Foreign Policy Experience

It's funny how so many candidates are talking about how the "other" candidate has no foreign policy experience. Does anybody remember George W. Bush's foreign policy experience?? Still he managed to be President. Oh wait. Maybe that's a bad example.

The Will to Win

"A 6-year-old girl who won four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert with an essay falsely claiming her father died in Iraq."

The girl's mother had told Club Libby Lu officials that the girl's father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq, company spokeswoman Robyn Caulfield said. But the mother, Priscilla Ceballos, admitted later Friday that the essay and the military information she provided about her daughter's father were untrue.

"We did the essay and that's what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win," Ceballos said in an interview Friday with KDFW-TV of Dallas.

Just Let Me Be Myself...

Dean and I had a great Christmas. We had dinner at Dean's mom. Dean's "uncle" Howard was there, and he set a marvelous table. He's very creative. Teri, Ellen, Kacy, Tony, Lyman, Ted, Howard, and Dean and I filled the house to overflowing. Everyone seemed to enjoy their gifts. Dean and I made almost all the gifts we gave, and they seemed to appreciate and enjoy them. And boy we made out like bandits! I got tons of books from my Amazon wish list (like 10 of them!). I also got an Aero garden, several audio CDs of classical radio programs like A Christmas Carol, and a few DVDs.

I just finished one of them--First Wives Club. I saw this 11 years ago when it first came out, but I didn't appreciate it then as much as I do now. It's a wonderful movie! I love how the women channel their rage and thirst for revenge into a positive thing and open that crisis center for women.

Of course, like everybody else, my favorite scene is the last one, where the three women sing "You Don't Own Me." It's a very empowering song It's not just for women, but for anyone who has ever lived by someone else's script.



You don't own me,
I'm not just one of your many toys
You don't own me,
don't say I can't go with other boys

And don't tell me what to do
And don't tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don't put me on display, 'cause

You don't own me,
don't try to change me in any way
You don't own me,
don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay

Oh, I don't tell you what to say
I don't tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That's all I ask of you

I'm young and I love to be young
I'm free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please

(Instrumental interlude)

A-a-a-nd don't tell me what to do
Oh-h-h-h don't tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don't put me on display

I don't tell you what to say
Oh-h-h-h don't tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That's all I ask of you

I'm young and I love to be young
(FADE)
I'm free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want

The Secret

Today I encountered once again, comments about the book The Secret. A bestselling new age self-help book, the "secret" is about the supposed "law of attraction." This is the idea that whatever we desire, the universe will provide. Want wealth? Simply desire it and think positively, and wealth will be "naturally" attracted to us. Similarly, if you have negative thoughts about something, then the universe will send you that. Sadly, some people I once respected (like John Gray of Men Are From Mars, and Neal Donald Walsh) have signed onto this philosophy.

I first encountered this idea through a co-worker. As I sat with him one day, we talked, and he was really convinced that whatever he wanted, he would get. So I punched him. Not hard. But I really did punch him. And I asked, "so, did you want me to punch you?" After sitting there bewildered and half-wondering if he should run, he finally answered, "well, I guess somehow I did."

When there are no set of facts that can disprove a belief, it becomes true only "by definition" and fails to explain the real world. And sadly, when bad things happen to us, followers of this philosophy will be confounded because they have only themselves to blame. Were you raped? Well, you must have wanted to be. It just gets uglier and uglier.

So what's the real secret? For me, the real secret is that we have HOPE. Hope is my favorite word. And the reason for our hope lies in the birth of a boy named Jesus whom we celebrate tonight. I celebrate not because of blind faith or tradition, but because I really believe the testimony and evidence that this birth and this person really lived. And if so, we have all the hope we need.

¹¹

"Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah,¹²¹³ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
¹⁴‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours.’"

Magic Keeps Boy Alive

This is nice:

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20071223_Magic_boy.html

Here's the lede:

For nearly all his 19 years, Chad Juros has lived in the shadow of cancer and the light of magic. They have been the yin and yang of his existence.

As a young boy, he was diagnosed with leukemia and survived, getting through the chemotherapy, and the relapse, and the terrifying ill effects of brain radiation, through magic.

Pardon for Jena 6

Now, I have to admit that I haven't followed the Jena 6 thing very closely. I was out of town when the news went national and never really followed up.

The story, as I understand it, is that 6 17-yr old black teens ambushed 1 white teen, hit him from behind, knocked him out, and proceeded to kick and beat the shit out of him.

I believe that the 6 were initially tried as adults, which sparked the controversy about race and that's what made it all national news. Comparisons were made with the light treatment of other white teens who hung nooses on trees and were suspended, but never criminally charged.

So fine, some adult convictions were overturned, and I think some have been, and some still are, being retried as juveniles. So far as I know, only one person has actually served jail time.

But here is what I don't get: the Congressional black caucus is calling for a PARDON for the Jena 6! On the basis that "they and their families have suffered enough." What possible sense does that make? It's fine to say that these teens should not be tried as adults, but it's equally clear that they ganged up, ambushed, and beat another person. That doesn't deserve any punishment at all? Not only that, they should be pardoned?? Makes no sense.

Vladimir Putin is Time's Person of the Year 2007

Great story in Time Magazine.

Update: Romney calls the decision "disgusting". McCain says it should have been Gen. Petraeus. Their statements reveal their ignorance. Being Time Magazine's Person of the Year is not an honor or an endorsement (it has named Sadat, Andrapov, Khomeini, Hitler and Stalin in the past). It is a statement of the person who has had the most influence on the world during the year. Gen. Petraeus doesn't even come close (despite being named a runner up). And Romney's comments about Putin being ruthless are echoed in the Time Magazine article itself, revealing that he hasn't bothered to read it before trashing it. And my vote would have been Al Gore.

New Mileage Bill

Everybody's so happy about the new mileage bill because it increases the required average mileage from 25 miles to 35 miles. BUT, manufacturers don't have to do it until 2020! I hope that in 13 years, I won't be using gas in my car at all!

Capital Punishment

Executions in the U.S. dropped in 2007 to a 13-year low. That's a good thing. Texas once again led the nation, with 62% of nationwide executions. That statistic alone is enough to make Texas my least favorite state to live in.

