Church Talk and Holy Smoke

I have RealLivePreacher linked on the right side of here. He gets right to the heart of the matter with those of us that lean a little too far toward Rome. It amazes me that there are still folks out there that get skittish over words that for me elicit a lot of holiness. Maybe that isn't the right word, holy smoke, maybe. But when they have been used at you, around you, and by you they become old friends. Old friends that have lots of meaning even if they are sometimes a little hazy.

His blog entry for December 28th is written by Foy Davis. Or is it just metaphorical and this Foy guy is really RealLivePreacher. Whatever, the epiphany of Foy is meaningful for me. But maybe it is bacause I am in deep doo at church myself.


Surely the words lectionary, liturgy, Epiphany, Lent, or Ash Wednesday are not all holy smoke. I love those words. Even words like eschatological are fun to say, but I don't give the doctrine much credence. Maybe that is simply my own avoidance behavior.

I do like ephiphany a lot. If I get one occasionally I like it all the better. So far it simply means that I can procrastinate taking down the Christmas Tree until the 6th of January.

A woman might do well to forget those classes in assertiveness training. She just might use it someday. The real assertiveness class that I took 25 years ago wasn't worth the gas it took to get there. We women in the ELCA have a magazine called Lutheran Women Today and our little Miriam Circle uses it as a study guide. The last lesson was being bold with the authority. I have found out that if you are going to shoot off your mouth to the authority, you better be able to take the heat.

Christmas Day

He Who Must Be Obeyed and I were surrounded by seven of our family members yesterday. We shared meals, exchanged gifts and enjoyed one another and the presence of Zoey Jane, nearly three month old. Then as our family festivities wound down to a close we raced to St. Timothy's for the candle light celebration of another small babe, come to the world so long ago, but so foremost in many minds this day.

Being a restless sleeper and using more AA batteries than is imaginable, I woke up to my headset heralding Christmas morning with Grace Matters and Martin Marty out of Chicago. Following that was the welcome message from a Lincoln, NE mainline church and that pastor advising us to let God be small and grow in our own hearts. Nice point, I thought.

Things being a bit out of kilter during the days of December, I made moan about the fact that we hadn't heard any Christmas concerts performed by Omaha's fine choral groups. Staying home and paying some attention to our PBS television and radio offerings, I have heard and seen some breath-takingly beautiful performances of sacred Christmas music. The first was the St. Olaf Choir singing in Trondhiem, Norway, in the Nidaros Cathedral. After being there with my school friend from 1948 or '49, it was enough to make me gasp for the beauty of it.

Today the Concordia College of Moorhead, MN Christmas Concert kissed the air in our little home. What a heritage we have in our Lutheran College Music departments, and what talented students are sent to attend them by sacrificing parents of the midwest and around the world.

It is indeed, a Merry Christmas!

Santa Lives in Finland

Believe it or not, Santa does live in Finland. But then we knew it all along, didn't we? I don't know how long this little news item from Good Morning America on ABC will be available. But if you click the link you will see the same sight that my mother and I saw as we visited the Sami, we called Lapps.

Yes, of course my mother really visited them as they were as fluent in Finnish as she was. And as I walked with her on the dusty streets in Innari, past a tame and wandering reindeer, she assured me, then a tender 42 years old, that they would probably not hurt us, in spite of their rather forbidding looking horns. The Sami in Norway and in Finland dressed that way when we were there. Did they do that for the occasional tourist? It didn't seem like it to we Midwest wanderers all alone in our travels that month in the land of the Midnight Sun.

So today is Winter Solstice. The old earth will take one more whirl and we will see longer days and shorter nights and we ourselves will grow just a little older and wiser.

On a Bus Bench

As I was going to a store too close to noon and the traffic was backed up behind each light a half a block or more, there it was on a bus bench beside me: Every Choice You Make Shapes Who You Are. Well, isn't that just the plain truth of it all.

I had chosen not to go out until I had answered a handful of Christmas Cards that arrived in the mail last Saturday. If I had hit the streets sooner, I wouldn't have gotten to sit in traffic, thereby seeing the bus bench advice. It is a nice little maxim.

We hear it on televison more often than before, "Conventional Wisdom." One of the last Bible studies our dear, sweet pastor gone now, took us throug was the Wisdom of the Bible. We started out with sayings of conventional wisdom. It is the unexpected, unconventional wisdom that takes our breath away every time.

Every Choice You Make Shapes Who You Are. Think about that when you go to bed with a handful of butterscotch drops!

I am practing making Finnish Ice Lanterns and got my first one upside down. I will try again and hopefully be able to show it to you as well.

Ice Lanterns

One week and Christmas will be only a sparkling memory.  The days leading up to it are slip sliding away.  Advent has always been my favorite observance of the church year; this year that slipped out of my grasp.  Unfortunately for me as some times it takes me four weeks to get my mind around the fact that it isn’t all about bumping into strangers in malls or standing in line to buy a fruitcake.

The music of the season has only been on the sound system for me.  Oh, I have heard the special music at church and we sing caroling hymns through out these weeks.  Thank goodness for a church service.

I love winter in the Midwest.  I am trying to make ice lanterns tonight.  If it works I will show you.  It is ice covered candles. No, it is ice covering a candle.

Skrik, Munch's Birthday

The Scream (Skrik, 1893) is a seminal expressionist painting by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. ...it is said by some to symbolize modern man taken by an attack of existential angst." From GuruNet. If you don't have it you should, GuruNet, that is.

My friends, K.,J., and I saw one of the copies in the National Gallery in Oslo. The most famous was formerly in the Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway. The original is currently missing from the Munch Museum, having been stolen by art theives in August 2004. (GuruNet, again.)

I have goofed up some setting again and can't seem to add pictures. Drat.

I suppose the Scream is surely painted out of existential angst. Is this why we can relate to Charlie Brown? It seems a little odd that it surfaces from cyberspace today on my computer. Thanks GuruNet.

Are You Busy?

One would think with years of practice, this hectic pre-Christmas freneticism, could be avoided. Two weeks ago I thought so. Even last week I had hope. This morning I can see it all slip away again. Instead of Merry Christmas, maybe we should be wishing one another "Calm Christmas." I long for that Bethlehem, "how still we see thee lie." A person could parse that phrase and come up with a different intrepretation around the word "lie."

I am not taking Christ out of my Christ-mas. Indeed, who do people think they are to even suggest it. But it would be nice to take the frazzle out of it.

Working on the Tuovinen manuscript and old photos is still in progress. But I can see the end of it. The most elusive character in it is my grandpa. He is still elusive. Only little hints define him, high hopes, energetic, political, highly literate in his native Finnish tounge but anxious to become so in his adopted land as well. He loved to argue, to sing, to be in control. Poor guy married into a family of matriarchs. I can recall his smell as clearly today as I could as a child leaning up against him, watching him as he packed tobbaco into his pipe and lit it with a kitchen match for me to blow out. His eyes were as light a blue as the sky above his homestead. He spurned the Czar of Russua to die too young of TB, miner's consumption, some called it. But we all know what it was and we were all tested for it upon his diagnosis. Only he and a small grandson suffered with it.

South Dakota Ice

Amazing is the only way to put it; the trip through the aftermath of the ice storm through South Dakota was breath taking. The beauty of that morning after, with everything in sight covered by sparkling ice, together with the trecherous Interstate was both captivating and terrifying. The Corn Palace was an icy wonder. The web cam shows it the same today.

Four days later coming home it was still the same, with the exception of the news from the Mitchell AM radio station, that the first estimate of 5,000 power poles snapped off under the weight of the ice covered transmittion lines was low. National Guard Helicopters were out counting the undiscovered carnage for repair by four states sending in power people with equipment and poles to warm up the almost 150 small towns still without power, as well as the uncountable farm connections.

