Just Thinking This Thing Through

 

Perhaps it is too early to be posting anything at all.  Is this animal a Mandrel or something?  Anyway he is a place holder for now!  You can tell he is thinking very hard indeed!

This Is An American Holiday

 A photo taken from Shorpy.com of an American Memorial Day picnic in 1960, somewhere in Maryland.

We've probably pretty much all been to one or two of those.  I sure have.  I only see one man there way in the background.  Maybe picnics are kind of a kid's and women's thing.

I have no near relatives lost at war.  Some have served, but they came home.  My father was too young for WW2 and too married with children for Korea.  His brother was at the Nuremburg trials as a guard.  I wish I could find a photo of that!

Like any sane human, I hate wars.  The waste and ruin.  The loss of men and now, women's lives.  There should be a damn good reason for it.

But GOD bless those who served and lost their own lives out of faithfulness.  Let righteousness prevail on earth.

Purity of Arms-Tohar HaNeshek

 

  טוהר הנשק

"Purity of Arms" (Morality in Warfare)-The soldier shall make use of his weaponry and power only for the fulfillment of the mission and solely to the extent required; he will maintain his humanity even in combat.  The soldier shall not emply his weaponry and power to harm non-combatants or prisoners of war, and shall do all he can to avoid harming their lives, body, honor and property.

                                                                                                                         IDF spirit

Some of the kids in the IDF.

Some of the reserves.

Anyhow, its a hard stance to maintain.  Doesn't always win them any praise.

Waking Mercies, or Shabbat Shalom

 It was a rough night.  I'm still struggling with an injured shoulder that doesn't work well with sleeping.  So its a good feeling to be up and awake.  I hope I haven't torn it.  Do not want surgery.  Nope.

Anyhow, I have to drive down to the big bad city and help DD#3 whom I have not seen since she returned from England.  Its a nice cool day for driving.  Not too bright out there.  

We will probably hit Fifi's hipster butcher shop and all the blinking Chinese grocery stores my kid can think of.  Probably have some kind of Asian lunch naturally.

Its a day in our improbably, mysterious life on a rough rock moving in space...and there my mind hesitates to go further.

Love from your correspondent. Will be checking in from the road, no doubt.

                                       Drawn by my crazy GD.

Today Is The Day

Somewhere between hope and cynicism, but without despair.

                                                My funny girl, my pretty teenager, my baby.

Her own daughter will pick her up in an hour or so and take her over the water to that place, where hopefully they can help her. 

Books. The Love and The Terror

 Does anyone know how to adopt out a lifetime's supply of books?

The idea of trying to sell them is laughable.  The collections are quite personal.  Who cares about oddball cookbooks and howto pamphlets for old fashioned appliances?

This is not nearly the whole thing.  Just some photos I have.  Then there is the whole matter of my knitting books.  Why do I have knitting books?  I don't know.  I could write them myself. My work area here is like a representation of part of my mind.  Sometimes I look at this stuff and try to read what it means.

I think it might be just about time to be free.  I don't want to leave it all for someone else to clean up.  When does one burn the notebooks?

Wanna Take a Ride?, or The Very Next Menace™

 As a long time listener to Art Bell, this morning I was wondering what he would make of the world we face today.  I feel I know his mind a bit, the same as we know the mind of Rush Limbaugh a bit, just from long association.

Are we on the last little jump to the stars, or is there just another cynical effort spiraling up to stampede the cattle, us?  Probably the latter.  But I do get to thinking about what is out there.  And here we are on our rock, running to and fro, as the Book says.

"To the time of the end, many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased" Daniel 12:4

Boy you can say that.

Many of us have seen "something".  You have to wonder if someone is messing with us or what.  It can't all be illusion because of logistics.

              

                   What a time to be alive!!

Truer than True

                                         ANY IS A LOT

I was contemplating air molecules yesterday and thinking about the metaphor of leaven for sin.  How any is the same as lot.  It is because it opens a door, it grows.

On the other hand, faith the size of a mustard seed, is also a heck of a lot.  It doesn't matter how "big" faith is.  It matters who the faith is IN.  So, any is a lot.  In this case an awful lot.

But also, this is a soft luscious day.  Warmish, by our standards, diffuse sunlight.  Leaves half grown.  Birds, sky, flowers.  The urgency of spring.  My thoughts are cloudy.  

Love, p

In A Metal Mood (just a thought experiment)

 OK, the other day some people were  talking about how to go about using metals as a form of currency.  I got to thinking about how that would work.

Of course there is the possibility of small silver coins for this and that.  Actually moving the metal around physically.