New Jersey recently banned the death penalty. I think it's great, but it surprised me that it came from New Jersey, not exactly the progressive capital of the world!

Theology of Evolution & the New Atheism

Great article at Salon:

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/12/18/john_haught/index1.html

I disagree with his view of the resurrection at the end.

Here is an excerpt:

Your forthcoming book, "God and the New Atheism," is a critique of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. You claim that they are pale imitations of great atheists like Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre. What are they missing?

The only thing new in the so-called new atheism is the sense that we should not tolerate faith because, by doing so, we open people's minds to any crazy idea -- including dangerous ideas like those that led to 9/11. In every other respect, this atheism is similar to the secular humanism of the modern period, which said that faith is incompatible with science, that religion and belief in God are bad for morality, and that theology should be purged from culture and academic life. These are not new ideas. But there were atheists in the past who were much more theologically educated than these. My chief objection to the new atheists is that they are almost completely ignorant of what's going on in the world of theology. They talk about the most fundamentalist and extremist versions of faith, and they hold these up as though they're the normative, central core of faith. And they miss so many things. They miss the moral core of Judaism and Christianity -- the theme of social justice, which takes those who are marginalized and brings them to the center of society. They give us an extreme caricature of faith and religion.

Isn't there a simple response to the materialist argument? You can say "purpose" is simply not a scientific idea. Instead, it's an idea for theologians and philosophers to debate. Do you accept that distinction?

I sure do. But that distinction is usually violated in scientific literature and in much discussion of evolution. From the beginning of the modern world, science decided quite rightly that it wasn't going to tackle such questions as purpose, value, meaning, importance, God, or even talk about intelligence or subjectivity. It was going to look for purely natural, causal, mechanical explanations of things. And science has every right to be that way. But that principle of scientific Puritanism is often violated by scientists who think that by dint of their scientific expertise, they are able to comment on such things as purpose. I consider that to be a great violation.

Who are these scientists who extrapolate about purpose from science?

A good example is the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg. In his book "Dreams of a Final Theory," he asks, will we find God once science gets down to what he calls the fundamental levels of reality? It's almost as if he assumes that science itself has the capacity and the power to comment on things like that. Similarly, Dawkins, in "The God Delusion," has stated that science has the right to deal with the question of God and other religious issues, and everything has to be settled according to the canons of the scientific method.

But Dawkins argues that a lot of claims made on behalf of God -- about how God created the world and interacts with people -- are ultimately questions about nature. Unless you say God has nothing to do with nature, those become scientific questions.

Well, I approach these issues by making a case for what I call "layered explanation." For example, if a pot of tea is boiling on the stove, and someone asks you why it's boiling, one answer is to say it's boiling because H2O molecules are moving around excitedly, making a transition from the liquid state to the gaseous state. And that's a very good answer. But you could also say it's boiling because my wife turned the gas on. Or you could say it's boiling because I want tea. Here you have three levels of explanation which are approaching phenomena from different points of view. This is how I see the relationship of theology to science. Of course I think theology is relevant to discussing the question, what is nature? What is the world? It would talk about it in terms of being a gift from the Creator, and having a promise built into it for the future. Science should not touch upon that level of understanding. But it doesn't contradict what evolutionary biology and the other sciences are telling us about nature. They're just different levels of understanding.

What do you say to the atheists who demand evidence or proof of the existence of a transcendent reality?

The hidden assumption behind such a statement is often that faith is belief without evidence. Therefore, since there's no scientific evidence for the divine, we should not believe in God. But that statement itself -- that evidence is necessary -- holds a further hidden premise that all evidence worth examining has to be scientific evidence. And beneath that assumption, there's the deeper worldview -- it's a kind of dogma -- that science is the only reliable way to truth. But that itself is a faith statement. It's a deep faith commitment because there's no way you can set up a series of scientific experiments to prove that science is the only reliable guide to truth. It's a creed.

Rumi

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.
-- Sufi poet & mystic Rumi

In the latest Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett interviews an expert on Rumi and we hear another side of Islam that we in the West are not familiar with.

From the interview:
"Krista: In your writing, you ask, 'How is one to nurture this God buried like a treasure in one's being and let it permeate all of life?' How does your encounter with Rumi help you to answer that question?
Fatemah: The most important tool that [Rumi has given me] is hope. That is what we need to nurture in ourselves. And hope, the energy to move, the energy to never let go, is what Rumi has given me. Rumi writes, 'I am fire. If you have doubts about that, bring your hands forth.'"

Why I like Chris Dodd

The reason I like Chris Dodd isn't because I agree with all his positions. Although I agree with most of them. I like him because he is doing what no other candidate is doing -- he's taking ACTION. He's actually DOING SOMETHING. And that's something that McCain, Biden, Obama, Clinton, and Kucinich aren't doing.

Whether it is blocking a bad FISA bill, filibustering the Telecom Immunity bill, introducing a Carbon Tax to fight pollution, or voting against funding the Iraq War without a time table, he's actually used his position and influence to DO SOMETHING besides making promises. The others won't even stay in D.C. long enough to vote, much less take any action. It is one thing to bitch and whine about the Bush Administration. It is another to actually take action, and Dodd has been the only one doing it. That takes guts. It means not just having a policy position in words, but proving it in action. Nobody else will do it.

Our infuriating Senate

By now we know that in the Senate, any senator can put a "hold" on just about any legislation, keeping it from coming to the floor. The Republicans do it all the time. And it works. Except for when it's a democrat like Chris Dodd, who is fighting to keep telecom immunity out of a bill. Doing so means that telecoms can violate the law, invade our privacy, and assist the government in spying on its own people without a warrant, and, without being able to take them to court.

I really have no idea why majority leader Reid is ignoring Chris Dodd's hold and moving forward with this really bad legislation, but allows republicans to stop really good legislation. It makes no sense.

This article in Harper's Magazine gives the wider picture of what the stakes really are in this game.

http://harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90001937


By the way, support Chris Dodd's hold.