Add to that the reality of a third of the entire state of South Dakota's schools closed with no power to heat them above the temperatures hovering slightly above zero. The road surface was not as slippery going home and the jack-knifed semi trucks had been pulled out of the ditches as well as the cars of dare-devil ice drivers.

So what were we doing driving that 500 miles in those conditions? He Who Must Be Obeyed was adament that R must be attended to. It was nearing the first of the month and he had assured the 'authorities' he would do that every month. No matter that it is 500 miles, no matter that he is 72, no matter that it is winter in South Dakota. It is a hell or high water situation that could be reworded.

Maybe it was providence that I-90 was opened again at 11 A.M. at Sioux Falls through Kadoka. We crawled past the now open closing gates around noon. It is not so hard to average 40 miles an hour with semis in the ditch with their lights still on, their drivers inside waiting for help. Makes a person glad one didn't hit us as they slid sideways down the Interstate; lethal weapons, every one that passed us.

The silver lining was an overnight visit with a dear high school classmate and having lunch with a third the day we started back for Omaha. It was a dear, warm, sweet visit and worth every slip and slide to get there and home again.

The Balloon Man

This comes to brighten my life; it makes me smile just to read it again and recall reading it to a bright eyed class of grade school children who seemed to find it as whimsical as I did. Thanks ee cummings for writing it and to A for finding it for me. Ah, life is fine.

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame baloonman


whistles far and wee


and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring


when the world is puddle-wonderful


the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and


it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed


baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

An Owl to Remember

An uncle has filled me in on the details of a pet owl he had as a youth. I had some encounters with the owl. They are an intriguing bird.

As Told by R: “ I had climbed Liisa Butte looking for crocus, to bring Mom a bouquet. They are a beautiful blue and white flower that blooms only in early spring on the shady side of the mountain. Whenever I had a chance I would bring Mom a bouquet, as she loved flowers.

Anyway, on the way down the butte, here was this baby owl at the bottom of a steep cliff. Unable to reach the nest, my decision was to bring him home. I put him in the gunny sack I always carried, but the horse I was riding, spooked over the squawking owl in the gunny sack and threw us both off. I walked home with the little owl in the sack, so small his eyes were not even open yet. I fed him oatmeal mush at first. When he got hungry he would quack away, tilting his head back and opening his mouth wide; I would drop in the food and water for him. The first time he opened his eyes, I was the first thing he saw. Being used to my voice, he adopted me as his parent.

Mom and I decided to name him Ole. When he got older I would feed him cotton tails and jack rabbits. He would fly out of the creek and to the house when I called him.

All through the summer he was always with me. He rode with me in the hay wagon out to the fields and back. At night he slept in the attic with me. As he got older, I would leave the door open and he would go hunting during the night, but he always came in at daybreak and wake me up from the head of the bed.

Ole was extremely intelligent. He had a habit of flying to the peak of the barn overlooking the feed lot before daybreak. At daylight I would throw out grain on the feeding area for the chickens. When all the chickens were out feeding, Ole would swoop down and scare the life out of them. Feathers flew all over. They quit laying eggs. Dad said, “That’s it, the owl must go.” I was heart broken.

The next morning before daybreak, I climbed up on the barn. Sure enough, there was Ole waiting for his morning sport with the chickens. I tied a rope on his ankle and dropped the other end to the ground. Then going down, I anchored the rope about half way up the side of the barn.

Ole making his swoop hit the end of the line and took a nose-dive into the dirt. I went over and untied the rope, hoping he was alright. He got up, shook the dust off and really told me what he thought. That was the maddest bird you would ever see. He never bothered another chicken. I was able to keep him.

When I went away to high school, Ole also left the ranch to live in the wild. Mom said he would come back several times a week and sit by the kitchen window and quack for me. Mom would go out and try feed him but he would not eat for her. She would pat his stomach and say he was doing fine on his own.

My only hope is that he found a good mate to live out his life with. I truly loved that bird.” Excerpt from "Cave Hills Memories" which is nearly complete.

All Saints Sunday

Our pear tree is a breathtaking burgundy/gold/orange wonder in the back yard. I cannot get enough of photographing it. It is brilliant in the morning sun; and even more glorious in the amber afternoons as the light spectrum starts to take on the rosy red of the slanting rays of evening.

So my world, my sorry little disfunctional existence, is made splendid with beauty.

Once again I am submerged in writing homestead family history. Today I got an incredible letter with the story of a foster uncle trapping snakes with the South Dakota State Snake Trapper. They worked together with and without traps on my grandparents homestead. One spring he writes, that they took 2,000 rattlesnakes from Table Mountain. I didn't know they were taken to an Army camp in Texas, where they used the venom for shell shocked soldiers. Hmmm.

But, I too, walked the Buttes noted for rattlesnakes and crocus; and I too saw the wire cage traps full of wreathing, buzzing rattlesnakes. They gave me nightmares into my adulthood. Once in my early motherhood in the Black Hills I pushed my third baby right over a rattler in his stroller, on my way to the mail box. A person certainly has to watch ones step. Even city garter snakes give me the willies.

It was All Saints Sunday. We gave altar flowers in recognition of our immigrant forefathers who helped establish homestead churches in South Dakota.

Live in the Present

This has been two days of heights and depths. It is the old cliche' of "Good News Bad News" living out its blessings and wretchedness in a measly two days. Bruderhof Communities had a timely Tolstoy short story highlighted this morning. Tolstoy got it right again but the reality of the meaning of life eludes me when I am living the Bad News part.

Monday I had someone help me in the house; that was good, but becoming acquainted with WS was warm and enriching both spiritually and personally. Surely God sends people into one's life the same way as people entered the King's life in the Tolstoy tale.

WS is from South Korea, one of two Christians in her large family, and will get her Masters Degree in Counseling in May. I see her skilled work as a blessing and when she told me that I am a good housekeeper, I owned the statement and took it as a great compliment. We will become great friends, I am sure, and my house sparkles. That is my good news.

Ah, but the bad news. Why is it that some bad news is as bad as it can get? He Who Must Be Obeyed warned me not to pick up the phone when R. calls. The rings were persistantly long throughout the day. By six or seven last night, this mother, couldn't let it go unheeded any longer. I persuaded HWMBO to speak to her; I stayed on the line. He is always right. We both got cursed horribly and hatefully. Then when it was over, I became the scapegoat again. I know it is the Bi-Polar illness speaking and I realize I enabled the escalation by allowing it to happen. None-the-less, that rationalization does not lessen the damage.

To quote Tolstoy, "Remember then: there is only one time that is important - Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. I cannot think past the last night's sting to see how that can help me "now."

Tolstoy, in his last paragraph, gives us the meaning of life. All of it makes perfect sense. It is scraping up the bloody mess after it has been botched that is the problem.

Unguents and Potions

Saturday the Black Hills Wopila and Defenders are getting together for a picnic and to pray for the Black Hills. I doubt that we mainliners would even think to do such a thing. I honor the endeavor. I discovered a new, to me, web site called "Defenders of the Black Hills." In it was some information on the abandoned Cave Hills uranium mines. The photo is a new sight to me; they say the photo was taken of the sacred circle at Cave Hills on April 2, 2005.

Now we all know why I don't, as our educators might say, "stay on task." It is amazing how many curious and interesting little things save me from the tedium of cleaning closets or editing publications. I heard a word the other day that is appropriate to my life, it was 'closet chaos.' I suspect there is a little of that going on in my right brain most days and it always spills over into the closet. To tell the truth, I am learning to enjoy a little chaos, it keeps one a bit edgy, and on your toes, never knowing just what is coming at you next.

