Movie Review: All Quiet On The Western Front

 Among my many historical knowledge gaps, one of the biggest ones lies in the post-World War I German period known as the Weinar Republic.  The period remains fascinating (and I think instructive) both in the fact that the inflation experienced is now used as the example of out of control inflation and the fact that out of Weimar Republic came Nazi Germany.  Surely there are lessons to be learned about how to not dissolve a society and create a worse problem.

But to get to the Weimar Republic, one first has to get through World War I.

All Quiet On The Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque was, at one time, required reading for high school English Literature classes and if you are of a certain generation, you remember reading the story about Paul Baumer, a young German man that enlists in the German army and his experiences both at the front and back in civilian society.  I somewhat remember the book; I also remember the 1979 television adaptation, mostly because it had Richard Thomas of "The Waltons" and "Battle Beyond The Stars" fame.

Last year a new remake came out on Netflix which I watched last week. And while I find unusual to recommend such a horrific story about war, I do not think I can recommend it enough.

The story again focuses on Paul Baumer, with the first scene being an attack across No-Man's land.  The attack is pretty much as horrible and pointless as you might imagine.  The story then reaches back to his background of enlistment (I remember this taking up more time in the book, but here it is less than five minutes of the film).  From there, the movie then takes a leap from his initial arrival at the front to 18 months later, in the early days of November 1918.

The film at this point veers from the book and we see two story lines:  in one story line, the countdown as the German delegation debates signing the Treaty of Versailles; on the other, Paul and his companions on the front as their Commander continues to press forward attacks in the face of what he sees as the betrayal of the Cause.

The battle scenes are intense and in that sense, horrifying - although the reality of them (and they appear pretty real) are likely still far from the actual conditions of the war.  Men die - a lot.  They die by being shot, they die by being stabbed, they die by gas, they die by being bludgeoned, they die by flamethrower, they die by shells, they die by grenades.  

They all die.

At one point one of the attacks, French Tanks arrive.  I do not believe I have ever seen a representation of what actual tanks in World War I would have looked like.  They are as terrifying in the movie as they must have been in real life.

One other place the movie varies from the book is that Paul does not return home and undergo the awkwardness of seeing civilian life versus the battlefield.  Perhaps the Versailles delegation was meant to do this without breaking the continuity of the film; certainly switching back and forth from the battlefield to a drawing room in a train car or a dinner is just as representative.  And while in the end there is some discussion between Paul and Kat, another main character, about what they will do after the War, it does not carry the same impact I remember from the book when Paul is with his father's friends at a Biergarten and they cannot and do not want to understand his world.

One note:  The movie is a German one and thus 90% of the dialogue is in German, except for those parts that are in French.  High School German still served me well, I could understand at least 50% of the movie.  Frau G would be proud.

As I have said, this movie is horrifying, brutal, and realistic.  Why would I recommend it?

First of all, it really is a well made movie.  It is tight and well directed.  There is nothing that is extraneous to the plot, even if that meant that modifying the story from the book.  The descent of Paul from enthusiastic recruit to battle weary veteran to man without a future is convincing.

Second of all, it smacks of realism.  The sets are convincing.  The attacks pull you in - at one point, A the Cat looked up at me in reproach as I got a little over enthusiastic and involved in the movie and disturbed his resting place.  The confusion and terror of charging a trench with bullets and shells flying made me crouch.  

And the tanks.  Oh, the tanks.

The third reason is that it brings to the fore the waste of war.

As part of the opening sequences, we see bodies being pulled from an cart, then placed on the ground and stripped. We follow the stripped uniform as it goes back from the front to be washed, dried and sewn.  The uniform is issued to Baumer upon his enrollment.  He comes back to his recruiter, saying that he was issued the wrong uniform as someone else's name is in it.  The recruiter takes the uniform back, removes the nametag, and gives it back to Baumer;  likely it was too small, he tells Baumer.  It happens all the time.

We know better, of course.

I recommend this movie to every D*!# (word used decidedly) fool that calls for war or violence to solve a problem, to every politician and leader that has not seen war and will not see war, but sees war as the only option.  I recommend it to everyone else as reminder of what war really is:  not the video games we see, not the movies that so often grace the screen, but for the ugly, terrifying, wasteful horror that it is.

Everyone starts a war believing they will win it.  No-one really anticipates the actual cost, until the lives are spent and the money is gone, a generation has been decimated, and the-what-might-have-been's become the reality of broken men, broken economies, broken culture, and a broken state.

Lectio Divina

 Lectio Divina (Divine Reading) is "...a traditional monastic practice of Scripture reading, meditation, and prayer intended to promote communion with God and increase the knowledge of God's word" (source). The roots of the practice reach back into the 3rd Century A.D..  It fell a bit off the during the 16th century and following (although recommended by both Catholic and Protestant preachers on a piecemeal basis) but was brought back to the fore (in Catholic circles) as part of Vatican II.

The thought behind Lectio Divina is that God's word is, in fact, God's Word:  what God has to say on a subject or subjects (to use Francis Schaeffer's analogy, it is true truth from God, but not necessarily all truth as mortals cannot comprehend the full thoughts of God).  The impetus is both that the believer should come to see Christ in the Scriptures as well as to understand what the Bible directly says, rather than what any person - clergy or lay - says what the Bible says.

Guigo II, a Carthusian Monk of the 12th Century (flourit 1174-1180), formalized the practice in his book Ladder of Monks  He divided the practice into four parts:

- Lectio (Read)
- Meditatio (Meditation)
- Oratio (Prayer)
- Contemplatio (Contemplation)

The thing I am finding when I am trying to practice this is that it takes time:  time to read, time to meditate, time to pray, time to contemplate. It is a thing that cannot be rushed.  At the same time, I am finding it a useful practice.  Every day I use a form of lectionary (mine is Russian Orthodox, as that is what I have on my phone), which has a Gospel Passage as well as an additional New Testament passage.  Every day without fail, one line, one verse, has leapt out at me as something I need to add to my own life or consider deeply.

I am finding it a great place to start trying to get some depth into my relationship with God.

The Big List of Goals 2023: Goals

 Yesterday I discussed both the process I try for in working on my annual goals as well as the complications which are making this year different from years past.  Today, I would like to present my goals as they are now planned for 2023.  The Area will be listed, along with the goal/goals and a small explanation:

God

- Increase tithing by 1%:   We should do more.  Large increases can be hard to manage.  This is now an annual goal.

- Practice Lectio Divina and Prayer every morning for 30 minutes: I am cognizant of the fact that my relationship with God has a been a bit tenuous of late.  There are multiple factors for this; what I need to deal with are the ones I can work on directly. Time in God's Word (Lectio Divina) and prayer are two things that directly in my control.  The time is meant as a guideline to give myself the space to not rush through it.

Girls

- Date night/Activity with The Ravishing Mrs. TB:  Perhaps unsurprisingly (like a lot of couples) we have come to lead some what separate social lives.  Children only tend to complicate this, of course.  It is a weakness we both have recognized and need to address. The time is booked; we just need to find something.

Gold

- Industry Certification:  I have one more major certification to complete in my industry.  I just need to buckle down and do it.

- 2023 Nanowrimo: One of the things that continues to nag my mind is writing a book.  The problem is not so much finding the time as it is the time-space to write.  Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month.  Held every November, the challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  I have completed it once before in 2012; for those of you keeping track, it is a mere 1,667 words a day.  

