How To Do Lent #3

Monkabee Magazine Lenten Archives

Orthograph # 144 - Fasting Flow Chart

Still My Lenten Morning Routine

If *I* Said It, It Would be P-Incorrect...

Overheard:  A Mexican guy looking at a group of Mexicans dressed in green on St. Patrick's Day:
"Oh, look... a can of green beans!"

Somewhere Over the Rainbow Redux, The Sunday of the Cross

There is something enduring and mystical about "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".  Perhaps it is "merely" the human innate sensibility of immortality that transcends the troubled existences we endure. Perhaps after The Flood God has infused in our DNA the Promise of the Rainbow. 
  
A couple years ago I posted this video of  Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole 


And the "Piano Guys" do a beautiful tribute to Iz and nice rendition of the tune. 



On the Sunday of the Cross the promise of the Rainbow of God is fulfilled.  He is not our Destroyer, He is not our death.  

The Light hung on the Cross in darkness and fulfilled the promise of the Rainbow.

The Life of the world died and killed death.  The Life was bound to all that is earthly to offer a hope beyond the curse of returning to the dust of the ground.

God is the hope of the "somewhere" over the Rainbow.  

Perhaps He is the Unbearable Light that we can only bear shattered and refracted by creation, broken into smaller comprehendable parts. The Rainbow is The Light, anchored to the dust of the ground by the Cross, stretching to heaven at Its peak then returning to the earth in Hope. 

The Rainbow is all we can see through earth-bound eyes because our hearts cannot bear the Uncreated Light. But the Rainbow touches our hearts because we hope for something beyond what we can see.  

Orthograph # 143 - How to Do Lent #2

What Two Hot Dogs and Faith Can Do...

I can't remember if it was two or three years ago, but I do remember I had a LOT of time off because construction died, so I built a church for our Mission. This picture was our first Pascha in our completed building.  It seemed the hand of God was blessing us.  Of course He would bless us. We were stepping out on faith. We gave sacrificially and then some. We endured all manners of setbacks and speedbumps and didn't give up. In the end we had built an Orthodox temple and had a solid core of faithful families. The whole story is HERE

I used to read the last line of that post now with a bit of ironic bitterness.  About two years after we built the Church the owner sold the property out from under us.  It would be easy to blame the owner (and we did for a while), but looking back, the reality is it was a harmonic convergence of bad decisions and gross negligence and just plain human failures by our Bishop, Dean of Missions, Priest, Parish Council and members at large (of which I was an integral part).  QT (a gas station/convenience market chain) had bought the property and we were forced to vacate.

This was the fate of thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours of volunteer labor, all given "to the glory of God". 

The fate of St. John's building is a metaphor for life, of course.  "Why does God not seem to honor the sacrifices that people make for Him?"  WE think we're building a legacy to the glory of God then that same "God" permits it to be bulldozed and buried so the future generations we were hoping to bless cannot even recognize it nor remember it.

And of course the answer to that  question is, "Who knows?"  Our call is to be faithful, not prognosticators or soothsayers interpreting and discerning the will of God.

So today (Sunday) I finished my weekend construction job about one o'clock. I went to the new commercial office space our Mission just rented and decided I'd get a jump start on the remodeling.

I "kept the fast" even though I didn't go to Church because I had to finish the job this weekend.  By noon I was shaky. (I'm standing on the blog streetcorner, yes...) There was no way I was going to do demolition for the rest of the day on a "BLT without the B".  I stopped and ate two hot dogs at Circle K and went to the new office space St. John's rented.  There's a few walls that have to be removed to open it up for a sanctuary.  These were the first two that had to go.

It is office space, nothing fancy. There will be no dome, no arches, no park-like grounds for picnics and barbeques, just an asphalt parking lot in a non-descript office building on a main street.  But St. John's Mission will be there, just like we were in someone's living room, the funeral home chapel, the strip center behind the bar, the beautiful temple and the rented Coptic Church Chapel we've been in for the last year. 

The Mission has survived seven years of clerical delusion, neglect, abuse, and lay and clerical dysfunctional leadership.  But it still exists in spite of all of the issues and problems.  In the end there was no schism, everyone who left has returned and is looking forward.  That in itself is a miracle.

Moving to a commercial office space from a "real church building" may be a step backward by all measures of "progress", but a step forward by all measures of "faithfulness in the small things" by a community of people that love each other enough to wander in the wilderness together and endure the humanity of the Church and the severity of the hand of God that is preparing us for something we do not understand and cannot comprehend.

And yes, it has occurred to me that even the last line of this post will probably come back and bite me too.  Oh well. What else is new.

Lent and Life

This coming Lazarus Saturday I will celebrate my 14th year being "Orthodox".

Fifteen years ago I prepared to enter the Orthodox Church by fasting "strictly". No meat, dairy, fish, wine or oil for over 40 days. I was on a "Mission from God".

A group of us sat in a living room with an Orthodox priest who was asking us about what we had studied and what we were doing as former Episcopalians that was preparing us to become Orthodox.  Of course among our group we all had discussed our fasting and prayer rules with each other.  Someone said to the priest, "Some of us are abstaining from meat, dairy, fish, wine and oil."  The priest commented, "Wow... that is strict!"

I still remember ever so slightly smiling when he said that (even though I had no clue WHY he said that back then). Even then I had a clue that I smiled because of pride and that "someone who would know" affirmed my strictness and spiritual effort.  My first Lent was a failure right out of the gate.

Over the past fourteen years I've kept Lent pretty strictly, somewhat strictly, and on and off pretty poorly. I remember one year I broke out with huge red, itchy blotches all over my body all during Lent that I think might have been a seafood allergy, but I kept the fast anyway. Eating jumbo shrimp and crab for Jesus for 50+ itchy days is a tough spiritual discipline.  But over the years there have been the secret Burger King and Taco Bell lunches when I worked alone and the blatant "tofu-be-damned" meat-fests even on a Friday.

Of course one of the primary lessons of Lent is that you fail, if not in food then in relationships, attitude, and spirit which are actually the REAL issues, not food.  Intellectually I knew that Lent is supposed to be humbling and if you finished with a sense of accomplishment you did it wrong. But there is always the temptation to pride for "doing it right"... at least the food part of it.

The longer I'm Orthodox it seems the "pretty poorly" number of meals and days have grown.  The longer I was Orthodox the more elegant my rationalizations became (for instance, I know at the monasteries monks who work manual labor aren't required to keep the fasts strictly... I did manual labor, therefore....).  But I didn't have to read "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" to recognize they were just rationalizations for the weakness of my flesh.  Over the years I've also recognized I feel less guilt for not keeping the fasts strictly. 