Nice thing yesterday: He Who Must Be Obeyed bought me a wonderful gift of Obsession unguents, potions, and perfumes. All I did was show him how nearly out of the one time Christmas gift I am. Well he fixed that immediately. It is hard to even picture him at a perfume counter. No birthday, no anniversary, no Christmas...Just because!

Happy Birthday E.E. Cummings

Today is the birthday of E.E. Cummings, a rowdy poet older than my dad, younger than my grandmother. With a name like Edward Estlin I would have signed my work e.e. cummings too, but I would never have had the courage to write like he did.

My favorite of all of his poems is "the balloon man." I can't find it at the moment.There are a number of his poems on line, and one that would go well with the four pictures of the Cave Hills church I have on here, somewhat by accident. The last two stanzas of his "i am a little church (no great cathedral)follow:

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
--i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter"

This fact is one that I regret and have agonized over more than once: not only do I have huge gaps in my literary background, but I will never live long enough to read the great books that have been written ages ago; so how then, will I ever keep up with what is being published today, and yesterday, and will be tomorrow?

Today I am amazed and intrigued by Carson McCullers' "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter."

Reading it takes me to my own bookshelf and into a little gem that a former pastor introduced a group of us to a few years ago. Any book that has people shouting at one another across the table is notable. This one was almost a heart stopper for me. Marcus Borg's "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time" stirred my gray matter to read what I could about 'the Sioux spirit person, Black Elk' and Niehart's daughter's retelling of the climb to Harney Peak to relive the vision. But today that is not the point, and it is not the point of Borg's book either.

It is Borg's hypothesis on separation and lonliness that resonate within me. "As a life of being separated from that to which one belongs, exile is often marked by grief, as in one of the psalms of exile: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion." He goes on to say "The same sadness is experessed in one of the church's gread Advent hymns: "O Come O Come Immanuel, and ransome captive Isreal, that :mourns in lonelly exile here."...exile is marked by deep sadness and an aching loneliness."

If the problem is exile, what is the solution? as Borg states, the solution is, of course, a journey of return. I can understand that, having returned to my childhood homeland recently and the power that has always had on me. Alas it is always so fleeting. But that is only scratching the surface of exile. True exile is not of place, but of heart.

Carson McCullers had nailed it at 23 in 1940. I am only on page 70 and with every encounter one finds lonely exiles. She had the key to a good novel so young. My regret is that it wasn't one of the books chosen for my college American Lit class in 1972. It would have been an excellent book to discuss with a group.

A Child is Born

A baby girl joins the family and is welcomed and celebrated.

Intertribal Pow Wow

After taking a large number of photos at this Fort Omaha event, I am handed a program that says taking pictures is not the thing to do. My rudeness is only elevated by my obnoxiousness. The drumming and singing would have been blood curdling in another time, another place. I found it inspiring. He Who Must Be Obeyed bought a couple of CD's so we don't have to wait for a road trip to the Black Hills to catch it on the KILI radio station.

Cave Hills Lutheran Church

The steps face west. This is certainly a sacred spot in my life. Two sets of grandparents were instrumental in building it; I was baptized and confirmed here. Have brothers, a parent, grandparents, and many relatives that are interred in the cemetery.

There was a time that the services were conducted in Finnish, men seated on one side, women and children on the other. For a time the services were first done in Finnish, and then in entirety, in English; it was a long sit for a child. But not unpleasant as the cakes and coffee were waiting in the basement.

I once read in the South Dakota Magazine that this is the most photographed church in South Dakota. I don't doubt that. This photo doesn't show the McKenzie Butte to the east, nor the other surrounding land marks, but it is a wonderful spot. And yes, one of our dark night sky treasures.

The Darkling Night

If I had spent thousands of dollars and gone to the ends of the Earth, I couldn't have had a more deep and meaningful few days than I did last week from Thursday to Saturday, September 8th through the 10th. I was really and truly home, or as close as one can get to home on this planet.

A very competent pilot, one of my four sons, picked me up at the Millard Airport in Omaha, and we flew to Buffalo, SD. He Who Must Be Obeyed was at the little landing strip in Buffalo with his red Wrangler. That evening we drove west the 24 miles to Camp Crook to the Corner Bar and Cafe for their rib steak dinner special. Going and coming we had a welcoming committee of deer and antelope along the prairie road. In the evening on our way there, they were beautiful creatures, not as much interested in welcoming us as they were eating their last meal before dark. Coming home they played their little game of getting across the road before we broadsided them.

And then it was the "Darkling Night;" as we drove right through Buffalo and north 10 miles, to the Cave Hills Lutheran churchyard and flashlighted our way to the steps. There we settled ourselves in that darkening nightsky to drink in the balmy night breeze, the brightening stars, Mars at its closest to Earth until 2099 or some such year, and watched the Milky Way first appear in the east behind the church and climb the sky as the hour or so passed. A couple shooting stars streaked across the sky to the south. Who could even think to wish for the wonder of it all.

We were 10 miles north of Latitude 45.61N and Longitude -103.52W and if you can figure that out, you will know that the darkness was as good as it gets in our light polluted land at night. Actually one of the very best.

New Orleans

The situation in the Gulf States is unbelievable. New Orleans will never be the same as it was in 1983 when three students, a parent, He Who Must Be Obeyed and I went there to accept an International First Place award in student television production, documentary.

Now it all seems like an unbelievabley perfect dream, we had fun, the students were excellent, we took the mule and buggy ride down Burbon Street and drank in the hedonism like country bumpkins.

Gone now, all gone.

Trap Count

It is nice to make people happy. Happy people are nice to be around. Of course that doesn't mean that I don't want to be around friends who are sad or discouraged. But it might make one guilty to be so happy, when so many are not.

I am happy. Today I recieved two photos by email and a packet full of them. Old times were good and today was better. If I can scan them in into my little maternal history tomorrow that will be the best day of all.

So far one opossom, one dinosaur, one racoon. No squirrels so far, and only a dozen pears left. Tomorrow that will probably be less, and then none.

Ah well, as long as I cannot seem to make photos upload here, I will stop and mind my history business again. Am I the only one that thinks scanning and page set up are tedious?

The Red Tent

He Who Must Be Obeyed is enduring listening to this former children's librarian read to him again. He is shocked and sometimes tells me "that is enought for today," as I read "The Red Tent" to him. It is a pleasant enough time for me as we are each stetched out in our similar recliners; which are more like big beds, it seems. They look out to the street if the front door is open, eliminating the appearance of living in a cave; and I am not nearly so shocked at the treatment of women in the time of Jacob. I am shocked at the treatment of women in the Third World of some women in the western world today

Life is pleasantly eventful, even with out a Grecian Festival. We have the three chicks to tend, little dinosaurs, I call them. I was hoping for a hen. They all apperar to be cockrels. Will we eat them or send them to the farm, with the rest of the hatch? That remains to be determined.

Because we have wild life in the middle of Omaha, we bring them in for the night and catching them is a thing to behold. It isn't a pretty sight to watch, but is good for hilarity, and they say that laughing is good for a person. We have learned that the darker it is the easier they are to put into the box.

Because of the threatening wildlife, He Who Must Be Obeyed went to the humane society to rent a live trap. On the first setting last night he caught an opposom and released it at the humane society cages. He can bring all he can trap in a week. I know we have a racoon as I can tell by the muddy tracks around the pool. And the squirrels have harvested almost all the pears, so we are hoping to relocate them also.

A funny thing just happened. We caught one of the dinosaurs in the trap that was baited with a peanut butter 'sandwich.'