Update: Chris Dodd stood up and started talking and wouldn't stop. He objected to the typical motion to cut off debate. As a result, Reid took the bill off the table. Woo hoo! Leadership works.

Abstinence programs

I read an LJWorld article about how 14 states are refusing federal funding for sex education because the abstinence-only funding is ineffective. 2 more states are applying with the caveat that they will use the money for holistic sex ed, which makes them automatically ineligible for the funds. A study commissioned by Congress questions the effectiveness of the program and notes that a 14-year drop in teenage pregnancy has reversed since the abstinence-only program went into place.

As Dean and I talked about this article, we were reminded again of the movie The Golden Compass. In abstinence-only sex ed, we have yet another kind of magisterium trying to tell everybody else what information isn't good for them to have.

The Golden Compass

Last night Dean and I saw The Golden Compass. As fantasy movies go, it was pretty entertaining, although a bit confusing. Neither Dean nor I have read any of the books, so it took quite some time to catch up with the story and figure out what was going on.

The basic plot of the movie is that an all-powerful "Magisterium," a small group of people who are in complete control of civic [and religious?] life, in order to consolidate their power, have hatched a secret plan to sever every child from his or her soul, which in the movie, do not live within people, but are external animals. Psychically attached, neither can live properly without the other. A little girl goes on a quest to rescue the children that have "disappeared" to be used as experiments in their plan. Along the way there are arcane references to "Dust," parallel universes, and so on that don't yet make much sense. The title of the movie, refers to a mystical device given to the child that tells her the truth about any situation she thinks about. Although every fantasy movie has to have the "magic item," the compass plays a rather small role in the movie.

This movie is being boycotted by many conservative religious types (especially Catholics) because the books apparently have the aim of "killing God," and based on some book reviews I read that may not be too far from the book's aim. But that notion has not made it into the movie (at least not yet).

Rather the movie is a lot about external vs. internal authority, about whether it is okay to think for one's self, or whether it is better for others (particularly government and religious authorities) to tell you what to do and to think because it is "for your own good." It is ironic then, that religious groups are trying to tell people what to think when they tell them not to see this movie. As if adults (and children) will be so unduly influenced that they will stop listening to the Church and lose their faith. Hrrmph.

The author himself says this in an interview, "What I was mainly doing, I hope, was telling a story, but not a story like Tolkien’s. (To be honest I don’t much care for “The Lord of the Rings.”) As for the atheism, it doesn’t matter to me whether people believe in God or not, so I’m not promoting anything of that sort. What I do care about is whether people are cruel or whether they’re kind, whether they act for democracy or for tyranny, whether they believe in open-minded enquiry or in shutting the freedom of thought and expression. Good things have been done in the name of religion, and so have bad things; and both good things and bad things have been done with no religion at all. What I care about is the good, wherever it comes from."

Philosophically it seems to me that authority must be both internal and external, it is not an "either/or". Internal because we must come to our own understanding and convictions of the truth of things, and not believe them just because somebody told us so--not least because that somebody might either be evil or just wrong. External because we have an infinite variety of ways of fooling ourselves, and we need an external "checks and balance" to our own thinking. Our thinking must be communal -- we must take time to think and experience for ourselves, and then come together as local communities (and I include God/Scripture/history in that) and think and experience together. When the Church is at its best, it works this way. It is precisely the kind of "top-down" authoritarianism of the Golden Compass that we *ought* to repudiate as not being the best because, no matter what we might prefer to have, church authorities reflect the same human frailties that we all do, and sooner we admit that, the better off we will be.

Interestingly, I frequently meet people who are uncomfortable with the ambiguity and greyness of life that comes with realizing that both internal and external authorities can be wrong. They would rather that it be black and white. They would rather commit themselves fully to being firmly and completely wrong, than to live in that ambiguity. I wonder if that is where GWB is at.

A few things that irritated me today...

1. Bush vetoed SCHIP again
2. Democrats are going to cave to Bush and give him another $70,000,000,000.00 for the war.
3. Hillary took another cheap shot at Obama
4. Apparently waterboarding is a lot like swimming
5. A crappy comment about Satan and Jesus being brothers has entered political debate (theology has no business being in any 30-second sound bite or 2-paragraph news story...it's as stupid as trying to talk about the Trinity on a morning news show).
6. Who hates immigrants the most appears to be a winning strategy for Republicans

Middle of Nowhere

I accidently deleted this blog post.

Check out this great episode of NPR's This American Life.

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=253

Act I is depressing and needs prayer. Act II mirrors something that happened to me many years ago with US West and AT&T.

The teaser:

Stories from faraway, hard-to-get-to places, where all rules are off, nefarious things happen because no one's looking, and there's no one to appeal to.

Prologue.

Host Ira Glass talks with sailor and researcher Captain Charles Moore about a gigantic area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as far away from land as you can get, that is filling with plastic trash. There are five spots like this on the world's oceans. For more, check out Captain Moore's website. (3 minutes)

Act One. No Island Is an Island.

Nauru is a tiny island, population 12,000, a third of the size of Manhattan and far from anywhere: yet at the center of several of the decade's biggest global events. Contributing editor Jack Hitt tells the untold story of this dot in the middle of the Pacific and its involvement in the bankrupting of the Russian economy, global terrorism, North Korean defectors, the end of the world, and the late 1980s theatrical flop of a London musical based on the life of Leonardo da Vinci called Leonardo, A Portrait of Love. (30 minutes)

Act Two. On Hold, No One Can Hear You Scream.

This American Life senior producer Julie Snyder found herself in a ten-month battle with her phone company, MCI Worldcom, which had overcharged her $946.36. She spent hours on hold in a bureaucratic nowhere. No one seemed able to fix her problem, and there was no way she could make the company pay her back for all her lost time and aggravation. Finally, she enlists the aid of the national media—specifically, This American Life host Ira Glass.

You can register a complaint about a phone company at the Better Business Bureau or at the FCC. (22 minutes)

Ethics 101

Whenever I see a headline, like at CNN right now, that says "waterboarding saves lives," my eyes cross and I think part my mind goes insane. Anybody who justifies torture because it "saves lives" needs to go back to Ethics 101 -- to whit, Emmanuel Kant:

"So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only."