I think "lack of guilt" about food may be a sign I am finally becoming a real "Orthodox Christian", the kind of normal Orthodox Christian Fr. Michael was comparing me to fourteen years ago who freely and guiltlessly "break the fasts". I've known that fasting is not ultimately about rules about food but about being a Christian. But I've often found I was more concerned about what other people might think about me eating a Big Mac than being an ass during Lent. The past couple years I've swung the other way (of course probably off balance again).  I've slowly become more concerned about being an "orthodox CHRISTIAN" than an "ORTHODOX Christian". Some day I may get both in the same font.

So with all of this personal spiritual restructuring going on, this year's Lent is a total ummmm...., shall I say, fastulation dysfunction.

It's not just about struggling with fasting particularly.  I've realized it is about coming to terms with fourteen years of "goofodoxy" I've personally participated in, endured, wrestled with and been beaten down by.  For the last few months I've been taking a break from a lot of "hyper-involvement" in things "Church", my ego and pride about things spiritual, from talking about spiritual stuff and doing spiritual things in public venues, and fasting is one of them.

So this Lent my shiny "new toy" of fasting which I've played with less and less has finally been put on the top shelf of the closet in a plain cardboard box. At 14 years old I'm finally an adolescent putting away my childhood toys and trying to figure out how to be a grown up.  It is hard to give up childhood fantasies and illusions and pretend games.  Even if the "toys" were Daddy's real tools, I wasn't using them like Daddy did.  He fixed cars with them while I banged on the board on the driveway floor with them.

But I haven't thrown all my toys away. Spiritual disciplines still hold a nostalgic pull and call to me to take them out of the box and play with them again. I know that some day I will, but as an adult with a different understanding of their meaning and value. It doesn't mean I didn't have fun with them as a child, nor that their meaning and presence in my life were pointless or meaningless.  It just means I was a child once.  As I grow up I will return to the same toys some day with a different perspective, a different attitude. 

And then, like all toys we kept from our childhood and rediscover as adults, I know some day I'll find a new joy, a new appreciation for their meaning and will have a great love and awe for their former place and handle them with more care.  I don't know when that will be right now.

So yes, this Lent, as the joke goes, I'm fasting from Lent.  Unless I don't.  I still might keep it, I don't know, probably more likely in front of certain other Orthodox people than when alone. I haven't decided if that is hypocrisy or discernment. Either way, I'm not making myself or God any promises about food for now.  I'll try to keep the promise I made years ago to be like Christ, and I'll fail at that too for sure.  I can only pray that I will know when I need to repent.

It's tough growing up. 

Lenten Re-run

First Kiss

I'm sure they did. As many years as I lived with them, I'm sure he said it. But as hard as I try, I cannot remember it.

It seems like after you are 40 and have a few years of relationships under your belt you begin to unravel some of the nuances of your parent's marriage that were lived out before your eyes but uninterpretable for lack of experience.

I realized long ago that my parents were a lot like what I remember my Dad's parents were like. I lived with them for a couple months at a time as a child and visited often. G'an would order Gan'pa around, bitch about everything he did and call him out when he embellished a story. Gan'pa would sing song, "Oh, Minnie..." and just go on doing what he was doing or would just finish his story, while Ga'n rolled her eyes or footnoted his story with "facts" as he told it. I figured out years ago that my Dad married his Mother. I didn't know my Popo (Chinese grandmother) and Grandaddy well, but I knew my Popo well enough to know what it would take to live with her and I imagine my Mom married her Dad in some ways too.

I look back now on some mysterious incidents and realize my parents had their marital crises. My Mom recently told me there were a few times she had her bags packed but unpacked them before Dad got home from work. Dad isn't quite as open, but I imagine he thought of driving to work and just keep going through the light and on to where ever the road ended. But then what married man hasn't sooner or later? But they've been married 60 years now.

Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple months ago at age 84. I suspected at her age she would just say, "That is that" and let nature take its course. She opted for a radical mastectomy and a year of chemo. I think I know why.

As my parents have aged my Mom has said "I hope your Father dies before I do because he won't know what to do if I go first... If I die first you HAVE to be sure he gets into assisted living." She is right. My Dad knows she is right too, though when she says that he'll say in the same sing song Gan'pa used to, "Oh, Momma..."

Mom had her surgery last week. When they wheeled her from recovery to her room, Dad tailgated the gurney all the way to the door. When the nurse told us we had to leave the room while they moved her into her bed, Dad stood a foot from the door pacing in a small square dance waiting for it to open. He was the first in when they opened it. He hovered over her bed and even though she was still groggy he asked, "do you want anything... can I get you some water... do you want me to order some dinner... how do you feel... "

We stayed for a while until he was sure she was comfortable and the nurses were going to be attentive enough.

I'm sure they must have done it sometime, he must have said it before, but for the life of me I can't remember it.

As we said goodbye for the night, my Dad leaned over the rail of the hospital bed and kissed my Mom. "I love you," he said as he stroked her head. She smiled. "Go home, JG, I'll be fine."

A day later my Mom had to be able to walk around the nurse's station in order to be released.

My Dad walked beside her, at a certain distance but close enough to catch her should she stumble or fall.

Side by side they shuffled down the corridor, he with 3 heart surgeries, she mutilated by cancer, each knowing what they are walking inexorably toward, but walking toward that place together. It was a closeness and distance that had been hammered out over 60 years.

I know that was not their first kiss, nor their first walk together.

I suspect, in the mystery of human love, they may have been the most true, the most real.

Orthograph #142 - How to Do Lent

Fasting is upon us.

Conspicuous Piety

Anonymous asked, "A quick question. "Don't be conspicuously pious" strikes home. So should I cross myself before having lunch with folks from the office?"

Anon,
Some of my friends are for it, some are against it and I'm with my friends.  :)

Personally, I generally don't. I don't want to be identified as a Christian by my co-workers by my "pious acts" but rather by my Christian acts that they would not view as a public "show" of my religion.

Lately Tim Tebow has taken the issue of public displays of personal piety to a new level. (Not that no athlete has ever crossed themselves, prayed or knelt in the end zone before).  But for some reason he has spawned an "in your face" public piety that I think speaks of the polarization of evangelical American Christianity and the culture more than perhaps the piety and beliefs of those who practice it.

