Maggie's Farm

Frontiers deserves a free ad on Maggie's Farm not only because they are a very fine travel company for sporting trips and otherwise, but because they donate generously to our Ducks Unlimited Chapter.

Our committee members use Frontiers often. Check out their site.

We do not like to make too much of this, because much of the trivia of life is absorbing, amusing, diverting, fascinating, obnoxious, therapeutic, strenuous, draining, difficult, challenging, growth-promoting, necessary, dutiful, etc. We like to do dumb things that don't matter, and to read silly books too.

But our penultimate rule about decisions in life is the Deathbed Rule: "How much will this matter to me when I lie there dying?" (I'd have to say that our ultimate rule/question is, or should be, "Am I aligned with God's will?")

Stolen from Mr. Free Market, without permission:

Is there really much distance between a Nanny State and Big Brother? I never thought there was.

Brit govt to monitor nursery rhyme use in families, via a "parenting workforce." That is, parenting police. Unbelievable. (h/t, Wizbang)

You don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Two small Fra Angelicos have been discovered. Cool story, at Never Yet melted.

Below is my photo of the convent of San Domenico on the road between Fiesole and Firenze where Fra Giovanni di Fiesole, aka Fra Angelico (born Guido di Pietro) worked and lived. You walk in there, and the church is dark, dusty, and empty. Not even an old lady to accept a donation for the church.

You turn the switch for the bare hanging lightbulb in each little side chapel, and you see magical stuff like this:

Literally.

The new head of American Episcopalians doubts Jesus' unique divine nature. (h/t, News for Christians).

Maybe she should find another job?

But could she find one? Divinity School does not prepare anyone for anything but help with worship. That is a fine thing indeed, but what if you want to worship anything?

What if everything and anything is sacred? That's not religion - that's something else.

WalMart always needs cheerful greeters.

I have no doubt that she is a bright gal, but I am not sure that she has heard the music.

Image: Yes, that is the golden calf which is, no doubt, a path to God for modern Episcopalians. And all the people said "Moooo." Hey - we do dig cows, but we do not worship them, golden, or otherwise. Hmmm... if those ancients had discovered ice cream from those cattle, they might have had a worthy object of devotion. Just kidding.

Not entirely thought through in Denmark? And what do the Moslems think?

Quick peek speedbandits.wmv. Yes, it is mildly but cheerfully T-rated.

Tillich, quoted by Jimmy J, quoted by Shrinkwrapped:

Do we know what it means to be struck by grace? It does not mean that we suddenly believe that God exists, or that Jesus is the Savior, or that the Bible contains the truth. To believe that something is, is almost contrary to the meaning of grace.

Furthermore, grace does not mean simply that we are making progress in our moral self-control, in our fight against special faults, and in our relationships to men and to society. Moral progress may be a fruit of grace; but it is not grace itself, and it can even prevent us from receiving grace.

Too often there is a graceless acceptance of Christian doctrines and a graceless battle against the structures of evil in our personalities. Such a graceless relation to God may lead us either to arrogance or to despair.

It would be far better to refuse God and the Christ and the Bible than to accept them without grace. If we accept without grace, we do so in the state of separation, and can only succeed in deepening the separation.

We cannot transform our lives, unless we allow them to be transformed by that stroke of grace. It happens; or it does not happen. And certainly it does not happen if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as it shall not happen as long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it.

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness.

It strikes when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged.

It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility and our lack of direction and composure has become intolerable to us.

It strikes us when, year after year the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.

Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You are accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.

If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of the experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition-nothing but acceptance."

Image is William Blake's

From our cousin Mr. Free Market: photos like this one. What a joy. Too bad the Brits don't love us Americans as much as we love them. That war was a long time ago, and remember - it was about government power over the people, and taxation. Who had it right? At least we still speak of freedom.

Nice bag, young fella.

Prayer (1633. Herbert's bio here.)

Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,   
   Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
   The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;



Engine against th’ Almightie, sinners towre,
   Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
   The six-daies world transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear;



Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and  blisse,
   Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
   Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The Milkie way, the bird of Paradise,



     Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the souls bloud,
     The land of spices; something understood.

Several others have noted this prime example of BDS. Quite remarkable the way he is able to explain away the fact that Bush did not institute martial law after the last election.

From Ted Rall (I could have written this as satire):

A year of crisis commences.

As ugly secrets surface, Bushists will turn desperate. Democracy has failed their grand schemes; token resignations like Rumsfeld's come too little, too late. Only tyranny can save their skins. Will the beleaguered neocons led by Cheney and Bush, cornered like rats, unleash their brand-new police state on their political opponents? Or will they tough it out and suck up the fines and prison sentences to come? The next year or two could go either way.