Iaijutsu

- Prepare for testing 2024:  Rank in my martial arts style is not in the belt system, but rather under the older menkyo  (certificate of transmission) system.  One has to test for rank - and the testing only takes place in Japan and not every year.  I was hoping to test in 2021, but The Plague happened.  While there is no guarantee that there will be testing in 2024 or even that we will be able to go to Japan, the curriculum is known.  It is merely a matter of study and being ready.

- Take (and pass) N4 JLPT Test:  The Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) is a standardized test on knowledge (reading comprehension, aural comprehension, and vocabulary) of the Japanese language.  I passed N5 (Lowest level) some years ago; the knowledge will be useful for iaijustu as well as just my general Japanese culture practices.

- Increase maximum weights on Bench Press, (Safety Bar) Squat, and Deadlift:  Strength increases are something of a moving target, especially as we get older.  My practice - until proven otherwise, is to expect I can see small increases.  Instead of going for a single max increase, I have aimed for 4 x lifts, which to my mind are more indicative of actual strength.  My current maximums for the Olympic lifts I practice are 4 x 175 (Bench Press), 4 x 155 (Safety Bar Squat), and 4 x 260 (Deadlift).  I do not anticipate that there is any reason I should not be able to see small increases in each of these.

- Aerobic training for Hike in August to include at least one 5K run:  Of all of my victories in my 2022 Mt. Whitney Hike, one point of remaining disappointment I have is that I "ran out of gas" on the last bit up the summit.  This may or may not be a physical related limitation; what I do feel is that did not train as hard on this aspect as I could of.  To that end, I am working on my aerobic training.  One is more regular sessions on the Stairmaster; another is to start running again.  To give myself some incentive, I would like to complete at least one 5K this year.  

Ichiryo Gusoku

- The Ranch:  As I have written multiple times, this year is the decision point for how I am going to be at the Ranch, at least for the next 3-5 years (essentially, until Nighean Dhonn graduates.  The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I have had some initial discussion (referenced in the Prologue), but nothing firm.  I am also exploring other options, up to and including offer to pay some kind of rent on the house the defer cost of maintaining it and to put off any other sorts of decisions.  But something has to be in place by the end of the year, if not by the end of August.

- Practice Harp and have at least one public performance:  Once back in the now lost ages, I played the harp (the folk harp, not the Orchestral harp).  I was, at one time, even in a musical group. But things happen and life goes on.  This past Christmas, someone posted a video from those days and it reminded me how much I enjoyed doing that.  I have the harp, I have the music - I just need to make the time.

- Study Organic Gardening (and then use the knowledge):  One of the best investments I made this year was in the Permies' Kickstarter for a series of videos based on the work of Masanobu Fukuoka.  Besides the video, I received a simply amazing array of additional materials (I have to say I do like the Kickstarter model) for my review and education.

The last year was a hard one for my gardening, both because of my travels as well as the fact that we had a rough Summer this year - very hot and very arid.  Simply put, gardening is something I can and should get better at, and it is not as if I do not have to tools to do it.  I just need to start actually adapting my practices for the location I am in right now (and figuring out a way to buffer for being gone).

- Cheesemaking:  My cheesemaking has been a little disrupted by my back and forth travel to and from The Ranch.  I need to get back on the bandwagon, especially with hard cheese making.  Also - although not specifically cheese - I would like to try my hand at making butter (yes, I know I can buy it, but having the ability to turn raw materials into food is always a good skill to have).  I do not mention yogurt making here as other than my travels away, I have completely 100% supplied my yogurt intake through making it at home.

- Sewing: I darn my socks and make small rip repairs or button reattachments.  But I would like to get a little more advanced in my sewing skills - not that I particularly need more clothes, but sometimes there are things that are simply easier to obtain by sewing.

- Finish Online Classes (Forestry And Beekeeping):  Back at the height of The Plague, the University of Pennsylvania was offering free on-line classes.  I took one (Basic Tree Trimming) but have never followed up to take the other two, Forestry and Beekeeping.  Literally, it is me watching videos and taking notes.  There is no excuse.

- Study Old English.  Be able to translate a text by December 2023:  Once upon time, I was an English major.  Three classes I took during that time impacted me:  World Literature (where I read the book Njal's Saga, which both cemented my interests in sagas and gave me a desire to go to Iceland which was fulfilled 30 years later), The Tales of Canterbury (I can still recite the opening of the Tales of Canterbury from memory), and Old English.  I love words and the history of words and languages, and for some reason Old English continues to fascinate me.  Its history is, in a very real sense, my history.  I have the books and (via the InterWeb) access to literally the whole Anglo-Saxon corpus.  It does not matter the length of the passage, only that I translate it.

Bonus Round:  There are some additional bonus goals which I have kept in reserve that I will give myself credit for if I hit them - with the understanding that if I do not, nothing is lost.

------

The great thing (to me, anyway) about these goals are 1) I think they are all achievable; and 2) With the exception of some registration fees, they are largely all things I already have in house to start with.  Applying myself and time are all I need to put in place to accomplish them.  

As is usual for myself, this probably reflects some aspect of "Imperial Overreach" of which I am always guilty, but I would rather aim high for the stars and hit the moon than aim for the top of the mountain and smash into it far below the peak.

The Big List of 2023 Goals: Prologue

 Long-time readers of this blog may recall that every year, I work on a list of goals for the coming year.

I say "work on".  What this really represents is a rather intellectually agonizing process where I look at last year's goals, look at what I want to do for the upcoming year (which may be based on what did not get done last year), and then distill everything into a list.  This distillation process easily takes over a month; it usually begins around Thanksgiving and ends just prior to the New Year.

The list breaks down into the "Rule of Five", a concept I liberated from the author Jeffrey Gitomer because 1) It is simple; 2) It limits categories; and 3) I have five fingers on my hand so it makes it easy to remember.  The categories are God, Girls (Family), Gold (Career), Iaijustu (primarily Iaijustu, but things that support it), and Ichiryo Gusoku, my "one suit of armor/one plot of land" philosophy.  All of this creates the acronym "GGGII", which means precisely nothing (except that I have to remember only two letters multiple times).

This year's goal setting, however, is complicated by a series of factors.

The first complicating factor is simply that this year is a year of big changes.  Our oldest child, Nighean Gheal, is both graduated from college and now living in The Big Big City with a real job.  The likelihood she will be back for more than short visits is low (barring awfulness, of course).  Our middle child, Nighean Bhan, graduated from college in December, is applying to graduate school - and announced during the Christmas Break that she will be moving out soon.  And our youngest child, Nighean Dhonn, is a senior in high school that will be going to college in the Fall.  In other words, likely within a month we will be down to one child, and within 9 months, down to zero.  That changes a great many things, including not only physical people in the house but money and time and the fact that we have a whole new relational dynamic to work through.

The second complicating factor is the fact that my job remains a bit in limbo.  2023 will be a make or break year for my employer.  If we make it, a great many things likely become possible.  If we break it - well, you will all be treated to a job search in 2023 series.  I have literally no control over either of the outcomes (naturally) and because of my unique position in the company, it makes more sense for me to risk going down with the ship that to part ways when there is still a chance of things breaking to the positive side.

The third complicating factor is The Ranch.

The Ranch, as most will recall, is the 90 or so acres that my parents own in literally what is God's Country (although not officially called that, of course).  It been my desire to move there for a very long time, at least 20 years or more.  The difficulty is that, in speaking with The Ravishing Mrs. TB, it is not quite as burning a desire for her at this time.