I will lay aside the fact that "this is a free country and we can pray, bow, chant or stand on our heads for Christ, Allah, Zeus, the Cosmic Chicken King, or our Fairy God-mother."  That is not the issue. What we are free to do does not make doing it edifying nor compelling to those who watch.

The issue for me is, who is it for and what does it accomplish?
 
Of course there are those who think crossing, praying in public and Tebowing are "standing up for Christ".  Perhaps. It does take a degree of either courage or social unawareness to do something in public that would be viewed as stupid or offensive by some. However, doing something socially awkward and offensive, even if it is well intended or even religiously motivated doesn't make it good, it just means the "doer" is well, offensive and awkward.  That's why multi-level marketing works.  And just because someone is insulted for a display of anything doesn't make one a martyr for the cause.  Street evangelists with loudspeakers who harass passers-by are rightfully persecuted for being annoying asses whether they are selling cell phone plans or salvation.  But is this all on the same level as crossing one's self before a meal in front of friends?

The questions for me are: "Is it really standing up for Christ?" and "Who is it for?" Personally, I tend to think of religious displays done publicly as standing on the street corner making a show that might impress some other Christians.  I think it drives a wedge between me and a cynical unbeliever that I would never reach with pious behavior but possibly can reach with love.  I would rather have someone not be surprised if they saw me cross myself than to be surprised that I DO cross myself, if you get my drift.  The "aroma of Christ" and the "adornment of holiness" is, according to St. Paul, our lives, not our words or "washing of hands" in public.  The true sign of the Cross is the crucified life, the outward sign (the "icon", if you will) of the Cross must have a correspondence to something real (incarnate, if you will) to those who witness it.  Without the correspondence and integrity of the incarnate and the sign/icon, the outward is merely a potential for an awkward moment or possibly an offense, and perhaps worse, an hypocrisy waiting to be called out.  That is why I don't buy making the sign of the cross as a particularly good thing to do even though it is congruent with the fine points of Orthodox theology. We should not expect to be judged favorably or accurately by those who do not share our theological paradigm, nor should we begin "teaching them" about our faith with displays of private piety and the esoterica of our religion.  Our initial point of contact should be the common ground of both our experiences and expectations of "true religion" (and ultimately what the sign of the Cross really MEANS and really points both of us to): self sacrificial love for one's neighbor.  Even the irreligious can understand that and can be impressed by it. Becoming all things to all men, according to St. Paul, sometimes means giving up the trappings of our personal piety in order to not be judged wrongly by the unbeliever.

IF someone I know ever converts and asks why I didn't cross myself and pray in front of them, I'd just say I didn't want to make them uncomfortable or offend them out of respect for their beliefs at the time.

All that said, I'm inconsistent and it depends on who I am with. I generally pray or cross myself if I am with other Christians (even some evangelicals). I generally don't in a mixed group with people I don't know and who don't know me well enough to know I am either a Christian or at least a "helluva nice guy". If I'm eating alone or when I DO make a sign of the Cross in a public setting, I keep it small and quick because its for me, not everyone else. 

So for me, I'd rather be seen in public taking up my cross and dying to myself than crossing myself.  Of course, it's not an "either/or" but I better be damned sure if I go for the "both/and" I better have both lest I put the Cross to open shame and hold it up to public ridicule by my actions (I think St. Paul in Hebrews has something about that...). 

By the way, yes, I'd put an icon in my cubicle.

Following Too Closely

Everyone is going somewhere.

Most of the time the place people THINK they are going is neither where they are headed nor where they end up.  Even in a "spiritual journey".

Therefore, don't follow anyone too closely. Keep enough distance to see the road ahead.

Tailgating in cars and spirituality usually ends up in a wreck.

Transitions

I've been on my new job for about 5 months now.  Even though I've not been in an office environment for 35 years and out of "human services" as a career for over 30 years, not ever working in a school context nor knowing Microsoft Office like the back of my scarred and wrinkled hand, my main concern was not   human services competence to deal with problem people (having run a social work construction business and dealt with Orthodox Missions), computer skills (I have enough), or ability to learn the job (I catch on quick)... it was "Can I work for someone else?"

"Working for someone else", of course, is a red herring. Even if you are self-employed, you work for someone else.  EVERY client is "someone else".  I realized a long time ago that *I* am not my "own boss"... every client is my boss. Some days I had three or four bosses.  Being self employed,  I didn't have to deal with one personality and one set of expectations a day, but several.   One learns to be incredibly flexible and perceptive when one has to discern and please a lot of different personalities daily. The upside was if I didn't discern well, the job was finite... I could finish it, even if it took all day to please the client and I lost my ass for a day's wages bending over backwards for someone, at the end of the project I could walk away and go on (as we say in construction) to "New Money" and I didn't ever have to go back unless I chose to.  The problem in an office environment is you can't "move on to new money" tomorrow morning.  These people are the people you will deal with forever unless you want to find a new job.   So after a few months at my probationary period evaluation the question I asked myself was, "Would I rather deal with a daily/hourly change of bosses and co-workers or can I deal with these people on a long term basis?"  Do I quit or do I stay?

In my final hiring interview I told the Executive Director that I didn't NEED the job and I was interviewing them as they were interviewing me.  I said, if I had gotten the impression that the people I'd met were small, petty and prone to drama I'd turn the job down and stay in construction, but I liked how they interacted and I liked everyone I'd met so I would take the job if offered.  After five months, is the place perfect with perfect people? No, of course not.

The challenge for me was (and is) after 30 years in construction, how do I "be a Christian" in an office environment where I interact with people for eight or more hours a day and every day forever as opposed to a few hours once in a while and with an expectation that the relationship will end at an agreed upon time.  It's easy to fake being anything in short spurts and in limited exposure (much like being a Christian at Church...but that's another blog post issue).  When people deal with you every day it is harder to hide the quirks, touchy spots and baggage. And on top of that I represent the "company" to clients, I don't just represent myself.

Well, the good news is, people are people. The things that "work" in construction work in an office work at Church work in marriage work in driving on the freeway in rush hour work in a monastery work at the grocery store work on the street corner with the homeless guy with a sign... etc.  What "works" is simple, really.  Just be a saint.

Be silent.  (My opinion isn't a necessity.)

Speak with grace if speaking is a necessity.

Acknowledge people's goodness.

Apologize sincerely even if the wrong is only perceived.

Don't engage in nor take morbid interest in debates, disputes and gossip.

