology.

One of my pet peeves in today's media is the word "Soldier" when used as a universal term referencing military members. The U.S. Military is composedof Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines. When I see or hear the incorrectusage of "Soldier" I want to tell the reporter or anchor to go up to a Marine and ask him/her how he/she likes being a Soldier and see how the Marine reacts. This particular inaccuracy tells me the person behind the story hasn't done their homework. Servicemembers get prickly over this and rightly so. Each member chose a particular branch and they're proud ofthat branch. Most of the time, their unfavorable reaction to being called a Soldier stems from pride, not ego.

2. Higher standards of reporting.

On Monday the Trentonian (a Trenton, NJ newspaper) published an article about a police involved shooting (the officer discharged one shot). The reporter wrapped up the article with this prose: "Detectives in the copshop's Internal Affairs Unit have been summoned to investigate the incident,which is standard practice when a police officer unloads his or her heat." When I came upon that paragraph, I stopped. Certain I'd read it wrong, I went back and reread the paragraph. My first thought was, "Unloads his or her heat? You gotta be kidding me," followed by "An editor actually approved this copy?" For anyone that's interested, you can read the article in its entirety at http://tinyurl.com/5eepfa

3. Misleading headlines.

How many times have you gone to an online news site, clicked on a headline only to find the headline had nothing to do with the article? Or, the headline completely contradicted the article? I feel duped when this happens. One occurrence, I can tolerate, but after a second time, I stop visiting the site.

4. Don't be in a such a hurry to scoop.

It seems today's media is obsessed with scooping each other. I understand the concept of scooping (really, I do.) and that it's a fundamental part of journalism. However, it's gotten to the point that most of the time factual information is sacrificed for the sake of holding the title of "You heard/read it here first." I don't know about you folks, but I'd rather wait a little longer and get an accurate story, versus a quick dose of misinformation.

Anyway, as I said earlier, I believe persuasion begins with credibility. I look forward to reading what others have to say about this topic.

Happy writing,
Kim

Abby is Awesome

2009-05-05T16:57:00.002-05:00

Sunday was the end-of-year choir concert for the middle school and high school. They also gave out choir awards, and guess who won the Performance Award, for being the best performer and having the best voice in the whole 7th/8th grade choir?????

Abby, that's who. Could you not tell that from the headline?

The whole choir voted, and they voted to give Abby that award. How awesome is my baby????

My 2nd Favorite Month

2009-04-21T14:40:00.003-05:00

Actually, my favorite month is not April. April is my second-favorite month. I love the flowering trees, especially. Two of my favorite flowers are lilacs and dogwoods, and those are out in profusion in April. Here in the Ozarks, we have dogwood of all different colors, thought I think that maybe the ubiquitous white is still my favorite. And of course, since Easter is usually in April, it's the perfect time to tell the story of the legend of the dogwood tree.

Another thing about April that I love is that after March's cruel teasing (is it winter? is it spring? I don't know!), April might have some cold days, but it can only move toward springtime. Of course, that means not only warmth and sunshine, but also storms, which I really, really love. We've already had some excellent and dramatic thunder storms; they were incredible. There's nothing like a good thunderstorm.

In case you were wondering, my favorite month is October. But April's a really close second.

An Easter Quotation

2009-04-17T16:03:00.001-05:00

Without Easter, there can be no reason to suppose that Good will triumph over evil, that love will win over hatred, that life will win over death. But with Easter we have hope; because hope depends on love; and love has become human and has died, and is now alive forevermore, and holds the keys of Death and Hades. It is because of him we know--we don’t just hope, we know-- that God will wipe away all tears from all eyes. And in that knowledge we find ourselves to be Sunday people, called to live in a world of Fridays.

-N.T. Wright, Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship

Happy Easter!

2009-04-13T20:24:00.002-05:00

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

After a very long Lent, Easter is finally here. Holy Week was long, brutal, exhausting, and strangely and deeply satisfying. It always is all those things. The exhaustion is welcome; it's the fatigue of a race well run. Of accepting a challenge--to keep watch with Jesus--and rising to it. Sure, it takes a lot out of you. But at the end, you greet the dawn knowing that you were faithful, even when it was so hard to be.

The cold and rain didn't dampen our Easter celebrations here (and hey, the heater in my car works now, so I have nothing to complain about). At home, we hid eggs in the living room and dining room (with help from AJ, who is now too old to hunt eggs--or so she tells us). At church, we hid eggs inside the church while everyone celebrated in the parish hall.

In my World Religions class, my unit on Christianity began during Holy Week, which has never happened before. It was kind of cool. It was a nice calendrical backdrop to my lesson that the most important holy day in Christianity is Easter (not Christmas, even if you like Christmas better) (but seriously, what could be better than Easter?).

I wish everybody a blessed Easter season. 50 days to celebrate before it's back to life as usual.

Christos Anesti!

Alethos Anesti!

Denied!

2009-04-08T12:17:00.003-05:00

Well, I ran for school board here in Mount Vernon, but I lost. :(

Yet, I am not discouraged. I have a plan for next time. Here it is:

All y'all need to move down here and vote for me.

I lost by a pretty small margin, which I calculate to be the other guy's relatives and friends. So, if my relatives and friends come down and vote, I am so in.

So, my dear ones...if you could get to work on that, that would be great.

Love you!

Harry Reid Says Taxes are Voluntary Now!

2009-04-07T08:38:00.004-05:00

Umm ...sort of.

"Of course you have to pay your taxes...but the fact of the matter is that our system is a voluntary system."

The link is here. I still can't figure out how to embed video in a blog entry.

Okay, I fell for it

2009-04-03T15:51:00.000-05:00

Okay, fine, I fell for it. The Katie Couric quotation from the last post was from Media Research Center...on Wednesday. April 1.

See where I'm going with this?

So, yeah...Katie Couric didn't really say this. Not that she wouldn't have or couldn't have, but she didn't. I don't pay any attention to April Fool's Day, it's just not on my radar at all, so I missed this.

Sorry about that folks. If I post something this awful next April 1, feel free to call me on it.

(PS: You should have seen the ones I didn't post...sometimes procrastination pays!)

Oh, Now I Get It

2009-04-02T12:02:00.002-05:00

In case any of you have been struggling to understand all this stuff about bailouts, stimulus packages, etc...and maybe even been trying to wrap your minds around even the concept of trillions of dollars, you don't have to worry any more. Katie Couric has explained it all for us.

"For many Americans, it can be tough to grasp how all this deficit spending will turbo-charge our economy and end the recession. Tonight, with the help of a few visual aids, we'll show how everyone gets a macro-cosmic boost whenever Uncle Sam opens his wallet....Think of each dollar in the economy as a jelly bean. You and I each have a few jelly beans, but the government has a whole lot of them. In a recession -- a jelly bean shortage -- we might feel like holding on to our jelly beans instead of sharing them, but that would bring our jelly bean party to a grinding halt. But if Uncle Sam re-fills the jelly bean bags of those who are running low, our party can go on and on....And if we ever find ourselves running out of candy, Uncle Sam can always make more -- he owns the jelly bean factory! The fun never has to stop...."

-- Katie Couric explaining the economics of bailouts on the April 1
CBS Evening News.

Now, Katie Couric is an professionally trained economist, and I'm not...but is there something a little screwy about this?

She seems to be forgetting that if Uncle Sam has a huge bag of jelly beans, he got them from us in the first place.

So...say I have 10 jelly beans (it's jelly bean payday) and Uncle Sam takes state and federal income taxes, medicare, social security, gas tax, property taxes, and sales tax. That's 7 jelly beans, leaving me with 3 to pay for my mortgage, student loans, utilities, food, clothes, medical care, birthday presents, car repairs, house repairs, insurance, personal loans and Girl Scout Cookies.

Is Katie saying that I shouldn't be so tight-fisted with my 3 remaining jelly beans? The government might have a whole lot of jelly beans (something I'm not convinced of), but if so, it has them because it took my 7 jelly beans. Katie seems to be saying that if I just shared my 3 jelly beans with the government, rather than keeping them to take care of my family, we would all be having a lot more fun.

But then she says that if the government's bag runs out of jelly beans, they can just make more. But if that's true, why do they need my 7 jelly beans in the first place? And why should I be complacent about handing over my remaining 3?

And for what? So that our jelly bean party doesn't come to a grinding halt? Do I care about our jelly bean party? If every jelly bean represents a dollar, I must have missed my invitation to the big Mount Vernon dollar party.

The thing is...the government can't just make more money. Every piece of paper represents something of value...gold, perhaps, or items in trade, or hours of your life that you trade for compensation. Doesn't anyone remember the depression, when Germany printed millions of dollars and it was all worthless? It has to represent something.