The nightmare is not over.

The nightmare in this guy's brain isn't over, and will not be until he renews his Haldol prescription. Paranoia seems to bring meaning to his life, don't ya think? He just won't let it go. And do you think that, just maybe, he hopes something unimaginable would happen?

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

via Right Wing Howler:

That's Prada, in Florence. It's a guy's job to wait outside.

From a piece on paleoclimatology in the New York Times (h/t, Owner's Manual):

Skeptics say CO2 crusaders simply find the Phanerozoic data embarrassing and irreconcilable with public alarms. “People come to me and say, ‘Stop talking like this, you’re hurting the cause,’ ” said Dr. Giegengack of Penn.

Read the whole piece. Classic case of abusing science for a political agenda. The scientific debate hasn't ended: it has just begun.

Image: a spectroheliogram image of good old Mr. Sun

Jerusalem. 11/1/06

From the corner of where I am living, is a kiosk called Zigmund.  An outside stand with stools on two sides, flanked by Gaza Road and Metudelah. On its back wall are photos of... Zigmund. Three. The one
with the cigar resting comfortably on his fingers, another, strolling,and a third a bit Andy-Wharholish with various LSD hues.  In the nighttime, Zigmund is duplicated on the southern glass windows, so he forms an "L", bracketing the gourmands.  No way to avoid eyeing him if you are eating there, unless you keep your brow in your soup.  In the back, below the cigar, is a single hot-plate with an ever-simmering open pot of soup, ladle within.  Beneath Zigmunds reflection on the South is a semi-ancient cash register: you pay the analyst before you leave.  In the center is a column surrounded an eye level and above by "charifim," literally, "spicy hot stuff," but in fact the word for hard liquor.  Beneath the western counter is where crepes are made and various glops of your choosing are ladled on.  Also, sandwiches here. (The Hebrew word for sandwich, karich, sounds much like the word for book cover, kricha. Food and learning seem imbricated in the Jewish tongue.)

It is now chilly in Jerusalem.  Rain and greys much of the morning; sudden sun after noon, then the chill returns to the hills. I have regained my yellow Land's End jacket. Even with this, I sip my espresso quickly, express so to speak, before getting my laundry around the corner from Zigmund's.  The yound ladies next to me ladle their soup with a thick crust of bread and smoke.  There is a kerosene outdoor torch above us, which warms if you stand just beneath it at the corner.  Traffic is the background noise, as Gaza is a major thorougfare, or major for and ancient city: it still noodles around, leaves little room for shoulders.

My espresso is a break from writing. Perhaps Ziggy will refresh my thinking.

I would tip my hat to Zigmund if I were wearing one.  Since boyhood,
Ihave abjured hats. Instead, I nod and am off.

More later.

We are not going to even try to keep up: it's not our mission. Ice a few or more brews, ring up Domino's, and go over to Pajamas.

All we know is that if you won, it's certainly because you ran a sleazy, dishonest campaign. (Same thing holds if you lost.) 

Image: Too funny. Harold Ford appeared today with a camo baseball cap, just to let you know his polls are not looking good. h/t, Michelle. I'm sure he's not a bad guy, but he's never had a job and couldn't pass the bar exam. Is it true that his family builds cars?

Re-posted from Nov 1, 2005. Was that trip a year ago?

Our bird hunting trip to the Adirondacks this past weekend was a delight, thanks to excellent, lively companionship, but no thanks to an unseasonably early dump of 16" of snow on Tues/Weds. Conditions up north were not ideal for grouse, or for walking in the deep woods and gnarly alder patches. Nevertheless, the mix of good guys, birds, dogs, guns, and tough-walking, leg-challenging woods, followed by excellent tobacco and moderate amounts of good alcohol, is always one hell of a fine combination for the average American male. And, as I always say, "Hunting isn't shopping." Especially the way I have been shooting this year.

On Saturday we headed east, close to Lake Champlaine, where there was no snow, and we had the good fortune to run into a couple of migrating flights of woodock (one flush every five minutes), which redeemed our trip, as did our gala game dinner Saturday night at our gracious hosts at The Hungry Trout, featuring trout, moose, woodcock, grouse, Canada Goose, venison and duck, accompanied by witty conversation and good stories, both the lies and the true.

Thanks to a pal's Citation, (next time you are in one, ask the pilot to show you how fast he can climb that machine, and then lean back) the trip was rapid and luxurious, with all necessary adult beverages. NetJets is one way to do it, but there may be better deals if you shop around, or so I am told - but I do not play in that league.

This photo from Friday, up towards the Canadian border, close to Dannemora, NY.

Photo from Mr. Free Market