Why are we laughing now, and why will we cheer? Terri is someone's daughter. I will not say she is someone's wife, because I don't think Michael Schiavo will be sad to see his wife die. Perhaps he still loves Terri, although his living with another woman, with whom he has two children, tends to provoke doubt. I assume he accepted losing her years ago, and has no more grief left to give at her death. But Terri's parents still love their daughter dearly, and why would anyone exult in another's grief? Perhaps the hard-hearted would say the body Terri's parents treat so tenderly is not really their daughter, and when she dies they will lose nothing they haven't already lost. Even so—when a family's house burns to the ground, and they lose the treasured, irreplaceable pictures of their children, do we cheer? Don't we mourn with them? Is Terri worth less than a photograph?
Some, no doubt, will just be happy the prolonged battle is over, but they will be wrong. All three branches of government have been invited into a personal, private, agonizing medical decision—not to mention the Fourth Estate in all its glory, and voyeristic lay people all over the world. This camel's nose will not easily be shoved out of our tent. For that we should grieve, if nothing else.Permalink | Comments
Category Health Politics Children & Family Issues Random Musings
What I can't help wondering, however, is why these children, and why now? For millenia children have been growing up on farms, having far more contact with animals, far less concern for hygiene, and no antibacterial soaps. Have we bred a super strain of bacteria that our human bodies cannot handle? Or have we bred a weakened strain of humans, unable to respond effectively when exposed to normal germs? Are we too clean to be healthy?
When I consider this problem, ever present in my mind is a picture of a farm family I visited recently in Pennsylvania, a handful of boisterous, happy children tumbling in from outside, covered in farm dirt, drinking unpasteurized milk, and incorrigibly healthy.
Cleanliness is important, certainly, and simple hygiene goes further than anything else in the fight against disease. Nonetheless, I wonder if modern, "complex hygiene" is more of a problem than a solution. Could it be that our hospital birthed, antiseptically washed, indoor raised, well protected children are more vulnerable than their country cousins?Easter Sunday is the most wonderful day of the year! Acknowledgement of this in the "everyday world," however, is so rare that it lifts my spirits to see a few comic strips still honoring the day. (As if my spirits should need lifting on such an occasion!). A few of the comics I surveyed, such as The Wizard of Id, were set in a church without making mention of the reason the characters might be there. Some showed egg hunts and chocolate bunnies. Most made no mention of the day at all. A very few hinted at why this day is different from all other days, including B.C., The Family Circus (I'm sorry I couldn't find a link to the actual comic), and my favorite, Fox Trot:
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Category Everyday Life Just for Fun
It is having the desired effect. I still can't say I like the genre, but those particular songs have now become enough a part of me that I should be able to worship if we sing them in church, at least if the volumne is kept at a reasonable level.
Here's a lovely piece of serendipity: On Easter we will be singing two of these songs, Lord I lift Your Name on High (Rick Founds) and Holy and Annointed One (John Barnett). I will be able to sing them because I've been hearing them for a month! (I usually have problems with the odd rhythms, but presumably they have been drummed sufficiently into my head by now.) What's more, when the choir asked for time to rehearse (it's hard to lead a song you don't know) I found myself in the unaccustomed position of knowing a praise song that the others didn't. Was that the sound of hell freezing over? (More likely the sound of hell groaning because a stumbling block has been removed, at least partially, from worship.)Permalink | Comments
Category Everyday Life
- Opening prayer.
- Sing music or listen to performed music.
- Listen to a speech.
- Closing prayer.
I find that interesting because I disagree strongly. It is certainly true of some churches, but I wouldn't say majority—at least it would not characterize most of the churches I've been to. And certainly not what I would consider a more ideal "script" if you want one, which would be simply...
- The Word (Scripture and sermon)
- The Eucharist
There is a place for "performed" music, just as there is a place for the "professional" sermon, each bringing to the service knowledge, skill, and experience above the level of most of the congregation. However, neither should be of primary importance. If the music, prayers, and Scripture reading do not actively involve the congregation most of the time, what is to distinguish it from a concert, or a lecture? Maybe we need more of the "Amen! Preach it, brother!" from the black church traditions. :) There's a reason the form of the service in many churches is called "Liturgy"—"the work of the people."
We are too much a nation of watchers, not doers. We have given worship, music, sports, child care, health care, meal preparation, tax preparation, and even thinking itself over to the professionals. It reminds me of something C. S. Lewis said, in The Screwtape Letters:
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Category Random Musings
If I'd known how wonderful it would be to have our own tree, I'd have planted more than one when we moved here 20 years ago. This is truly one of Florida's great treasures. And yet if you drive around and look at homes with citrus trees on the property it seems that most people don't appreciate the gift, but let the fruit fall and rot.
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Category Everyday Life
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Category Everyday Life
A friend sent me the following Frazz comic and I was immediately hooked. The setting is an elementary school, and the main characters are Frazz (school janitor and Renaissance Man), Caulfield (a genius who hates school because it bores him; he hangs out with Frazz a lot), Mrs. Olsen (Caulfield's teacher), Mr. Burke (the school's best teacher, and Frazz's best friend), Mr. Spaetzle (the principal), Miss Plainwell (first grade teacher).
I've never been much of a Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. fan, but his short story, Harrison Bergeron, has haunted me since I first read it, long before frustrations with our chidren's schools brought us head to head with its stunning reality. Written in 1961, Vonnegut's warning is yet more accurate and more frightening today.
