Smoke coming out of my ears... or maybe it's smog.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071219/ap_on_go_pr_wh/energy_future;_ylt=AnlEEUp1mRhSGytqFy5jXuyyFz4D

I care about the environment.

And I get rather annoyed when conservatives mock the idea that we should maybe make an effort to live more sustainability.

But this is not sustainability, this is smoke and mirrors.

Instead of buying fossil fuels from our enemies and pumping them straight into our SUVs, let's just buy fossil fuels from our enemies and smear them all over the ground so that they run off into our drinking water and poison our babies. Not to mention killing off fish in the Gulf of Mexico.

And once this fuel is in our gas tanks, it's hardly clean.

The jury's still out on ethanol. It may well turn out to be better than gasoline. We should definitely allow it to compete in the free markets.

But it's hard to see the justification for legislating artificial support for it like this.

Am I completely missing something here?

The rain is trickling down the window pane,
and blurs my view of everything outside.
Unsure if light and truth still yet remain,
I must keep hope the sun will cease to hide.

Throughout the storm I hear the creaking groan
of branches burdened by the howling wind.
I feel no other truth save that alone,
and cling to storms as hope that storms may end.

Eventually the clouds will part away,
the sun will glitter through the tear-stained glass.
The afternoon will show once more as day--
I know that storms will never cease to pass.

Without this token, hope I cannot keep;
the truthful noise that fits my heart to weep.

Ode to a Tortured Instrument

Dear piano, you are sorely out of tune.
You mangle all the tunes I try to play.
I hope that we can fix you someday soon,
For you are getting worse with each new day.

The Beethoven sonatas aren't so bad--
they crash and roar and tumble all about.
The intonation makes me rather sad,
But there's a sense in which a shout's a shout.

For softer music, it is not the same.
Poor Pachelbel's sweet cannon cannot fight.
Despite its grandiose misnoming name,
your E-unnat'ral crushes out its might.

And so, dear piano, please don't be offended,
but I'll be glad when tunelessness has ended.

Haiku!

Shannon wants something to cheer up a dreary snow day--and she's offering quite a nice prize, too!

So much fun.

But hurry, the contest ends at 5.

Warning: May result in loss of confidencee

When a beauty product warns you to "avoid eye contact," isn't that kind of a bad sign?

Okay, that's my absurdly trivial thought for the day.

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother." And he said to him, "Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth." And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me." Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God."
Mark 10:17-27

In reading this passage, I was struck by the contrast between Peter and the rich young ruler. There's a sense in which they're really in the same position. Both are basically good people, but incapable of self-sacrifice. Oh, to be sure, as Peter quickly brings up in the very next verse, he left everything and followed Jesus. But just how difficult is it for the poor Galilean fisherman to leave everything and follow the one who can multiply loaves and fishes? Peter had nothing to lose.

He was rich in physical vitality, though, and that was a wealth he could not sacrifice. When it came down to it, he could not watch one hour with the Master, let alone risk his life. By the time the cock crowed, he had denied him thrice.

Peter was no more capable of losing what he had than was the rich man. The fundamental difference between them was self-knowledge.

The rich young ruler knew his soul well. He knew exactly what he could and could not do, rightly assessed himself, and sadly walked away.

Peter, on the other hand, simply threw himself recklessly at Jesus, committing himself to things far beyond the limitations of his small soul. Jumping out of the boat to walk on water, only to start sinking, turning to Jesus to save him once again. His faith was less than he believed, but he never stopped throwing himself at Jesus, failing and trying and failing again, with no regard for his capabilities.

And in the end, Peter did have the commitment and devotion that he was always reaching for, but only after Christ had risen from the dead.

With man it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

And the it was the reckless fisherman who became the rock on which Christ built his Church.

Perhaps the path to holiness lies not in virtue or strength of character, but in the decision to forget completely the state of one's soul, and fling oneself recklessly upon Christ.

Water Tank Engines?

While everyone was drying off after bathtime, Nathan was startled a sudden gurgling noise.

"What's that?"

Then, after a closer listen, he answered his own question.

"Oh! It's the drain! Thomas the Drain!"

Happy Advent Eve!

Decking the Halls

All you feed-readers should click on over and let me know what you think! =)

Preparing for Christmas

When I was small, Christmas was larger than life, looming luminously over half the year with a splendor so exquisite that it almost hurt.

But as I grew, Christmas seemed to stay the same. Just like my first bicycle, so large in my memory and so small standing at my feet, what had seemed so huge and magnificent never appeared to be quite as I remembered.

Christmas was still grand and wonderful, but I suppose I began to get used to it.

And now at last I have children of my own who are eagerly anticipating Christmas. It's not my first Christmas as a mother, or even my first Christmas with children old enough to understand, but it is the first Christmas where they're old enough to anticipate. This afternoon I was feeling very daunted, thinking that now I'm the one who has to make Christmas happen, and I'm just not quite sure if I'm capable of putting together a Christmas worthy of their anticipation.

But then, as I buckled down to the task of getting the house clean enough to be worthy of Christmas, I threw on some Christmas music. And it was Christmas.

And I realized that I don't have to make it Christmas after all. Christmas is real, and more resplendent and glorious than I ever could have imagined. All that is needful is with the help of baubles and lights and gingerbread, to make it small enough that a child's heart can contain the bliss.