Obnoxious Photographers

It was a nice evening, good food, rousing music, lots of color, energetic dancers.




He Who Must Be Obeyed is ever curious. I wonder what he saw in that tent. You know the old cliche' about the camel's nose.

O! Grecian Festival

If the O! were New Times Roman it would be the Omaha logo.

Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church hosted a city-wide festival complete with a band from Chicago, young dancers from their congregation, Greek foods and desserts, and beer. It was on the Missouri River at the Lewis and Clark Landing.

We have attended several of these over the years. He Who Must Be Obeyed got a kiss for his entrance fee. He was mighty disappointed that I didn't see it. He thinks every Greek girl is a goddess. I have news for him, those young dancers are a sight for sore eyes. Two of them lived up to the name of the troop, the Olympians.

We ate and I stalked the dancers and the audience with a camera. Photographers are all the same; they are as obnoxious at Grecian Festivals as they are at weddings. If you haven't hidden your introverted self behind a camera you haven't lived. I almost feel invisible.

Good News/Bad News

My bad news is that a beloved pastor is leaving St. Tim's. The good news is that he is about to become the senior pastor of another Lutheran church not too far away. The best news of all is finding out that the church he is going to has a Saturday service. It is something like having your cake and eating it too. We will remain faithful worshippers at St. Timothy's; but I can see going to Holy Cross on Saturday evenings.

Envisioning how the world works and how it will work in six months can be as unlike as fraternal twins.

I have made motel reservations in my home town for the upcoming Harding County Historical Tour of the Cave Hills where both my maternal and fraternal grandparents homesteaded and built the church that closed its doors last year. The emphasis will be on the Finnish Immigrant history of that area.

I need to get some leather Keds, rattlesnakes and cactus, you know. Maybe I should drag out the high top lace boots. A son will pilot us there, weather permitting.

New Zealand

Actually I should have used the title, "Steve Goble," as that is the name of his blog. I added him to my links to the right for three reasons. I found him on the list of top blogs, he writes in a breezy, interesting style, and I loved my trip to New Zealand. The link to "Top Blogs" are some blogs registered under Religion. The Salty Vicar is alway up near the top. I always suspect, shamefacedly, that the only reason I am even on it is because I look at my own blog. I wonder if I am the only one who does that?

Today Photos Appear

It amazes me when things work, because most of the time they don't. Actually, it amazes me most of all when He Who Must Be Obeyed works. Last night he mentioned that he should set the covered pail of chick starter in the house. He didn't. This morning the darned racoon, that nightly has covered the floor of my outside shower with muddy footprints, has scattered chick starter from hell to breakfast. I Clorox the shower floor till I am nearly out of it.

Chicks: Pets or Produce?

A daughter and her husband brought over three fluffy little two day old chicks in a cardboard box last night. They are little eating machines and after the eating and drinking they fall asleep on their feet. I wrap them into a hand towel and put a lid on them until the next eating and drinking session. The difference between houseplants and three baby chicks is that the houseplants can go for a week at a time without a glance. Of course they are not nearly so cute...or so noisy. It would be nice to have a couple of egg layers but I could have aggressive roosters on my hands here. I had to promise not to have roosters for dinner and instead get them to a farm; where we all know what happens to them. But it won't be me chopping heads off and scalding them in boiling water.

The whole chick bit is that this daughter is the Activities Director for a local nursing home and the Douglas County Extension Service provides eggs and incubators for schools, 4H clubs, and nursing homes, obviously, and will collect the whole business when the hatching is over unless they provide places for the chickens.

The worst case scenero is that they hop into the pool and drown; the best, that they are all pullets and the eggs will be home grown, free range and start in December. Free range means eating bugs in backyard flower pots. Grandmothers, granddaughters, and chicks have happened in this family for about 68 years, but it was the grandmothers that were doing the giving not the receiving. Change is good, but then this is day one. An egg layer can do double duty as a pet and as a provider.

Photos: the Real Deal!

Isn't it amazing when a person's brains kick in! I have created a link to my Flickr photos also.

This past week I wrote an article for St. Tim's monthly newsletter. As a part of the Passionate Spirituality team, I wrote a reflection on prayer. It came to me fairly easily, but then it is a part of my life and has been for as long as I could speak in my childish Finnglish.

Although one would never know it by the picture, the main object of this photo is Chimney Rock.

Portable Toilet Falls, Kills Biker

When I die I hope the headline is not the one above. Not that I am a biker, nor am I usually spending much time around portable toilets. One never knows. You just never know. The moral of the story is don't follow trucks transporting portable toilets too closely. If I linked to the Rapid City Journal that carried the story, it would not be in their archieves long enought for the bother of the link. But it happened. Today the lead story is "I Hate Sturgis." I suppose a lot of folks do during the motorcycle rally. I have freinds and in-laws that leave the Black Hills during it; a half million bikers are noisy and incessant, like wasps at a picnic.

Hell Canyon

To make a trip to Rapid City and back to Omaha in three days is to spend a lot of time in the car. On our way out of the Black Hills we spent a night in Hot Springs and that evening drove south, past Cascade, to the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. We were hoping that we might catch an evening event. The place was quiet; the female wrangler who stepped out of the office and strided to a barn looked neither to the left or right and certainly didn't take notice of our car in the parking area.

That sagebrush dotted land is always more beautiful at sunset than at any other time of day; but looking over to the west was the most beautiful canyon that I have ever seen. That might not say a lot; I haven't seen the grand one. Hell Canyon is breath-taking with setting sun shining on the rim-rock shooting up the north wall. The link to it describes the hiking trail.

On June 24, 1988, I attended a class through what is now the Black Hills State University at Spearfish. The course was designed primarily for South Dakota teachers and called "Ghost Towns of the Southern Hills" taught by Dr. Art Prosper. It was probably one of my most valued experiences as a student. I was teaching and getting some of those mandatory summer credits.

My project was a photo journal; the entry for Cascade was "This town grew, not from gold exploration, but as a health resort. Capitalists built a sanitarium, dancing pavillion, a four story, hundred room hotel, and other buildings on the thirty-six blocks they laid out. Because they held extremely high land prices the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad took another route. The town was founded in 1888 and by 1900 it only had 25 people and a post office. The stone from the hotel was preserved and is presently a home. Cascade was a dream that failed to materialize." The W. Allen Bank, made of sandstone, is now a home.

I learned a lot about the history of the Black Hills and saw the remnants of the first white rush for gold throughout the beautiful Paha Sapa. Much of what remained in 1988 in those places, has now metamorphosed into topsoil.

Good-bye Photos, Good-bye Flickr

I feel like such an idiot. Try as I may I can't get a picture to appear.

Rusty Nails

I haven't recovered GuruNet yet so I can't create one single link. Reading the last chapter of Louise Erdrich's "Last Report of the Miracles at Little No Horse," it appears that the stigmata of Sister Leopolda was made from her use of her rosary of barbed wire. Her miraculous fasting was from the resulting lockjaw. What are we to make of that? Maybe we should let a miracle go on its face value.

I hadn't thought of rusty nails for a long time. He Who Must Be Obeyed and I had a reflective visit over them on our way home from Wyoming, after finishing the book, (thank the Lord.) He and I have both been victims of stepping on rusty nails in our childhood. Old barn boards have a way of turning their bad side to the under side of little children's feet. Once or twice so victimized and a kid learns to look where they are walking, not only for rattle snakes but for this second childhood affliction of the '30's and '40's, rusty nails. The conclusion was this: because of OSHA kids probably don't step on rusty nails in this day and age.