Go the second mile without being asked.

Give the cloak when asked for a shirt (do more than expected).

Be concerned about other's burdens.

Say please. And thank you.  Often.

Ask for help. 

Be gracious for unasked for help.

Bring donuts.

Don't boast.  About anything.

Be someone who is known to have a sense of humor.

Don't be conspicuously pious.

Compliment other people behind their backs.

Say "Good morning" and "Goodbye".

There's probably more, but off the top of my head those are a few things I can see work everywhere, at all times, with all people.

Or, I suppose I could just say, love your neighbor and be humble.

But then that would be too easy.

Orthodoxy in the Workplace

The student was not treated well by our staff person. 

The parent was outraged.  The mother left a voicemail for me after hours.  I could tell she was REALLY trying to be calm. "I will call you in the morning," she said. The father was the "contact parent" on the roster.

I talked to the Admin. person responsible for the offending party. They said they would deal with it.

I decided to make a pre-emptive apology. I called the Mom and then the Dad... I apologized every way I knew how for the "School's behavior".  Damage control accomplished, relationship restored. 

In cubicles sound carries over the 5 foot walls. 

When I was done, the people around me gathered and said, "We've NEVER heard anyone grovel and apologize so eloquently and sincerely... that was AMAZING!"

I told them, "Obviously you have not offended as many priests, bishops and monks as I have."

Orthodoxy works in the real world. 

Tools of My New Trade....

I actually had to go back and read my own blog to see what I've posted since I made my career change back in August.  For 30+ years these were some of the tools of my trades:

I applied for and got the "new career" back in August and exchanged nailers, screw guns, saws and job sites for a new set of tools and a cubicle.

Yes, that is a Dunkin Donuts bag on the desk, with a "chocolate glazed" in it. It is 30 cents more to get TWO donuts and coffee than one donut and coffee and I can't resist a deal.  They just opened a Dunkin Donuts 4 blocks from my house and work.

And yes, that is a two monitor set up (my school provided laptop and a second monitor). I NEVER imagined I'd be geeky enough to require two monitors, but after getting a good case of carpal tunnel from cutting and pasting Excel Spreadsheet info on 65 students all day on a single laptop screen, I'm a convert.  FOUR monitors might even be better.  It is unbelievable how much data I have to keep track of.  After 5 months I still have some learning curve left to navigate.

Anyway,  the main problem for the past 5 months has been that once I got the new job, construction picked up.  Someone told me that I should have an estate sale and get rid of all my construction tools because if I didn't I'd always go back to it.  They were right.  I've ended up working "side jobs" every night after "work" and every weekend for the past 5 months.  16-18 hour days have been pretty common.  It has been a mixed blessing because we owe the IRS about $10,000.00 and a lot of back medical bills. The other issue is, I'm still not comfortable with the career change.

I had my 90 day evaluation and I know I'm "IN".  I know I do a good job because I put my heart into it and the administration has recognized that in a performance evaluation.  Everyone in the office likes me.  I bring some new skills and talents to the organization.  Job security is not an issue.  But 30+ years of self-employment dies hard even if you are going broke doing it.  When I'm self employed my destiny is in my own hands.  If I work for an organization I can lose everything on a whim of an administrator or a budget cut or an ill-worded email or a lapse of judgment, and I'm on the street.  I like being at the mercy of my own devices than being at the mercy of what, in the end, is a corporation that makes decisions on factors that are out of my control.

So the new career is going well all in all. I like the job. I like the people I work with. I like the kids I "guide".  Not to mention every two weeks money magically appears in my checking account.  It's not much, but it is more than I've seen in three years regularly.  There's a lot to be said for that these days.

I don't have a whole lot of deep thoughts about all that right now because I just got home from work and work and I had a donut and coffee 14 hours ago and I'm hungry.  Hunger trumps philosophy.  And maybe that's deep.....

I'm Back....

Well. It has been a while, hasn't it.  Time flies when you get sucked into Facebook.

Seriously. I started out on FB a couple years ago as "Moo Turtle" to have some anonymity and keep the "friends" list down. I'd heard of FB overload. I avoided the "number of friends competition bug". But, I couldn't turn people down who found me.  Before long I was spending hours a day commenting on wall posts of dozens of people I'd never met.  Yeah, it was fun, but it eventually consumed me.

A couple weeks ago I had to confront the reality that Facebook was virtually my "community".  I disabled Moo Turtle. I have to admit I didn't abandon FB entirely.  I now have an account with nothing recognizable except my name. I won't "friend" anyone I haven't met face to face, and even then it has to be someone that I have enough connection to that an email once in a while won't do.  We'll see how that works. I know now I can click a delete button and not look back.

So. I want to get back to what I loved doing BFB (Before Face Book): writing, cartooning and podcasting.

A lot has happened the last 6 months.  It will take a few blog posts to chronicle and comment about.  The basic outline is this:

1. New career:  screw guns, hammers, ladders and saws to Excel Spreadsheets, email, cubicle and reports.

2. Old career: as soon as I got a new job, construction picked up. Can I leave my old lover?

3. Family: Parents are aging, health issues, uncertain futures, children with new horizons.

4. Goofodoxy:  Church related issues, transitions and hard decisions about Church.

5.  General observations on life, cancer, cars, ice cream, TV's, carports, dogs, turtles and stuff.

If you used to follow closely, I hope you will check in once in a while again.  It may take me a few weeks to get back into the swing of blogging (which, by the way, has been deemed "old school" by the Twits). There's a lot going on and in between dealing with what's going on, I hope to chronicle it here and make it worth your time to check in.

Lucy! I'm home!

How Architects Can Drive a Priest Crazy

Thanksgiving and Casinos

We weren't sure we'd have Thanksgiving with my parents this year.  My Dad is recovering from a severe case of diverticulitis. My Mom is worn out caring for him.  When we called over the last week to check on them, she sounded tired, more so than usual.

We called a couple days ago and they said, come on up for Thanksgiving.  They don't travel so we drive the 100 miles to see them these days.  Mom didn't want to cook. NO ONE cooks in her kitchen but her.  We offered to bring the food, but she didn't want to clean.  NO ONE does dishes in her sink but her.   So they suggested something I never imagined I would ever do in my life:  Thanksgiving Dinner at the buffet at the casino near their house.  "The food is really good," Mom said.  I know it is because we've been there for lunch with them before, and for a Mother's Day buffet she wanted to go to one year.  