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Category Education Random Musings Just for Fun
On Saturday we went to the Central Florida Fair, old-fashioned fun with rides, a midway, cotton candy, and hundreds of exhibits. I particularly enjoy the 4H and Future Farmers of America presentations. What I like best, perhaps, is that it is SO NOT DISNEY.
This year I again visited my favorite fair vendor, Our Vital Earth. I like them because they sell worm condominiums. That's Porter's term for the product, which I like better than the official name, Can-O-Worms. Whatever the appellation, it's a nifty system for dealing with home garbage. The tiered container (shown here expanded) takes up about as much room as a large kitchen garbage can. You put your organic garbage—scraps (except meat and bones), grass clippings, leaves, newspapers, dryer lint, old cotton socks—into one of the three trays (the bottom tier holds liquid) along with the garbage-eating worms. When that tray is full, put another on top; the worms migrate upward as they run out of food. After a while the worms are out of the bottom tray, leaving fine fertilizer behind. Water and worm urine collects in the bottom; the resulting liquid makes a good, natural insecticide as well as fertilizer. (They also say it's good for sunburn, but I don't think I'd try that one.) It's supposed to be a rapid, odorless process, big in Australia, where I'm told the device is often kept in the kitchen. I'd probably opt for the back porch, but the one I saw at the fair would not be out of place in a kitchen. It smelled better than most garbage cans.
We have no affiliation with Our Vital Earth, nor any other Can-O-Worms seller. We don't even own a worm condo; I just think it's a cool idea. And we may get one yet, once I figure out how to keep a straight face when arranging for a worm babysitter when we go on vacation.
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Category Reviews Everyday Life Conservationist Living
That sentence is enough to make half the readers of this blog think I’m insane, and the other half think I’m possessed. Be that as it may, it’s the best way I know to explain the way I think.
Perhaps some folks think in pictures, or in musical phrases, or in conversations; I wouldn’t know. I do know that what’s going on in my mind most of the time is writing. Letters, essays, explanations, debates, short notes, long dissertations…almost continually. If you’re with me, and I seem distracted, or distant, or unusually quiet, it’s because Li’l Writer Guy has taken over more than his share of brain cycles. Sometimes I have to tell him quite firmly that it’s not his turn. When I can, however, I like to let him go on and on, because that’s the way I think best. I do have my share of inexpressible feelings, but generally if I want to understand something, I must put it into words. Sometimes Li’l Writer Guy’s output even makes it into print, a satisfying situation for both of us.
Okay, so it’s an unusual, but perhaps understandable, attempt to explain the way my brain works—but why “Li’l Writer Guy”? Primarily, I suppose, to prevent his thinking too much of himself. He rather likes to imagine he’s seated in some academic cloister, inhaling the intoxicating scents of polished wood, leather, and books old and new. On the table before him are the paraphernalia of his profession: stacks of books, pads of paper, writing implements, bookmarks, his laptop computer. Lost in thought, he stares out the window, but he’s not seeing the cityscape. Now and then he rises, and paces between the table and the stacks. At the end of the day, he reluctantly packs up, puts on his coat, and steps into the outside world, blinking owlishly and realizing dimly that time has not stopped for others as it has for him. (Any resemblance of Li’l Writer Guy’s fantasy land to the New England Historic Genealogical Society Library is not coincidental.) With all this pretentiousness, he needs to be reminded he’s an amateur, a dabbler, and a pretty ordinary human being.
But why “Li’l Writer Guy”? Do I have some unresolved sexual identity issues here? I don’t think so. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been comfortable with the custom in English of using masculine words for both the specific (male) and the general (male or female). Feminist though I was in my early days (and in large measure still am), I never had trouble understanding that “man” doesn’t have to mean a male person any more than “duck” always excludes drakes. Or perhaps it reflects the dismal lack of literature with interesting female characters in my childhood reading: With a few notable exceptions, female characters were weak and silly; it was the boys who were intelligent, active, and adventurous. Since Li’l Writer Guy has an obvious weakness for books, of course he’d rather identify with the strong and lively characters.
Most probably, as Dorothy Sayers says about her Lord Peter Wimsey character, he just introduced himself one day and I accepted him as he was. In any case, Li’l Writer Guy is rarely thinking about sex. Some would say this is sufficient proof he isn’t really male, but I won't stoop to such low stereotyping. Whether male or female is of little consequence: his sole identity is writer.Permalink | Comments
Category Random Musings Everyday Life
American Sign Language to the rescue! In New York, a choking woman dialed 911, but was unable to speak. Her three year old daugher, whom she had taught some basic sign language, conveyed her mother's signed plea for help to the operator. This recent news story illustrates just one of many good reasons for teaching your baby as much ASL as you can manage.
Learning another language and culture is a huge benefit. Not only does it broaden your understanding and appreciation, it also increases your brainpower! It would be best, certainly, to teach your children (and yourself) to the point of fluency in ASL—and in several other languages as well. Even a little is much better than none, however. Children can sign before they can speak, and anyone who has experienced the frustration of not know what a screaming baby wants will appreciate this means of communication. Signing does not slow down speech acquisition, but rather accelerates it.
Related links
An article about the research of Marilyn Daniels
(author of Dancing with Words: Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy)
An online ASL dictionary
A personal story
Lex America/HIPPO Family Club
(not ASL, but a family-cenetered approach to language learning based on natural language acquisition)