It is good to be home...very good. After downloading the two cameras photographs of our Wyoming wedding adventure our attention has turned back to the mundane tasks of house, car, and pool maintenance. Scrubbing down the pool was more pleasant than thinking about clearing out the clutter for the carpet cleaners that will be coming in on Tuesday. I am going to put more photos on my link to Flickr of the new bride and groom today.

Powder River, Wyoming

It was a wedding to remember. Spectacular, was the word He Who Must Be Obeyed used to describe it. It was pageantry on horseback, beautiful women riding in on a surrey, and the guests arranged on the rocks to one side of the altar.

The setting, the scene, the event was almost more than a photographer could take on, even with two cameras. I have added the first of the photos on the right and had a little surprise doing so; they came in exact reverse order of they way they were shot. First should be last and last first. We have heard that before haven't we?

And it was fun, and amazing, and more than I ever expected. I will add photos as I have time.

We came home on Monday and I began downloading pictures off the camera. As I was looking at them that dreaded blue screen came up and wouldn't go away until a new hard drive was ordered and delivered and installed along with our most necessary software by He Who Must Be Obeyed. Computer withdrawal happened.

I am happy to be back! Both home and on the keyboard. I love my cameras although I am still in a honeymoon phase with the new one. Reading the manual in the car created a learning curve that about got the best of me. Good to have you back

Wyoming Wedding

Visions of a Zane Gray novel come to mind. We are anticipating being guests at a family wedding this weekend. The invitation says it will be an 1870's theme with Victorian/Cowboy dress. We are happy to be a part of this event at a Wyoming ranch. It has the trappings of another family reunion for He Who Must Be Obeyed.

I am planning to read the manual for a new digital camera during the drive. You can believe I am taking the good old reliable HP camera along in case I find I have more than I can figure out with the new one.

It is a long time since I have ironed a western shirt with snap buttons. It serves to increase the anticipation.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Black Hills 4th of July

Our lives have been spiced up with the visit of our oldest son, his wife, and three of their five children. They arrived on the 22nd of June and the days and nights since then all run into each other with the blur of not paying much attention to the calendar. We bid one another goodbye at Jim and Jenny's Greek restaurant last night.

We left our five, sometimes six, houseguests during the family reunion in Spearfish, SD on the 4th of July. One of my cowboy brothers-in-law, with the help of his son, grandsons, and more brothers-in-law, cooked a hundred steaks on a pitchfork in boiling beef fat, the pitchfork fondue. The kettle he used over a propane fire could have boiled a missionary, it was so large.

The missionary pot came to my mind, as it was similar to the one in the historical museum in Auckland, New Zealand that was used for that very thing by the Maori natives once upon a time. I have a feeling that Angus beef tops a missionary; perhaps you have heard the saying about being as tough as a Lutheran.

The backyard pool is once more calm and serene. We are picking our first tomatoes, and are cheered by pots of blooming flowers. My heart quickens as I see my European Birch take off in the pot in the back yard.

I read a column in the paper the other day about Feng Shui yards. One thing about planting trees in tubs, you can move them where ever you want them when the mood strikes. I love moving trees around keeping the yin and yang correct so as to obtain a good chi.

Checking In Before Checking Out

I love the 4th of July. It makes me feel my freedom and independence. But the personal question is freedom from what and independence for what? Coming and going are bound by money and health. One is not free with material goods. All of that needs tending, dusting and lots of admiring. I am a tied to my dirt; which by the way is a blooming wonder again with tomatoes in pots about to ripen.

I guess I need the independence to break loose from the stuff I so cherish, and simplify my life a little at a time, so when I check out completely, the remaining clutter won't complicate our grown son's lives.

Nothing we do, have, or say will ever complicate our daughter's life. There isn't much good to be said about bi-polar illness; but one thing about her she is more free and independent than any of the rest of us.

Have as free and independent a 4th of July as you can muster; tack up the 10 commandments somewhere. Print up 95 copies of them and nail them to some door.

Blogs of Consequence, Where Did They Go?

A few days ago I changed some settings on my computer and fouled up all kinds of places. One was the appearance of this template. I fearlessly went into the templates and reinstalled the one I use called Snapshot.

Doing so, I lost my Blogs of Consequence. I haven't put one up for so long, I am not certain I recall how to do it. I have read the Salty Vicar so long I feel like I know him. I found the Wichita Eagle blog this morning and will add it to the side-bar as well.

Prof. John Maeda of MIT Media Lab's blog, Simplicity, is a wonderful read, if you can read it. It makes me stretch, a lot. He says he will terminate when he gets to the sixteenth law of simplicity. He is on the tenth. I hope it gets him a long time to get any farther. I don't want him to stop before I can figure out what he is writing about.

I can't bear the thought of losing the South Dakota Magazine blog. I am never going to try to improve anything again, ever. In it is an article on Pa Ingalls Farm in De Smet. I know a Pa Ingalls who is a descendent to Laura and will be going to his grandson's 1870's theme wedding in Wyoming in a couple of weeks. Going in Victorian attire would be fun, hot, but fun.

Guitars, Violins, Cellos

I am not quite certain why I got on such a rant on hunger and ethanol. You know the saying that the butterfly across the world can change the weather somewhere else. I don't believe that, even though there is something about the chaos theory that I find intriguing.

I have Google Alerts on several names and several subjects, one being South Dakota oil exploration. Through it I noticed that seven new wells are being drilled in Harding County by a company that hasn't drilled there before.

Another Alert came in on my eldest sister-in-law, who entered four events in the Senior Games in PA and took a gold, two silvers and a bronze. M runs like a gazelle in the over 75 age group. I have seen and photographed her mid-air in a running broad jump, in which she flew over 12 feet. Watching that through a camera lens takes a person's breath away.

Tomorrow our son and family from the Northwest will arrive for their summer visit. They drive away from the misty, balmy, beautiful area into Nebraska at its hot and humid best. We have one aspect in common with that area, we are both green. Everything grows like crazy here. We have planted a assorted bulbs a couple of years in a row and have been amazed by lilies that are blooming under the pear tree.

The father of my brood was properly honored yesterday. His children certainly hold him dear in spite of his continual guidance that sounds more like admonition to me. After a call from his youngest son, he turned to me after he hung up and said, "He probably didn't expect that." It is a wonder any of them call. It was a ghastly litany. Mothers would never get by with it.

He Who Must Be Obeyed is sending his number two son a twelve string guitar this morning. It is a beautiful black Gibson. Incidentally, after the work was done on the little yellow stickered violin, the nice man at Nielson's Violin Shop estimated it was worth several hundreds of dollars. Our number three son will get it next time he comes home. Number four son wants to buy his cello back from me along with my two and a half years worth of lesson books and a very nice metronome.

I would have given anything to have been able to take music lessons as a kid. I flatter myself, thinking I would have been a fair musician. Even at 65, taking my first lessons on the cello and my first time reading music, I was fair. My hands were so arthritic, I had to ice them down to be able to hold the bow. But I was determined and loved the learning. When my back got so bad I couldn't sit to the instrument, I had to give it up and have surgery.

It occurred to me that this visiting son, number one, will be 50 this fall. I always have 20 years on him. Sometimes it feels like he and I grew up together; he is the wiser of the two of us, however. He is an incredible husband and father, his wife tells me. To have a daughter-in-law tell you that is as good as it gets.

Crude and Kerosene

When minding my own business, just making the bed, clearing out the clutter, watering tomatoes, and figuring out what to have for dinner, would make life so easy; I wonder why I get side tracked like I do?

Ethanol seems to be one of the solutions for the gasoline problem in America. At the pump it appears that the more of it in one's gasoline the less expensive the cost. Not too long ago that was not the case. "Senator John Thune (South Dakota) says passing the energy bill will dramatically increase ethanol demand and guarantee a good market for South Dakota farmers."