Of course I said, "Sure! That sounds good, Mom!"  even though it sounded... weird.

So we spent the afternoon with my parents watching episodes of "Hillbilly Handfishing" and car shows and went to the Casino for what was, in actuality, a really good buffet. During the meal Mom kept saying, "...and we don't have to do dishes!" 

I never imagined ever in my life having a meal at a casino, much less aThanksgiving Dinner buffet.  

But I never imagined being so thankful that my Dad and Mom are still around to have dinner with at all. I believe this Thanksgiving is more precious than all the others we've shared before. 

First Nativity Fast Fail

I'm buying a Thanksgiving turkey, fixin's and wine.

The "trailer park-ish" woman in front of me at the grocery store check out buys a pre-made Thanksgiving dinner, ice cream, some fruit juices and two packs of cigarettes. She sends the bag boy back because he didn't get "100's". 

She tries to pay with a credit card and it is maxed. She tries to run the card three times.  She says to the cashier "it's all I got", and tears up. She has to leave her basket. 

I could have paid for her groceries. I thought of paying for them. 

But I didn't want to pay for a pre-made Thanksgiving dinner and cigarettes. So I said nothing and watched her walk out the door empty handed.

I hope God doesn't treat me the same way.

New Congressional Fashion

In an unprecedented move, Congress has passed legislation requiring all elected officials to wear NASCAR type suits to display their corporate sponsorships. We have the best politicians money can buy, we may as well know who has purchased them.  Here, Senator Harry Reid models the new "Political Sponsorship" wear.  (I'm not picking on him in particular... his head just fit.)

DANGER!

The most awesome warning sign on earth.

You can now buy it here and help me pay my $10,000.00 tax bill from last year for raiding my retirement account in order to keep my house and feed my family because there was no work for almost 3 years. 

Share the link, promote the product on your FB, Twitter, blog etc.

Thanks.

Buy it HEREhttp://www.zazzle.com/danger_ninjas_and_pirates_and_laers_and_s_t_poster-228883956496116923

Ecumenical Loaded Questions

Muddled Musings this Morning

I was reading someone else's blog a few days ago and they mentioned they've been blogging steadily for four years which is like being 100 in "blog years".  I realized I missed the 7th anniversary of my blog this past July, which means I'm dead, on life support or have dementia in blog years.

One of the things that real life forces me to do (sometimes) is look at my life realistically.  For the past 3 years I've been virtually unemployed and had lots of time on my hands.  It was easy to spend a few hours a day cartooning and writing, and it was a distraction.  The blog went from 10-12 hits a day to 7-800 a day (not that I was counting.... but yeah, I was counting for a while).   It is amazing how fast the hits drop off if you don't post something more interesting than what you had for breakfast every other day.  But that's not the point of this post.

A lot has happened in the last couple months.  New careers for both me and the Missus have rearranged a lot of our life.  The Church we helped start and have served for seven years is going through a positive and healthy transition after years of issues (that I have avoided blogging about).  After fourteen years of doing Church planting and being at the epicenter of major crises that ended up in pastoral and leadership changes in two different Mission parishes we've helped establish, we decided to take a break from leadership roles.  For the good order and sake of allowing the new leadership to establish itself, we essentially left the parish and our friends (and we are all still good friends, there is no animosity at all).  The new leadership agrees that is a good thing I'm not there, but I agreed to be "training wheels" at Reader's Services to teach the new Readers and help them when there is no priest serving a liturgy.  So, we've been visiting various Churches and friends, but also spending more time visiting my parents instead of leading Church services and refereeing dysfunctional Parish Council and hierarchical meetings. 


The reality I've realized lately is I'm not really missing leadership, nor am I missing saying stuff.  I suppose I could write it off to just plain burn-out.  I could spiritualize it and say that after 14 years of radio shows, podcasts, blogs, building monasteries, serving altars and doing Church planting I've realized it all ran on vainglory and ego and I'm finally humbling down and shutting up and getting a REAL spiritual life now.

I could see it as the "demon of the noon-day" and a temptation to be lazy and quit after spending 14 years getting "street cred".

I could see it as a sabbatical.

I could see it as I've been a con-man Jacob and I'm finally getting my "Rachael" after working 14 years being wed to "Leah", the ugly wife I was tricked into (let the Biblically literate understand), but I'm not sure exactly what "Rachael" is or if I will recognize her if I meet her.

I could say all this musing about this is just more evidence of how vainglorious I am, that I'm not all that, I'm not a Bible character, my rumination about it all is pointless because I'll rewrite the history in my head six months and six years from now anyway (and I really don't ruminate about it all that much, actually) and maybe I just need to live in the present moment and not prognosticate about the "whys" and "heretofores".

After 59 years one thing I know is you cannot tell what kind of plant is going to grow from a seed of Providence.  Nothing I've started, finished, quit or avoided, whether with spiritual intentions or evil, has ended up like I believed it would.  Why should the events of this present time be any different.

So maybe I'll just fall back on being a Christian. Love God. Love my neighbor. If I blog or not, podcast or not, be here or there or not, in the end all things will be well.  All things will be well.

Real Life Kicks In

Ever since I got a "real job", and finishing latent construction commitments it seems I have little time for blogging or reading and commenting on other blogs. 

I have a lot of thoughts and ideas for blog posts and podcasts but not much time to flesh them out. 

Hm. Maybe after three years of virtual self-unemployment I've encountered real life once again. 

On the other hand, I've been having this inner urge to sit down and shut up and take a break from being "out there" so much.

But that's another blog post/podcast in the works....

Thanks for checking in on the blog.  I'm liking my new job. 

More coming.... some day soon.

Orthodox Parades in the Old Country

We Can. If Only We Would....

Rye Barcott was a student at the University of North Carolina who spent a summer sharing a 10-by-10 shack in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya. One night he awoke with diarrhea and stumbled to the public outhouse. He slid onto the cement floor and vomited as his bare body hit puddles of human waste.
He left his soiled pants outside the hut, but when he went to find them later they were gone. He was directed to another hut where a stick-thin girl, with missing clumps of hair, had the pants, scrubbed and folded, in her lap. Barcott said softly, “I’m grateful,” and asked her why she had cleaned them. “Because I can,” she replied. A week later, she died of AIDS and her body was taken in a wheelbarrow to a communal grave.
- From "The Rugged Altruists" by David Brooks

H/T Orr

First Week on the New Job

Well.

I've put in my first 40 hours on the new job.