That is understandable to me:  she has made a life here in New Home. She has a job she likes.  She has social groups that she enjoys being a part of, including a group that she travels with.  And while I have a long association with The Ranch in a deep way, hers is much less of a spiritual connection (if I may call it that) and much more of a visiting relationship:  it is lovely and scenic, but not somewhere she can quite imagine herself living at the moment.

At the same time, she understands what The Ranch means to me - and is willing to try to find a workable solution, even if it means a sort of modified living arrangement for a time.

What this means, of course, is that we are working through it. For now, I am still able to travel back once a month for a week.  But if we do not fully intend to move there, it would make more sense to rent the house out for the estate - which to be honest, I have reservations about, both in general as a landlord and specifically as someone who wants to live there (and would like the house more or less in one piece).

This are complicated matters that perhaps even the wisest could not negotiate well, and I am hardly the wisest.    But what it may mean is figuring out how to manage living part-time or more in two places for some period of time, while still trying to advance the things I think are important.

All of this, of course is the prologue I have been wrestling with as I have worked on this year's plans.  Because for me, even the simplest activity seems to become incredibly complex.  The results of that complexity, if I may indulge your patience, will appear in tomorrow's post.

On Reading

Every year, I keep track of the books that I read.

This practice, as near I as can find in the archives, dates back in its origins to 2003 when I undertook a whole new series of practices to hopefully "help me get ahead" in terms of an annual planner, writing up notes to myself, saving quotes, etc.  One of the things I recall distinctly from a book that I read on the subject was "Make a reading plan by listing out categories of books you need to read and then planning out the books that you will read in them".

Judging by the entries following that initial start (and I have all the planners), I tried the "categorize into topics and read" for a number of years until, as I suspect, two facts interposed themselves.  The first was that some categories that I was more interested in got completely done and others did not.  The other is that I struggle to read multiple books at the same time.  My best success in reading is one book at a time.

And so, in 2014 (so the records tell me), I moved to just recorded every book that I read for the year.  Of a curiosity - as it is the New Year - I became curious as to numbers and amounts:

2014:   69

2015:  72

2016:  98

2017:  72

2018:  89

2019:  92

2020:  116

2021:  103

2022:  99

To be clear, this is only a gross view of numbers counting individual books (thus, a 60 page Osprey History military book on "Samurai, 1550-1600" and a 1,000 page novel such as Atlas Shrugged are each one book).  Furthermore I know that I read some books twice in a year.  I also know that I re-read a fair amount of books that I already own every year.  If I assume that each year I read 10% of books again and 50% of the books I read are ones I already have read, the gross numbers look like this:

Total Books:            810

Individual Titles:     729

New Books:             405

Annual Average:        89

When I tell people that "reading is my life", it is not offered as joke.  It literally is.

Of course, like most things this did not all spontaneously generate.  My mother loved to read and encouraged us to do so. When we were growing up, trips to the county library (our main source of materials) was a biweekly treat. Our house was always filled with books - the murder mysteries that mother primarily loved, larger hardbound books of knowledge, and the books that we ourselves owned -  I cannot remember a time when I did not have a bookshelf in my room.  

Reading was never TB The Elder's thing, but he graciously let me do it without comment about "spending too much time in books". And so growing up - whether at home, on the bus, driving somewhere, or just filling my free time - books were my interests, my outlet and my constant companions.

It is not without cost, of course - both physical (there is a "book budget" in my allowance which, sadly, I regularly overspend) and intellectual - my speed is fantastic, my comprehension less so.  Which may explain why I read books more than once.  Also, there is a bit of compulsiveness involved. I almost cannot be with a new book by bedside and will willingly go to used bookstores I went to the previous week "on the off chance" they suddenly got something I "need".  And inevitably, when a new subject or interest comes up, my first response is always "I need to get a book on that" - in my world, if I can read a book about it, I can do it.

It strikes me as odd, as I look back now to that initial entry in 2003 that says "Develop a reading plan", that I rather obscurely stuck with it all these years.  Odd, but I am grateful - not only for the knowledge and the education and the entertainment, but the fact that it is only by reading good writing that one learns to write and think well.

Book Review: Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury

Charles Dicken's is well known for his 1843 story A Christmas Carol.  For the mass of individuals today,  this is the most familiar both of his overall writings as well as his Christmas stories (of which he wrote several more).  The story has proved itself so popular that it has never been out of print since the year of its publication and has been the subject of multiple big screen and small screen interpretations.

What was unknown to me - until this Christmas - is that Louisa May Alcott also did the same thing.

Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury (published 2002) is a compilation of stories written by Miss Alcott (1832-1888) and edited by Stephen W. Hines.  I would not have known of this book at all but that I was sorting through my mother's books. This was on the same shelf as innumerable cat themed Christmas books and comfortable Christian Romance Christmas stories.  Knowing of Dickens' stories and at least recognizing Alcott's name, my interest was piqued.

Miss Alcott remains a lacking point in my literary education (to be fair, my overall 19th Century author and authoress knowledge is minimal at best).  Most have heard of her books Little Women and Little Men, but these are the sorts of books that have (I suspect) fallen out of general literature reading curricula and now are the province of the specialized major class or of the individual (like myself) in need of remediation.

I knew a bit of her story:  born into poverty, she single-handedly worked to pull her family out of poverty by her writing.   Remaining unmarried, she lived with and cared for her family until her own death.

The book itself is a compilation of short stories and novellas (including the Christmas scene in Little Women) that have been "adapted" by the author (how adapted is never explained).  The stories are a mix, with young children, teenagers, young adults, and even older adults all having some kind of main role - a reminder that it is never too early or too late to show the Christmas Spirit.

The poverty of Alcott's youth and her family's involvement in early social reform shows through in the stories.  Poverty is described, not in the 21st Century Western World as it is known, but in 19th Century America where there were no social nets. As these are Christmas stories, they are all set in Winter, and the brutality of a New England Winter is not trivialized.  Cold, a lack of food, worrying about where the next day's meal is to come from (let alone the next year) - all of these are present.

And yet this is not the main focus of the stories.

"It is no wonder then that so many of her stories feature practical charity and happy endings.  Such was the shape of her life.  Do not reject charity, nor look down upon it, but be worthy of it, and if you rise to a higher station, do not forget to show charity to others. (Introduction)"

These stories are all quite different from what passes as "Christmas Stories" in this modern, privileged, post-Christian, materialist age.  In general, the characters realize there is some deficiency in an upcoming Christmas - but rather than bemoan their fate or cry out about things being unfair, they go to work to remedy the situation.  In some cases, this is done directly by efforts they make; in others, their generous spirit enables others to find the Christmas spirit that they have lost and in so finding, reward the protagonist in ways they could have never hoped.

What spills forth from these stories is kindness, other centeredness, generosity, initiative, hard work, and looking to one's self first before looking to others.  One cannot help but feel more generous and inspired after reading these stories (I certainly was).

The stories also provide a window in Christmas in 1860's and 1870's America.  A piece of fruit is often all that is initially available as a stocking stuffer or present.  New clothes (especially shoes) are also coveted but less available; new toys or other items even less so.  I remember my mother telling me stories of how, within her lifetime, an orange was perhaps the gift one got in their stocking; our "loaded up" version of Christmas is a quite recent development.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

For all of the "adapted by" notices, the editor's hand seems very light indeed.  The stories, at least to my reading, resound with the voice of the authoress.  The lessons they teach - kindness and other centeredness and generosity yes, but also individual effort and virtue - seem sorely lacking in so many of what passes for today's Christmas entertainment.  These stories are written in such a way as to be accessible to children but are not childish (as so much of Christmas has become); they are suitable for all ages.  And, every story has a happy ending, which while not being as true as it should be in real life, is something I love.

