Lift Up Your Hearts!

One of my regular walks takes me across a small bridge, under which flows a stream.  This stream can be a pathetic trickle or a rushing torrent, depending on the recent weather.  Yesterday we had a good deal of rain, so today I was treated to a lively, chattering stream that flowed and leapt with great enthusiasm.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

In the time of the writer of Psalm 23, sheep (and therefore shepherds) must have had quite a different persepective on water.  He's clearly praising the still waters (and God for providing them), but when I think of still water, I picture something stale, flat, and unprofitable:  fetid ponds, or the unpalatable alternative to mineral water that Swiss restaurants will serve you if you make the mistake of asking for water that's not fizzy instead of for that blessed, delicious Swiss Hahnewasser.  (Tap water, that is.  Switzerland has wonderful drinking water, and it flows freely in the city fountains, yet restaurants will charge you an arm and a leg for something flat and boring unless you know the secret password.  Remember it:  Hahnewasser.) 

Still water smells of death and decay.  Moving, flowing, leaping streams project life, health, freedom.  Why was the psalmist so happy with God for leading him to still waters?

I guess I'll have to learn a lot more about a shepherd's life in ancient Israel to be able to answer that.

H/T to Jon:

In Google maps, get directions from "Beijing, China" to "Taipei, Taiwan."  Look at direction 40.

Then do the same thing from Beijing, China to Tokyo, Japan, and look at direction 32.

A quick search didn't turn up anything else as interesting.

Our library finally came through with Introverts in the Church, into which I will dive as soon as I finish the other two books I’m currently reading.  I wonder if it will touch on the question that came to me while I was waiting:

Could Jesus have been an introvert?

Going with the standard definitions of extroversion as having one’s energy renewed by the presence of other people, and introversion as having one’s energy renewed by solitude, it makes no sense that God—the source of all energy and in no need of renewal—could be considered either.  But in taking on human form, he took on human limitations, and just as he was male instead of female, had brown eyes instead of blue, and spoke Aramaic rather than Chinese, he was most likely one or the other.  I think there’s plenty of Biblical evidence to suggest that he may have required solitude for refreshment and renewal, especially in times of stress and after being with large crowds.  For example:

• Luke 5:16  But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
• Matthew 14:13 (after the beheading of John the Baptist)  When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place….
• Matthew 14: 23 (after the feeding of the 5000):  After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.
• Mark 1:35   Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
• Luke 4:42  At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place.

Pressed in on all sides by crowds, exhausting himself with teaching and healing, when Jesus needed rest he sought lonely places and the company of his Father alone.

Sounds like an introvert to me.

This is a mighty sad article.  The British government has issued official guidelines aimed at getting the under-five crowd moving.

The British government says children under five, including infants, should exercise every day. The guidelines recommend children under five be physically active for at least three hours per day, they also say that babies should be doing tummy time or in-swim lessons with their parents to help them gain strength.

Well, good for the British government, if it's really necessary.  Is this the fruit of the back-to-sleep campaign, long rides in car seats, baby swings, strollers, bouncy seats, playpens, walkers, baby videos, and other well- and not-so-well-intentioned interventions?

All the under-fives I know (not to mention more than a few five-and-overs) have no problem whatsoever being active for three hours practically every waking minute each day.  Every mother of a toddler from the creation of the world has no doubt groaned more than once, "If I could only bottle that energy...."

The British government's expressed concern is with the later risk of adult obesity, but if our toddlers must be prodded to be active, we're looking at more of a problem than that.  It's nothing less than a sea change in the development of the human race.

The Raw Milk Revolution:  Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights, by David E. Gumpert (Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont, 2009)

That the forward to The Raw Milk Revolution was written by Joel Salatin—whose Polyface Farms is the poster child for independent, sustainable farming—gives the reader a good idea of where the book ends up.  That's a lot more than the author knew when he began his investigation.  He was over 50 when he had his first glass of raw milk, and hadn't given milk of any form much thought for some 30 years.

But for a writer with interests in both small businesses and health, the growing demand for unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk—and the increasing governmental interference with the small dairy farms that are its only source—was a natural field to investigate.

I had my first glass of raw milk at lunch, with a homemade chocolate chip cookie....  Suddenly I was back in my childhood, with my all-time favorite snack.  The milk was as creamy and rich tasting as it looked, with a slight sweetness I didn't recall from my childhood milk. ... But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that overhanging the experience was an anxiety-laden question provoked by my American history classes highlighting the importance of pasteurization in saving lives:  Might this wonderful milk kill me?  I actually went to sleep wondering whether I'd wake up. ... Of course, there was no bad reaction of any sort, and I became a regular customer.