But also I wondered if like minded people could have a sort Gold Club.  To get into the club you would enter your gold somehow into the group's holdings and then you could be issued documents, or bills that were redeemable for the metal represented.

The thing I wonder about also, is , would you spend them outside the group or not?

I know nothing about money or currency, but I have been thinking for a long time that we might need a kind of underground currency.  Just to get things done.  There used to be a lot of private currencies like in company towns or whatever.

Bitcoin and such are scary to me because they seem to rely on consensus only.

Listen To Hear An Almost Familiar Voice

 Happy Sunday morning.  I was actually up last night thinking about what's next.  Have been reading the book of Daniel lately.  Its been a while, and as is usually the case with these things my perceptions of what he was seeing in the 7th chapter has become crisper, more, just more.

Well, this music reminds me of an odd thing from childhood.  I remember "hearing"  a mighty, unimaginably huge instance of voices singing deeply.  It made my father angry when I told him.  I think he thought I was putting on airs.  Anyhow, I can still hear it a bit if I concentrate.

I used to laugh at people who said they just wished GOD would speak to them.  I would think he never shuts up.  Don't you have eyes?

                                         WHAT A DAY TO BE ALIVE!

On The Road in America, (gonzo journalism writ very small indeed!)

 I looked it up, just to be sure:

Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story using a first-person narrative. The word "gonzo" is believed to have been first used in 1970 to describe an article about the Kentucky Derby by Hunter S. Thompson, who popularized the style. It is an energetic first-person participatory writing style in which the author is a protagonist, and it draws its power from a combination of social critique and self-satire. It has since been applied to other subjective artistic endeavors.

First Love, Now There's a Subject

 As I was waking this morning I was thinking of doing a post on DECENCY, just as a wordy exercise, and because I like to reexamine ideas that we already understand.  I also have some thoughts on how a gold mini economy might work.  Another day.

But love is where its at.  Its closer to our hearts, when we lie down and when we rise up.  Its hard to put a finger on first love.  When was that?

When I was a kindergartner I had to walk down Aurora Ave to go to school and I got lost.  I remember happily wandering the Seattle neighborhood nowhere near Oaklake Elementary.  I was really too young.  They should have given me another year.  The point is that a little red headed boy was assigned to walk me to school.  Awww.

First love could probably be illustrated with school annual pages.

This one is not one of mine.  I couldn't find any quickly.  No matter.  There was always someone.  Right?  Such a confusing time.  I remember a young man sitting up on top of the lockers one year saying "do you love me little girl?"  Being green as grass and so afraid of mockery I said NO.  But I did, I did. He was a banjo player.

More stories.  More secret loves.  I was not the girl they all wanted, which is probably a good thing.

I found the Bird at community college.  He was one year behind me in school, so it was the second year.  We also attended the University of Washington at the same time.  One day he was late to school and I just knew something horrible had happened.  At that point I knew I was hooked.  He was fine, just late. haha  There was something there I wanted. You know?

There is a photo booth picture of the early times, but I don't know where it is, so this one will have to do.

Thursday Edition, Continuing the Thursday Tradition

 

So tell me, if you care to, the best things about being an American kid.  Of course, I am full of the photographs of the life I knew.

After my dad moved us out of Idaho to western Washington I mostly lived in a small neighborhood carved out of the second growth forest.  Living in the woods for real.

Little sister on the horse with a mind of its own.  Top photo is himself, ready to ride, middle photo is me in tub and sister waiting.  The minutiae of life.

Thanks to those of you who have visited and commented here.  I am so honored.

Idolatry, or Oh No, She Has Been Ruminating Again

 My premise is that we can turn GOD himself into an idol.  Let me see if I can explain what I am on about.  The following photograph is of my grandparents on mom's side.  

This, of course, is not them.  It is a representation of a moment in two long lives.  If we say it is them we are being silly.

It has occurred to me that when we take one instance of GOD and say this is him, and freeze it and exclude anything else from that quarter...we have created an idol.  He is "controlled" and "limited" to what we think of him.

I also think this is why no figure of him was supposed to be made.  Its really limiting.

So, I think this could be a partial explanation for all the old concepts and beliefs about GOD in pagan times and places.  They saw something and they clung to that image.  Maybe.  If we leave out the demonic aspects.

Letting GOD be GOD is what?  Frightening.  Yeah, probably.  

In addition, here is a painting that I love.  You can see that the ocean is just over the little hump in the pavement.

No idea who painted it.

Aren't You Glad Baby?

 

 

I was thinking about today.  I was looking at various photos and pieces of art work and started hearing this old Spirit song. 

I am thinking of all the ways life is easy now.  No jobs to prepare for or go to.  No need to wake up early, make lunches, get four kids moving and feed them all. 