And government can't just create jobs, either. I might get more jelly beans if I have a government job, but to pay for my job, the government has to take even more jelly beans from me and everyone else. Why not let people keep their jelly beans and let them create the jobs? That way, I have not simply handed over pieces of my life for a handful of jelly beans someone's just going to take away, anyway.

But like I said, I'm not an economist, not like Katie Couric.

Article on Abuse

2009-03-28T13:32:00.004-05:00

I wrote this article for posting in article directories, but I thought it had some good information, so I thought I'd post it here, too. I don't know anyone whom I suspect is in this kind of situation (okay, actually, I might...), but if you do, feel free to pass it on.

“He Doesn’t Hit Me”: The Less Obvious Forms of Abuse

It seems incredible that in this day and age, any woman would not recognize the abuse that she herself was suffering, and wouldn’t take steps to improve things. After all, we’ve heard public service announcements, watched after school specials, and reacted in horror to the stories of friends. Maybe we even told ourselves, “I would never put up with that!”

Sometimes, though, I think that it’s our very educatedness that works against us. I’ve heard women say things like, “He never hit me, so I never thought of this as abuse. I thought that it was just what marriage was like.”

There are lots of forms of abuse that don’t involve hitting or other forms of physical violence, and they can be hard to recognize, especially if you’re in the middle of one of them. But look honestly at some of the following and ask yourself if any of these things apply to your relationship. And remember, any form of abuse can be found in almost any relationship—marriage, straight relationships, gay relationships, or teen relationships. While the vast majority of abuse victims are women, men can also be on the receiving end of abuse, especially these non-physical kinds.

Some of the following categories are borrowed from HelpGuide.org, but the text is mine.

• Dominance. The abuser has to make all the decisions for you and for the whole family. His wishes are the only ones that matter. He never wants your input into decisions that affect everyone.

• Humiliation. He puts you down, especially in front of others. He metes out compliments when he wants you to do something, but seldom out of spontaneous affection.

• Isolation. He controls when you will and won’t see your support system—friends, parents, siblings—gradually decreasing your dependence on them and increasing your emotional dependence on him. Eventually you find yourself caught with nobody to turn to.

• Threats. Threats are especially effective when you have children, but they can be used against you personally as well. Sometimes these threats are only implied with a look or a tone of voice, but you understand what he means.

• Intimidation. This is using the threat of physical force against you by using physical force in front of you. He may pull out weapons, break things, hurt pets, or put a fist in your face. He never touches you, but the implied threat is that if you don’t comply, you will be next.

• Denial and Blame. Abusers never take responsibility for their own actions. Either what he did wasn’t that bad, or you should have known better than to cause him to do it. After all, you provoked him.

• Financial control. Do you have to ask him for money—even money you earned-- and account for every cent? If he makes all the financial decisions and keeps you in a state of child-like financial dependence, that’s abuse.

• Religious abuse. Abusers often try to use a religion’s teachings about the proper roles of men and women to keep women obedient. At best, this is a serious misreading of the teachings of most faiths; at worst it takes away a woman’s last refuge of comfort and strength.

• Crazy-making. This is a subtle tactic of undermining the woman’s confidence in herself and her own competence to reinforce the woman’s dependence. He might, for example, hide her keys, and when she goes to look for them, he reminds her how scatter-brained she is and how much she needs him—an assertion reinforced when he himself “finds” the keys. The woman automatically assumes that she is at fault. She feels like she is going crazy because she can’t do anything about it.

If you see yourself in any of these categories, please get help. This is NOT what intimate relationships are supposed to be like. Sure, there will be compromise and sacrifices, but those things need to come from both sides, not just one. Both partners give some things up for the health of the whole, but the point of that is that you get from the relationship more than you’re giving up as an individual. If that‘s not the case, you may be in an abusive relationship. At the very least, you and your partner need to have several long talks.

You can start by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-787-3224, or going to the front of your phone book. There IS help. You may find it hard to believe right now, but you’re not alone.

Buddhapalian

2009-03-19T09:39:00.003-05:00

If you're not Episcopalian, you might not be aware that our Diocese of Northern Michigan has nominated one single candidate for the position of its new bishop--though how you can have an election with only one candidate is beyond me. Haven't they tried to do that in places like the USSR, communist China, Iraq under Saddam, and Cuba? It worked out so great for them...

The candidate is The Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, and the big scandal about his nomination is that in addition to being an Episcopal priest, Forrester is also an ordained Buddhist monk. That may seem strange, but this is the Episcopal church, and "dual-faith" clergy are (sadly) not all that uncommon. I know of at least a few others--a Christian/Muslim and a couple of Christian/Druids.

Now, I don't have anything against Buddhism or Buddhists. In fact, there's a lot that's really cool about Buddhism. I mean, the 8-Fold Path? That rocks. If everyone followed the 8-Fold Path, the world would be a lot better place.

But Buddhism and Christianity are not ultimately compatible.

Christianity advocates the primacy of sacrificial love, including its redemptive and healing powers. Buddhism teaches that love and attachment are the cause of all suffering and we need to be extricating ourselves from all those feelings and relationships (though I don't deny that love can cause a lot of suffering).

Christianity teaches that the afterlife is a place where our attachments are perfected; we will be with each other and with God in such a state that our sinfulness no longer mars our relationships. Heaven is perfected love of God and each other. Buddhism teaches that the afterlife usually results in rebirth, where we have to try yet again to get this right, but if we attain enlightenment, we go to Nirvana, where all our attachments are severed and we are absorbed into Nothingness.

Christianity teaches that each individual is made in the image of God and can reflect that image to the world. Buddhism teaches that your idea that you exist is an illusion, so stop being so attached to your selfhood.

And, most importantly, Christianity teaches that the love of a personal God was made into a human being in the person of Jesus Christ, and that we can still know, love, and serve Jesus in prayer and in our neighbors. He will even help us to do all that through his gifts of grace. Buddhism does not believe that a god/God exists--it is an atheistic religion (yes, you can have an atheistic religion), so there is nobody out there who listens, cares or acts. You are repsonsible for your own enlightenment, and you have to keep trying, perhaps through hundreds of lives, until you get it right.

Buddhism has a lot to recommend it, including a powerful prayer tradition, a strong ethical system, and a certain peacefulness at its center. I hope everyone takes the time to learn more about it. But it's not compatible with Christianity, and I fail to see how a Christian priest can possibly try to commit to both. At the very least, he shouldn't be made a bishop, who is supposed to be the leader and chief shepherd of the Christian community.

March Observances

2009-03-09T14:13:00.002-05:00

I am sorry this is so late..think what we've missed! We missed BEER DAY!! AND, National Procrastination Week (which is kind of ironic, don't you think?). But, there are still three weeks of March to go, so we can still get in some good celebrations:

