Halloween Hater

No one ever seems to get why I am so anti-Halloween. Maybe I am just a curmudgeon, but that would mean I started being curmudgeonly in early childhood. Even then, I never saw a point in the holiday and could not understand why others put so much energy into a holiday with absolutely no meaningful basis.

Now, too far into adulthood, I understand some of the traditional basis for the holiday and do, to some degree, participate in a personal Dia de los Muertos recognition. I still do not see the point behind the massive Halloween celebrations that take place. I have made a few trips to the Halloween costume parade in downtown Austin. I wonder how there any business in the city reports any productivity with the extensive preparation many of the costumes require.

I still do not get why so many people spend a year preparing for the next year's costume or host the biggest party of the year on the weekend around the holiday. The rest of the year has so many other days that deserve the recognition heaped upon Oct. 31. There is Hug a Friend Day, Mother Goose Day, Johnny Appleseed Day (not to be confused with Arbor Day the next month), and even Elvis Presley's Birthday. Each day has so much more relevance than Halloween. Friends, trees, music, stories all give us so much more than Halloween.

Halloween gives us 34,000 Lady Gaga wannabes.

Stomach aches.

Cavities.

Nothing good comes from it.

At least it's not Valentine's Day.

Thinking of Amy

Amy Winehouse Dies, Before Our Eyes

I came inside for a quick cool-off from yard work and to prepare for a committee meeting downtown and, by habit, clicked on Twitter to catch up on any news I missed when the first Huffington Post breaking news headline popped up announcing the death of Amy Winehouse.

I expected more stress inducing updates on the debt-ceiling negotiations and the foolish games being played by our politicians who are now putting their own selves above the good of the nation.

I dreaded more tweets of the rising death toll in Norway.

I was not prepared for the news that such a unique voice had gone silent forever. Her sultry voice became a staple of many iTunes playlists. Despite a limited collection, that is now fixed for all time, her music will continue to influence in much the same way as other greats who also died at age 27 continue to influence music (Google the 27 Club).

Sidebar: The brain works in freaky ways sometime. As soon as I saw the headline, I immediately thought Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain were also 27. Shortly thereafter the whole 27 Club stories started popping up. I was fascinated at how my brain instantly made the trivial connection between the few names and age at death. We know much more than we think we do.

As I first tweeted when seeing the headline, I was not entirely surprised at the news, but still regretted hearing it. After the recent headlines of her being booed off-stage and continued drug abuse, the downward spiral continued and I was figuring to never see her perform live; however, I hoped for more recordings. There are a few completed pieces yet to come out, but likely no fully formed new collections.

In the next days, we will likely hear much analysis of the ravages of substance abuse, and some particularly related to the use and abuse of substances in the arts and among "genius" persons. In time that will fade and we will be left with only the limited catalog of Winehouse's recordings - a catalog that will carry weight with generations of musicians to come.

Broadway To Celebrate First NY Same-Sex Marriages With On-Stage Ceremonies

Broadway To Celebrate First NY Same-Sex Marriages With On-Stage Ceremonies

Wow! I could finally marry in front of hundreds of strangers. Just what I always wanted.

Pretending to be Techie

Today one of my former students asked if it was crossing the line to call me a nerd while commenting on my tweets noting my progress of converting my painfully slow netbook to a managably quick Chromebook. No, it is still not as fast as my other computers, but I can most definitely feel less than bored with it now.

Because it now operates off the web, I am also going to have to become better at integrating the full set of Google tools into my personal toolbox. I already use Google+, Blogger, Gmail, and really like the Chrome browser. Now I just have to work at integrating how Google docs and my calendar here can be best integrated.

Could I move away from Apple and my beloved MacBook Pro and iPhone?

I am not there yet, but in the first hours, the ease with which I’m navigating back and forth between these programs seems to give me reason to believe I can migrate toward  cloud computing much more easily than I thought I could.

To Puppy or Not to Puppy

It has been five months since my last dog passed away and I have been pondering getting another pet. I have considered a variety of options in the pet area - do I want a cat that is going to shed all over the place? Do I get a poodle-ish dog that does not shed but requires regular grooming? Do I consider another dog, which will shed, though likely not at much as a cat? I've been leaning toward the dog options because I would like one that will force me to get into a regular routine with running.