Gumpert is lucky.  The places one can legally purchase raw milk are few.  In Switzerland Janet lives an easy walk from a local dairy, where she can buy all she wants at a good price.  Pennsylvania is one of the few states in the U.S. where raw milk is legal, and Heather can get some for the cost of a long drive and a lot more money than the grocery store charges for their agri-business milk.  In Florida we can't buy it legally at any price, except as (very expensive) pet milk, "not for human consumption." (More)

Don't ask me how I came upon Sporcle, but beware—it's addictive!  There are quick quizzes for a wide array of subjects, and I've found them useful for refreshing the ol' memory on things I should know, as well as learning new interesting facts and just plain trivia.  Not to mention spelling, as it doesn't matter if you do know the capital of Iceland if you can't spell Reykjavík, which I can't—yet.  But I'm learning.  Here are some of my favorites:

Countries of Europe  Also North America, South America, Africa (up-to-date with South Sudan!) Asia, Oceania, and—if you have more time than I do—the world) and other geography games.

Books of the Old Testament (oh, those minor prophets!)  Also New Testament, Apostles, Seven Deadly Sins, Roman and Greek gods.

U.S. Presidents:  easy version (in order), hard version (random, by term of office).

Elements of the Periodic Table (accepts either "aluminum" or "aluminium").

Here's one for parents:  can you name all the words in The Cat in the Hat?

Interesting trivia:  common U.S. street names.

There's lots more, some more interesting and useful than others.  I find the music category almost useless, although there are a few good ones if you dig, like Symphony Orchestra Instruments. Composers by Country was kind of fun.

Enjoy!  And please post a comment here if you find good quizzes I haven't mentioned.

There's nothing like a small-town Independence Day parade, and when we're not attending weddings or births or other such out-of-town occasions, the Geneva (Florida) parade is where we like to be.  That's because we're privileged to march with the Greater Geneva Grande Award Marching Band, the parade's star attraction.  (Well, we think so.  Some of the other participants may disagree.)

I've written about the band and the parade before; this year we actually had a whole article about us in a real newspaper, albeit one i'd never heard of until the photographer introduced himself to ask my name.  No, the paper did not choose to run the photo of me, no matter how crazed I must have looked crashing the cymbals.  Instead they very appropriately featured Geneva's own Richard Simonton:  good man, good friend, and the one who makes the band happen (and gets us our free hot dogs). (More)

If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all.

At no time was that old advice more pertinent than in this age of instant communication.

Not once, but twice in the past couple of months I have inadvertently sent an e-mail to the wrong person.  I rely too much on the auto-complete function of my mail program, and certain keyboard shortcuts, and don't always double-check.

In both cases, the unintended recipient was our daughter's mother-in-law; as near as I can figure out, some common typo for one of my other correspondents must auto-complete to her address.  The first e-mail would simply have confused her, but the second could have been a disaster, as I had written quite a bit about her and her family in an e-mail that was supposed to go to my sister.

Fortunately, I only said good things -- she's the kind of person about whom it's hard to find something bad to say.  But I can think of contexts in which I could have gotten myself in very hot water indeed.

When our kids were little, we had a record of children's songs (yes, vinyl -- I'm that old), one of which had verses that began, "Be careful, little eyes, what you see," "Be careful, little ears, what you hear," and "Be careful, little hands, what you do." 

Be careful, little fingers, what you type.

The Longevity Project:  Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study, by Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin (Hudson Street Press, New York, 2011)

In the early part of the last century, Dr. Lewis Terman began a long-term study of children identified by their teachers as particularly gifted academically.  Although Terman was interested in intelligence and intellectual leadership, his study left behind a great collection of sociological data, which Friedman, Martin, and their colleagues have mined for information on the factors that predispose human beings to long and productive lives.

The authors expound at length on why the data and their studies are valid, and the results applicable to most people, not just intellectual geniuses.  And the results—no surprise—are much more complicated than conventional wisdom would lead one to believe.  So interesting and complex are the relationships that it would be an insult to the researchers to attempt to distill their findings in a simple review.  But I will note a few items of interest.

• Conventional wisdom often confuses correlation with causation.  For example, although it is commonly believed that happiness promotes good health, and vice versa, the relationship is not in either direction cause-and-effect.  Rather, the same underlying factors promote both happiness and health.
• The best personality predictor of longevity—as children and as adults—was what the authors call conscientiousness:  people who were prudent, persistent, dependable, thrifty, detail-oriented, and responsible.

  It is not only that conscientious people have better health habits and healthier brains, but also that they find their way to happier marriages, better friendships, and healthier work situations.  That’s right, conscientious people create healthy long-life pathways for themselves.