Monthly Observances

American Red Cross Month

Deaf History Month

Expanding Girls' Horizons in Science & Engineering Month

International Expect Success Month

International Ideas Month

International Listening Awareness Month

Irish-American Heritage Month

Music In Our Schools Month

National Caffeine Awareness Month

National Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Month

National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month

National Craft Month

National Eye Donor Month

National Frozen Food Month

National Multiple Sclerosis Education & Awareness Month

National Kidney Month

National Nutrition Month

National Social Work Month

National Women's History Month

Poison Prevention Awareness Month

Red Cross Month

Save Your Vision Month

Small Press Month

Spiritual Wellness Month

Workplace Eye Health and Safety Month

Youth Art Month

Weekly Observances

National Consumer Protection Week: 1-7

National Ghostwriters Week: 1-7

National Words Matter Week: 1-7

National Write a Letter of Appreciation Week: 1-7

Return the Borrowed Books Week: 1-7

World Folk Tales & Fables Week: 1-7

Celebrate Your Name Week: 1-7

National Professional Pet Sitters Week: 1-7

National Sleep Awareness Week: 1-8

Save Your Vision Week: 1-7

National School Breakfast Week: 2-8

National Procrastination Week: 2-8

Newspaper in Education Week: 2-6

Orthodox Lent: 3/2-4/18

Read an E-Book Week: 8-14

Universal Women's Week: 8-14

National Money Week: 13-15

National Agriculture Week: 15-21

National Animal Poison Prevention Week: 15-21

Pediatric Nurse Practitioners Week: 15-21

International Brain Awareness Week: 16-22

National Inhalant and Poisons Awareness Week: 16-22

National Spring Fever Week: 16-22

American Chocolate Week: 17-22

Doctor-Patient Trust Week: 22-28

National Cleaning Week: 22-28

Daily Observances

Beer Day: 1

Peace Corp Birthday: 1

Pig Day: 1

Fun Facts About Names Day: 2

Namesake Day: 2

Orthodox Green Monday: 2

National Anthem Day: 3

Peace Corps Day: 3

Unique Names Day: 3

International Scrapbooking Industry Day: 4

National Grammar Day: 4

Learn What Your Name Means Day: 4

Saint Piran's Day: 5

Nametag Day: 5

Daytona: 6

Sherlock Holmes Day: 6-8

World Day of Prayer: 6

Genealogy Day: 7

U.S. Snowshoe Day: 7

Check Your Batteries Day: 8

Daylight Saving Time Begins: 8

Day for Women's Rights & International Peace: 8

Girls Write Now Day: 8

Ground Water Awareness Day: 8

International Working Women's Day: 8

Barbie Day: 9

Panic Day: 9

Salvation Army Day: 10

Organize Your Home Office Day: 10

Registered Dietician Day: 11

Girl Scout Day: 12

World Kidney Day: 12

Earmuffs Day: 13

Good Samaritan Involvement Day: 13

International Day of the Seal: 14

Buzzards Day: 15

Freedom of Information Day: 16

Ides of March: 15

Peeps Day: 15

World Consumer Rights Day: 15

Campfire Girls Day: 17

St. Patrick's Day: 17

National Chocolate Caramel Day: 19

Great American Meat Out Day: 20

National Agriculture Day: 20

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination: 21

Maple Syrup Day: 21

National Common Courtesy Day: 21

National Quilting Day: 21

World Down Syndrome Day: 21

International Day of The Seal: 22

World Day for Water (aka World Water Day) : 22

National Puppy Day: 23

World Meteorological Day: 23

American Diabetes Association Alert Day: 24

Legal Assistants Day: 26

Knights of Columbus Founders Day: 29

Doctors Day: 30

I'd like to give a shout-out to all my writer friends who are ghostwriters...it was your week last week, but I didn't get you anything. :(

And today is Panic Day! That's a relief, because now I can stop telling myself, "It's okay, don't panic..."

The 23rd is National Puppy Day, but I can tell you right now what my sweetie would say to that: "Isn't every day puppy day?"

13 Facts about Friday the 13th

2009-02-13T13:09:00.003-06:00

This is from LiveScience.com. It's interesting that the comments that follow the article (which I'm not posting here), seem to think some of these facts aren't true. Still, it's a fun read.

13 Facts About Friday the 13th

If you fear Friday the 13th, then batten down the hatches. This week's unlucky day is the first of three this year.

The next Friday the 13th comes in March, followed by Nov. 13. Such a triple whammy comes around only every 11 years, said Thomas Fernsler, a math specialist at the University of Delaware who has studied the number 13 for more than 20 years.

By the numbers

Here are 13 more facts about the infamous day, courtesy of Fernsler and some of our own research:

1. The British Navy built a ship named Friday the 13th. On its maiden voyage, the vessel left dock on a Friday the 13th, and was never heard from again.

2. The ill-fated Apollo 13 launched at 13:13 CST on Apr. 11, 1970. The sum of the date's digits (4-11-70) is 13 (as in 4+1+1+7+0 = 13). And the explosion that crippled the spacecraft occurred on April 13 (not a Friday). The crew did make it back to Earth safely, however.

3. Many hospitals have no room 13, while some tall buildings skip the 13th floor.

4. Fear of Friday the 13th — one of the most popular myths in science — is called paraskavedekatriaphobia as well as friggatriskaidekaphobia. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13.

5. Quarterback Dan Marino wore No. 13 throughout his career with the Miami Dolphins. Despite being a superb quarterback (some call him one of the best ever), he got to the Super Bowl just once, in 1985, and was trounced 38-16 by the San Francisco 49ers and Joe Montana (who wore No. 16 and won all four Super Bowls he played in).

6. Butch Cassidy, notorious American train and bank robber, was born on Friday, April 13, 1866.

7. Fidel Castro was born on Friday, Aug. 13, 1926.

8. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not travel on the 13th day of any month and would never host 13 guests at a meal. Napoleon and Herbert Hoover were also triskaidekaphobic, with an abnormal fear of the number 13.

9. Superstitious diners in Paris can hire a quatorzieme, or professional 14th guest.

10. Mark Twain once was the 13th guest at a dinner party. A friend warned him not to go. "It was bad luck," Twain later told the friend. "They only had food for 12."

11. Woodrow Wilson considered 13 his lucky number, though his experience didn't support such faith. He arrived in Normandy, France on Friday, Dec. 13, 1918, for peace talks, only to return with a treaty he couldn't get Congress to sign. (The ship's crew wanted to dock the next day due to superstitions, Fernsler said.) He toured the United States to rally support for the treaty, and while traveling, suffered a near-fatal stroke.

12. The number 13 suffers from its position after 12, according to numerologists who consider the latter to be a complete number — 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas and 12 eggs in a dozen.

13. The seals on the back of a dollar bill include 13 steps on the pyramid, 13 stars above the eagle's head, 13 war arrows in the eagle's claw and 13 leaves on the olive branch. So far there's been no evidence tying these long-ago design decisions to the present economic situation.

Origins of Friday the 13th

Where's all this superstition come from? Nobody knows for sure. But it may date back to Biblical times (the 13th guest at the Last Supper betrayed Jesus). By the Middle Ages, both Friday and 13 were considered bearers of bad fortune.

Meanwhile the belief that numbers are connected to life and physical things — called numerology — has a long history.

"You can trace it all the way from the followers of Pythagoras, whose maxim to describe the universe was 'all is number,'" says Mario Livio, an astrophysicist and author of "The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved" (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Thinkers who studied under the famous Greek mathematician combined numbers in different ways to explain everything around them, Livio said.

In modern times, numerology has become a type of para-science, much like the meaningless predictions of astrology, scientists say.

"People are subconsciously drawn towards specific numbers because they know that they need the experiences, attributes or lessons, associated with them, that are contained within their potential," says professional numerologist Sonia Ducie. "Numerology can 'make sense' of an individual's life (health, career, relationships, situations and issues) by recognizing which number cycle they are in, and by giving them clarity."

Mathematicians dismiss numerology as having no scientific merit, however.

"I don't endorse this at all," Livio said, when asked to comment on the popularity of commercial numerology for a story prior to the date 06/06/06. Seemingly coincidental connections between numbers will always appear if you look hard enough, he said.

Happy Birthday, Abby!

2009-02-05T14:58:00.003-06:00

My baby turned 13 on Tuesday.

I am the parent of a teenager.

I am pretty sure I'm far too young to be the parent of a teenager.

Anyway, she's a really good one, so that helps. She's smart and funny and she watches out for other people. She goes out of her way to help people, including her family. She loves to read, and we have the best conversations about books...I always hoped my kids would like to read! In fact, she has started a blog where she reviews Youth Fiction--by a teen for teens. Seriously, how cool is that? She shows more initiative and commitment to things than I would ever have considered at her age.

She IS a lot like me in some ways, in the way her mind works and the things that are important to her (she doesn't like it when we say that; she would prefer to be tragically misunderstood). But she's so much better than I ever was...more confident, smarter, kinder, more creative, more energetic, prettier...

So, happy birthday, my first baby. I love you.

Happy Birthday, David!

2009-02-01T21:32:00.003-06:00

David turned 6 on Wednesday! I really can't believe that. When he was born he was 4 pounds 11 ounces, and when we brought him home from the hospital, he could fit entirely in Matt's hands. Now he's tall, one of the tallest in his class, and funny and smart and polite and so very loving.

We had his birthday party on Saturday at the Super 8 hotel swiming pool. They hadn't had school all week because of the ice, so there weren't very many kids there, but Grammy and Papa were there, as well as John and Nancy. And of course, David's sisters. He adores his sisters, and they love him, too. I'm always so impressed at how patient they are with him, how they go out of their way to include him and play with him and help him out. I don't think I was that nice to my brother (sorry, Ray...).

Anyway, David has started playing basketball, and we're already signed up for Spring soccer. I am so glad he is moving up a level and playing with kids who are a little bit older. If anyone wants a basketball or soccer game schedule, let me know!

MartinLuther King, Jr, 1929-1968

2009-01-19T20:03:00.004-06:00

How many people reading this post can say that their lives overlapped Dr. King's? I can't. I was born in 1970. Now, I did grow up knowing about the things of the 60's, such as Dr. King and JFK and the moon landing and, most especially, the Vietnam War, where my daddy was an Army officer and got several medals--all before I was born. The 70's reeled with the aftermath of the 60's.

But that is ancient history for our children. Is Dr. King any more relevant, any more immediate, to them than FDR or Truman were to my generation? Good people, important people, but having nothing to do with now?

Probably. But it doesn't follow that history has to be irrelevant. For the most part, our children can't even imagine a world with the kids of racial separation that Dr. King's world suffered through. I mean, separate water fountains? How absurd is that? We live in a small midwestern town and my kids go to school with African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and white kids from both the US and elsewhere. And there are only 4000 people in our whole town. This is normal for most kids, and that's a good thing.