Or more simply, "ends do not justify means" or "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." To treat another person merely as a means of achieving what we want is to disregard his or her humanity, to dehumanize, to treat them as a thing.

Even Abu Zabayda is a human being. And America should be ashamed that we waterboarded him.

Update. Here is the 4th poll I've seen CNN do on whether some form of torture is acceptable, and this is the 4th time in a row that America has got it wrong. We need to get the politicians and the military off the teevee and get some ethicists on!

Are there circumstances in which waterboarding of prisoners is acceptable?

Yes	55%	48125
No	45%	38924
Total Votes: 87049

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

...but the fire is so delightful.

This weekend it was so bitterly cold that Dean and I rarely went outside. Dean spent most of the last evening curled up by the fireplace reading a biography of Santa Claus.

I spent most of the weekend making Christmas gifts -- a couple of paintings. Earlier in the week I finished a polymer clay craft that I was making. I have one more gift to make tonight and I think I'll be done. I would include pictures of what they look like, but I don't want the family to see them ahead of time. So, you'll just have to wait.

Televangelist to Sen. Grassley: F-U!

Creflo Dollar gave Sen. Grassley a big F-you to his investigation into allegations of financial improprieties of Dollar and 5 other prominent televangelists. He says that if Grassley wants documents, he's going to have to subpoena them!

Here is how the AP is reporting how the others have responded (deadline was today):

# Kenneth and Gloria Copeland (Kenneth Copeland Ministries): Attorneys delivered material to Grassley's staff on Thursday.

# Benny Hinn (World Healing Center Church, Inc.): Grassley's staff is scheduled to meet with the ministry's attorneys on Friday.

# Eddie Long (New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Ministry): Representatives said publicly that the ministry will cooperate. Grassley has not received any material or had contact from the ministry.

# Joyce Meyer (Joyce Meyer Ministries): Grassley's staff received material from the organization on Tuesday and is reviewing it.

# Randy and Paula White (Without Walls International Church Today): Received initial contact from attorneys who said they will contact Grassley's staff shortly but has had no further response.

From Barbara Cawthorne Crafton

CANDLE STAND

I have set up my access to the Geranium Farm so that the first screen I see is the candles screen in the Vigils section. It is good to spend a little time there, reading through the prayers people have left. The sorrows and worries are serious: people just bereaved, people with cancer or heart trouble or a diagnosis not yet known. People out of work. People facing divorce. People heartbroken over a child who courts danger and doesn't even know it. Lost pets. Lost faith.

And the thanksgivings among the candles are exultant: clean CT scans, impending weddings, the births of babies. New jobs. New houses. Graduations, baptisms, ordinations, confirmations.

The whole of life is offered to God in prayer on that page. There are 400 virtual candles lit, give or take a few, at any given time. Once in a while I see a name I know, or think I do. Most of the names are not familiar to me: we are strangers, those people who left their prayer intentions there and I, who read them.

But I am always struck by how little it matters that I don't know them personally. Prayer is much more than a festival of my love for someone else. God is active in it -- mysteriously, of course, since it's God: God lives and moves in prayer and I haven't a clue how, or what will happen because I have prayed. I only know something will. Something will happen first in my life, because I have entered into prayer. And in the life of the one for whom I pray, in a way I will never know. And, because there is an ecology of prayer, a connectedness, something will happen in the world itself. The very world is changed because we pray.

None of which is much like ordering a pizza -- we don't pray for something and then wait to see it we get it before we know our prayer made a difference. The difference comes first. We wait only for our power to see it.
+
Visit http://www.geraniumfarm.org/candles.cfm to light a virtual candle. And then stay and enjoy the Farm. The Farm's bookstore is always open, and Christmas is coming.....hint...

Lawrence Freecycle

I'm becoming very fond of Lawrence Freecycle. This is an informal group of local people who are giving away (recycling) the things they don't want to each other instead of throwing it away and filling up dumpsters. There really are only 2 rules: whatever you give away has to be totally free, and you have to be willing to pick up whatever you want.


A lot of Lawrence Freecycle is children's clothing. But there is also furniture and all sorts of random things being traded. I have been able to give away several things that I've had in the basement that I've wanted to get rid of, but hadn't wanted to throw away, and found it too inconvenient to take to Goodwill, things like an office chair, stuffed animals, a christmas tree, and some old computer equipment. Yesterday, I picked up the first thing that someone has given me--a set of polymer clay books and a mold. I use polymer clay in some of my crafting and I'll be using it for some of the Christmas gifts I'm making.

The people I have met so far run the gamut of economic conditions, from upper middle class to lower class. One of the more surprising things about Lawrence Freecycle is that sometimes there are people who are really in need--people who have been thrown out of their homes and need furniture, bedding, or cookware, or people who need clothes for their little children, a single mother who can't afford a christmas tree this year. Often it isn't that person who is asking for help, but a friend of theirs asking on their behalf and very often people step up to help.

As Martha Stewart says, "It's a good thing."

For the Bible Tells Me So...

This looks interesting...

Mortgage Crisis

I find myself torn about what to do about the looming mortgage crisis. On the one hand, I am compassionate towards those who were suckered into a bad mortgage, the so-called subprime loans. Hundreds of thousands of people got into their first home because they finally could. The entire practice was carried out by banks who knew exactly what they were doing, and thought that they could get away with it. And it is terrible for families to be foreclosed on because their interest rates rise (as expected) and they can't afford the mortgage payment.

But I'm not so sure about the current plans to "bail out" these families by freezing the interest rate. Ultimately that means that a person's unwise decision is being rewarded, and families who bought more house than they could actually afford, are being rewarded.

We got our home on a fixed-rate mortgage at 5.5%. But suppose I had been suckered into a balloon mortgage and got a much bigger, more expensive house, at 2.5%? Interest rates rise to 6%, and now I can't afford my mortgage. Is it fair to freeze my interest rate at 2.5% for 5 or 7 years, and let me go on having this much bigger house at a steal of an interest rate that nobody else could ever have legitimately gotten? That doesn't seem right. Those families that made the bad decision are having their homes effectively subsidized by the ones who made good decisions.