In looking at all the local animal shelters, though, almost every dog that fits the size and energy level I want in a pet is is pit-bull. While I am not innately against the breed, I have not been able to reconcile getting one from the shelter due to the uncertain background from which it hails.

One friend, on hearing that I was considering a pet, started texting me adorable pictures and videos of a little puppy he is training for some of his other friends. He believes she would be perfect for me. Though she is adorable, she seems more like a house-dog rather than a running partner. Nevertheless, I am going to check her out. How can I not check out a puppy called "MooCow" because of her near perfect Holstein spots?

More Summer Reading

The second book I am reading for church this summer is Love Wins, the new book by controversial theologian Rob Bell. After hearing all the vitriolic statements made about the book before it was released, the college group at church decided they wanted to read it to see what it really says and I am going along with them as sometime facilitator.

So far the book has mostly succeeded in giving me a headache. The mix of social justice theology coupled with a reshaping of the commonly held views of Heaven and Hell provides a rich field for plowing into one's own beliefs and why exactly one has them.

While I have not completed the entire book, Bell has yet to convince me fully of his arguments, but I tend to agree with him on the idea that Christianity has been too willing to take much belief from literature and tradition without a deep delving into the Bible for the foundations. Bell demands that we look at what scripture says - from the Old Testament through the New Testament with a close look at what Christ had to say about eternal life when he had the opportunity.

The answers Christ gives are not what we as Christians have been taught to give.

Perhaps we need to read the words of Christ for ourselves a little more often.

My Sunday morning Bible Study class has been reading and discussing books from the Apocrypha. Many of our contemporary ideas about eternity originate in that period in Jewish history (though some of the books were actually compiled in post Roman times based on documents from the period of time leading up to Christ's life). I have enjoyed seeing the connections between the "new" theology in those oft rejected books appearing in Bell's work.

I look forward to reading the book through the rest of the summer, though it is somewhat challenging and I can only handle the book in doses of about a chapter a week since I read each chapter at least twice with passages within it four or even five times. I can easily spend hours reading, stopping and thinking about it, then delving into my personal library to see what else I can find to support or refute Bell's ideas.

Love Wins has become a self-imposed graduate school course in theology.

*Another benefit of the book is that I am becoming much more adept at using the notes and highlighting feature of the Kindle - and now that I can tweet from it, watch out.

Summer Reading

Each summer I consider a list of books for summer reading, polling friends, publications' recommendations, and the periodic book review on NPR. Each summer I gather my stack of books and place them on the coffee table so that I see them every time I am in my living room. Since switching to the Kindle for most of my pleasure reading, the devices sits there, plugged in, fully charged, waiting for me to pick it up and start pressing the next page button.

The stack still contains most of the books from five summers ago.

Summer is just too full of life for sitting and reading.

Most of the time.

This summer I am participating in two book studies at church and, well, since I co-leading one of them, I really have to read the book and stay a little ahead of the rest of the readers.

Both of the books are stretching my thinking about the topics at hand. For the Summer Bible Study we are going through Hard Living People & Mainstream Christians. I have always struggled in ministry with "hard living people" as I have never been comfortable in those environments, but the book is causing me to readdress my thoughts about participation in the ministries and has broadened my understanding of hard living. The scripture also gives use firm commands from the Old Testament to the New Testament that we are responsible for all people - even and especially those who fit the category Christ called "the least of these."

For a socially progressive congregation, even using the term, "least of these" or "hard living" proves challenging. Who are we, after all, to label others?

The world labels people and we are naive to ignore that. Recognizing the reality in the world does not make us of the world, but to function in it, we have to adopt an appropriate language, appropriate behaviors, and appropriate attitudes. We have to get real.

We opened the discussion with stereotypes - stereotypes we have about hard living people, and thankfully, with participation of some people who fit the definition of hard living, we were able to get an honest take on the stereotypes they have about people in the church.

The world cuts both ways.

Sometimes it is hard to see that hard living people come in all types.

The same is true of Christians.

Maybe we have more in common than we think. The study so far has led me to believe this more deeply than I have in the past. I'm looking forward to learning much more as we get farther in the book.

The book focuses on hard living people in regards to difficult home situations, substance abuse, poverty, homelessness or under-housed situations. The more deeply I delve into that, I realize that I could be considered hard living. I do not have a difficult home situation, I don't abuse substances, I am not poor or homeless.