It isn't just South Dakota, ethanol plants are being promoted and built throughout the American corn belt. Good for agribusiness. Good for the corporate and small farmers, good for gas guzzling suv owners. But the upshot is what about the hungry world?

"In developing countries, 6 million children die each year, mostly from hunger-related causes.

In the United States, 13 million children live in households where people have to skip meals or eat less to make ends meet. That means one in ten households in the U.S. are living with hunger or are at risk of hunger."

They certainly cannot stir up a cup of crude and wash it down with kerosene.

Weak Women/Bold Women

Just spending a few hours in Omaha's Old Market seemed like a retreat. Five of us Miriams looked around Soul Desires, a charming bookstore, got our coffees and circled around a table for our Lutheran Women Today study on Bold Women. Deborah, the judge and prophet; the story has a bold, gory end to it with another woman driving a stake through a guy's forehead. Sometimes it takes more than a tap on the head to get men's attention. Why didn't they teach us those things in Sunday School? We decided the male dominated church didn't want to give girls any stupid ideas about becoming judges.

I could write about a bold woman judge in Omaha, who has come into our lives a couple of times through her work with families and children. She awarded us guardianship of a granddaughter and later she made that granddaughter our own daughter. It all happened so late in our parenting, that the Gma and Gpa stick on our tongues and the words are as awkward as having our sons become brothers to this beloved child, now woman, who is biologically their niece. Mental illness does really crazy things to families. In the same manner it made her mother her sister.

Bold Women: isn't that just what a Meyer's/Briggs INFP needs help with! I am not even bold enough to say what needs to be said. Yes, we do need Bibles in our pews. I need to pray for boldness as much as I do for self discipline in diet and exercise.

I cannot abide the fact that even at my advanced age, and in this world amuck, I would have the audacity to pray for resistance to gluttony. It is a sin, if I recall, and maybe it isn't any more annoying to God than anything else that I pray for, like green lights and parking places.

We humans are a sorry, sorry lot. I say we, because I know quite a few people, some sorrier than others..but all of us more or less sorry. I suspect some even pray for money, which always seemed the most impolite sort of prayer of all, seeing how money is the root of all evil. Why would God put something like that on his children?

I did do one bold thing a while ago. I wrote a letter to the editor of my home town paper in response to the Rapid City Journal article that recognized of one of the ranch women in my home county. She stayed on the ranch with her small daughters after her husband died. Bold things are always a leap of faith, sticking one's neck out, opening the self up for criticism and/or failure. The really bold women of this midwestern high plain go on ranching when husbands die or divorce them. Their boldness is incomparable, an example to the rest of us, and I applaud them for it.

Coming Up Short

On the Sundays that I don't go to church I feel the loss. No connections made, no blessed liturgy, no prayers in unison, no hymns, life becomes nothing but the laundry and the house akimbo, the left behind, and the empty feeling.

Making lists of things to do has always helped me. I did make one this morning and did put stamps and addresses on five envelopes filled with notes to some folks I need to make a connection to. Some are get well wishes, some need thanking, a birthday wish, a letter full of regret to a daughter, mentally ill and angry. I can't say enough of the right thing to any of them. Hence, coming up short.

I am tring to read what I need to regarding "Bold Women," our Lutheran Women Today study for in the morning. We are going to the Old Market and meeting at a book store. I am looking forward to seeing these compassionate friends. I should be prepared for the discussion. I am not, yet. I don't feel very bold, either.

During our evening swim, He Who Must Be Obeyed said we should have visited another church this morning. He is right, we should have. Sluggardly of us not to do anything.

Life seems hard right now for this short person, coming up short, always too short. What happened to the old days of bouncing out of bed at 5:30 a.m. because it was such a sweet time of the day to do quiet peaceful things? I miss those days of accomplishing listfulls of things to do.

Mt. Michael Abby

It feels a little like walking on Holy Ground. I know that I am a bit too impressed; after all they are only men, albiet men called to a Benedictine way of life, in the beautiful setting near Elkhorn, NE. Brother Jerome prepared our lunch, served, cleared and washed up after the seven of us.

My retired library/media friends met at Mt. Michael Abby again for lunch yesterday. I got there a little earlier than the rest and had time to check over the books and cards sold at the Guest House. Bro. Jerome teaches art at the boarding school for boys there. His watercolored greeting cards are beautiful in their stunning simplicity.

Bro. Jerome told me he would drive into Omaha, as he does every day, to see to the needs of his mother. He is in charge of the oblates, I find on the web site. This is their life:

Called by God to serve through monastic life, we devote ourselves to:

Daily worship, study and prayer
Meaningful work
Ongoing conversion of life
Caring for one another in our monastic community
Promoting peace in the world
Extending God's Love to all through our varied gifts and ministries.

I look at that and my own life pales in comparison, and feels like chopped liver.

Sisu

I have had 'sisu' held up before me forever. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the first word my parents coaxed out of me. I read once where Americans teach their babies to say nouns, naming every little object in sight; the Japanese teach thier babies the words of politeness, excuse me, please, thank you; what is with Finns, teaching tender children 'sisu?'

Sitting on my older computer tower is the word created out of negative space in white on blue, the colors of the Finnish flag. The little three dimensional plaque was made by a pastor friend of my parents. Sometimes I can make out the word and other times when looking at it, it eludes me completely. Sisu is like that. When it is absent one cannot go through the wall, with it nothing is impossible.

Prof. John Maeda of MIT Media Lab, in his Simplicity blog, starts today with the Japanese word, "Gaman. This is a Japanese word to describe the concept of enduring pain. In Japan, it is considered a certain strength to be able to withstand uncomfortable situations." The comprable Finnish word must be Sisu.

There is undoubtedly something heroic in enduring pain and attempting to do the impossible. To tell the truth, sometimes just getting the daily tasks done, and then doing just a little bit extra in order to avoid feeling like a complete slug, feels like enough. But one can never quite do 'enough.' What is there about the human soul that wants to stive to be a little more compassionate, a little happier than you feel, to reach for above average.

After watching Luther on PBS last night, I know a little about how he felt before he discovered faith and grace. Now, how can faith and grace be enough when one doesn't have to even think about 'gaman' or 'sisu' to find it. Is life actually easier than we try to make it?

When I hear noise like rain on the plexiglass roof of the screened porch, off the kitchen, it would be hard to tell without looking if it is rain or sun heating it. Both make similar small distinct noises. Just now it is the first sun of the day and it is noon.

The pool looks inviting and it is back up to a good warmth. We will swim soon. I have taken hand weights out to use them. It was startling to discover my lack of buoyancy in swimming with both hands full of heavy metal. I fear I would be sadly lacking in any ability of life-guarding, even if I am the better swimmer of the two of us. He Who Must Be Obeyed has a shoulder problem and his legs appear useless in water. They are good to look at though and always have been.

We were on the road from 7:30 A.M. until 7:00 P.M yesterday. It is better than it sounds as we drove east from the Black Hills to Omaha and changed time zones. Even so, it is a long time. We timed eating on the road and skipped lunch, so we could stop at Elk Point, SD, at Edgar's and drank large chocolate malts on the last leg home.

The pool cover is off, the water is probably 90 degrees again, the gas bill was $120 and as far as I am concerned worth every cent. There is no way to rationalize it so I simply enjoy it several times a day.

Being in the Black Hills was a bitter-sweet experience. Being with two of the best friends in the world was heart warming. D who we overnighted with, drove K and I over back roads, flanked with emerald green grass and ponderosa pine and quaking aspen. There was one road that out one window one could see Bear Butte and out the other were those magnificant hills. It is truly sacred land.