And if the "bailout" extends the low interest rate for 1, 2, 5, or 7 years, whatever it is, what happens at the end? Another bailout?

It seems that any "freeze" on interest rates, must be accompanied by forced refinancing -- in other words, if you accept the interest rate freeze, then the homeowner accepts having their loan refinanced within 1 year. And if they can't afford the refinanced loan, then, it seems to me, they have to accept foreclosure -- they will have to sell their home and buy a smaller home that they can actually afford.

This does not change the fact that our communities desperately need housing reform. I have not lost sight of the fact that in a moral world, everybody would have a place to live.

Baker University Vespers

Last night Dean and I went to Baker University Vespers at First UMC in Baldwin. Very nice, as usual. They started with Personent Hodie and O Magnum Mysterium again, which makes for great entry music. I thought that the men were especially good this year, although it seemed like there were fewer of them this year than last.

Funny in a depressing sort of way...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/2/131531/273

Sayings NOT in the Bible

I frequently hear people say things like, "The Bible says..." Only, the Bible doesn't say! Here are a few of my favorite sayings that AREN'T in the bible:

"God helps those who help themselves."
"Money is the root of all evil."
"Cleanliness is next to godliness."
"God moves in mysterious ways."
"Pride goeth before a fall."
"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust."
"The Bible is the Word of God."
The "sinners" prayer
And my all-time favorite:
"Jesus said, 'You must be in the world, but not of the world.'"

So where do these come from?

God helps those ... Benjamin Franklin (a Deist)
Money ... a misquote of 1 Tim 6:10, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils" (NRSV)
Cleanliness ... a mishmash of a host of verses about clean and unclean things
God moves ... hymn by William Cowper
Pride cometh ... misquote of Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (NRSV).
Ashes ... Derived from Eccl 3:20, "all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again."
Word of God ... while the Bible does refer to "the words of God" and sometimes "the word of God", and Jesus is called "the Word", the Bible never refers to itself as the Word of God.
The "sinners" prayer ... although commonly prayed at altar calls on t.v., there is no such thing in the Bible.
You must be in the world ... a mishmash of John 17:11 and John 16:33, "I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” (John 16:33 NRSV) "And now I [Jesus] am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one." (John 17:11. NRSV)

Private Lives

Here are a few of the headlines on CNN right now:

Wayne Newton says Johnny Carson was mean
Did Hulk Hogan buy son beer before wreck?
Lindsay Lohan & Riley Giles break up

Not that long ago, the headlines were O.J. Simpson in court and Kanye West's mom died having cosmetic surgery.

I've never quite figured out why any of this stuff is any of my business, or why people are so fascinated with people's private lives.

It's one thing to be interested about the new movie your favorite star is in, or about your favorite show, by why do I need to find out whether Johnny Carson was mean or whether Hulk Hogan bought beer? I don't get it.

Instead, here are a few of the headlines that topped BBC World News this morning that aren't anywhere on CNN:

EU failed to make progress in talks with Iran about its nuclear program
Russia disengaged from decades long arms treaty b/c of US plan to store missles in Europe
Explosives found at the home of an Iraqi politician's son
Massive rallies and protests going on in Gaza over mid-east talks
57 people died in a major Turkish international airplane crash
Bosnia and Croatia are in a political crisis that could result in a bloodbath over Bosnian muslims and Catholic Croats

Just thought you might be interested. Hmmm...maybe not. Maybe you're just interested in whether Jennifer Aniston's breasts are real or not. What do you think?

(Former) Bishop Carlton Pearson

I watched a program last night about former Bishop Carlton Pearson. He used to be the darling of the Pentecostal evangelical movement. He was best friends with Oral Roberts and quickly became bishop in his denomination, the Church of God in Christ, the largest african-american pentecostal denomination in the U.S. In his hey-day, his church had 10,000+ members and taking in $60,000/week in offerings.

In 2000, he had an epiphany while watching t.v. He saw images of young children in Africa, who were dying of malnutrition, and, because they were apparently muslim, or at least non-Christian, his belief was that they were going to hell. But on that day, he could not accept it, and asked God, "why did you make these kids to send them to hell?" And God answered, "Is that you what you think we're doing?"

After that, he decided to explore the scriptures about hell more carefully in the original languages, and decided that hell as he had always been taught, did not exist. He also stopped believing in biblical inerrancy. He began to preach what he called the Gospel of Inclusion, based on his belief that if Christ came to redeem the world on the cross, he either really did that, or he didn't. And he decided that he did.

This didn't go over very well. He lost his flock, was condemned by his best friends, including Oral Roberts, called a heretic, was defrocked and eventually excommunicated from his denomination and barred from the facility he helped create.

That was in 2001. Over the next few years, he began getting calls to preach the inclusion message to AIDS victims, homeless people, and others who were rejected. Later, he was offered space in the afternoon at the local episcopal cathedral. He's on the way back.

I appreciate all that Carlton has gone through. He has gone through a kind of hell because he was willing to stick to his convictions no matter the loss.

My one criticism is that he seems to be overly focused on slick presentation. The front of his new website says, "the friendliest, trendiest, most radically inclusive worship experience!" and "don't miss out on the newest shift in religious sensibility!" with Carlton still wearing his violet bishop's clergy shirt and his trendy glasses. He still calls himself a bishop, even though he is not (he is now ordained in the United Church of Christ, but so far as I know, is not a bishop in that denomination).

Go-Getter Eliminates Two Steps From Grieving Process

Fake news from The Onion:

CORNING, CA—Management consultant and recent widower Greg Pier successfully cut his grieving time by more than a third Friday by eliminating bargaining and depression from the mourning process following the death of his wife. "After three days in denial and a full night of anger, I realized that at that rate, I was never going to get over [wife] Betty's passing," said Pier, who convinced himself it was time to move on with his life after a simple cost-benefit analysis. "What am I supposed to do, mope around all day asking God to take me instead?" Piers noted that his intense grief should be even less time-consuming given his plans to avoid explaining to his children where their mother went.

Rudy and His Mistress

Let's see if I got this right: Rudy spends taxpayer money to visit his mistress, hides the expenses in unrelated departments, and it's the Democrats fault??