I am hard living in that I do not stop running from waking at 5:00 a.m. to bedtime between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. most nights. I find it very difficult to give another person the attention they deserve when I am in their presence because my mind constantly runs ahead to the next thing I need to do. Something occupies my time from the moment of waking until sleep - from mundane chores to intense work, reading, study.

I like texting and online chat because it does not require my full attention. I can do six other things on the computer while chatting with twelve people at once.

I like planning events with friends. I like the many meetings outside of work in which I participate. I like the things I do.

They bring me much joy.

I am always exhausted and more of my personal relationship are superficial than I would like.

How much more joy could I have?

The people the book defines as "hard living" have much joy in their lives too. They just take joy in different things than I enjoy.

So far in the reading and discussions, the commonalities we have far outstrip the differences.

Maybe we have more in common than we think.

Water Death

While observing the life around the pond, I noticed too, how precious life was by the creatures that lost their life there.

Some moths landed too close to the water.

Some frogs come out of the water to land on fire ants and were soon devoured.

You cannot see the frog because so many ants are covering it. I had to poke it with a stick to see what they were eating.

Some frogs were just dead - perhaps after trying to catch a bee instead of a fly.

And some flies were just dead because they landed on my leg and I swatted them. I do not have any pictures because there was not anything left to show of them.

The glories of life in its diversity was only made more valuable by the juxtaposition of death side-by-side.

I just have to be still and around me, I will see the entirety of the circle of life.

Being Still

This morning I went down to my parents’ pond - or what’s left of it - and took the time to really look. The Nature Channel on television has infinite documentaries on watering holes and the animals that use them, but I had never seen one on insects. 

I had never taken the time to look for them either.

This morning, the entire remnant of the pond was abuzz with various bugs that came for sustenance or supplies. Bees, wasps, and flies worked in abundance around the limited water that was left. Some bees and wasps gathered water while others gathered together bits of mud for their nest.

All it took was me being still for a little while.

Being still and watching what is happening. Listening for the quiet sounds. Stillness and listening. Two qualities we often overlook in this mad world as we try to keep up with all that is happening around us.

Being still I saw wild bugs hovering above the mud.

I do not believe I have ever taken a better picture. Even the newborn fawn does not compare to the hovering bug with its wing caught mid-stoke.

Being still, I saw a variety of moths landing on the mud.

Being still, I saw a red wasp land on the water and be blown across on the wind as the wasp gathered water for building it's paper nest.

Being still, I saw an amazing white-faced beetle crawling around the mud.

Being still, I saw bugs crawling out of the water and across the mud.

Being still, I saw life happening around me that I had never noticed before. No matter what I have going on in my life, I must take the time to stop, pause, and notice what is really happening around me that under other circumstances I would charge right past.

Being still, I must have patience and see the beauty that surrounds me.

Wilderness Skills

For the first time in many years, I spent multiple nights at my parents’ house in my home town. When getting back to their house after spending the bulk of the day at the hospital where my father was recovering from a recent surgery, I would do the chores that needed doing then head out into the pasture with my camera to catch what wildlife or other nature sights I could before the sun went down too much. 

Due to the ongoing drought, even though the time was middle-spring, areas that should be lush and green instead appeared dull, dusty, and stressed from lack of moisture. Armadillos were out well before dusk to begin their digging in search of grubs near the surface. I even managed to catch a rabbit in the middle of one of the right-of-ways cut through the wooded area. 

The most amazing sight, though, came when I walked upon a doe that was preoccupied with something besides my approach. Long after I snapped the first picture of her, she remained with her head turned aside. Finally she turned aside and I could see something that from the distance appeared to be a cat crawling around below her.

Moving around to gain a better vantage, and with the benefit of my zoom lens, I was able to see the new-born fawn that lay flat against the ground as soon as the doe moved away upon noticing me.

I remembered all the times as a youth I had used my wilderness skills to sneak up on the white-tailed deer in our pasture. I would get within yards of them and yell, “BOO” as loudly as possible just to see them about jump out of their skins. Looking back as an adult, I’m really glad none of them ever attacked me with their razor sharp hooves, but after again being able to sneak up on a deer and see the brand new life, I am glad to know I still have some of the skills.