I can tell right now that having to be in the office at 8 and having to put in a "true 8" sitting in a chair on a computer on an office network that blocks anything not work related is going to seriously cut back on my blogtime (posting and commenting), facebook status updates and podcasting. My life is over.

I discovered after three days that my office wardrobe was seriously under stocked. All of my old office-worthy clothing was nearly 30 years old and 4 inches of waist ago. The only time I've had to dress up in the last 30 years has been for two weddings and a couple of funerals. At the last wedding I had the pants from the previous wedding let out two inches so I wouldn't have to buy a whole new suit. Other than that, everything I've had to wear to anything formal has been hidden under a black cassock. As long as I was wearing decent black shoes I could have been nekkid and I was good to go. So, it was off to Goodwill.

Way back when, I was a bit of a clothes hound. Maybe it's the old "art major" in me but for some reason when I'm shopping clothes I scan a rack and inevitably my eye is drawn to the most expensive pair of pants, shirt or accessory. I admit I've owned $75.00 ties and $200.00 pairs of pants... way back when I was making the kind of money you weighed instead of counted. But for 20+ years I've been counting, and I don't have to count very high these days. So I have to somehow reconcile my "eye" and my "wallet".

One word: Thrift stores. (OK, two.)

Not that I'm into "labels", I just know what I like... but I found a little over a week's worth of worthy office attire at Goodwill for under 80.00. Pants, shirts, ties, most of them indistinguishable from new off the rack. Because I've never needed brown shoes for the last 20 years, I did have to buy a pair of new brown shoes that cost me the same as my entire wardrobe. I know enough to know the same wardrobe at Macy's or Dillard's would have been well over a grand. I actually had to spend more on my construction clothes because those kinds of things don't make it to Goodwill and I had to buy them new.

Anyway, that was an anticipated part of the career change. It's kind of mundane for most of my readers I'm sure, but when you've been wearing carpenter jeans and a white T-shirt and tennis shoes to work for 30 years it's a big change.

Years ago, I would have bristled at the thought of having to dress up for "the man". But I've come to realize that a certain amount of "chameleon competence" is not a bad thing when navigating life and the various environments one finds one's self in. The issues of fitting in are far deeper than what drapes your body. If a piece of cloth offends or creates a barrier then I've created a hurdle that has to be overcome before I can begin to address the deeper issues of what separates human beings.  Of course I realize I could dress like a homeless person and press an issue on that level, but if that is a huge issue I won't be around long enough to influence any change anyway and the relationships are lost.  But that's not the point.

I haven't really escaped construction.  I got in the office early Monday morning and no one else was there yet. The offices had moved the week before and furniture and boxes were still stacked all over the place.  I moved some stuff around and found an old wooden desk in one of the offices. The center drawer was in three pieces from the move. I went out to my truck, got my tools and glued and clamped it.  It turned out it was the CEO's desk I fixed.  I went in to remove the clamps and put the desk back together and he asked who I was.  I told him and said this is my first day on the job, I had gotten there early and decided to make myself useful since I didn't know what else to do except what I used to do until my boss showed up to show me what new thing to do. We had a nice talk.  Not a bad first impression, I suppose.

I also started a job last Saturday that should have been a one day project.  It has turned into a week plus another 2-3 days next week because of changes and complications.  I've been working through my lunch break at the office so I can leave a half hour early to go work on the remodel project.  In the meantime this week I've gotten a half dozen calls from people wanting me to do construction stuff for them.  So I've been putting in 14 hour days this week and will continue on into next week.  That's not all bad since we need the money.  I can make more for a few hours after "work" than I will for the eight hours at my desk.  But I know I can't do that for long.  It's Friday afternoon and I'm fried and I have to go to work all weekend.

It is interesting being a total "newbie" at something once again.  I have basic computer skills which are essential for the new job. What I don't have is familiarity with the software and educational environment I am working with.  It is intimidating to be given a link to a website that you have no clue what it does, means, contains or how it fits with what  you are supposed to be doing.  Then you given 3 more of the same and you have to just play with them, click around all the dozens of menus and sub-menus to figure out how they all fit in the big picture and integrate all the information you get from each of them and put parts of each of them back into those same websites.  Of course I have a mentor, but he has his own job to do and part of my job is to take some of his job, so along with the learning curve I was handed a few dozen students and had to set up my own record keeping systems and get all of these kids started in all of the schools' programs in the meantime. Needless to say, even with a mentor there were plenty of opportunities to feel stupid and overwhelmed.  I know I had to ask several times stuff like, "Ummm.. WHICH website is it that you sign a kid up for/get this information from...?"  I've always told my employees there's no such thing as a stupid question, but it's still easy to FEEL stupid when asking one when you KNOW you've been told how to do that before.

Of course nothing is as simple as it looks.  "This is the procedure to do this..." Then the first batch of kids I got happened to be "exceptional cases" in the software and procedures. What should have been straightforward processes ended up taking me deep into sub-menus and different administrative procedures to get them enrolled and on track. It wasn't until the middle of the week that I got a true straightforward process. But, now I already know the hard stuff.

It's amazing how much of the same information needs to be stored in different places. I think I've cut and pasted more stuff than I have total in the past 15 years.  I've discovered more than a dozen Excel tricks and discovered two dozen more issues that I need to figure out what the tricks are to fix.  I can already see that keyboard short cuts are the key to survival in this job.  

So far I like what I am dealing with both in terms of the technical aspects of the job and the interaction with parents and kids.  I can see I'll be doing some "hand holding", tech support, coaching, encouragement, tough love and just ordinary information giving about the educational system/requirements.  It's not too much different than running a crew of 55 drywallers, really.  

Things I can see right now:

I need to change my eating habits. I'm going to be a blimp in about two months if I don't.  I sit down in my chair at my desk and except for bathroom breaks I don't get up again for 8 hours. If it ever drops below 110 I'll walk to work. My new office got moved to four blocks from my house. 

I need to say no to "side work".  One day a week, two in an emergency.  All work and no play makes s-p a dull boy and a bad blogger.

We need to budget.  The Wifey got a teaching job this year. Between the two salaries we can make ends meet if we're careful. Cool thing is we are both 10 month contracts, we could actually take vacations in the summer if we're careful.

I like the people I'm working with. I liked them in the interviews and staff training.  They get better every day. 

So, there's 40 hours in a nutshell. The nice thing is, no regrets and no red flags.  Yeah, I can do this.

How Bishops Should be Transferred

At least it would be more fun to watch...