Whatever. One thing I know: the blogs that say that Rudy's campaign is over are wrong. Rudy has learned from G.W. Bush, that when the going gets tough, the tough get stubborn. Just lower your head like a bull and stand your ground. There is no scandal that you can't survive if you are stubborn enough.

Outrage

Hunter at DailyKos gets outraged so that I don't have to:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/29/18282/703

Insults & the Law

I'm in favor of cultural and religious sensitivity, but doesn't such sensitivity go both ways? When British teacher Gillian Gibbons allowed her class to choose the name Mohammed for a teddy bear in Sudan, she did not know that doing so would offend anyone. It is, after all, the most popular boy's name in that country, and the name of the most popular boy in her class. So to charge her with a crime punishable by 40 lashes or jail for a year, seems so utterly unreasonable on its face. It is one thing to defend one's holy leader (and by the way, if God is God, then God doesn't need me to defend), but quite another to use the law to punish a person who never intended harm, who is in one's country to help, and who may not know all the the in's-and-out's of the culture. Indeed, a reasonable person might well have thought that if she did not allow the teddy to be named Mohammed that someone ELSE would have gotten insulted!

So, dare I suggest taking a line from a different holy book--when someone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other to him also. Insults only do the amount of harm that we permit them to do. If we choose not to be harmed by them, then they have no power. When we allow insults to have the power of Law, the Law kills.

Update: She was found guilty and sentenced to 14 days in jail. Thoughtful judges, who considered the full weight of the matter, decided that she was guilty. What. A. Crock.

Update 2: It's been revealed that Gibbons was ratted out by the school's own secretary. Now 600 demonstrators are rioting and calling for her execution. There is something deeply, deeply disturbing about this thirst for blood.

Update 3: She is finally free now, and the latest news is that the secretary had been fired a couple weeks earlier, and she ratted them out in order to get the school shut down. In that respect, it worked, the school is shut down and no word on when it would re-open.

For Sale: One Healthcare Insurance Company

Last night my company announced it was selling to CIGNA. The fallout begins.

Birthday

Today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me!

Disgraceful

This hits new lows:

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

The rest of the story: Military wants bonuses back

Safe

George W. Bush: "America is safer."

Douglas Adams: "Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of."

Souljourner's

Souljourner's this weekend was excellent, the best one so far. All about Ignatian Spirituality, especially the guidelines for discernment. Very helpful. Some of the gifts of the weekend:

praying in color
apples with caramel dip
kind words
genuine care

Now it is rest time! We get December "off". At least in the sense that we are not meeting. But I still have to read 2 books and write 3 papers between now and mid-January.

God's intention

"God has revealed his intention for our world, namely that all human beings live as brothers and sisters in a community of faith, hope and love united with Jesus Christ as sons and daughters of God, our Father and in harmony with the whole created universe.

If the universe is one action of God, then our own actions can be in tune with this one action or not. In order to become discerning, we need practice in prayerful attention to the movement of our hearts and honest appraisal of what seems more in tune with God's one action. What leads to greater faith, hope and love in our hearts? What seems more likely to enhance real communion and community among those with whom we live and work? Conversely, which alternative seems more fearful and self-protective? A daily examination of consciousness would gradually make us more fine-tuned as to what choices are more in line with God's kingdom."
-- William A. Barry, SJ, Paying Attention to God: Discernment in Prayer


With this view of God's intention in mind, and the attendant questions, how then would we answer our seemingly intractable problems like:

• immigration
• universal healthcare
• gay marriage
• global warming
• disaster recovery
• homelessness
  

It seems so obvious.

Wynonna - I Can Only Imagine

Written and popularized by the group Mercy Me, Wynonna does a pretty good job with it:

Tori Amos Mother

My favorite song from the Tori Amos concert.



Out of the nest
It's time
Go go go now
Circus girl without a safety net
Here here now
Don't cry
You raised your hand for the assignment
Tuck those ribbons under your helmet
Be a good soldier
First my left foot
Then my right behind the other
Pantyhose
Running in the cold

Mother the car is here
Somebody leave the light on
Black Chariot for the redhead
Dancing dancing girl And when I dance for him
Somebody leave the light on just in case
I like the dancing
I can remember where I come from

I walked into your dream
And now I've forgotten how to dream my own dream
You are the clever one aren't you
Brides in veils for you
We told you all of our secrets
All but one
So don't you even try
The phone has been disconnected
Dripping with blood
And with time
And with your advice
Poison me against the moon

Mother the car is here
Somebody leave the light on
Black Chariot for the redhead
Dancing dancing girl And when I dance for him
Somebody leave the light on just in case
I like the dancing
I can remember where I come from

I escape into your escape
Into our very favorite fearscape
It's across the the sky
And across my heart
And I cross my legs
Oh my God
First my left foot
Then my right behind the other
Breadcrumbs lost under the snow
Mother
Mother the car is here
Somebody leave the light on
Somebody leave the light on just in case
I like the dancing
Mother

Beyond Theology

Yesterday I watched a fascinating show on PBS called “Beyond Theology” (www.beyondtheology.tv). Today’s show was entitled “Ground of Being” and was about the various ways we conceive, perceive, experience, and talk about God, and how our talk is rapidly changing and evolving. The show featured Sr. Joan Chittister, John Shelby Spong, Karen Armstrong, and James Forbes. Produced locally by Washburn University, I thought it was a great show.

Looking at my local listings, it looks like it will show again on Tuesday night at 9:00-9:30pm.
The next show in the series is about religious pluralism. Future episodes will deal with the Bible, mysticism, creation spirituality, science and spirituality and others.

Televangelists Redux

So Creflo Dollar has released some of his church's financial records. They show that his church at just one of his locations took in $69 million just last year. Wow! The church owns a lear jet and gave Creflo Dollar a Rolls Royce. (For perspective, our church takes in 0.13% of that figure).

Creflo is quoted as saying, "without a doubt, my life is not average," Dollar said. "But I'd like to say, just because it is excessive doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong."

"The issue is, what route did you use to get that excess?" he said.

His route was money that he earned, Dollar said.