It is not often I can say I left a book feeling more virtuous and that I should be more generous.  The fact that I found a book full of such stories is even more remarkable - such stories that should be read not just at Christmas but throughout the year so that we, as was said of Dickens' Scrooge, might keep Christmas every day in our heart.

On The Re-Departure Of Nighean Gheal

 Readers may remember that last October, Nighean Gheal, our oldest, moved out to start her new job in The Big Big City after having spent a little over a year with us post graduation.  It was a sad moment, but at the same time carried within it the fact that she would be returning in a little over two months for Christmas.

Yesterday, she left for the second time.

Her adaptation to her new home went okay, but not as swimmingly as might have been hoped.  Her job initially had her work offsite for the first month of employment and then only coming in periodically after that.  Her living situation did not work out as she had anticipated, and so she entered the market for new place to live.  She was scheduled to come home just before Christmas but asked The Ravishing Mrs. TB if she could come home two weeks earlier, as she did not have to go back in to work and the living situation was not improving.

Of course we said, come home.

And so for the last three weeks we have had everyone back in the house again.  She worked some, she and the others baked or watched "Vampire Diaries".  It was, in a lot of ways, just like life had been prior to October.

But all things come to an end, and so she packed up to return.

There was a real finality to everything as I put the repacked suitcase into the back of The Ravishing Mrs. TB's car.  Before it was a known two month absence, now it is likely five months or more (she is returning briefly for Nighean Dhonn's high school graduation).  After that, who knows - perhaps again not until Christmas.

This should not be unexpected of course:  in theory we raise our children to be independent and thus should not be surprised when they actually become so. But it is one thing to see them go and know they are coming back for time in the not too distant future.  It is another indeed to know that their visits will become fewer and fewer going forward.

This, as they say, is the way of things.  That does not make it any less easy to endure.

The Great Used Book Hunt

Last week as a bit of a lark, I mentioned to Na Clann that one thing we had never done was make a one day run of the Local Used Book Chain in our area.  While we have been to the stores in our area many times, there are stores farther away which we have been to infrequently and at least one that we have never been to since it opened.

(I know, I know - me not making it to a used book store in my area.  Shocking.)

It is not that I need a "new" book of course; I have many good ones and frankly my purchases over the last 4 years have dwindled somewhat due to narrowing interests (and, perhaps, available space).  And yet, still in my mind there is always the chance that some volume I am searching for is out there and I am going to miss it by not going, the "Great White Whale" will breach the shelf of a bookstore and I will miss it because I was not diligent enough to check.

I did not think much of the comment after that, until two things happened.  The first was the notification that the aforementioned Local Used Book Chain was having a 20% sale for 3 days after Christmas.  The second was Nighean Dhonn pointing out aforementioned 20% sale, along with "When are we going?"

And so, The Great Used Book Hunt was on.

The plan was simple:  We would start at the store farthest away from us (25 miles or so) and then work our way back up, hitting every one on the way  (7 total).  Lunch would be provided (thanks, parental responsibility) and there was no time table on staying in each store or how long we would be out.  This was what we were doing for the day.

And so, out I, Nighean Gheal, and Nighean Dhonn went.

Total time on out was just about 8 hours. Some general observations on the experience as a whole:

- Even for a chain, not every store was the same.  That was good and bad - good in the sense that there was always some variety in what we were looking at, bad in the sense that there seemed to be an unequal distribution of categories of books.  I knew different stores seemed to "specialize" in book types; this was confirmed.

- As we rolled into our routine, we all immediately hit up specific sections to look at.  In my case, this was history, science fiction, and theology.  After one or two stores, you get pretty quick at making passes for the obvious things you are looking for.

- One of the joys of a used book store is that sometimes you find the unexpected gem.  Or the thing you did not anticipating wanting - but it went out the door with you all the same.

- For lunch, we stopped at a creperie.  This one was special in that it was staffed by hearing impaired/deaf staff, so you point to order.  I managed to remember how to say "thanks" in sign language.  Funny how just a simple thing like not being able to speak can put you off your game (The crepes were delicious.  I had one filled with salmon, onions and cream cheese with capers on the top.).

- In total we walked away with 27 books, 8 of which were mine.  I would have paid $168 if I had bought them all new; I actually paid $60.  

-  7 book stores in a day seems to be the outer limit of what I can manage.  Much more than than and I would start to loose interest pretty quickly.

The best part, of course, was having spending time with the Na Clann.  We did not necessarily discuss any sorts of deep subjects, but just chatted about this and that.  I got grafted into their Social Media narratives, which almost never happens.

I am looking forward to next year's marathon.

The Forty-Five: A 2023 Primer

Greetings and welcome to 2023!

As has become a tradition, the first post of the New Year is dedicated to a primer on this blog and the people and places that inhabit it in the hopes that it makes context a bit easier to gather for the writings that you will find here throughout the year.

I am your amiable host, Toirdhealbheach Beucail ("Toridhealbheach" is a version of my name in Old Irish Gaelic; "Beucail" means "booming or roaring", as in the sound of a cannon. If you ever met me in person, you would find I have only two volumes:  silent and "ON").  I have been camped out here on this corner of the InterWeb, writing about this and that for what will now be my 18th year and am up to  over 4500 posts of varying value and worth (in other words, one gets what one pays for, and we do not charge, so...).

A very brief history: I grew up in a small town somewhere deep within the bowels of Baja Canada, the same town my parents and my mother's parents had grown up in - not quite the "Small Town" of John Cougar Mellencamp, but close enough. I went away to college for two degrees that have nothing to do with what I ended up actually doing, then came back home and lived in and around that area (referred to here uncreatively as "Old Home") until 14 years ago, when due to a layoff we had to move (to the also uncreatively named) "New Home".    Due to an unexpected health issue with both of my parents (see here, Moving TB The Elder And Mom), I now spend about one third of the year at Old Home, and the other time wprking to get back there on a more permanent basis to The Ranch (see below).

I have a variety of interests.  I am a practitioner of Iaijutsu, a Japanese martial art which is (somewhat crudely but correctly) defined as the "quick draw" of sword techniques (my style has existed since the 16th century).  I make cheese and other dairy foods.  I train with weights.   I garden.  I write (perhaps somewhat obviously). I have thrown in Highland Games (at least prior to an injury last year).  I have taken to hiking with a vengeance, having completed hikes both in the Grand Canyon and to the top of Mount Whitney.   I study languages, both current as well as the dead ones.  I read voraciously - primarily history and theology, but also philosophy, agricultural books and "old style" (say pre-1985) science fiction and fantasy.  I travel (not always as willingly as might be hoped for).

And I will try almost anything once.

Dramatis Personae:

        - The Ravishing Mrs. TB:  To whom I have been married for over 25 years now and who actually makes sure the trains run on time and things get done.

     - Nighean Gheal: Number one daughter, a college graduate with a degree in International Business now living in The Big, Big City.

    - Nighaen Bhan: Number Two daughter, also a college graduate with a degree in Communications and pursuing a Master's level program.

     - Nighean Dhonn: Number Three daughter, currently a Senior in high school and selecting colleges.