Orthograph #141 - Testimonies

On Growing Old

An expanded podcast version of "Older and Pithlesser" on work, pride, youth and death at Steve the Builder

Lilliputian Liturgies

Getting Older and Pithlesser

I'm turning 59 in five days. I've never been much into birthdays and milestones and "passages". My 20, 30 and 40th birthdays went pretty much by without any sense of "gee/wow-ness" or movement toward or away from anything. My 50th birthday was an existential awakening. I'd been through the standard Red Bugatti mid-life crisis (yeah, I really had one), divorced, blended family etc. etc. (not that all that is normal, but it is the fodder of a John Updike novel).  But even during and after all that life did not seem particularly finite or "particular" in any real way.  I walked through it with the sense of appropriate angst, guilt, shame, joy, apprehension and uncertainty that one should feel when life is all akimbo, but it was just "life".

When I turned 50 I stared at the number and it was as if I stepped outside my door thinking it was midday and saw the sun setting.  The dusk of my life was in front of me, undeniable and darkening.  No matter how I cut it, my life was more than half over, more than likely I had about a quarter of it left to me, if that.  "The days of man are as grass, as a flower of the field so he flourisheth... Our days like a spider have spun out its tale. Our years number three score years and ten, and if we be in strength mayhap fourscore years, but what is more than these but toil and travail?"  I was old enough to see the truth in that, I just never thought it applied to ME.  But on my 50th birthday it did.  My life was on the downhill slope and I was still sheet rocking and lifting heavy stuff for a living.

For 30 years I've been doing construction because my college degrees would land me a 13.00/hour job.  When you're 35 and invincible, construction is a good living.  When  you're 58 and have been doing it for 30 years it is a hard living and one false move can mean a torn tendon or ligament that will put you in bankruptcy.  The frequency of "six ibuprofen and three beer" nights increase.  You just learn to live with chronic pain, move slower and don't "be a hero"... you ask for help to lift and move stuff.  Without any health insurance and another option to buy groceries on the table you live in fear of an accident, a miscalculation, an untimely muscle spasm or just plain exhaustion that will end up in a career ending injury. 

A month ago I interviewed for a new job.  It was not just a "job", it was a new career.  Actually it is more like my original career working with "at risk" kids and families.  At 59 my youngest has graduated from high school and cosmetology school.  The Wifey has finished her teaching recertification for Arizona and found a teaching job after 30+ years of staying home with the kids.  Between the two salaries on paper it looked like we can pay our bills if I do a "side job" here and there.  I got the job.

It was somewhat of an affirmation that after 30 years in construction and pushing 60 someone thought I had something on a "professional level" to offer an organization other than repairing their drywall or building them a new office.  But the reality is, I have been self-employed for 30+ years.  It will be an adjustment to be working for "the man", punching his time card, asking him for days off and taking his allotment of vacation.  I can't just pack my tools up and go build a Church or a monastery for three weeks anymore.  I know it will be an adjustment, but I also know I pretty much HAVE to make the adjustment, just like I made the adjustment from ministry to construction 30 years ago out of necessity.

Fifty nine is a strange birthday. It has an anticipatory facet to it that is sobering in a way that actually turning 50 or 60 doesn't.  My parents are in their mid 80's and we're waiting for "the phone call" about my Dad. I'm his age when his parents passed away. I get AARP's magazine and it tells me every month that I'm on the cusp of the "retirement decade" and I have nothing.  The past 30 years have been spent on groceries, house payments, electricity, stuff to raise our kids and a trip to visit family now and then (but not nearly often enough).  The only things we have of value are memories, a wonderful bunch of kids and a couple of cute grand kids.  Everything else is a liability and worth less than we paid for it.  But in the grand scheme of things, if I make it another eleven years to three score and ten, I won't regret investing in those things instead of a 401k. 

So, here is to change.  I know there are more  changes on the close horizon that I did not apply for, cannot fully prepare for nor predict.

So, here is to having more life to remember than to anticipate.  It is an odd place but thankfully I do not find it frightening or depressing.  The dusk breaks into a new dawn and I'm looking forward in peace to the last and eternal dawn.  There's something to be said for that, even if I'm punching a time card for the man.

Stages of Conversion

I don't think I have ever lifted a complete blog post from someone else's blog (though I've quoted and recommended a few... very few).  Silouan posted this on Facebook and I read it. It is about the process of "converting", something many or most of us have done.  I'm posting it because I don't want to take the chance that you won't take time to click the link.

Wisdom, let us attend!
____________________________________________
It doesn't seem to matter what version of the Christian faith you join, because this seems to be a near-universal process:

Phase 1: The Cage Phase
So you've found your new tradition, and you've finally discovered all the answers to life's problems encompassed within it. You've also read a few books that explain how every other Christian tradition (especially the one you just left) has absolutely ruined the piss out of the Christian faith as a whole. As God's apostle to the unconverted, it now falls upon you to save the world (especially your friends and family in the old tradition) by enlightening them as to just how perfect everything is about your new tradition and how stupid and wrong everything about their current tradition is. It is very important for you to have a blog during this time so that you can enlighten as many people as possible.

Phase 2: Addiction
After having ruined all your relationships from your past life, you are now disillusioned with the willful ignorance and impiety of all those outside your new church. Let the heretics stew in their heresy. It is now time to busy yourself with drinking as much religious Kool-Ade as you possibly can, preferably until your skin becomes the same color as Purplesaurus Rex and your body's pH levels are completely thrown off. You need to read every theological or devotional book you can, buy lots of the assorted trinkets associated with your tradition, and make lots of pilgrimages to either theology conferences or monasteries, depending on how your church rolls.

Phase 3: Apostle of Renewal
You've recently noticed that most of the other people in your church are not nearly as obsessed with it as you are. They aren't reading those books, and they aren't buying all that crap you've strewn your house with. They're more concerned with paying the bills than why those awful sectarians are wrong. They even have friends outside the church! Many of them are not aware just how right and perfect their church is, or how great their lives would be if they would just fling themselves with total abandon into the kind of obsession you yourself have. This is clearly a problem that must be fixed, for it threatens to destroy the purity of the faith. As God's chosen agent of change, you busy yourself with trying to whip up everyone in the congregation into the same frothing devotion you yourself exhibit.