"When I want a nice car, I use my own money to get the nice car and not the money of the church," Dollar said.

Another article says that the church no longer gives Creflo a salary because he already earns millions of dollars on his books (which apparently he and the church considers to be private work and income unrelated to his church).

Endorsements...

Robertson has endorsed Giuliani, Weyrich endorsed Romney, Brownback endorsed McCain and now Natl Right to Life is endorsing Thompson. What in the world is a fun-loving right wing nut supposed to do?!

I get notes...

A NOTE OF THANKS: I returned from serving my five day prison sentence for protesting the war in Iraq and found many notes of support and donations from you. I am so touched by your acts of kindness.

The five days in prison were powerful in so many ways. I'm just beginning to write and reflect. But I have new models of hospitality—the women in prison who welcomed us, encouraged us, helped us through the intricate maze of rules—and I thought the organization of a monastery was intricate—and gave us from their small supply of coffee and snacks. Their kindness was overwhelming. So was the starkness of the place, the tragedy of many of their stories, the suffering of their separation from their children. Hard, tough, reality. Also, the noise, the lights, the surveillance camera—we had one in our cell, no privacy and only the dignity that the women offer each other. It all connects really with the violence we're exporting to Iraq.

I came out with a book wish list for Benetvision's Fund for Prisoners. The "library" for the women is dismal. When I mentioned that I was part of Benetvision, a few women immediately said, "Oh, Sister Joan, we get her Monastic Way." They want more books. Prayer books, like 25 Windows Into the Soul, Between Two Souls, 2008 Song of the Earth Calendars to help them track the days, Journals. They have so little—have to buy paper with money they might get from those outside. I am more convinced than ever of the need for the Fund for Prisoners. Thank you for your strong message of support. I am so grateful. (Read Anne's statement regarding her arrest and sentencing.)

Peace, Salaam, Shalom,
Sister Anne McCarthy, OSB

Lack of female characters in movies

This is an interested blog article:

http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/11/10/6306/

Specifically it mentions the "Bechdel Movie Measure," which I had never heard of before:

In order for a movie to pass the Bechdel Movie Measure, it must have three characteristics:

1. There must be two or more women in it
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something other than a man.

Seems damn reasonable. The rest of the article is about how nearly all the Pixar animated films fail that measure (except The Incredibles), most recently in Bee Movie, and how, even worse, Bee Movie even uses males to fill traditionally female roles, and ignores the fact that in "real life" female bees do all the real work, and the males only do sex. :)

Anyway, they make a very good point that animated movies, presumably geared to both sexes, are actually teaching young women that they really don't have any significant place in the world. And that blows.

It makes me want to think back to the last few theater movies I've seen and think about whether it passes the "Bechdel Test." The last few movies I remember seeing are: 30 Days of Night, Saw IV, Mr. Woodcock, and Resident Evil: Extinction. Of course, none of these are chick flicks (Dean likes horror flicks), by any means, but still, virtually any movie ought to be able to pass such a simple test.

30 Days of Night had more than 2 female characters (the sheriff's girlfriend Stella, Denise one of the surviving residents, other female survivors, female vampires, the little girl that Stella saves at the end, and various female extras). Unfortunately, I can't remember any specific scenes where 2 women talk to each other about something other than a man. But honestly there probably was, even if it was casual and insignificant. I'd have to give this one a hopeful maybe.

Saw IV had 2 women in it (barely, the female cop and Saw's ex-wife), but I really don't remember them talking to each other about anything other than a man (the two talked about Saw, but that's all I remember). I'd have to give it a fail.

Mr. Woodcock did have 2 female characters (Susan Sarandon as Mr. Woodcock's love interest and the main character's mom) and Amy Poehler (the main character's book agent). But I don't remember them talking to each other, much less about anything other than a man. I have to say this one is a doubtful maybe.

Resident Evil:Extinction had more than 2 women in it (the main character Alice and Claire, the leader of one of the surviving bands). Thinking back, they definitely interacted, and about something other than a man. This one, surprisingly for the genre, definitely passes.

Weekend

So Saturday was spent writing papers for Souljourners. Sunday was Dean's Birthday-Eve celebration at his mom's. I blew up helium balloons and used Transformers decorations. Teri made shepherd's pie, spinach salad, jello, blueberry muffins, and chocolate cake. And kool-aid. Can't have a meal at Teri's without kool-aid. It's required. Luckily it was Sunday, which is our diet-free day. And boy howdy did we eat! Teri, Tony, Kacy, Brian, Lyman and Ted were there too. And Dean got lots of neato prezzies.

I didn't remember to take my camera, so no pictures, sadly.

Why I am A Democrat

Because not 1 single Republican senator voted against torture:

Mukasey Roll Call

My favorite religious authors

My top 10 Favorite Religious Authors (and my favorite books of theirs). Sorted by favorite author, not necessarily favorite book.

1. Brennan Manning, Abba's Child
2. Matthew Fox, Creation Spirituality
3. Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son
4. Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled From the Daily
5. Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
6. Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination
7. Peter Gomes, The Good Book
8. N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus
9. Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy
10. Anne Lammott, Plan B

Notable others: Anthony Bloom (Beginning to Pray), C.S. Lewis (The Great Divorce), Thomas Merton (No Man Is An Island), Richard Foster (Celebration of Discipline), Carol Bonomo (The Abbey Up the Hill), Esther DeWaal (Living with Contradiction), Thomas Keating (Open Mind, Open Heart)

Veto override

Today, Congress voted to override Bush's veto of the water bill, the first override to succeed in his administration.

Am I the only one waiting for Cheney to come out and say that Congressional overrides violate the President's unitary executive privilege as Commander in Chief?

Seriously.

The Bell Park of World Peace

Hwacheon (Wa-Shon) is a town bordering the DMZ in South Korea. It has a population of 27,000 citizens and 35,000 troops garrisoned there. It is one of the towns for which the Korean War has never ended. Like their North Korean counterparts, the folks here just watch each other waiting ....

But not any more.