     - The Director:  One of my two best friends from High School and still currently one of my best friends.  Lives in Old Home and has more than a small theatrical bent (far more creative than I).

    - Uisdean Ruadh: The other of my two best friends from High School and still currently one of my best friends.  Also lives in Old Home, currently living in The Cabin at The Ranch with his mother  A Mhathair na hUisdean Ruadh .  Deeply Catholic, loves traditional Catholicism, planes, and history.  

  - The Berserker:  My weight training coach.  I have trained with him for 7+ years now.  I live in fear of his weekly training regimes, although they have been very successful.

- The Shield Maiden:  A friend I met throw Highland Games 9 years ago?  10 years ago?  I do not keep track of such things now.  She lives much farther away than she used to (almost Alta Canada but not quite).  We chat via the InterWeb every day.  She is a reservoir of wisdom and the much needed lectures I will get from no-one else.

-La Contessa: My very good and old friend (post high school, so not quite as long as The Director and Uisdean Ruadh, but almost as long).  We regularly have dinners once a month when I am in Old Home.

-The Outdoorsman:  My brother-in-law and hiking partner in crime.  What started as lark of an idea (hiking the Grand Canyon) has turned into 3-4 smaller training hikes and a single big hike a year.

- The Cowboy/The Young Cowboy:  A father and son team, they have kept cattle at The Ranch for almost 20 years now.  They are regularly present there and help to keep an eye on the place when I am not present.

Important Places:

- Old Home:  Where I grew up and lived up to 13 years ago.  Originally a combination of the small town I actually grew up in  as well as the larger areas there which we lived in before moving to New Home, I use it more now to indicate my hometown.

- New Home:  Where I currently live. An urban area also buried in Baja Canada.  

- The Ranch:  The Ranch is the property my parents own and live on in <insert yet another undisclosed location here>.  It is approximately 90 acres of land in the mountains which has been our extended family for over 60 years.  You will see plenty of pictures from here.  This is where I am ultimately trying to get back to.

What do we do here?

Like most budding bloggers, when I started this blog I had great visions of this being a mighty bulwark of discussion and thought that would be a beacon of light (and, coincidentally, would let me write full time). It only took about 10 years to realize that neither of these things were going to happen.  Either because of obstinance or foolishness (I am guilty of both) I persevered.

What I did find - and what I still believe in - is that blogging represents the Social Internet (not a phrase that I came up with, but one I love): the ability of people to read, think, and discuss things on the InterWeb (as opposed to Social Media, which I detest).  What has become critically important to me  s creating a sort of InterWeb agora, a place where we can discuss subjects - some deep, some completely shallow - in a way that hopefully encourages thought and helps to build connections in a society which values neither thought nor connections except of the most shallow kind (otherwise known as Social Media).

What you find here most days is a combination of personal on-line journal, thoughts or concepts that have run through my mind, book reviews, occasional fiction, things that are just "going on" in my life, ruminations, and the occasional meme.  It is a smorgasbord of my existence (there are literally times I sit down to write with no idea what will be written, and no-one is more surprised than I am when it shows up).

Important Pages:

Ichiryo Gusoku Philosophy:  My overall guiding policy on my philosophy is here.

Ichiryo Gusoku Goals:  My overall goals are here (to be fair, these are always in a bit of flux).

The Collapse:  A rather long running fiction series (in a series of letters) about a man watching society slowly collapse is here.  It has not been continued for a year, but likely should be picked up.

Moving TB The Elder And Mom:  As mentioned, my parents suffered a series of health reversals in 2021.  This page pulls together the experience in hopes that others that have or will have the same issues will benefit.

What are the rules?

There are only four.

1)  Be kind in your comments:  In all my years of writing here, I have had to not publish only a handful of comments because, frankly, they were mean.  You can certainly poke holes in my theories or my writing or the responses of others.  I just ask you do it kindly.  Everyone you are responding is going through something.

2)  No profanity:  My mother was an elementary school teacher and a lovely Christian woman, so comment as if you were speaking directly to her.  Any profanity will simply not make itself a visible comment, no matter how relevant or good the comment is.

3)  We do not argue current politics:  Politics as it is practiced currently is simply an exercise in "It is your fault!  No, yours!" followed by vulgarity and crudeness.  Political Science (the practice of forming political societies and their functioning) is far more useful to actually reach a solution.

4)  We do not argue religion:  I state up front I am Christian (useful background for some of what I write) and will happily discuss my own trials and travails and thoughts.  What we do not debate is the nature of religion or different religions.  Again, see the previous comments on kindness.

Thanks!

Reading anything is an investment; taking the time to comment is more so.  Thanks so much for taking the time to spend a few moments of your precious time (a commodity which we cannot make more of) with me.

Thank You, 2022 Edition

 Dear Friends:

Once again, the end of the year is upon.  This things always seem to take me by surprise, no matter how long ahead I think I am planning for them.

In years long past, I tended to fill up the last part of the year with all the big plans for the next year.  Those are all still out there of course:  I have to over-plan my year so I can feel unaccomplished at the end of it.  It is something of an annual ritual for me now.

In more recent years, I have taken the opportunity to thank you, my readers - which seems like a more productive use of the post (after all, I can feel unaccomplished anytime).

So thank you.

Time is the stuff of life, the only thing we can only spend and not save and of which we earn not a second more.  We all only have a specified amount, rather unknown to us (until it is not) - and life is endless in its opportunities to spend (or waste) it.

Your commitment here - be it an occasional stop in, a regular stop in, and commenting never, occasionally, or frequently - is spending of that most precious of resources.

Thank you for trust.

According to  Ye Olde Estimator, last year I had something like 199,000 views - which is something like 28% of all views since this was officially "tracked" in 2010.  Not that I get paid for any of this of course, but it is a little staggering to think of that amount of increase.  Hopefully for a good reason, and not because I have showed up on yet another government's "list" (Looking at you from years past, Russia and Ukraine).

Ultimately the reason 99.9% of blog writers write is, I suspect, because we love to do so and want to share something, be it a story or information or vision or just an interest.  It certainly not that we are reaping any sort of physical rewards from this - were that to be true, the Blog-O-Sphere would look a lot more like social media with people more interested in drawing in views than communicating (it may be like that on some blogs, but none that I follow).  

To the extent that I have learned something from you - and I have learned a great deal over the years - thank you.  And to the extent that you continue to stop by, thank you.

In a significant and real way, this blog and the readers of it have and those that I in turn follow have become "my tribe" - a fairly loose association of individuals - perhaps a bit screwy at times - but all the more beloved for your being here.

This year was good year.  Next year, come what may, will be a good year for me as well as I remain privileged to share it with you all.

Your Obedient Servant,

Toirdhealbheach Beucail

You Make It Feel Like Christmas

 While we technically are in the 12 days of Christmas, the sense of Christmas fades a little bit with every day as we ramp up to New Year's and through to the restart of "life".  To that end, before the season entirely slips away, I wanted to pass along this cute song and video that I recently became aware of.

Like most "current" things, it is actually at least 3 years old.  The song is "You Make It Feel Like Christmas"; the singers are Gwen Stefani (with whom I have a passing knowledge of from her years with No Doubt) and Blake Shelton (who I have no knowledge of prior to this).  Apparently they are now married, which makes the song and video a bit more fun.

Run time is 3:03.  Watch it to the end.  

It is not a bad way to exit the season.  Would that we might all endeavor to make it feel like Christmas every day.