• Another key factor is social network, but as usual, it’s more complicated than simple sociability.  Being an extrovert, having many friends, and abundant social activity do not presage a long life.  Sociability itself, the authors say, is “a wash.” An active social life is a two-edged sword; how it cuts depends on the quality of the friends and of the activities.

  Social ties, however, are critical:  having a large support network is directly correlated with longer life.  Interestingly, feeling loved and cared for did not improve longevity, but helping and caring for others did.

 (More)

If you live and work in the United States, you probably haven't thought about taxes since the middle of April.  But for us, Tax Week came later.  Because Porter worked overseas for part of the year, his company insisted on doing our taxes for us.  Or rather, outsourcing our taxes.  This happened once before, domestically, and Porter caught several mistakes before the taxes were finally filed.

This time, we're hoping they did it right.

My heart goes out to our Swiss-American family:  filing U.S. taxes with overseas income is unbelievably complex.  Porter actually likes the kind of work it takes to file our taxes, but this time he took a look at the 67-page stack of papers and decided to trust the hireling accountants for the foreign part.  To be clear, I'm talking about the U.S. paperwork required for reporting foreign income—nothing that had to be sent to foreign governments.

Anyway, the company was slow in getting the job done, so only recently were our taxes filed:  not only for the federal government, but also for two different states.  Neither one of the states was our own, by the way—blessed Florida has no income tax.  States which do, however, make sure they get their cut of anything you earn while working within their borders.  Which is one reason why professional basketball players need tax accountants.

Not that I expect my readers to care about our taxes much—I write because the story goes on, and gets better.

The same week in which we finally filed our taxes, we received in the mail the Dreaded Notice from the IRS:  We don’t think you were honest about your 2009 taxes, and require complete documentation of all the charitable contributions you claim to have made during that year.

Did I mention that Porter is really good about accounting and tax stuff?  We barely had time to be annoyed with the government before he had all the documentation laid out for me to scan and copy; it went out in the next day’s mail.

But the really fun part was that in the process of gathering the documentation, Porter discovered that he had, indeed, made a mistake in the 2009 taxes.  We were actually entitled to a significantly higher deduction than we took, and expect a substantial check from the IRS once we file an amended return.

Thanks, IRS!

This morning I was deep in prayer, as I often am, for our grandchildren.  (Read the rest of this post before you think that sounds oh-so-spiritual.)  Because our side of the family has contributed a tendency for nearsightedness to their gene pool, one of my requests was that their eyes continue to be clear and sharp and healthy.

So far, so good.

“But what about their ears?” I suddenly thought, remembering our nephew who has a hearing loss.^*  So I prayed for their ears.

“But what about their sense of smell?”  I once worked with a guy who had lost his as an infant.  So I prayed for all of their senses.

It’s never bad to pray, but can you see the death spiral I was falling into?  What pitiful faith, and what a horrible view of God, as if he were just waiting to pounce on my mistakes and omissions, like the triumphant victor in a chess match:

“Checkmate!  You prayed for his eyes, but neglected his ears, so I think I’ll make him deaf.  And while I’m at it, maybe lame as well.  And it’s all your fault!  When you see him struggling with his little crutch, like Tiny Tim, remember that if you‘d only prayed properly, he would be running joyfully over the hill!”

Pitiful.  Blasphemous, really.

That God wants us to pray—with specific requests, for occasions of enormous important and for the most trivial desires of our hearts—is undoubtedly true.  That our prayers really matter in the working out of the details of the universe is also true, if somewhat incomprehensible.

Our prayers really matter, but they don’t limit God, nor are they necessary for his work.  If we neglect a detail, he is not going to ignore what we meant in favor of what we actually said, or didn’t say.  We do not need to micromanage God.

You must not imagine that the result depends on you. The question, as far as you are concerned, is whether you are to be honoured in having a hand in the work that God is doing, and will do, whether you help him or not.  It shows no faith in God to make frantic efforts or frantic lamentations.  — George MacDonald, Robert Falconer

^*I suppose this is not the place for a joke about how this affliction especially qualifies him for his successful avocation of rock star.

(Continued from Day 6)

This was our final day in Hawaii, and we checked out of the lovely Hilton Waikoloa Village after enjoying its amenities a bit more.  I don’t think I mentioned that they have quite an impressive collection of artwork.

Our plane did not leave until nearly 9 o’clock at night, however, so we once again ventured south, to catch some sights we passed by on our return from Volcanoes National Park.

Click on the map for more detail.  You will be able to zoom in and out, and move around.