If you want to try to convey to your kids why this day matters, why this man matters, I suggest that you start by watching the entire "I Have A Dream" speech. There's more to it than we usually quote, and it's stunningly brilliant.

Here are some things I want my kids to know about Dr. King:

--He was intellectually brilliant. I've read many of his writings, and the man has an amazing grip of history, sociology, anthropology, economics, and of course, Scripture. That "Dr." in his name is a PhD from Boston College.

--He did what he did because of his faith. My family happens to share the same faith with Dr. King, and he is certainly an example to us, but I think we can all agree that a person who stands up for what he deeply believes is to be admired. In a similar vein, I would emphasize tyo my own children that Dr. King's job was a minister. He was not a politician. He was a pastor.

--It wasn't easy for him to stand up to the law, to the culture, and even to the people he hoped to help. Not everybody agreed with the things he said or the things he did. Some people even made death threats against him and his family. But sometimes we have to choose between what is right and what is easy.

--He might not be such an American hero if he had lived. This may be too much for younger kids to understand, but older ones will get the concept. His next area of what he perceived to be injustice was American participation in the Vietnam War. That was a whole different battlefield from Civil Rights. Not more or less important, just a different set of themes, values, ideals, and participants. I have mixed feelings about this era in history, but I do know a lot about what Communist governments do to their people, and I'm not sure I would have gone with Dr. King on this one.

--His birthday is January 15, not the 3rd Monday in January.

If you're looking for things to do with your kids to commemorate this day, Kaboose, a crafts and activities site, has a lot of fun stuff. And remember, we can't stop working toward the dream that Dr. King so ably articualted. We have to work for it, fight for it, in our own way, in our own day, right down to the youngest of us.

Prayers for Inauguration Day

2009-01-16T19:22:00.006-06:00

Come Tuesday, we will have a new president. I didn't vote for him, but I will respect his office. I sincerely hope that he does such a great job that I'll feel compelled to vote for him in four years. As always, our nation's leaders need our prayers--and that's never more true than when we disagree with them. And our country, as well, needs our prayers for this time of transition. New beginnings are a gift, and I hope we can receive them that way.

Here are some prayers from the Book of Common Prayer that we might say this week.

For the Nation

Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the
earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace:
Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the
strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in
accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our
Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

For Peace

Almighty God, kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of
peace, and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel
for the nations of the earth, that in tranquillity your dominion
may increase until the earth is filled with the knowledge of your
love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with
you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

For Social Justice

Almighty God, who created us in your image: Grant us
grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace
with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom,
help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our
communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy
Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

For Peace Among the Nations

Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the
world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among
them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, that they
may become the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.

For Congress or a State Legislature

O God, the fountain of wisdom, whose will is good and
gracious, and whose law is truth: We beseech thee so to guide
and bless our Senators and Representatives in Congress
assembled (or in the Legislature of this State, or Common-
wealth), that they may enact such laws as shall please thee,
to the glory of thy Name and the welfare of this people;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For Courts of Justice

Almighty God, who sittest in the throne judging right: We
humbly beseech thee to bless the courts of justice and the
magistrates in all this land; and give unto them the spirit of
wisdom and understanding, that they may discern the truth,
and impartially administer the law in the fear of thee alone;
through him who shall come to be our Judge, thy Son our
Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

For Local Government

Almighty God our heavenly Father, send down upon those
who hold office in this State (Commonwealth, City, County,
Town, ____________) the spirit of wisdom, charity, and justice;
that with steadfast purpose they may faithfully serve in their
offices to promote the well-being of all people; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

For those in the Armed Forces of our Country

Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and
keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home
and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly
grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give
them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant
them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In Times of Conflict

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us,
in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront
one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work
together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

For those who Influence Public Opinion

Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many
voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where
many listen and write what many read; that they may do their
part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and
its will righteous; to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And finally, here's a litany we can pray.

For Sound Government

O Lord our Governor, bless the leaders of our land, that we
may be a people at peace among ourselves and a blessing to
other nations of the earth.
Lord, keep this nation under your care.

To the President and members of the Cabinet, to Governors
of States, Mayors of Cities, and to all in administrative
authority, grant wisdom and grace in the exercise of their
duties.
Give grace to your servants, O Lord.

To Senators and Representatives, and those who make our
laws in States, Cities, and Towns, give courage, wisdom, and
foresight to provide for the needs of all our people, and to
fulfill our obligations in the community of nations.
Give grace to your servants, O Lord.

To the Judges and officers of our Courts give understanding
and integrity, that human rights may be safeguarded and
justice served.
Give grace to your servants, O Lord.

And finally, teach our people to rely on your strength and to
accept their responsibilities to their fellow citizens, that they
may elect trustworthy leaders and make wise decisions for
the well-being of our society; that we may serve you
faithfully in our generation and honor your holy Name.
For yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as
head above all. Amen.

Nothing at All

2009-01-12T15:29:00.000-06:00

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without a ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well.

from the book September.

Plagiarism

2009-01-09T09:21:00.003-06:00

Some of you have heard me talk about plagiarism before. Few things anger or distress me as much as a student who doesn't put the work into her speech or paper. One of the colleges where I teach doesn't have a firm policy about plagiarism, they leave it up to the instructor, so my policy has become that anyone caught plagiarizing gets a 0 for the assignment, period.

In my Speech class, I always spend part of a lecture, early in the semester, discussing exactly what plagiarism is and warning them against it. I give them handouts. I tell them, "I always know." And I do. This isn't because I'm brilliant, it's because they're stupid. If I can google some part of your speech and it comes up, then you've plagiarized it. Duh. I have access to more sophisticated programs, such as turnitin.com, articlechecker.com, and copyscape, but I don't need them. The Google and Yahoo serach engines work just fine.

We Speech teachers got a memo from the head of our department, in which she said that plagiarism was more of a problem this last semester than she had ever seen. She says that some students seem really not to know that cutting and pasting a paragraph here, a paragraph there, and then presenting it as your speech, is actually plagiarism.

My first instinct is to ask, "How do you get to college and not know that's plagiarism?" But, believe me, you'd be shocked at what students get to college not knowing. At least in my class, I KNOW I've told them exactly what plagiarism is--something I don't have to do--so they have no excuses.

This past semester I failed two students for plagiarizing on their final speeches. They're never even smart about it, either. One student copied wholesale a speech from a site called something like InformativeSpeeches.Com, and the other, who did a speech on cancer, copied hers entirely from Cancer.net--though she did cut and paste different paragraphs from different pages on the site. And it's very common for them to copy things directly from Wikipedia.

So, here's some advice for you if you ever have to take a Speech class. If you can't pronounce the words you use in your speech, your teacher will know you didn't come up with them. If you seem bored by your own topic, the teacher will know you didn't come up with your information. If you can't communicate coherently in daily conversation, but your speech suddenly sounds like a Nobel Prize winner wrote it, the teacher will know it's because a Nobel Prize winner wrote it, not you.

Teachers aren't stupid. And plagiarism is more than just lazy; it's dishonest and dishonorable. So...classes start in 12 days, and I guess I'll just have to continue to wage my own personal war against it. I kind of feel bad for my new students, because it always ends up that each new class pays for the sins of the one that came before.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-07T19:32:00.004-06:00

I've wanted to write about my New Year's resolutions since, well, the new year, but to tell the truth, they aren't all that clearly defined in my head. A few things that we've begun well and now just have to continue well are:

+ eating well (convenient but healthy snacks, especially for the kids)

+ exercising (even if it's cold and even in the afternoon)

+ writing every day on my book (even if it's just a few words on any given day)

+ to make one of the major repairs on our house (windows? carpet? downstairs bathroom?)

These are pretty important ones. Matt and I both have diabetes in our families, and while we have very healthy meals (thanks to Matt), we've allowed too many sugary snacks. Strangely, I have been a sugar-nazi about breakfast cereals (nothing over 12 grams of sugar), but then let them snack on store-bought cookies. Also, I really hate exercising, but it has to be done. I think we're supposed to be walking the puppies, but we haven't been doing a great job of that...so this one benefits everyone.

And, of course, I have a tendency to start a story, then drop it under the stress of everything else I have to do with my lfe. I don't want to do that anymore, so I am determined to write every day, even if it's a tiny bit. I went strong on this for 6 days, then last night got side-tracked by a mountain of laundry...but I think the trick is to keep going, so that's what I plan to do.

Other things I want from 2009 are more like dreams or wishes than resolutions, because I don't have any plans for how to get them. I want:

+ to lose 40 pounds (this really shouldn't be a wish, but I don't have a plan in place for how to do it yet)

+ to replace the income from one of my jobs with income from writing (I have some possibilities on the horizon, but again, nothing that is well-thought-through enough to be called a resolution)

So, there you are. Nothing huge, just progressing with life in the right direction, geting stuff done that needs to be done. Anyone else want to share their resolutions?