Poised in the middle of this area is the so-called "Peace Dam". An empty hole in the ground that was built only to protect the area from flooding in case North Korea's dam were ever damaged, or deliberately opened. That is the site where the local government hopes that
"a tragic symbol of the hostility and conflict between North Korea and South Korea, will be transformed into a symbol of genuine peace for life in the Korean Peninsula, in North East Asia and around the globe. The Dam will be a historic monument for the future generations of the Korean people and for visitors from all over the world. It will be a paradoxical sign of communication and conviviality among the peoples of the world, not just in Korea." And there, at about this time next year, is where they will mount the Bell of World Peace, currently being made using spent bullet cartridges from around the world.

This is not something that North and South Korea decided to do together. It is something that the local community decided it needed to do for North and South Korea, with implications for the rest of us.

Writer's Strike

School shooting in Finland

In reading about the school shooting in Finland, I learned that a video that the shooter created included clips of the Columbine shootings, the government raid on Waco, and the US bombs falling on Iraq.

America used to be inspiration for freedom, ingenuity and democracy. Today, America was his inspiration for violence and that makes me sad.

Pat Robertson endorses Rudolph Giuliani

It's official. Being a faithful Mormon is worse than being a two-time divorcee and pro-abortion.

Senate to Investigate Televangelists

So this is interesting. Charles Grassley (R-IA) has begun an investigation of 6 televangelists:
Joyce Meyer
Creflo Dollar
Benny Hinn
Eddie Long
Kenneth & Gloria Copeland
Randy & Paula White

All of these would be representative of the "prosperity gospel," a theology that says that God wants you to prosper (get rich), but only if you are willing to give to God's kingdom, which of course, means giving to the televangelist's ministry, which, oddly enough, makes the preacher prosper and proves his point. It's a great scheme. It'll be interesting to see if something substantive comes out of the senator's investigation.

It is also interesting to see which televangelists are NOT on the list.

Gov. Ryan going to Jail

Gov. George Ryan of Illinois is going to jail for fraud and racketeering. For a decade as Secretary of State, and then as Governor, he steered contracts to friends who gave him bribes of vacations, gifts and cash. When investigators tried to investigate what was going on, he fired them. A family of 6 died as an indirect result of his greedy crimes.

Here is what GOP state Rep. Bill Black had to say: "Why would anybody take any great satisfaction that this man is going to prison? He had decades of, I think, noble service."

Is this where "moral" America is right now? The corrupt are portrayed as noble servants who are mere victims of ... well, something. Getting caught by people who have a beef against corrupt regimes I guess.

Sometimes Love Makes Us Lovable

SOMETIMES LOVE MAKES US LOVABLE

Willing, but not eager: that's pretty much how I felt about taking in Ben the Quacking Cat. He was blessed at birth with a meow that sounds exactly like the quack of a duck, and he simply could not turn it off. I wonder if there is such a thing as feline Tourette's Syndrome? If there is, it would explain a lot.

He would station himself at Anna's bedroom door at 4 in the morning and begin to quack, and he would quack his way mournfully through the day. If he was awake, you heard him.

Maybe it was the apartment. Unless you're really, really rich, your New York City apartment will be quite small, roughly the size of your bedroom when you were a teenager. Maybe he'll be quieter if he has more room, I told my daughter. She was tearful at the thought of getting rid of Ben, but she teaches school and needs her sleep, and besides, she was engaged: the first year of marriage has stresses enough of its own. And it wasn't as if we were turning him out on the street; Ben would still be in the family. She could come to see him on holidays.

It was worth a try.

So he had some strikes against him when he came in, did Ben: a personality trait that annoyed absolutely everyone with whom he interacted. For weeks we thought what all new parents think, that all the noise must surely mean that he was hungry, but feeding him had no discernable effect. So that wasn't it.

Well, what do we need? Food and water. Air. We need meaningful work, although I've had cats all my life and have yet to meet one with a job, so maybe cats don't need work. That leaves just one thing: maybe Ben needed love. Not that Anna didn't love him. But Ben drove away anyone who might have been moved to the physical expression of love with his incessant noise. Maybe what he needed was the very thing he drove away.

He wouldn't have been the first to have done that. How many are there? Tons. We alienate the very thing for which we long, sabotage the love we crave. The thing I wish to do, I do not do, St. Paul wails in his letter to the Romans, and the thing I do not wish to do, that is what I do. Without realizing what I am doing, I set things up so that I will not have what I need, and then I am miserable because I do not have it.

I determined to stroke Ben's chin and cuddle him every time he began to quack. Won't that just encourage him to do it even more? Q asked, unconvinced. But he couldn't possibly have quacked any more than he was quacking already, since he was never still except when he was asleep. So there was little to lose.

He would begin to quack, and I would pick him up. All cats love to have their chins stroked; well, their jaws, really: they have scent glands there, and gentle pressure on them feels good to them. And it worked: he would stop quacking after only a few strokes. Ben's black coat is very soft and rich, and his white bib is luxuriant; stroking and cuddling him was fun for me, too. And, as Ben began to quiet down, something began to happen to me: I began to love him. Soon he stopped immediately upon being picked up. He took to coming up alongside my face in the night; I would reach one hand out from under the blanket and give him a few strokes. That was enough, it seemed: he'd walk back down to the foot of the bed and go back to sleep. It was sweet to have the touch that helped him calm down. I realized that he had never wanted to quack all the time. He just hadn't known how to not to, and it was the physical expression of love that helped him stop.

I now adore my Ben. I love him as much as I've ever loved a cat, and I have loved some cats in my day. I bury my face in his lovely fur and tell him that he smells like a flower -- I'm sure there's a flower somewhere in the world that smells like Ben. I call him in from the back yard and he trots toward the back porch, quacking all the way, and I reach down when he's close enough, for a couple of quick chin-strokes. I now think his quacking is charming: the very thing that made me resigned, at best, to his coming to live here in the first place, now seems to me to be cute and funny.

Love made him lovable! And showing him love made me love him! It appears that love causes love, then. It seems that it is infinitely available among us, the rich milk of it produced on the spot, on demand, in as much quantity as we need, if we will only surrender to its delight.



The Almost-Daily eMo from the Geranium Farm Copyright © 2001-2007 Barbara Crafton - all rights reserved