The Trend Of The Age

 

On Giving Account

 "And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." - Hebrews 4:13

Hebrews 4:1-13 was one of the readings that showed up in my lectionary.  As I am trying to slow down and practice a more thoughtful and engaged process in my Scripture reading in 2023 (Lectio Divina, in case anyone is wondering, and on which I should probably post a separate article).  As part of the consideration of the passage, one reads and meditates and sees what sections or portions come to fore (for Christians, God's Word represents God's thoughts and so, it should speak to us). 

Give Account.  

We humans have lost this practice of giving account, or rather at least the practice of giving account to something or someone beyond ourselves.  Protagoras the Greek philosopher is credited with the statement "Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are; of the things that are not, that they are not."  We live in the apotheosis of this statement.

One can make an argument that the belief in a higher power or force may or may not have been believed by the powerful, but it had enough moral force to sway the powerful in at least the outward appearance that they must give an account at some point for their lives.  The religious of their day at one time could (not always, of course), appeal to the divine power of their experience to force accountability of those in power (the Popes and Kings of Western Europe; the Heian era of Japan with the Monks of Mt. Hiei able to call even the Emperor to account in the name of deities).  And to those that lived under or even suffered under mis-rule or bad rule, there was always the belief and indeed, the expectation, that ultimately all deeds, good and bad, would be brought to light in the afterlife.

We no longer truly believe or practice that.

We live in an age where the only account given is to those that have the power and temporal authority to enforce their will, in service to their philosophies and beliefs.  For them, there is no "giving account" as a two way street -  think on the structure of the world and the power in it right now.  The politicians of every stripe parrot "accountability" to the voters every election cycle, then disappear into the higher planes of government, leaving the voters behind.  Policies are set by bureaucracies within countries or trans-national bodies outside of countries which are give account to no-one (lest one argue, remind me of a significant government or trans-national agency that has significantly changed its operations based on its accountability to the elected body it in theory serves).  And religious for Christians (as I am a Christian, my arena), too often account is no longer given to God, but rather to the church body that has reinterpreted Scripture for the times.

Those in power, it seems, need only give account to the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.  For lesser beings - the common folk - we must give account in everything to those above of us for all that we think, believe, and do.  But for Our Political And Social Betters (OPASB), there is only the need to give account for that which either 1) embarrasses the current structure and thus needs to be "dealt with"; or 2) becomes inconvenient.  In all other matters, Machiavelli's dictum "The ends justify the means" have become the fait accompli of modern life; the account to be given is to the ends - the means matter not and thus are not to be accounted for.

Oddly enough, this discomforts me less than it should.

The first reason it discomforts me less than it should is because all that I have written above does not change the fact that I, too, must give account, that all of my deeds are "naked and open".  It is easy enough to look all around me and look at everyone else that needs much give account; it is much more difficult to look within myself and see the same thing.  I am enough of a project for the rest of my life.

The second reason it discomforts me less than it should is because the more it becomes self-evident, the less account is given to those above them by those that live in the system - the less the system gives account where it claims it should, the less that those in the society trust in and are invested in it.  Friend of this blog ERJ has helped to clarify my thinking on such matters with his discussion of a Low-Trust Society:  account is given to those that matter in our lives (family, friends, tribe), the rest are endured with as little interaction and enthusiasm for the structure and those that run it as possible.  The overall structure of such a thing becomes weak and fragile as the constituent parts are not invested in the system - in a way, like a Jenga tower:  one keeps pull blocks out, until the structure crumbles.

The third reason it discomforts me less than it should is because an account will still be given to Him who sees all naked and open.  Yes, I am impacted by that - but yes, so is every single person of every Age.  What a horrible and terrifying moment it will be - as it has been, for the history of man - to realize one moment after nothing can be changed that all that you thought had been done for best of reasons was completely wrong and that now one has to explain it all to the only truly Just Being in existence.

Because ultimately, that is what giving an account will be:  explaining our actions and the reasoning behind them, why it was "the right thing" to do - or why it was it was the wrong thing to do and we did not realize it.  If we thought more on giving account for all we do rather than just doing, likely we would do less things or do them differently.

Better to learn now - even today - than to find ourselves under the unyielding gaze of Him who we believed not to exist and discover that all actions are paid in full, justly and exactingly.

Book Review: The Land That Calls Me Home

 Among the many failings of the Western church in the late 20th and earliest 21st Century is its benign negligence to rural America.

Were rural America - small farmers, small agriculturalists, or those that make their living by them - to be an impacted urban group or a population in foreign lands, likely the Church would be up in arms speaking, praying, and proposing ways to support them.  But to those that are their fellow citizens, albeit buried in small towns or slowly being buried as the land about them turns into housing tracts, they scarcely give a second thought.  Food continues to appear in the stores; why any need to intervene in what is obviously an example of progress and freeing people from the drudgery of labor?

Enter Reverend Hughey Reynolds and The Land That Calls Me Home:  Connecting God's People to God's Land Through God's Church

The book was suggested to m by friend of this blog Leigh Tate at Five Acres And A Dream.  Her recommendations, when given, are something that I immediately pay attention to - and once again, I am glad that I did.

The thesis of the work is to be found in the introduction:

"The church has a key role to play in restoring the viability of small farms in America.  No other organization or entity is better equipped or positioned than the church to lead people to overcome our increasing estrangement from the soil and help us reconnect to it physically and spiritually through small-scale diversified farming (Note: Small scale diversified farming is defined elsewhere in the book as "one that produces food for the household that lives on it to eat with enough in addition to sell at market for a modest income").  I have come to this conviction as I have reflected on my life experiences in light of the Biblical story in which a healthy relationship between humanity and the soil is indispensable to a right relationship with God".

Reverend Reynolds - at the time of the book (2012) a 40 year clergyman in the United Method Church in Alabama - divides the book up into four sections. In the first, he recounts his own history as the child of a small-scale farmer and the conflict he felt growing up as his own family moved farther and farther away from the land as the times changed - and of his own call back to the land (Of note, his history would like reflect in some ways my own father's history and those of other readers or their parents here).  In the second, he discusses the growth of agribusiness and its impact on small scale farming, both at a high level and at the scale of his local parishes.  In the third, he talks over a series of questions to help an individual evaluate their interest and ability in farming (one chapter is very practical:  "Managing Finances on the Small Farm").  The fourth section is what the Church's responsibility and response should be to enabling all of this.

One of the key things about this book is that Hughey's belief is not that "everyone should farm".  He understands that not everyone wants to or can; what he does feel is that it is the church's responsibility to connect small scaled diversified farmers with people that are not farmers through the mechanism of farmers' markets, direct sales, and supporting small agriculturalists.  For Hughey, this is just as important as any other aspect of the Church's ministry and should be practiced with the just the same vigor as any other outreach program.

What would that look like?  As mentioned above, farmers' markets are one example (and something that Hughey's church created locally as discussed in the last chapter of the book).  Community Gardens are another mode, as well as working to give farmers a voice:  "I want the church to raise awareness of the impact of government actions and corporate practices on rural communities.  I want the church at a denominational and judicatory level to inspire and equip local churches with the training they need to speak to and resist powers that diminish their lifestyle and drain resources from rural communities".

One may recall that recently reviewed another book - Almost Amish - and there decried the fact of a sort of high level review of a somewhat similar subject with no research. That is not the case here:  the book is reasonably footnoted and has 6 pages of 10 font, single spaced references.  When statistics and information are quoted, it is based on data.