January Observances

2008-12-26T09:01:00.003-06:00

January 2009 is:

Monthly Observances

Book Blitz Month
Birth Defects Month
Celebration of Life Month
Cervical Cancer Screening Month
Family Fit Lifestyle Month
Financial Wellness Month
Get Organized Month
International Creativity Month
National Clean Up Your Computer Month
National Get Organized Month
National Glaucoma Awareness Month
National Hot Tea Month
National Lose Weight, Feel Great Month
National Mentoring Month
National Personal Self-Defense Awareness Month
National Poverty in America Awareness Month
National Skating Month
National Volunteer Blood Donor Month
Oatmeal Month
Thyroid Awareness Month

Weekly Observances

Diet Resolution Week: 1-7
New Year's Resolutions Week: 4-10
Home Office Safety and Security Week: 5-9
Women's Self Empowerment Week: 5-11
Elvis Presley Week: 8-11
International Consumer Electronics Show: 8-11
Universal Letter Writing Week: 8-14
International Printing Week: 11-17
Kid Film Week: 12-25
National Soccer Coaches Week: 14-18
Sundance Film Festival: 15-25
Healthy Weight Week: 18-24
Hunt For Happiness Week: 18-24
National Medical Group Practice Week: 19-23
National Activity Professional Week: 20-25
National Nurse Anesthetists Week: 25-31
Take Back Your Time Week:26-30
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Week: 24-31
World Leprosy Week: 24-30

Daily Observances

New Years Day: 1
Rose Bowl Game: 1
Saint Basil's Day: 1
Tournament of Roses Parade Day: 1
National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day: 3
Trivia Day: 4
Bird Day: 5
Thank God It's Monday Day: 5
Asarah B'Tevet: 6
Epiphany or Twelfth Night: 6
Three Kings Day: 6
Harlem Globetrotter' s Day: 7
Midwife's Day or Women's Day: 8
Show and Tell Day at Work: 8
National Cut Your Energy Costs Day: 10
United Nations Day: 10
Stephen Foster Day: 11
National Clean Off Your Desk Day: 12
Organize Your Home Day: 12
Get to Know Your Customers Day: 15
Humanitarian Day: 15
Bald Eagle Appreciation Days: 16-18
Customer Service Day: 17
Kid Inventors' Day: 17
Judgment Day: 17
Pooh (Winnie The) Day: 18
World Religion Day: 18
Martin Luther King Day: 19
Camcorder Day: 20
Inauguration Day: 20
National Disc Jockey Day: 20
National Hugging Day: 21
Celebration of Life Day: 22
Women's Healthy Weight Day: 22
National Handwriting Day: 23
National Pie Day: 23
National Compliment Day: 24
Macintosh Computer Day: 25
Chinese New Year: 26
Better Business Communication Day: 26
National Speak Up and Succeed Day: 27
World Leprosy Day: 29
Fun at Work Day: 30

I had no idea there was a Winnie the Pooh Day! And NATIONAL PIE DAY! Wow...we're gonna party on the 23rd...

Birthday

2008-12-01T11:55:00.004-06:00

I'm sure it says something about me that I can post my own birthday post on time, but I'm always late with everyone else's. However, I think that it might just say that my Speech class got out early and I had a few extra minutes to blog.

Since today's Monday and I have a full day of classes, we went out for my birthday last night. Matt and the kids took me to Golden Corral for dinner and then we went to Border's where I bought a lot of Christmas presents and Matt got mad at me and made me buy something for myself. It was sleeting and slick on the way home; we saw several cars in ditches, and at least one that was upside down and pretty badly wrecked. But my sweetie is a good driver and got us home safely.

I got the best presents ever; Matt gave me the Frank Capra collection, which includes Mr. Deeds, It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith, You Can't Take It With You, and one more (a lesser known one, I can't remember the name right now). David gave me the movie Meet the Robinsons, one of my favorite Disney movies, and we watched it together when we got home. Sabra got me some delicious Jamaican coffee and a pretty watch, and Abby bought (with her own money!) a beautiful hand-made wooden cross that is going on the living room wall as soon as we get it painted. So, it's barely noon, and it's already been a great birthday.

A year ago, on my last birthday, I set some goals for the next year, as I usually do on my birthday. They were:

+ lose 30 pounds
+ finish the first draft of my book
+ make $50,000 myself, without including Matt's income

Obviously, I didn't do any of those things. It's a bit depressing. But still, I don't have anything to complain about. I have the best life a person could have, and I often go through my days waiting for the other shoe to drop, because it sometimes seems that if someone is this happy, there must be a price to pay. I don't know if things actually work that way--I hope not, because there's nothing I'm willing to give up.

Life is good, and I am grateful to be given another year to live it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T08:40:00.005-06:00

We've had some tragedies in our community in recent weeks. People to whom we have connections have suffered terrible losses. One family lost everything in a fire, including their 9-year-old son, and one family lost a 36-year-old daughter to cancer just two days after she gave birth to her second son. These tragedies were fast, brutal, and unexpected, and left their survivors reeling from shock and grief.

Our family has felt some of that shock and grief, and done whatever we could to help the families involved. But it has reinforced something I've always tried to keep in mind...to be thankful for every day and every person. It could all end or drastically change in a heartbeat.

Our lives are filled with imperfect people who do stupid things--sometimes to us. Our lives are filled with frustrating situations--we don't have enough money, we don't like our jobs, we're sick to death of our house, our car, our clothes, our town, or the people we have to see day in and day out. I know that, I know life isn't perfect, and sometimes it isn't what we imagined or hoped it would be when we were dreaming our dreams of the future.

Obviously, we have both the right and the responsibility to change the things we can change, to make our lives as satisfying and generous as they can be. But today is the perfect day to stop dwelling on the things we wish were different, just for a day. Today is the day to look around and tell ourselves, and tell God, and tell each other, even if nothing ever changes, even if this is as good as it gets, I love you, and I am so grateful to have you in my life. I am so grateful to have a home, a car, a job (or three), dear friends, and family who is always there for me. I would be shocked and grieved if any of these people or things were taken from me, though somtimes it takes a tragedy (or two) to remind me how grateful I am.

I love y'all. I tell God thank you every day for letting me be your mommy, your wife, your daughter, your sister, your relative, your teacher, your pastor, your friend. I'll try to show my thankfulness by being better at all those things, and I'll try to change what needs to be changed. But not today. Today I'm just thankful, grateful from the bottom of my heart. I just wanted you to know.

Happy Thanksgiving!

December's Commemorations

2008-11-18T19:24:00.002-06:00

December 2008 is:

Monthly Observances

Bingo's Birthday Month
Colorectal Cancer Education and Awareness Month
Identity Theft Prevention and Awareness Month
National Drunk & Drugged Driving (3D) Prevention Month
Choose A Summer Camp Month
National Write A Business Plan Month
National Tie Month
Safe Toys and Gifts Month
Spiritual Literacy Month
Take a New Year's Resolution to Stop Smoking

Weekly Observances

National Handwashing Awareness Week: 7-13
Human Rights Week: 10-17
Gluten-free Baking Week: 14-20
Posadas : 16-24
It's About Time Week: 25-31
Kwanzaa: 26-1/1

Daily Observances

International Voluntary HIV Counselling & Testing Day: 1
World Aids Day: 1
International Day for the Abolition of Slavery Day: 2
Rockerfeller Center Xmas Tree Lighting: 2
Special Education Day: 2
Special Kids Day: 3
International Day of Disabled Persons: 3
Extraordinary Work Team Recognition Day: 4
National Dice Day: 4
International Volunteer Day for Economic & Social Development: 5
Coats & Toys for Kids Day: 6
Miners' Day: 6
National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day: 7
International Civil Aviation Day: 7
National Cotton Candy Day: 7
Human Rights Day: 10
UNICEF Birthday: 11
Poinsettia Day: 12
International Shareware Day: 13
National Childrens' Memorial Day: 14
Bill of Rights Day: 15
Wright Brothers Day: 17
International Migrants Day: 18
International Human Solidarity Day: 20
Hanukkah: 21
Humbug Day: 21
National Haiku Poetry Day: 21
World Peace Day/Winter Solstice: 21
Christmas: 25
Boxing Day: 26
National Chocolate Day: 28 & 29
New Years Eve: 31
Universal Hour of Peace Day: 31
World Peace Meditation Day: 31

Not a lot of observances in December; maybe because there's already so much going on. I always remember World AIDS Day because it's on my birthday. And don't forget to hug a miner on the 6th!