Yes, its easy.  Its a little blue too.

You know its early when you miss the coffee cup with the cream!  

Why Is There Pain?

 Is it because we have been skating along and fell?

Is it Original Sin?  Our fallen world?

Psalm 38:15-18

Lord, I wait for you; you will answer, Lord my God. For I said, "Do not let them gloat or exalt themselves over me when my feet slip." For I am about to fall, and my pain is ever with me. I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.

Is Any Sick Among You?

 

James 5:14-16

Is any among you sick?  Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord

and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him.

Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.

The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.

I love the whole book of James.  I used to carry a little perfume bottle full of olive oil, as part of my kit.  Its been a while.  Maybe I should find another little bottle.

Isn't James grand!  What lovely concepts.  

The Peaceable Kingdom for Which We Wait

Rather humorous version by Edward Hicks

Isaiah 11:6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.

Mark Twain wrote a funny story about this.  Remember he has Eve shoving  a cabbage that got stuck in lions throat down with a broomstick or something.  It does seem illogical.  I wonder how this will be.

REGARDING the Just So Stories We Live With

 

When I arrived home yesterday I found that Mr. Bird had been watching a lot of PBS Eons programs, which he invited me to view also.  

I watched one or two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCW0zyDGuXc

The explanations of what various very small pieces of bone indicated in terms of human history and development reminded me of nothing so much as Kipling's Just So stories.  

PS, Neanderthals are just people!  lol

You may read the Just So stories for yourself at Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2781/2781-h/2781-h.htm

Is Our GOOSE Well and Truly Cooked This Time?

 I tend to think that our goose is feeling some heat and had better lay low for a while.  

More and more I appreciate the task MOTUS set herself.  What a girl she is!

At noon I have to take off for Seatac to retrieve daughter who has been in England for two weeks and get her back to her place after taking her shopping etc.  Its going to be a cool rainy day.  I prefer dry and grey for driving but it is what it is.  Now I better check on her flight.

NOW and ZEN

 I know that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, but wowie!  

Every generation looks out upon the world and thinks "this can't continue".   But it does continue.

Every generation deals with an impossible issue.  I wonder what was bugging the guys who set up those rocks in England.  That took a lot of hard work.  I wonder what problem they were solving that way.

Girding Up

 The drawing, as used here, is a humorous attempt to typify the battles we face.  Its a tough room, a dangerous planet.  Both in terms of physical life.  But also spiritually.  

We all know the verses about arming up and being ready.  

May this day be a blessing and victorious.  B'Shem Y'shuah.  (in Jesus' Name)

I borrowed the drawing from someone's Tumbler blog.

The True West

 

In my life I have seen the true west and I'm not so very old.  I remember an old train station in Gooding, ID with the coal stove and everything.  I remember the hollow sound of the board floors and the smells.  I remember the old grain elevator towns, dust and heat and silence.  

Train rides through the sleepy desert dark and the mysterious sky and horizons.  

My father's father ate with Sitting Bull.  Its not so very long ago.

What I Was Doing All Those Years

 I was raising small Americans.  

You never see any of it coming.  It looks now like bearing children should take a lot of nerve.  Or maybe a person should be a lion trainer first.

What A Bunch of Straight Shooters!

To my utter surprise, Neithan is correct!  (Not that I doubted his veracity really)

I have been among you all for around seven years.  I went back last night and read a few threads of comments back in 2015.  In so many ways the flavor of the commenting was very much the same, but not quite.  

A goodly lot of those names we don't see anymore.  Some have gone to their eternal home, some we don't know.  At least I don't.

2015 was quite a year in my life.  I nearly joined the ranks of those departed.  So many changes since then.

Here again, I want to add my petition to the Lord of Heaven and Earth that he heal, strengthen and lift up our dear MOTUS and give Raj the grace and strength to be all she needs him to be, in Jesus' Name.

As I woke up one morning in May

Its 7 AM.  Do you know where your coffee is?

I am thinking about the scale of the job every day that MOTUS did.  

 

 I am so struck by this photograph.

The old lady looks upon the child with love.  The child is absorbing, not repelled.  Does she know the old woman.  But there are clouds and blue sky.  Is the old lady really there with her?  I know its a car window.

Do they look upon themselves?

A Question

 

 

  Good Morning nice people.  More later today.  😘

 

Just a tune from 1967, because eating tangerines reminds me of it.

Also, to say hello.

 Just a test.  To see if it worked, still trying.

 

In praise of manly men.  What can one say?  As usual, partly kidding.

But goodness, two big old pigs he's schlepping!

Actually I would love to know if the ads are gone!