At Kailua Kona (where the Walmart is) we diverted from Route 11 to take in the sights along Ali’I Drive, which hugs the coast (between the pink pins on the map).  From there we found our way to Kealakekua Bay State Historical Park (green pin).  There we explored another heiau, not that we were seeking out places of human sacrifice, you understand.  Both heiaus had this puzzling warning sign:

I mean, I get the part about not damaging the structure, or stealing rocks for souvenirs.  But don’t wrap the rocks?  What’s with that? (More)

(Continued from Day 5)

This morning we arose early, broke out our snorkeling gear, and headed for the resort’s lagoon.  The lagoon is manmade, but open to the sea, so if you get there before there’s a lot of splashing around you can see some interesting fish and sea turtles.

That done, we were on the road again, this time going to the Kohala area, the northwestern tip of the island.

Click on the map for more detail.  You will be able to zoom in and out, and move around.

Polulu Beach (green marker on the map) is reached by foot, via a steep trail that begins with these warning signs.

 (More)

(Continued from Day 4, Part 2)

At 8:00 this morning we had the mandatory timeshare presentation that made the whole trip possible.  Despite having many, many opportunities in Florida to earn stuff by wasting time in this way, we had never taken advantage of them, and this was our first.

Based on the experiences of others, we expected a boring group presentation and a high-pressure sales pitch.  I even brought a book to read, as I was told that is the best way of getting through the presentation.

Not here.  First, the presentation was personal, just the agent and us.  Surprisingly, that was not boring at all.  I survived very well the insistent personal questions—designed to help her tailor her presentation to our personalities—by reminding myself that there was a person behind that sales front, and countering every question with one back at her.  “How many children do you have?” she’d ask; “Two; how about you?” I’d respond.  We actually had an interesting conversation, instead of me just resenting being asked questions I didn’t want to answer.

The presentation was followed by a tour of the Hilton timeshare properties at Waikoloa Village.  (We were staying in their hotel, not a timeshare.)  Again, it was just the two of us and our guide.

At the end, we were given the opportunity to buy into the program, and—as we had expected—some incentives to “do it now.”  But really, there was little pressure; they expect the program to sell itself.

And if we had been different people, it would have.  Timeshares aren’t the burdens they were many years ago, at least not these.  If our travelling tastes ran to staying in major cities and tourist destinations, this would be an excellent resource.  Hilton has a vast array of properties, from small apartments to major hotels, available for their community members to use on “points” generated by their timeshare properties.  Some are more luxurious than others, but all are backed by Hilton quality.  The system could save someone who vacations like that a lot of money over time.

But that’s not us.  True, we’ve learned to enjoy a nice hotel on the company’s dime dollar.  We also stopped patronizing cheap motels when the clientele went from frugal to sleazy, at least along I-95.  I’m talking bedbug / appalling personal hygiene / meth residue on the walls kind of sleazy.  We like good quality accommodations.  But our travel largely revolves around family and friends—the sales rep reluctantly informed us that they have as yet no properties in the Gambia—and we’d rather not have HD TV in the room and a golf course and tennis courts nearby.

So, they didn’t make a sale, but succeeded in proving to us that timeshare programs are like I-95 hotels:  you can find a good one if you’re careful.

All in all, considering the value we received, I call it two and a half hours well spent.

It was our fifth day in Hawaii, and we hadn’t yet been swimming.  So we headed just a bit north, to Hapuna Beach State Park, which has won numerous accolades for its white-sand beach.

The sand was nice, the water was nice—albeit a bit too calm for my taste—and we spent a pleasant couple of hours there—but it is hard not to be a Florida snob when it comes to sand, surf, and sun.

Back at the resort, we prepared for the evening’s big event, the Legends of the Pacific luau.  Big, all-you-can-eat spread of Hawaiian food.  Entertainment featuring Polynesian music and dance.  Not something that would have drawn us with its $100/person price tag, but for what we paid (it was part of our package), it was fun, and good eating.

This short YouTube video by Westjet gives you a view of the Hilton Waikoloa resort, and you’ll see part of the luau production in the middle.  I know some grandkids who would have enjoyed the fire dancer.

Historical note:  One of our table-neighbors was playing with his iPad while waiting for dinner to be ready, while his wife nagged him to get rid of it.  I sympathized with him, but he put it away and did not share with us what he had been reading—that halfway across the world, Osama bin Laden had been killed.

(Continued from Day 4, Part 1)

After climbing up out of the Kilauea Iki crater, our next adventure was at the Thurston Lava Tube.

Walking inside a cave made by flowing lava was impressive enough, but the real fun began after this sign:

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