Phase 4: Beaten by Reality
You've finally faced the harsh truth: The people in your new tradition are, at their core, a whole lot like all those people from your old tradition that you despised so much, with all the same foibles and failings. You give up on saving the world, on restoring your tradition to its purity, and have lost your confidence that God himself has appointed you to fix everything. You've discovered that your new church in fact has a lot of ugliness in its history, has a lot of jerks in its power structure, can't solve all of life's problems, and isn't always all that consistent or believable in what it teaches or what it does.

Phase 5, Option 1: The Rat Leaves the Ship
Clearly, you were had. You thought you had found the One True Perfect Tradition, but you were deceived. You know what you must do--find the tradition that really does get it all right, because it must be out there. Back to Phase 1 for you!

Phase 5, Option 2: Complete Disillusionment
You have realized, perhaps after going through this cycle several times, that you are perhaps the only sincere, thinking Christian in the world. Everyone else is a hypocrite or a dunce, and all these corrupt denominations and hierarchies have ever accomplished is completely screwing up everything. Completely embittered at the idea of organized religion, you isolate yourself in order to go be a true follower of Christ without all those awful other people screwing things up. If you meet some like-minded folk, you start meeting up with them in order to transcend organized religion by organizing a religion. It's very likely that you eventually realize that all religious people are deluded fools and become an atheist or agnostic.

Phase 5, Option 3: Partial Disillusionment and Accommodation
After facing the harsh reality in Phase 4, you've further realized that phases 1 through 3 ought to be renamed "Jackass," "Nutjob," and "Know-it-All," respectively, which suggests that you are, for the most part, much worse at being a decent human being than all those people too stupid and impious to realize how awesome your new religion is. While many of the reasons that you had for joining your current tradition remain, and thus so do you, you decide it's time to cut yourself, your church, everyone else's churches, and rest of the world some slack.

On B.S.

I spent a couple weeks in Montana visiting my sister and brother in law.  I've met him a few times, but hadn't spent much time with him. Like me, he is a construction guy with college degrees. My sister told me Todd has insomnia and stays up at night and writes.  She said it was good stuff.

I got him to let me read some of his essays.  I brought the hard copies home with me and told him he should set up a blog and if he didn't I was going to steal his stuff and pass it off as my own because I'm running out of stuff. So, he set up a blog. He's posted up a few essays and more are on the way, on work, life, economics, faith, God, and recently one on "bullshit".  A quote:

"There are other forms of bullshit that don't mean anything. Food packages will say things like “30% less fat.” 30% less fat than what? A block of pure fat? “Fresh Frozen Food?” “Fresh Pickled?” “Fresh Smoked?” “How are you?” “I'm fine.” “Mission Accomplished.” “That's really something.”

Bullshit is not new, and philosophers including Kant, Hume, Locke, Hobbes, and Frankfurt have attempted to define it and its role in society. I think by this point we have become so glazed over by bullshit's residue that we can at least recognize it by contrast to what it is not. It seems that when you see something that isn't bullshit, it is striking. When someone speaks a simple truth or does something genuinely good, it momentarily captures our attention as if it were something rare and precious. The Lord gives us the darkness so we can see the stars." 

 

From my brother in law's blog  "Truth, Ire and the Night" 
Check it out, check back frequently.

Orthograph #140 - Internet Orthodoxy

Curmudgeophan on TV

I think we need to do an Orthodox version of this with Curmudgeophan and some cranky monks and priests.

Where Does the Time Go?

Where has 30 years gone?

In five days and about two weeks shy of turning 59, I begin a new career as a high school guidance counselor and will finally be using my college degrees in an "official" capacity.

This week I'm working 14 hour days wrapping up jobs, notifying my clients (some of whom I've had for 30 years) and going out this weekend to buy "office clothes".  My wardrobe consists of jeans, t-shirts and stuff I wear under a cassock on Sunday that no one can or should see.  I had one button down white shirt that I wore to the wedding and we discovered we left in Montana the morning of my second interview.  I found another shirt that faked it well enough to land me the job as long as I didn't take my sport coat off. 

There's a lot of mixed feelings to say the least. More later when I can breathe....

Where I've Been

Those of you who check in regularly know I've been gone for a few weeks. The Wifey and I went to southern Montana for what was supposed to be about a week for our son's wedding but then ended up a visit with my sister in northern Montana and turned into almost three weeks. While were in Kalispell we attended the Fourth of July Parade down Main Street. Here's some of the "floats":

 

There were actually TWO cement trucks...and the Flathead Lake Rollerderby Queens team.

This was the front-loader with a bucket full of rocks.  I thought they should have taken the time to at least paint the rocks red, white and blue or stick a flag in them or something...

This was the "marching band".

The kid wasn't a bad drummer for sitting in the bed of a moving pickup truck. I'm sure he was tired after two blocks of wailing away on the drum set.  I didn't get a picture of the random Toyota Minivan that took a wrong turn and got stuck in the parade.  The occupants looked a bit embarrassed.

The wedding was held at the bride's uncle's ranch.  Here is my son and grandson with a fawn that they had found abandoned by its mother.  Not something you get to see in the big city.

The Wifey made me wear my suit and tie for the wedding. The last time I wore it was at the daughter's wedding about 8 years and 20 pounds before. Ouch.

This is Mom pinning the boutonniere on the groom

This is the bride and groom in a "private moment".

The reception was held outdoors. A friend of the family has a BBQ restaurant and catered the reception.

After the reception, a sparkling send off to the bride and groom....

A double blessing of the wedding was we got to meet our new grand daughter.

After the wedding we got to travel some of Montana and Yellowstone National Park. We drove the Beartooth Highway, deemed the most beautiful drive in America. I can't argue with that.

One of the things I discovered on the way home is a "biker bar" used to be a place where scary Hell's Angels hung out.  Now it is an upscale watering hole at a trendy destination where middle aged men with 25,000.00 toy Harley Davidsons and Goldwings go for vacations.

All in all, a nice break. I was in 78 degrees and on a pontoon boat trout fishing when it hit 118 in Phoenix.  It was hard to come home.  But in the end, there's no place like home.

What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

I just got home from a couple weeks away. Pictures of the wedding, scenery and events are coming later. A lot of life can happen in two weeks. Even when you're on vacation life does not take a break. One of the places we went was Yellowstone National Park and went to some of the hot spring areas which look like a Martian landscape.

But even in the middle of acres of sulphur, crusted salts and boiling acidic water there is life. But life only springs up in places that nurture it. I needed to be reminded of this.

Test: Mobile Post

Just checking to see if this works. Move along, nothing to see here.