Theory of the Leisure Class

One of our four sons once stated in a living room conversation that we had accomplished the near impossible. He said, that through education, we had risen three notches up the class structure in the United States. His knowledge came out of his sociology class at the university. His statement amazed me at the time and I think about it yet, occasionally.

We did increase our income. But I find income alone does not automatically put one in a higher class of society. The little things will out you in every gathering. With women it is a matter of manicure. Sit at a patio table with a group of women of elite stature; they do not wear blue jeans and they have perfectly manicured fingernails. White cropped pants and shirts to match was the attire of the Memorial Weekend Event. The topic of the day was Kelly Ripa and her charm and wit with Regis. A Diet Pepsi seemed childish and out of place next to the clean martini(s), as were my garden variety, close clipped, unpainted fingernails.

I will go to the grave with my INFP temperment, my social undoing. But I might go to it having read "The Theory of the Leisure Class," written by that Norwegian, Thorstein Veblen, who theorized that the 'higher-status' group monopolized war and hunting while farming and cooking were considered inferior work. I see Amazon.com has a copy for three bucks. Some women would never utter those words, 'three bucks.'

That is who I am; my own landscaper, and I make a mean potato salad. That gets a person no status with a group of warriors and hunters. To Veblen, the athiest, society never grew out of this stage; it simply adapted into different forms and experssions of conspicuous consumption.

David Brooks theorizes that "The information age elite exercises artful dominion of the means of production, the education system." It is a good thing that He Who Must Be Obeyed and I clawed our way through the university, graduating when we were 40, in 1975. All our education got us was the title, Mr. and Mrs. Got Rocks. You can take that any way you like. With the drop in the stock market we dropped half of the rocks four years ago.

The party was enjoyable. Our beloved hosts had invited lots of friends with 17 little children. I still am amazed at that act of bravery; it tells you something of the love of these friends.

In Flander's Field

"In Flander's 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 Flander's fields.
Captain John D. McCrae

My WWII hero, Frankie Clark died earlier this spring. He will not carry the colors for the veteran funerals in my home town any more. He is missed. The last time I visited him was at a cousin's funeral. He stood at attention with the flag while the rifle shots echoed in the Cave Hills. The day was as glorious as ever was. The Finnish church and cemetary hold the mortal remains of my dad, my baby brothers, my grandparents on both sides, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, friend's parents, early homesteaders, old Finnish bachelors. My childhood memories reverberated between the scoria buttes in that peaceful place with each fired shot. Frank was there, that one last time.

THE Violin

He Who Must Be Obeyed had 'the violin' in the car and was waiting form me to return from a breakfast with a group of retired highschool teachers. We went to Neilsen's violin place downtown. It is going to be fixed. With a smile, we were told it was a Pre-WWII Japenese violin and he would reglue, restring and replace the chin rest for a paltry $50. The bow was not worth rehairing.

I love going there, rows of violins for sale, new cellos, lots of charming photos of violinists who came to perform in the Orphium, glue vats, all the assorted impliments of an ancient skill. Who knows when we will get it back, that wasn't even discussed.

No wonder so many Asians are excellent violists. Japan made the instruments with the little yellow labels that attrack so many ignorant Americans. "Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis, Fasieabat Anno 1734" my foot! Didn't those folks worry about false advertising? The son who wishes he could have it, will have it. Without the bow unfortunately.

This morning I read a Nebraska Governor's Lecture in the Humanities in 1997 by Martin Marty. He gives a nice concise overview of Nebraska's pioneer writers, Cather, Morris, Sandoz, and Neihardt and Rolvaag. I feel the same connection to the prairie.

Raking Sand into Patterns

Good things happen. Wonderful folks people my life and I read and swim. My main man is doing a lot of cooking, for the two of us and also for company. He is grilling marinated meats and vegetables on a new George Forman grill. We have had it for two years and never have read the instruction book until now. I am impressed.

Yesterday a son and daughter-in-law drove to Omaha from Wichita in their Corvette. They are a handsome couple and the car suits them. His wife told a little story about how when they first got it, he spent some time in the garage figuring out how to get in and out of it so it wouldn't hurt his knees.

We visited about Meyers/Briggs personality evaluations. This particular son is probably similar to my father and myself. Work managers put people through these processes, as do counselors. I have always enjoyed the introspection. Some think of it as a waste of time. Some of us find out why we are so lonely and yet seek solitude. We yearn for simplicity and find complexity intriguing. It is such times that mowing the lawn is grounding and brings one back to meaning.

This was the first time we have seen them since Christmas. He brought us Finn Cream and licorice, as he has recently returned from a business trip to Latvia and Finland. It was good to compare travel notes with him. It was a nice little comparison of his recent travel and that of mine, with my mother, in 1980. We used FinnRail, he drove. He said Finland had traffic well figured out and didn't tolerate speeding in Helsinki or in the country side; the language is complicated and wonderful. He, like us, was amazed at the cleanliness everywhere. There are no plastic wrappers blowing about anywhere. The sand is raked into beautiful patterns in public places.

If yesterday's violin turns out to be 'decent' and not worth anything, he would love to have it. I would love for him to have it...but not until I find out if it is reglueable. Of course it isn't a Strad, not in a million year would it be one of the 12 made in 1734. No one would be so dumb as to let it come unglued, nor sit on a table in the sun. How silly of me to even think about the possibility. I am irksomely gullible.

Life stages, finances, and time management all seem to be the tune that most of us dance to. This place that I find myself suits me nicely, it is a kind and gentle place, with an abundance of years, money, and time. Life is good.

A Fool for a Stringed Instrument

He Who Must Be Obeyed lured me to lunch this noon. We went to a nice midtown place where he ordered a salad and I ordered a hamburger deluxe. When we got our meals, he eyed both of them and announced that he was swapping with me. "Oh good," I told him, "you just order whatever and I do the same and when we get them we trade plates, that always makes for an unexpected surprise." Whatever.

The area was having their yearly neighborhood garage sale and I have done it again. HWMBO distained the area. and the neighborhood, and wouldn't even get out of his Wrangler until I walked back and told him I wanted him to look at the yellow label inside a violin, out baking in the sun, on a table. This is such a stupid thing to even think about; but it does sort of take a person's breath away.

Inside the old, old case lay this, one string short, chin rest off, otherwise in pretty good shape, violin. Peering through the sound hole into the instrument was a yellow label that said "Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis, Fasieabat Anno 1734." Being Italian, somewhere along the line the u was changed to a v, or the other way around, maybe. It was $50, but I have paid more than that for a rock, so what the hay, I say. It is much prettier than most of my rocks. The mother-in-law who owned it will call me sometime, as I want to know everything she knows about it. "It was in her house for at least 20 years," said the nice woman collecting the money.

Ever since, I have been on an Internet search and found that the fakes are out there by the thousands, I suppose. But here is the deal. In 1734, Stadavarius made 12 violins and one viola. I have no idea if it is simply a label that some luthier slapped on a hastily built violin or what it is. He lived to 1737 and had a couple of sons that made violins.

I am going to take it downtown to Nelson's Violin Shop and have the string put on, perhaps have the bow rehaired and ask that excellent craftsman what he thinks. I know that rehairing the bow will cost a bunch. I paid $125 or so to have my cello bow rehaired a few years ago there. There is an interesting label inside the cello as well but I am not going to even think about it.

There was a time that I had four kids, at home, practicing violins, a cello and a string bass. That is what I mean about being a fool for a stringed instrument. Back then I bought three violins from a nun who had taught in Chicago. Once the neighbor across the driveway from us, on an open window night, yelled out for our bass player to "Stop that and go to bed!" None of us has forgotten that.