Veterans' Day

2008-11-12T07:46:00.002-06:00

I am working on a post about the elections, but every time I go to try to find sources for my thoughts, my computer decides that opening two browser windows is too much work. So, that's coming. I apologize to my loved ones who are veterans for not posting in a more timely manner yesterday; you were in my thoughts and prayers and certainly those of my children as well.

My dear friend Michelle sent this post, with her experience yesterday and the simple prayer that was part of it. I offer her thoughts to you in gratitude for all our veterans have done for us, and for all those who pay the price of freedom so that we don't have to.

Michelle writes:

Those of you who know me well will recall that I have served 15 years in the Navy, between active duty and Reserves. I took my children to the commemoration ceremony in town today, and in the moment of silence this prayer came into my heart. I'd like to share it with you.

Heavenly Father, bless my brothers and sisters who have died in the service of our nation. Bless and comfort their familes.

Lord, guard and protect my brothers and sisters who are serving right now. Bring them home safely.

Father, send comfort and healing to my brothers and sisters who have been wounded in service of our nation, whether in body or in soul. Hold them close, and help them become whole again.

In Jesus's name I ask these blessings. Amen.

Michelle
(Lieutenant Commander, U. S. Navy Reserves)

Some Thoughts on Election Day

2008-11-04T10:42:00.003-06:00

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!
~Thomas Jefferson

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.
~Mark Twain

Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea.
~John Gunther

It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
~Robert H. Parker

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
~Thomas Jefferson

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.
~John F. Kennedy

Ask not what uyour country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.
~John F. Kennedy

Don't forget to vote today!

Some Last Minute Election Information

2008-11-03T12:12:00.004-06:00

Here is some information that I got when I was doing political fundraising. My classes found it useful, so I though y'all might as well. It lays out what each political party generally says about some of the major issues. I know that not everybody follows the entire line of their chosen party, but these are generally what each party says.

Taxes

Republicans: Believe that tax cuts to all tax-paying Americans generate economic growth, which results in more tax revenue for the government.
Democrats: Believe in keeping tax rates at a higher level to provide for social programs.

Spending

Republicans: Want to control or decrease spending. If necessary, programs should be reduced to control spending.
Democrats: Believe that spending is necessary to provide services to the nation. Believe increasing taxes will allow more programs to be funded.

Size of Government

Republicans: Believe that a smaller national government is best. Believe that the states should decide how to implement programs successfully in their state.
Democrats: Believe that there should be a large national government. Believe that decisions should be made in Washington DC and then communicated to the states.

National Defense

Republicans: Want a strong and large military. Believe that decisions regarding military action may be made without United Nations approval.
Democrats: Want an average strength and sized military, because we can depend on our allies to help us. We must have United Nations approval before any action outside of our own country is taken.

Social Security

Republicans: Allow individuals to have some control over their retirement monies, including the possibility of privately investing their social security funds.
Democrats: The federal government should control the investment, investing in Treasury bills, and increasing the national debt if necessary.

Farming

Republicans: Support farmers by opening new markets for the products to be sold. Create a fair export/tariff system.
Democrats: Support farmers by giving them price supports and guaranteeing a price for the products produced.

Abortion

Republicans: Most are strongly pro-life and vote in favor of stronger restrictions on abortion.
Democrats: Most are strongly pro-choice and fight efforts to make obtaining an abortion more challenging.

Gun Control

Republicans: Interpret the 2nd Ammendment as guaranteeing private gun ownership. Want to preserve the right to keep and bear arms.
Democrats: Support gun control initiatives. Believe in national registries and regulating the sales of guns. Interpret 2nd Ammendment as allowing for state militias alone.

Environment

Republicans: Decisions should be made with consideration for the population that is impacted by the decision and the environmental impact of the decision.
Democrats: Decisions should be made in favor of the environment, whatever the other economic consequences may be.

So...everybody ready for tomorrow?

5 Halloween Character Case Files

2008-10-31T19:47:00.002-05:00

I got this article from WebMD, by way of Alicia's blog Mental Health Notes (thanks, Alicia!).

They did case files for witches, zombies, ghouls, vampires, and werewolves. It's pretty fascinating. Some of the things we learn are that witches are probably the most psychologically healthy of the characters, since they were likely to have been women healers and herbalists, especially in the Middle Ages. Not that there haven't been women who weren't mentally ill or used their skills for harm, but mostly, they were just misunderstood and feared because of their knowledge and power.

Zombies were probably originally victims of medieval "trials by ordeal" in which accused persons were treated with a drug that made some people stumble about and walk stiffly with arms outstretched (of course, if you didn't do that, you were innocent). It's also possible that another origin was in Haiti, among voodoo priests who would drug a victim into subservience, say that it was done by magic, and make those victims their zombie slaves.

Ghouls, which are creatures that eat corpses, were probably originally people with one of those disordered compulsions that compelled them to fantasize and obsess about eating dead flesh, and then sometimes to do it. That's about all they say, but I'd be very interested in knowing more about that kind of obsession (or maybe I'm just better off not knowing!).

Apparently there are several psychiatrists who have done analyses of vampires, particularly Bram Stoker's Dracula. They talk about a pathological need to control others, which may be represented by their controlling their very life and death through their blood. They also mention anemia as a possible physiological cause, but surprisingly they don't mention porphyria, which is the one I've always heard.

Werewolves and other were-animals are probably afflicted with a rare psychiatric disorder called lycanthropy. In this disorder, the person imagines himself or herself able to turn into an animal, possibly as a way to cope with violent or murderous feelings.

So, there you go. All the spooky stories, all the supernatural things that have ever happened can be explained by the psychiatrists.

Or can they?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_lycanthropy

And now for something really scary...

2008-10-28T10:29:00.003-05:00

In honor of Halloween, I'm posting a site that might interest you. It features photographs and videos of ghosts and other entities that are thought to be supernatural. The site is Slightly Warped's Ghastly Ghost Gallery .

I am warning you, though, that some of these are really scary. Not bloody or gory, but just so real, and experts have never been able to figure out how they might have been faked or whether there's another, less supernatural explanation. So, if you are freaked out by this sort of thing, you probably shouldn't check this out. I kind of wish I had given myself that advice last night; I might have slept better.

I don't have any opinion about the veracity of these photos and videos. They look real to me, but I would probably be very easy to fool. But I do know that there are things in the world that can't be explained. And I also know that most of the people of the world throughout history have believed that the supernatural world touches the natural one--at least occasionally. That's pretty persuasive to me.

Love y'all. Have a safe Halloween.

Missouri Proposition A

2008-10-23T13:23:00.003-05:00

One of the pieces of legistlation we'll be voting on here in Missouri is Proposition A, which would remove limits on gambling losses at Missouri casinos. Two groups that make a pretty good case for both sides of that argument are Casino Watch, Inc., and the Missouri Riverboat Gaming Association.

My first reaction was to say absolutely not, no way should loss limits be lifted. The loss limit in Missouri for any person in any single visit at one casino is $500, which has been in place since riverboat gambling was legalized in Missouri in 1992. The legislature has had many opportunities to lift this limit, but those bills have never passed in in all this time. The idea is that gambling addicts can't lose too much money in one sitting; it was one of the safeguards that voters insisted on before they would approve gambling. The president of Casino Watch has a lot of other things to say about the negative effects of lifting the loss limit.

But, the MRGA makes some good points about the problems of loss limits. They claim that Missouri loses gambling revenue because tourists go to other states that don't have them, such as our neighbors Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. And if Prop A passes, people can lose a lot more money, which will go to the casinos, which the state can then tax (Prop A includes a 1% increase in the casino tax). And of course, that money goes to the schools.

The Proposition is presented in such a way that its chief arguments are, "Everyone else is doing this and we are missing out on it," and "Don't you want to give money to the schools?"

And yet, I also know how devasting and destructive a gambling addiction can be to a family and community, and how many years it can families take to recover from some gambling losses. I don't know that it's right to fund our children's future on that kind of misery. But nobody is forced to gamble--this isn't a tax--and the schools need to be funded.

I don't know how I'm voting on this yet. I'm leaning toward no, but the arguments for it make a lot of sense, too.

Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsy

2008-10-14T19:07:00.002-05:00

S.I.J. Schereschewsky is one of my favorite saints. I preached this sermon on his feast day a few years ago. It tells his amazing, humbling story.

“Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day…preparing us for an eternal weight of glory”

There are few saints whose lives I have found as poignant as Joseph Schereschewsky.

One article stated about him that he was the last person one might have expected to end his life working for Jesus from a wheelchair.

He was born to a Jewish family in Lithuania,
and converted to Christianity while he was in rabbinical school.

He came to the United States to study,
became an Episcopalian, and ended up at General Seminary.

He never actually graduated from General,
because Bishop Boone took him and ordained him and sent him to be a missionary to China.