Mysteries of the Heart

I would have brushed it off as a bunch of bunk if I hadn't seen the link over at Scriptorium Daily. And maybe it still is a little fringe-y. Certainly not without its controversy. Still, it's really interesting.

You see, sometimes heart transplant patients undergo pretty significant personality changes. Which isn't really all that surprising, since a heart transplant is a rather huge event in a person's life. Near death experience followed by a newfound physical vigor--well, it'd be surprising if it didn't effect some sort of change in a person's soul.

Still, some of those changes are downright freakish... and consistent with the donor's characteristics. Thus the hypothesis that maybe--just maybe--the brain isn't the only place where we store thoughts, feelings and memories.

The implications are astonishingly profound, and so of course there's a lot of scepticism. Strangely enough, however, it was the SkepDic article that convinced me to take the idea seriously.

You see, according to the SkepDic, all the silliness is traceable back to Aristotle. We have all these absurd notions associating the heart with love and emotion because Aristotle wrongly postulated that the heart was the location of all our thoughts and feelings, while the brain was simply a fan to keep the heart nicely ventilated. Or something like that. I'm really not quite sure. Aristotle wrote plenty enough that's still important in it's own right, that I haven't exactly gotten around to reading those portions of his work that have been completely outdone by his followers. I'm just glad he started asking good questions, and glad others came along and found likelier answers.

So Aristotle thought that the heart was where it was all at, and the brain was just a pump to cool the heart. Modern medicine thinks that everything happens in the brain, and the heart is just a pump to feed the brain.

Come to think of it, it all sounds rather the same, and come to think of it, the poets have never believed either one. Poetry and experience have always told us that the head is the seat of rationality, the heart the seat of emotion, the intestines the seat of courage and fear. And I seem to recall the liver and the kidneys coming into play somewhere, but I never took it remotely seriously, because of course nowadays everyone knows that it all comes down to brain waves.

Not that I ever believed that we were reducible to brain waves. But I guess I always thought that our souls were connected to our brains, and our brains were connected to our bodies, and that the my experience of my body was something of an illusion, everything being mediated by my brain. But come to think of it, in the intermingling of soul-ish activities, I always experience ideas as trickling down into practice, and emotions welling up into my conscious thought.

What if my soul permeates the whole of my body?

This changes everything.

At a dragonfly's pace

This weekend, I learned from an extremely reliable source--a string cheese wrapper--that the life of a typical dragonfly spans 24 hours.

And I wonder... does the dragonfly realize just how short his life is?

Or is a day nearly so short to him as it is to us? Is that day, in fact, a lifetime to him?

And is our life really significantly longer?

Maybe 80 years isn't much time at all, except at a dragonfly's pace.

Angels

Today could have been a very bad day. We were flying on the busiest travel day of the year, which also turned out to be the foggiest day in several years. And so it was that our quick little Portland/Seattle commuter flight turned into quite a "clouds of the northwest" tour, as the pilot circled the airport in hopes that it would clear up, and then headed over across the mountains to some tiny airport that wasn't fogged out. I don't remember the name of the place, but I do believe it was about as close to the middle of nowhere as an airport can be. Amazingly enough, this refuge from the fog actually was the final destination of one of the passengers, so it turned out beautifully for her. For us, though, it meant that by the time we made it to Seattle, our connecting flight to Houston had left several hours ago, and suddenly we were a party of five on standby on the busiest travel day of the year.

Today could have been a very bad day--but it wasn't. Today, on this busiest, craziest, most stressful airport day of the year, every airport employee we encountered went above and beyond to make sure everything went smoothly. From the lady at check-in who stepped right in and took care of the carseats, to the lady who rearranged the seating on the flight we squeezed onto, so that we weren't split up to badly, to the wonderful shuttle driver.

Today was a long day, a full day, but thanks to these wonderful people, it was a good day.

And I'm thankful.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

But they don't want to get on the planes this time around.

Cousins

It's an absolute madhouse.

But oh, the bliss of knowing that our progeny are only responsible for 3/5 of the toddler-related chaos.

Parenting loves company.

Happy Thanksgiving

Praise be to the Father who has provided for us so abundantly, tables heavy laden with good food, warm shelter from the crisp winter air, and dear friends and family with whom to enjoy these blessings!

Hope your day was warm and wonderful and full of scrumptious turkey.

Perspective

We would have gotten a direct flight, had one been available.

All things being equal, we probably would have avoided trying to navigate a plane change with three toddlers.

But oh, it made for a wonderful day for the wuggies. Instead of just riding on one plane--treat enough!--they got to go on TWO planes. A great big jumbo jet and a tiny little prop plane that we even got to board from outside.

Oh the bliss, the ecstatic joy on those dear little faces.

You know what? Destination all aside (and oh, everyone is having a grand old time!) I think that was actually a perfectly grand way to spend a day.

But now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for bed.

Singing as we wind our way through the grocery store...

"Three bottles of car on the wall, three bottles of car--take one down, pass it around, three bottles of car!"

Sufficient to the day is the laundry thereof

Which makes packing... complicated.

Time to load up that washing machine.

Hobbies

We were in the parking lot this afternoon when September gave a delighted little giggle. "A birdie! It's a birdie!"

This prompted her affectionate father to remark that surely our little girl was destined to grow up into an avid bird watcher.

At which point Isaiah (being very eager for his lunch) burst out saying "Wugger's gonna be a hot-dog watcher.