The book was written in 2012 - how successful was Hughey's vision for his church?  That is hard to assess: a web search does not indicate any other books by him and a single blog that is effectively defunct.  That said, the farmers' market started by him and his congregation is apparently still an actively going concern 10 years later although Reverend Hughey is no longer there (he currently is shown as "retired clergy", but he apparently still posts on The Book of Face).  That is actually not a small thing, given the last 10 years and in some small way, hopefully his vision survives.

It is probably no surprise (if you are a long time reader) that I enjoyed this book.  It matches two things that I am passionate about, Christian theology and small scale agriculture.  For those that are not of the Christian persuasion, it is not at all preachy or using the book as an apologetic.  It is directly facing inwards at the Church on its own failings and what it can do to act in conformance with itself as it would for any other group in distress.

I leave you with two quotes, both which I found thought provoking:

"Not knowing much about agriculture is my friend's prerogative.  Yet, that choice separates him from the soil and makes his food security very dependent upon others to grown, select, process, package, deliver, and many times cook, the food he eats.  He does not go hungry because of his income and access to food.  He would go hungry if eating depended on his knowledge to grow food."

"The American economy will remain sluggish, uncertain, and volatile as long as it relies on the greed of investors, on foreign or domestic petroleum, and on profit-driven food distributors who, in order to keep prices lower than their small-scale farm competitors, offer empty-calorie-food that is mass produced and processed.  The church has a role in the economic recovery of America that is more than reading last rites to the dying and binding up the wounds of the injured.  The church can rally, organize, and empower those who choose to farm on a small scale in rural communities to stand up to the organized effort of government and corporate powers that drove most American famers from the land and made their way of life untenable."

Burrow

In the aftermath

of the impacting cold front,

life still finds a way

Merry Christmas 2022

  

"Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign to you:  You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manager.

      And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:  "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill towards men!"  - Luke 2:  10-14

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:  and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Price of Peace." - Isaiah 9:6

Nollick ghennal erriu! (Merry Christmas!)

On The Benchmark Of Christmas

 Christmas, among its many benefits and uses, also serves as a benchmark for our lives.

There are two different kinds of Christmases.

The first  - perhaps the most common - are simply the Christmases that "just happen".  They are the same as they were the year before, perhaps a little different, but not so different that they stick out particularly in our memory except as "that one great present I got" or "Do you remember the time Uncle Bob.......".  There is a flow and fashion to them as we go about the traditions that have come around it for us and those around us, a sort of comforting warm blanket we use to mark the years.

The second - hopefully less common - are those where something changes which makes all the Christmases after them different.  Not somewhat creatively, these divide into "good" and "bad".

The good ones are the Christmases where the last of their kind knowing that something will change in the future:  the last Christmas before a child is born and all Christmas change or the start of a new thing which becomes a tradition.

The bad ones, of course, are the last of their kind where one does not realize that something changed until after the fact.

These are the ones where Christmas is never the same again.  The Christmas before the unexpected move which means Christmas "at home" is never the same (for us, 2008).  The Christmas where you realize that you will never spend them with the same people or in the same place again (for us, 2019 before The Plague arrived and family members died or 2020 and the last Christmas with my parents at The Ranch).  The Christmas where adults know that things are falling apart but the children do not know, confident in the warm glow of the holiday that may burn coldly in later memory.

What happens in microcosm at a personal level happens at larger scale as well.  Christmases after 1913 were never the same in Europe, and the same could be true of Christmas following 1932 as well as Christmas 1940 in the United States.  The world changes, and suddenly Christmas - along with many other things - is never the same.

This is not intended as any sort of soothsaying or prophecy or mad guesses about the future - as with Amos of the Old Testament, I am neither a prophet nor the son of prophet.  But I have become increasingly conscious of the fact that every Christmas has the potential to be the last Christmas of its kind, in some cases forever.

So on this Christmas Eve, as we go about the traditions that we have - or if we have no traditions and it is simply another day - I would humbly offer up that we drink in the wonder and experience of the season and the day.  We do not know if we will never see its like again.

The Last Argument With My Father

The last argument I had with my father occurred in  a December in the mid-1980's.

My post-high school existence was not necessarily something to write home about.  Having been accepted into a "name" college in the state in which we lived, I only made it a single semester before the combination of being away from home and having my first girlfriend while I was away resulted in me packing up and returning home (also, quite probably, to my parents' and my relief as the tuition was far and above what we could have afforded).  I enrolled as a student in our local technical/junior/community college full time and found myself a series of odd jobs - handyman, heating/cooling duct installer, gutter installer - to generate income while I took classes. The goal was, of course, to transfer to State U after two years of requirements completed.

My transportation at that time was a 1970's Datsun truck, gifted to me by my maternal grandfather when he had gotten a new one.  It was a small, cramped thing painted a now-faded red with a camper shell and a a standard transmission and engine that began to quake the whole truck when one exceeded 60 miles per hour.  It was cramped in the cab - literally only two normal humans could sit comfortably or perhaps three, if one in the middle did not mind have shifting occurring between their legs.  It was the perfect sort of truck for the young man who was just sort of inching his way through life towards a hinted at but not yet seen goal.

It was in the evening on the day in question in December when the initial incident occurred.  I cannot specifically remember why I was where I was but I remember where I was:  On the overpass above the Major Interstate that bisected our town, which likely means I was driving back from the grocery store on one side to our home on the other.  It was snowing, which was not unheard of in my hometown - not the wild blustery flakes of a Midwestern snowstorm which whites out all that is around us, but significant enough that snow was laying down on the ground, the overpass, and the road - which explains why I hit something.

I do not recall what I hit - I believe I have a memory of every car I have run into and nothing leaps to mind, but that does not mean another automobile was involved. It literally could have been the overpass as well.  Whatever it was, what resulted was no injuries - and a small, bend on the driver's side, right in front of the door.  Small, but noticeable.

The next stop was home.  And home meant my father.

The joke between my sister and myself is that our father, TB the Elder (who passed this year), was as a grandfather to our children not the man we grew up with as a father.  As a father, he had the tendency to over-react when something went "not well", going from zero to 60 in about 0.1 seconds - never physical violence or swearing or derogatory language about you, but definitely a great deal of voice raising and yelling, to the point that even today I cannot stay in a room with any sort of conflict or raised voices in it.  What that lead to, of course, was learning to attempt to hide anything that went wrong until either it could be "fixed" or it could no longer be hidden.

My arrival at home was likely quiet, I suspect:  I walked in, talked with my mother and father, and began looking for an opportunity to slip out and try to repair the damage:  likely in my head was the idea of using a hammer or screwdriver to lever out the dent.  My father, who went outside to get firewood, beat me to it.

In retrospect as a father myself, I can understand where some of his rage and frustration came from:  without knowing anything else, he had no idea what had happened.  Was I hurt?  Was anyone else hurt?  Was there a hit and run?  - I write all of this a father now who has thought same things when I have gotten "the call".  But some of it was simply the way that he had always reacted to things:  anger and raised voice.

I stumbled in my responses - I always did when he was that way, and to this day I still am reluctant and hesitant to speak in such moments as I do not react well and I do not trust myself to respond in moments of anger - after all, I am my father's son.  At one point he roared "You never tell me when things go wrong."

"You always yell when I do" I roared back - and then promptly turned and left the house.

