Sunday, June 29, 2008

My Attempt at Gardening







With the price of food these days, I decided this was a good year to find a spot on our acreage of rocks and plant a garden. Now, you have to understand that I have NO green thumb at all! I usually kill anything I try to grow - overwatering, underwatering, forgetting to weed, placing it too far from the sun, or to near. I know I'm really late getting it started, but it was a really cold spring, so maybe I'm not really as far behind as I would have been.


(I can't get the pictures to line up the way I want them to... oh well.)

Are you smarter than a three year old?

Do you know what this is?

We sure couldn't figure it out. It was found on the floor of the car when we were cleaning it out, and we didn't know if it was trash or if it was an important componant that we should be holding onto. So at breakfast my hubby, my eleven year old and I were turning it over in our hands discussing the dilema.

"Ya, it looks like it might go to some sort of computerized thing..."

"Ya, that sounds about right."

"Any idea what?"

"No, you?"

"Nope."


A hush fell over us as we pondered the possible connection it could have to the car...the kids games... a radio...

My three year old, concerned by the silence wandered over and saw it in my hands as I turned it slowly, contemplating its correct use.



"What is that?" he asked seriously.

"I don't know," I replied. "It's a mystery, we're trying to figure it out."

"It's for the umbrella," he replied without hesitation.

"Oooooh, that's right," now it made sense! "It's from the umbrella I got him at the dollar store that got stepped on in the back seat!"


We all cracked up! We'd been totally bested by a three year old! I don't think we stopped laughing for 10 minutes at least.

So did you figure it out? Are you smarter than a three year old?

Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Sword!

I am scared of the fight,
So I lose the sword!

This is the conclusion I have come to, because once again I have written down everything I need and want to do over the summer and have now promptly lost my planner! This is to the point of ridiculousness! Am I really this big a coward? Perhaps my goal this summer should be practicing bravery!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Adventure World Map


Adventure World Map
Originally uploaded by Christian Sisson.
Just thought this was a really interesting piece of art!

"Adventure World Map" is a poster featuring cartooned representation of famous stories like Robinson Crusoe, Toilers of the Sea, The Three Musketeers, Ben-Hur, Don Quixote, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Around the World in Eighty Days, Robin Hood, One Thousand and One Nights and many others.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

More power to the rule of LAW!


My Dad, who was an Army Reserves Chaplain for over 20 years, sent me this:





...the U.S. military's top uniformed leadership remained silent in public while its legal code was being discarded. It was left to lawyers in the military's legal system, the Judge Advocate General's Corps, to defend the rule of law. They never had a chance.
Only one of the five War Council lawyers remains in office: David Addington, the brilliant but abrasive longtime legal adviser and now chief of staff to Cheney. His primary motive, according to several former administration and defense officials, was to push for an expansion of presidential power that Congress or the courts couldn't check.


The quintet [of War Council lawyers] did more than condone harsh treatment, however. It created an environment in which it was nearly impossible to prosecute soldiers or officials for alleged crimes committed in U.S. detention facilities...


..."As they viewed it, due process is legal mumbo jumbo," said Romig, who's now the dean of Washburn University's law school. "They wanted to get them, get the facts and convict them. ... If you're caught as a terrorist, you're presumed guilty and you have to prove you're innocent. It was crazy."


The Supreme Court now has struck down many of their legal interpretations. It ruled last Thursday that preventing detainees from challenging their detention in federal courts was unconstitutional. Read more...

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

White Crow



My husband was heading up to Kettle Falls this morning and called to ask what a white crow meant. I don't consider my self a suspicious person, and really don't know anything about the significance of animal sightings in folklore, but even I know that a crow is supposed to signify death, or bad news, or something. But a WHITE crow? No idea!





"Google it." He said.

"Why?'

"Because I just saw a pure white crow standing by a regular black one on the side of the road!"


That's got to be an impressive sight, I'm sure they must be really rare!






So I looked it up, but didn't find anything that just said: If you see a white crow it means.... whatever. Instead I found a Kiowa legend about White Crow Hiding the Animals, a personal story of The Tale of Two Crows, where someone in WA first came across a dead black crow then had a vision of a white crow and some book links that it said I didn't have authorization to access. (Why is it linked on Google then?)

Finally, I found something that seemed surprisingly relevant to my life. You ,or may not, be familiar with my borderline obsession with Homeopathy. (I really should write a blog about everything I've seen it do, but not now. However, you can read how it helped us with the stomach flu.) Back to my googling... What I found was an article titled: A Proving of the Blood of a North American Crow. It proved to be confusing at first, but the story of Branwyn as related to Mr. Cope in telephone conversation with the Queen of England's own Raven master, was fascinating. So, I kept reading.



Finally, I realized that they were introducing a Homeopathic "Proving." This is where they test the original "Mother Tincture" to see what effects it has on a healthy person. According to Homeopathy this list of effects is then the guide to what symptoms the remedy (highly diluted) will help.

I am not sure of the ethical point of view of using crow's blood for medicine, even in such a highly diluted solution, but here are the symptoms listed:



Corvus sanguis



; cold, hard
DREAMS; conspiracies
DREAMS; crimes; committing
DREAMS; cruelty
DREAMS; cutting; knife, of being cut with a
DREAMS; danger SADNESS, despondency, dejection, mental depression, gloom melancholy
SENSITIVE, oversensitive; criticism, to
SENSITIVE, oversensitive; emotional
SENSITIVE, oversensitive; external impressions, to all
SENSITIVE, oversensitive; light, to
AFTERNOON, one pm -six pm.; two pm.
AIR; open; a meal.
COLDNESS; icy
EATING; after; a meal.
EATING; frequent FOOD and drinks; fresh food, desires
FOOD and drinks; fruit; desires

Most fascinating was the description of






"how the provers, one-by-one, got into the hot-seat; and reported their individual experiences to the assembled throng, and how most reported what became a similarly-hilarious experience for all.