I assume that young Joseph was a good priest.
He was certainly much beloved by the people in his care.

But his one outstanding gift,
the thing for which he is remembered
a hundred and more years later,
is his gift for languages.

He learned one Chinese dialect on the ship on his way to China, and by the time his ministry was over,
he had translated either parts or the whole of the Bible into five different Oriental dialects.

Along the way he got married to Susan Mary Waring,
and together they ministered to the people of China and Japan.

He was made bishop of Shanghai in 1877,
a post he didn’t really want,
but he took for the sake of his beloved people and beloved church.

That same year he founded St. John’s University,
so that Chinese Christians would have place to go and learn.

“Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day...preparing us for an eternal weight of glory.”

Unfortunately, he wasn’t bishop for very long.
After six years in that office, he developed a disease,
which some say was Parkinson’s,
but could have been some other disease,
which resulted in him being largely paralyzed.
He resigned as bishop.

Now I don’t know what he was thinking at this point.

He was a world-renowned expert on Oriental culture and languages.

He was a world-traveled missionary bishop with a passion for the word of God.

He was at home with people the rest of the world didn’t give much thought to.

His life to that point was full of active, assertive verbs:
He founded and built and opened and taught and gave.

He resigned as Bishop and went back to the United States, and as I understand it took up residence in a little house just over the hill there, right here in Sewanee.

But I can’t really say he went back home to the United States, because it’s very clear his home was no longer on this side of the Pacific.

I imagine, though, that he returned to the US because he thought he was coming home to die.

He was paralyzed and sick and unable to do the things he was in the Orient to do.
He and his wife came back to prepare for his death.

“Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day...preparing us for an eternal weight of glory.”

But, as it happens,
while he did remain sick and paralyzed,
while he remained in a wheelchair unable to go out among his people and to his school,
he did not die.

And if you are not going to die, you have to find something to do. And there was one thing Joseph knew he could do.

He could translate.

So he and Susan returned to Shanghai and then to Tokyo.

Toward the end of his life,
Joseph said the thing for which he is most famous.

He said,
“I have sat in this chair for over twenty years.
It seemed very hard at first.
But God knew best.
He kept me for the work for which I am best fitted.”

That one line, “It seemed very hard at first,”
just about breaks my heart.

It seemed very hard at first.
Most of us can probably only imagine how hard it really was.

But even illness and paralysis could not keep this man from doing what God had given him to do.

He could translate,
he could make sure that people had access to God’s revelation in the Scriptures,
and that is what he did.

With what Lesser Feasts and Fasts calls “heroic perseverance,” Joseph completed his last translation of the Bible,
typing over 2000 pages
with the middle finger of his partially crippled hand.

And after 20 years of that,
of sitting bound to a wheelchair typing away in Wenli,
yet another Chinese dialect,
he was able to say,
“God knew best.
He kept me for the work for which I am best fitted.”

“Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day…preparing us for an eternal weight of glory”

If any life of any Christian could be said to demonstrate this verse from Second Corinthians, it’s Joseph Schereschewsky’s.

For over two decades, his outer life wasted away,
and day by day his inner nature was renewed.

Saint Paul says that as our outer nature wastes away,
our inner nature is being renewed as preparation for the eternal weight of glory.

By the time Joseph died in 1906,
the eternal weight of glory was shining through him,
through his obedience,
through his work,
through his perseverance,
through his love,
so that he was a nearly transparent vehicle of God’s
power made perfect in weakness.
The eternal weight of glory.

This kind of sainthood is humbling and
somewhat frightening for the rest of us.

It has some ramifications for us a hundred years later.

It means we’ve got no right to complain,
and no excuse for anything less than heroic perseverance.

It means that everything else can waste away,
including our very bodies,
but we are still to be renewed inside ourselves,
in the dwelling place of Christ.

We are being prepared for an eternal weight of glory,
and in the face of Joseph Schereschewsky’s
extraordinary example,
we’ve got no excuse in the world,
no reason at all that that glory shouldn’t shine in us as well.

But they're not terrorists...

2008-10-14T18:40:00.002-05:00

This weekend, the Bush administration took North Korea off the Terrorist Nation list. This is in spite of the fact that North Korea is the #1 persecutor of Christians in the world, and has been for 6 years running--imprisoning, torturing, and killing more Christian believers than China, the Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq.

I don't know if anyone needed more proof that the United States is not a Christian nation by a long shot, but if you did, you can read more about it here. No Christian nation would normalize relations with a country that leaves 400,000 brothers and sisters not only without religious freedom, but in fear for their lives because of their faith.

I'm not President Bush's biggest fan, but I don't usually think he's as bad as the press makes him out to be. But this...? I don't know what to do with this.

If you are a praying person, pray for Christians and other religious people suffering for their faith, in North Korea and around the world.

Apple Butter Makin' Days!

2008-10-10T23:15:00.002-05:00

Here in Mount Vernon, Apple Butter Makin' Days has arrived again. You can read what our chamber of commerce says about ABMD here. ABMD is one of the fall festivals that they have in almost every town in this region. Crafters set up booths and sell things and all the churches and organizations have booths and activities. It's always the second weekend of October, and it's a blast. The kids get out of school for Friday, and there's a huge parade on Saturday. Matt's parents usually come down and in fact are here right now! (Hi Mom and Dad!) This year my mom was able to come down, too--Yay!

We're already having so much fun! Matt spent all day cooking a huge fried chicken dinner--one of only 3 times we eat fried chicken in a year. It was soooo good. The kids got to do a lot of stuff today (including helping to clean the house for company, but not only that!), and I worked for a couple of hours at the PTA booth in the morning.

Tomorrow, though, is the big day. The parade starts at 9:00, and we have invited several friends to come sit on our porch, because the parade goes right by our house! That's one reason we never want to move out of this house. It's the best parade I've ever seen. All our kids are usually in it, because everyone has a float in the ABMD parade, but this year David just wants to sit on the porch and watch instead of riding on the soccer float.

The only drawback is the huge crowds that pour into town on Saturday. It's great for the town, and brings in a ton of business, but it's very crowded, and I start to wish all these people would go away--and leave ABMD to us townies! But it's not so bad, and people have a lot of fun.

And yes, if you were wondering, we really do make apple butter. At about 6:00 tomorrow morning, the giant cauldrons will be set up over the fires on the square, and thousands of apples will be converted into apple butter. We always buy a lot of it, so if you want apple butter for Christmas, this would be a good time to let us know.

National German-American Day!

2008-10-06T08:14:00.002-05:00

Today is National German-American Day! Since I am one of those, I'd like to give a big shout-out to the Teels and the Kramers. I tend to identify myself more with my Italian heritage, but I'm exactly as much German as I am Italian, and actually, my kids are more German than anything.

Some good sites to learn more about our German-American heritage can be found here and here.

Haben sie ein gutan Tag! Ich liebe ihnen!

Katja

Happy Birthday, Annie!

2008-10-06T08:05:00.002-05:00

This is more than a week late, but I figured now I've started a tradition of the week-after birthday posts, and who I am to go agaisnt tradition?

Last week was the 29th birthday of my baby sister, Annie! Yay! She was born at the end of a sweltering hot summer; if you look through news archives, you will see that we had a terrible heat wave in the summer of 1979. We didn't have air conditioning, either. I was not quite 9, but I still remember all that.

Annie is by far the most glamorous and fashionable person in our family. I mean, even if we all won the lottery, we could never match the sheer style and personality that Annie achieves every day. And I completely admire that (actually envy it a bit, to tell the truth).

But really, the best things about Annie aren't those gorgeous externals. She has a huge generous heart--she's even gotten awards for community service. She takes charge at the VFW, running Bingo games and volunteering and singing her heart out for our country and those who served it. She puts herself out for people, and really goes above and beyond for anyone who needs it. That's what I really admire about her; she's beautiful both inside and out.

Happy 29th birthday, sweetie! I hope it was a good one, and I hope you have a great year.

Love,
Your Big Sister

The October List!

2008-10-01T22:17:00.003-05:00

Hey, look! I found the list of October observances! This is what happens when you get 3 months behind in your emails...