This counter-response was so unlike me up to that point that I do not know where it came from - even now, I am surprised that such a thing came out of my mouth.  I never, ever contradicted my father in anything in common speech, let alone when there was this sort of thing.

And so I wandered off down our street into the snow.

I have no idea what I was actually thinking at the time.  I really had nowhere else to go, as it was evening and snowing and late.  And so I walked down to the end of the street, crossed the road, and went over to the recently built municipal park where I just stood with my hands in my pockets, watching the snow.  Perhaps I was just planning to wait it out until my parents went to sleep and I could creep back in to the house and go to bed or perhaps I was waiting for some kind of divine revelation about what to do.

What I was not waiting for was what actually happened:  the crunching of snow behind me as my father crossed the road.

In all my years, I can only recall my father coming after me after a traumatic event once, when we had had to put our dog to sleep and I (much younger at the time) had gone up the back hill at our house to grieve.  The last thing I had expected now was to see him out in the snow, coming for me.

The words of what we said specifically are now lost in the winds of time and snow. He apologized, I apologized, we both walked back up the lane together.  We never spoke of the incident again and the small dent remained a permanent part of the truck as long as I held on to it until later the next year when, as my sister and I were both off to State U, he bought a more reliable car to manage the trek there.

We never had an argument like that again - partially, perhaps, because after that I was off to college (it took the second time) and partially because two years later he had a significant brush with death in the form of Staph Pneumonia that literally almost killed him; when he came out, he was a very changed man and most of what seemed to have fueled whatever caused that anger had dissipated on the hospital bed.

Likely - and I will never know it now - there was a conversation between my mother and father after I had stormed out.  Likely it involved mostly my mother talking and father not saying anything. Likely it involved her telling him he needed to get back out there and find me. It is all likely, of course, but this side of Heaven it now remains a mystery as to its origin.

Which is, I suppose, ultimately irrelevant to the story.  

What is relevant - and what I recall now with vivid force even as I write - is not the accident or the words or even specifically how I felt during all of it.  What is relevant is the picture I always hold in my heart of my father crossing the street to find me, the snow trailing down in the not-quite darkness that only snow clouds seem to hold, a benediction of sorts during the season of The Greatest Giving.

A Perfect Use Of The Social Internet

It may come as a surprise only to those in the US whom are completely divorced from all media that a pretty significant storm is moving in and down through much of the U.S.

While the Meme Wars will always undoubtedly continue between Northerners gently mocking Southerners about their inability to handle "cold" weather and Southerners gently mocking Northerners about their inability to handle "hot and humid" weather, these sorts of weather events pose significant risks on either end of the spectrum to those who live in locales where their systems and structures are not designed to handle such extremes.

Eaton Rapid Joe, friend of this blog, actually did something about it.

He specifically made a post soliciting such information entitled "Bulletin Board: Tips for Surviving Cold Weather" and opened it up to the InterWeb, specifically asking for recommendations for those that regularly deal with such things for those that do not.  What ended up was a list of tricks and techniques to help manage cold weather, especially intruding cold on structures and plumbing not designed for such things.

I note this post as this is a prime example of The Social Internet at its best: People across the country (or world) giving suggestions and information to others, without rancor or mockery or sly suggestions (the mockery can come later, of course).  Undoubtedly someone will use something in that series of responses to somehow make them a little more secure in the upcoming bad weather.

Would that there was more Social Internet and less Social Media.

Stewardship, Conservation, Environmentalism, Creation Care

As I read through Almost Amish (see yesterday's review), one of the notes from the Authoress on their non-profit organization was that they worked to promote "Creation Care".

I had to stop for a moment and compose myself.  If there is a word combination that will set me off, that is it.

Once upon a time - within my lifetime - we discussed caring for the world as "stewardship of the Earth".  The concept, which had somewhat improved itself from the old understanding of "have dominion over the earth" in the bad sense of "use it all up without thinking of any of the consequences" was more or less commonly understood as a Biblical concept as the concept of stewardship was pretty wide understood in Christian circles.

In secular circles, the word was "conservationist" - again, a word I remember being used within my early lifetime as the only word used to discuss the concept.  The conservationist was one that worked to conserve the environment for future generations, much like the concept of stewardship.

In time that term also fell by the wayside and what we were left with was "environmentalist".  Working hard to avoid any pejoratives, environmentalism encompassed the concept of environment first and only.  There was no sense - at least in the early days that I recall - of any allowance of the human race as a either a participant of value or as a manager.  Humans had done awful things to the environment (in fairness, they had in some but not all cases) and so, sotto voce, they were unworthy managers of the world they lived in. 

Unfortunately as the past 30 or so years has demonstrated, an unmanaged environment is an uncontrolled one.  Population imbalances which result in die offs or disease, invasive species which destroy entire ecosystems, unmanaged forests that become fire holocausts waiting to happen - there has to be a balance of preserving the environment as well as managing it with people in the world.

After the effective fall of stewardship and the rise of environmentalism, Christian theologians (apparently) went back to the drawing board. One of the elements of environmentalism which can come to the fore is an effective worship of the environment.  To the Christian, the world and the environment are a creation of God, but not the Creator.  Thus - perhaps - the term "Creation Care" was born.

"Creation Care" seems to encompass many of the concepts of the old stewardship:  managing things for future generations, preserving existing wilderness, making things better than what they were.  So in theory, it is an acceptable term, correct?

I hate it.

The term "Creation Care" represents, at least to me, just another example of the Western Church infantilizing a Christian concept - in this case stewardship or conservation.   Whenever I hear the term, I almost immediately expect a show with brightly covered shapes, happy music, and some sort of childlike figures named "The Tubbie Wubbies" to come out and cavort about.  It is the sort of term that may be appropriate to introduce as a concept to young children, but not as a serious discussion among adults on such weighty matters.

It reflects a trend, at least in my own mind, the trend of making Christianity "more accessible" to the masses not by than lifting people's education and intelligence up to meet the loftiness of God and Scripture but by making it simple and "modern".  We rightly decry the denial of Scriptures to individuals in their own languages which was a policy at one time and which was modified to allow people to lift up God in their own tongue and understand Him through their own tongue.  The Church now makes the same error, by taking difficult and weighty concepts and somehow managing to reduce them to an almost cartoon-like status.

What term do I prefer?  Environmental stewardship is a good one to me, as stewardship implies that we manage something for someone else (God in this case), not our selves.  Conservationist I find is equally good or better - again, the idea that we are conserving that which we have (oddly enough, we are encouraged in the modern world to conserve many other things - energy, fuel, food.  Why this one thing is different is beyond me).

But what do we call someone that follows creation care?  A "Creation Careist?"  Besides just being a made up term, it would seem to be an issue either for discussions or to represent the panel - imagine, if you will, a debate on a matter where we have "Professor X, Environmentalist" and "Bob Y, Creation Careist".  Sometimes we Christians set ourselves up for failure.

Besides - it underlies yet another weakness in modern Christianity (and indeed, modern society):  this need that we have to label and package everything in such a way that we can then point to how we are doing it - the hideous cancer of "virtue signaling".  Should Christians be 100% about caring for the environment and managing it both because God created it and it is a fantastic example of showing our love for our fellow man by helping to preserve and provide such a thing?  Absolutely.

But please, let us refrain from the need to have catchy concepts designed to inspire programs, conferences, and merchandise, or design entirely new terms and things to cover old, practical concepts because it is "hip".  Christ never said "Go and design Thou a program"; he said "Go and do".