Each prover basically told his/her story of how their appetites had GREATLY increased during the proving --one prover had even developed the habit of standing in front of his open refrigerator, methodically eating his way through it's contents, unable to stop until the last kernel of leftover rice casserole (etc.) was gone."





Now, if you know me, you know that I have an embarrassingly large appetite, never feel full, and only stop eating because it seems like it would be rude to keep eating. And my son, who has been on prednisone and corticosteroids for his health definitely has a ravenous appetite. So, now I want to find out more and see if this is actually an available remedy. So, thanks to the white crow my hubby saw, he may get a healthier family! : )

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Ducklings




I'll have to write the whole story down, but for now, here are some adorable pics of the little ducklings we found rushing down the irrigation canal behind our house.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2008

God is Not a Rapist!

This is a repost from my less political MySpace blog, but for some reason it just felt relevant today:

--------------------------------------------------

I have been trying to write this response to a series of blogs written back in the spring. Every time I sat down to write it I seemed to choke on the words. They seemed too harsh, but the illustration has not left me.

In the spring I ran into a series of blogs that spoke of the idea that we are all perfect, that all are going to be saved, that God is too good to let anyone suffer eternal damnation. If I just look superficially I really like this idea. Everyone begins life as an innocent baby. Many of those babies suffer terribly growing up, learning bad habits and misconceptions along the way. How could a loving God punish them for turning out less than perfect?

The blogs were not the first time I had encountered this conundrum. When I was a child my father had brought home a little pamphlet he had run across that spoke, in disturbing tones, of the need to balance God's goodness with a place of everlasting torture. My father had a different understanding and wanted to compare and contrast the two views for us. I have yet to find an understanding of hell that I agree more with than my dad's conclusion that God's glory is the eternal fire spoken of. Those who do not accept his gift of eternal life, who are not open to the necessary transformation, are not physically able to withstand this glorious heat and are consumed by it in an instant as chaff in a furnace. The fire is eternal, but not the suffering.

This still does not resolve the perceived injustice of excluding some from the joy of eternal life. If God is capable of changing those "chosen few" in the twinkling of an eye so that they can withstand and even rejoice in his searing presence why not transform us all? Why allow any to be destroyed for eternity? When I read the story of the Exodus in the Bible I have always been similarly bothered by the plague of the first born dying. It seems so cruel, so harsh. Why kill the children?

Recently, I watched The Exodos Decoded on the History channel and was thrilled by their findings that meshed scientific discovery with both the Bible and the Egyptian records. Their controversial conclusion is that a volcanic eruption scientifically accounts for all the plagues and miracles mentioned in the account. I was especially relieved by the explanation that it was a cloud of trapped gas being released and floating out close to the ground that would have killed anyone sleeping low to the ground. Egyptian first born had the privilege of sleeping on low beds while siblings slept on the roof or in wagons. When Moses announced the last plague, the angel of death who would kill the firstborn, he warned those who believed in God, who wanted to avoid this plague, to eat a special meal. It was the first Passover feast (because they ate it so the angel of death would pass over them) and they were told to eat it standing up. Those who were standing up, or sleeping in places other than the low beds, would avoid the low cloud of deadly gas.

Thus God warned the whole area that death was coming, and told them how to avoid it, but only those who heeded his instructions, both Egyptian and Hebrew, were able to avoid death. In the same way I believe God has told us how to avoid eternal death, but it is only available if we take him at his word.

The Bible speaks of us becoming one with God, just as a bride and groom and joined as one in a marriage. I fact he is even called the Bridegroom. Paul says our lives are hidden in Christ and Christ is hidden in our hearts. We are invited to a wedding banquet. There are many, many references to God romancing us. I do not think that this is an accident. It may not be a complete analogy, but I believe it has real applications.

What, you ask, does any of this have to do with rape? Well, if someone approaches you on the street and says that all you have to do to be "saved" was to be intimate with them, I hope you kick them in the groin and run the other way as fast as you can go. In our current culture it is no secret that sex can be a beautiful thing, but it can also be torture. If a person does not open themselves up to the experience, if it is forced upon them, it is rape. Even within a marriage if a man or woman forces their affections upon an unwilling spouse it is still legally wrong. So would God "force" oneness on us?

I sat folding and rubber-banding 54 Sunday papers in preparation for filling in for my 13-year-old's paper route. I flipped through the TV channels. Suddenly, the beautiful colors and scenery of First Knight filled the screen. I've seen it a couple times before, but am always enchanted by its beauty. As fate would have it the paper folding coincided exactly with the scene where Guinevere is caravanning towards meeting her betrothed, King Arthur.

Her caravan is attacked and she flees on foot pursued by three soldiers. Lancelot is able to assist her in fighting off her attackers and there is instant chemistry. She is unable to resist giving in to one kiss, but asks him to promise never to kiss her again. With confidence he replies that he cannot promise that, but he will promise not to kiss her again until she asks him to. Of course, we all know the disastrous end that leads to, but it left me thinking back on this topic as I walked the cool morning streets delivering papers.

If God is able to give us eternal life, but it involves being intimate with us, we must open ourselves up to the experience, to the transformation. He has stated his interest, he is actively wooing us, but he is waiting to be asked. He will not force his power upon us, invading our hearts against our will. Instead He says in Revelation 3, "Look at me, I stand at the door, I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I'll come right in and sit down to supper with you." It sounds, to me, like he is asking for a date, but where it leads depends on how far we are willing to go.