October 2008 is:

Monthly Observances
Adopt A Shelter Dog Month
(World) Blindness Awareness Month
Celiac Sprue Awareness Month
Children's Magazine Month
Christmas Seal Campaign (10/1-12/31)
Class Reunion Month
Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Dyslexia Awareness Month
Eat Better, Eat Together Month
Emotional Wellness Month
German-American Heritage Month
Global Diversity Awareness Month
Long Term Care Planning Month
Lupus Awareness Month
National Animal Safety and Protection Month
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
National Chili Month
National Chiropractic Month
National Crime Prevention Month
National Dental Hygiene Month
National Depression Education & Awareness Month
National Down Syndrome Month
National Ergonomics Month
National Family Sexuality Education Month
National Liver Awareness Month
National Orthodontic Health Month
National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month
National Reading Group Month
National Seafood Month
National Spina Bifida Awareness Month
National Window Covering Safety Month
National Work and Family Month
National Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Awareness Month
Organize Your Medical Information Month
Polish American Heritage Month
Spinach Lovers Month
Stamp Collecting Month
Vegetarian Month
Women's Small Business Month

Weekly Observances
Universal Children's Week: 1-7
No Salt Week: 2-9
World Space Week: 4-10
National Work From Home Week: 5-11
Emergency Nurses Week: 5-11
Fire Prevention Week: 5-11
Mental Illness Awareness Week: 5-11
National Metric Week: 5-11
Nuclear Medicine Week: 5-11
Customer Service Week: 6-12
Financial Planning Week: 6-12
Improve Your Home Office Week: 6-10
Physicians Assistant Week: 6-12
Build Your Business with Business Cards Week: 12-18
Infection Prevention Week: 12-18
National Food Bank Week: 12-18
National School Lunch Week: 12-18
Teen Read Week: 12-18
American Association of Medical Assistants: 13-19
Freedom of Speech Week: 13-19
National Veterinary Technician Week: 13-19
World Rainforest Week: 13-19
Getting The World To Beat A Path To Your Door Week: 14-20
Celebrate Micro Small and Home Business Week: 16-22
Food and Drug Interaction Education and Awareness Week: 17-24
YWCA Week without Violence: 19-25
National Infection Prevention Week: 19-25
Kids Care Week: 19-25
National Food Bank Week: 19-25
National Massage Therapy Week: 19-25
National Respiratory Care Week: 19-25
National School Bus Safety Week: 19-25
National Businesswomen' s Week: 20-24
National Health Education Week: 20-24
World Hearing Aid Awareness Week: 23-29
Prescription Errors Education & Awareness Week: 24-31
Peace, Friendship and Good Will Week: 25-31
International Herpes Awareness Week: 31-11/6

Daily Observances
Balloons Around The World: 1
Child Health Day: 1
International Day of Older Persons: 1
World Vegetarian Day: 1
World Farm Animals Day: 2
Lee's National Denim Day: 3
National Diversity Day: 3
World Smile Day: 3
World Communion Day: 5
World Teachers Day: 5
National German-American Day: 6
Physician Assistant (PA) Day: 6
World Habitat Day: 6
Native Americans' Day: 8
Yom Kipper: 8
National Depression Screening Day: 9
World Post Day: 9
World Sight Day: 9
Naval Academy Day: 10
World Mental Health Day: 10
International Newspaper Carrier Day: 11
Universal Music Day: 11
Columbus Day: 13
National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day: 15
White Cane Safety Day: 15
Dictionary Day: 16
Get to Know Your Customers Day: 16
World Food Day: 16
International Day for the Eradication of Poverty: 17
Mammography Day: 17
World Menopause Day: 18
Sunday School Teacher Appreciation Day: 19
World Osteoporosis Day: 20
International Stuttering Awareness Day: 22
International Bandanna Day: 24
Lung Health Day: 24
United Nations Day: 24
World Priest Day: 26
Diwali: 28
National Chocolates Day: 28
St. Jude's Day: 28
Internet Day: 29
National Caramel Apple Day: 31
National Knock-Knock Jokes Day: 31
National UNICEF Day: 31
Halloween: 31

Hey, Annie and Abby! The 31st is National Knock-Knock Joke day! You guys should enjoy that!

As for me, I will be enjoying World Priest Day. I don't know what World Priests actually do, but it sounds like fun...

And I just want to say, I don't care what the rest of the world is doing, this is America, and you can't make me celebrate National Metric week.

Kat

Rest in Peace and Awake in Glory

2008-09-26T15:32:00.003-05:00

I am sorry for the slacking; I have had every intention of posting more often, but the next post simply had to be this one, and to write it properly I needed a bit of time--which, as usual, has been hard to come by.

On September 10, my husband's grandmother, Betty Hood, died at the age of 89. You can see a picture of her here, on my brother-in-law's blog (while you're there, be sure to check out the pics of my beautiful niece).

Betty had been going downhill for a long time, and had been in pain, and she was ready. She'd actually been ready for longer than that, since 1993, when her husband Bill died. She got herself ready to be called home, convinced it wouldn't be that long until the Lord called her to follow Bill.

But Betty had work yet to do. I always knew that Betty was a prayer warrior; in fact, I used her frequently in my sermons as an example of utmost faithfulness in even the most limited and limiting of situations. I often pictured her sitting in the little scooter she used to zip around in, single-handedly waging war on the Devil--and winning.

However, there is a story that I didn't hear until after she died that made me realize what a warrior Betty truly was--at least in the eyes of some. Most of us thought, with a mixture of affection and exasperation, that Betty just loved to complain. That's pretty typical of elderly people--the smaller your world gets, the bigger the details become in your mind, so the fewer things you can just let go. But after she died, one of her friends from the nursing home came into her room to see her, to say goodbye, and she began to cry and said, "Who's going to stand up for us now?"

What some of saw as just old-person crankiness was heroism in the lives of those who had no one else to stand for them. Betty didn't just complain about things, she got them fixed. She didn't just tell you what was wrong, she told you how to do it right--and as often as not kept at you until you did it right. For her friends in the nursing home, Betty got done things they couldn't do for themselves. She stood up for them, she spoke for them, she made sure that their concerns were taken seriously. She was their hero, and they loved her.

Betty Hood may have been old, overweight, and confined to a wheelchair. But in every way that matters, she was a warrior and a hero. I am honored beyond telling to have belonged to her family for so long, and I am grateful to God for letting my children sit at the feet of such a hero and learn from her.

Go with God, Grandma, in that place where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting. Pray for us who remain, that our hearts will be comforted, until we see you again.

Happy Birthday to My Sweetie

2008-09-06T01:15:00.001-05:00

Okay, well, as usual, I'm a bit late on this. But rest assured, we did celebrate Matt's birthday at home, with presents and ice cream cake.

I would like to give a shout-out to Mom and Dad Teel, who made this day possible. Thanks for doing all that, because I'm really glad he was born.

I read an article recently where the writer asserted, "Your husband is not your best friend. Your best friend is your best friend. If your husband is your best friend, you need more friends." I feel sorry for that writer. I have excellent, wonderful friends...my sisters being high on the list, as well as my gals in the Playhouse. But I can only imagine that the article writer has no experience of a marriage in which the two people laugh a lot and believe in each other and go the extra mile and share values but not necessarily opinions and find rest and comfort and sheer fun in each others' presence and rush back home at the end of the day because the other one is waiting there. How sad for her.

So, to my Sweetie, Happy Birthday. I love you, and you are my best friend. Also, you're a lot older than me, so that makes me happy, too.

Your adoring and much younger wife.

Breast Cancer Legislation

2008-09-06T01:05:00.000-05:00

I got this from my mom, who is a breast cancer survivor. And I can tell you that what this nurse describes is true: my mom had a partial mastectomy a few years ago and they sent her home on the same day.

From a nurse:

I'll never forget the look in my patients' eyes when I had to tell them they had to go home with the drains, new exercises and no breast. I remember begging the Doctors to keep these women in the hospital longer, only to hear that they would, but their hands were tied by the insurance companies. So there I sat with my patients, giving them the instructions they needed to take care of themselves, knowing full well they didn't grasp half of what I was saying, because the glazed, hopeless, frightened look spoke louder than the quiet 'Thank You' they muttered. A mastectomy is when a woman's breast is removed in order to remove cancerous breast cells/tissue. If you know anyone who has had a Mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards. Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure. Let's give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery.

It takes 2 seconds to do this and is very important. Please take the time and do it! Please send this to everyone in your address book. If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is one of those times.

If you're receiving this, it's because I think you will take the 30 seconds to vote on this issue and send it on to others you know who will do the same. There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the 'drive-through' mastectomy where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with draina ge tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their Web page with a petition drive to show support. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE!! Sign the petition by clicking on the web site. You need not give more than your name, state, and zip code.

This takes about 2 seconds. PLEASE PASS THIS ON to your friends and family, and on behalf of all women, THANKS

Guns and Gangsters in Kansas City

2008-09-01T08:31:00.000-05:00

The article is titled, "Kansas City's Wholesome Image Belies Mob Past," which kind of puzzles me, because being from there, I had no idea KC had a wholesome image. But, the article is cool, and the actor/tour guide that you hear in it is my friend Tim Phillips! It talks about how KC was a mob town for a long time, well into the 70's. I remember when I was a little kid, my dad showing me the bullet holes in the walls from shootouts at Union Station.

You can read and listen to the article here!