Whitsunday, 7th Sunday After Easter

Today is Pentecost. Next to the Advent blue, I love the red of Pentecost and Reformation Sunday. We altar guilders are aware of the colors of the Christian church year, changing banners and paraments with the seasons. Some of my friends give me a blank stare when rattle on about it. I would love to be a walking talking hyperlink. This blogging is the best thing, ever. It was red everywhere this morning at St. Tim's. Red paraments and pastor's stoles, red banners, red altar flowers and red carnations on the eleven confirmands. I love ordering the church flowers; it amazes me to think I thought it was going to be one big pain in the neck. It isn't.

I had a meeting between the Spirit Alive and Traditional 11:00 services regarding 'passionate spirituality.' I think they thought I had lost my mind when I told the group that I thanked God for them. I do and they might just as well know it. C, who very competently heads this little group, is a middle school teacher. There are only four of us. One of the fellows went to the same high school at which I taught for sixteen years. M is part of the prison ministry. The three of them are pretty amazing people. We have more work to do and I have no doubt that it will be significant and of much consequence. I am glad to be a part of it.

He Who Must Be Obeyed and I swam this afternoon. The pool was 95 degrees, if you can imagine. It was great. We vacuumed the tree seeds off the bottom, drank some wine from little silver wine glasses, and probably got more sun than our winter white skins needed.

A son called to tell me he and his wife will be flying home next weekend if the weather is favorable, if not they will probably 'fly' in the Corvette. I am happy they will be here. We haven't seen one another since Christmas. Since then he has been in Latvia and Finland. We have so much to talk about.

Sundays are the best.

Freecycle

A friend asked, "Where have you been?" How do you answer a question like that when you haven't been anywhere, just absent. In absentia, absent minded, nowhere, here, but not here. I feel a little disconnected while sleepwalking through the days, reading a lot while it rains, reading at magazines, reading at the paper, reading at a book on how to write letters, of all things. Who even writes letters anymore. Reading at, never finishing anything.

Yes, I got it at a garage sale. It was fun to visit with the young man who was selling his sister's things. "That is nice of you," I told him. "I get to keep all the money," he said, "so it is actually nice of her." He was selling his college books and her girlie collectibles. I bought a Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood. "It is a downer," he warned me. I told him some of us liked that. A melancholy read for a melancholy Finn. I will probably like it a lot.

In order to make garage saling legitimate in my mind, I look at it as an anthropological study. There, in a garage or on a driveway, people's lives are strewn over tables, on the cement, over chairs and dressers. Parking near by and walking up the drive seems a little voyeuristic to me, but not in a sexual way. Looking at people's cast off stuff, things that apparently were needed at one time, now just junk to them, seems much too personal. It is almost like digging through homesteaders garbage dumps, or Egyptian tombs. It is all anthropology on one scale or another; unless of course you need those kids clothes or worn out furniture or garden tools. I don't need anything, but I do find some things intriguing enough to bring home.

It amazes me that anyone has the energy to take all that stuff out, put little price stickers on it all, and sit with it for up to three days. Then the strangers park erratically nearby, shuffle through the assortment, fingering everything, examining objects from top to bottom and in the end perhaps spend a quarter on a unique box which once held three long hand rolled Nicaraguan cigars. Was somebody there in the '80's on one side of that situation or the other? Perhaps a gift to a grandpa. Now it is mine to put some little treasure under the sliding lid, or not.

Today L, from Melbourne, Australia, sends this amazing web site to our congenial list of elder emailers. It is worth a little exploration and tempts me to join the Omaha group. I am all for getting rid of stuff and certainly embrace the idea of giving it away rather than trying to sell it. Introverts are not salesmen, or women. I am the sort of person who apologizes for giving away stuff as I am so concerned that it might be insulting. No, instead we haul used, but usable, things to the Salvation Army. I don't ever get a receipt. Why bother?

Maybe through Freecycle I could join the local group and chance not insulting someone while giving away an item I probably bought at a garage sale long ago. No not the horse collars with mirrors, nor the Texas longhorns, nor the oil paintings nailed to the back fence, nor the little footstools for this five foot Finn. Yes, I got a nice one so I can see into my top oven. I think I will paint it blue to match the Oscar Howe Antelopes in Flight over the table.

Home and Back Home

Going to and returning from the Black Hills is a push-pull experience. I have resisted going twice in as many months and yet am ever drawn there to seeing two friends of 55 years. Being with them was like it has always been, an easy togetherness that warms at first sight and grows anew with the graceful gift of familiarity.

We talk of our girlhood, our motherhood; and now of this bewildering aging that we find both challenging and comforting in ways we sometimes resist and sometimes rest in. We share names of old friends and acquaintances, places, times, experiences; we share meals that begin with a table grace in Norwegian, we share our enjoyment of our hometown newspaper even reading from it to one another; and we share our times together that used to begin and end with warm hugs, now including a kiss on cheeks starting to wrinkle.

Each of us face challenges that at times seem insurmountable. The challenges do not halt our ability to laugh over our own physical limitations while still caring for adult children who suffer debilitating conditions that limit their ability to make lives apart from us; or from the tasks of raising grandchildren. We complain about our churches that let us do too much service and we talk about how thankful we are for those who pray for us for years.

It is a true gift to be able to share our burdens with one another in heartbreaking reality, draw a breath and end the solemn solioquay with a laugh that doubles us over because of the absurdity of it. Being together is healing and helpful and I can't put the going back off so long next time. Friends are a gift. I would say thank you to them here, but they don't read this so I will write bread and butter notes to say it properly and send them off with a pretty commemorative stamp.

Rattlesnake Traps and Crocus

Our May/June issue of South Dakota Magazine came in the mail a couple of days ago. It kept He Who Must Be Obeyed up later than usual, reading about the "Bucking Horse Highway" that runs through my home town of Buffalo, SD, in the largest county of the state. Harding County is in the northwest corner and is about the size of Rhode Island according to Jerry Wilson who writes about highway 85 which runs from Saskatchewan to Juarez, Mexico.

This current issue is a nostalgic read for this Buffalo Gal. Pictured is the beautiful Cave Hills Lutheran church which was built by my Finnish immigrant grandparents and their neighbors and is the church in which I was baptized and confirmed. My ancestors and many relatives are buried in the churchyard cemetery, including a double cousin, Jack, whose son, Stan is mentioned in the article as the finder of the TRex Stan south of my grandparents homestead.

Speaking of buried; buried in the magazine is a little piece called "Remembering a Snake Hunter," about A.M. Jackley. There is a photo of him beside his pickup, which I recall as well. I often visited my grandparents when Jackley came to their place to check his rattlesnake traps. When he came back to the house we always went to look at the wire screened traps full of wreathing, rattling, killers. There were a couple of snake dens on Liisa Butte where we picked crocus in the spring about the same time the rattlers were waking up and crawling out of their winter dens and onto the prairie to satisfy their appetites after a long hibernation. The crocus were always worth the adventure.

Flying Kites and Pushing Mowers

There are two new kites parked by the umbrellas in my closet. They have been there for a year now, still in their plastic covers, never opened. I have string but don't know if kites still need tails. Flying kites is better than fishing, in my mind. No cold hands, no stinking bait, no guts. A person can fly a kite and go home for a nice little half of a New York Strip steak. I am obsessing over food today after looking at My Pyramid.

Memorial Park, in the middle of Omaha, is a wonderful destination for toboggoning, sledding, walking, smelling roses, sitting on the hillside listening to the music event a few days before the 4th of July and watching the evening fireworks display later. On any breezy spring day there, one can watch the lazy kites dip and dive, always creating a challenge for photographers.

Omaha folks are kite fliers. Yesterday there was a kiting event in a nearby suburb and I see there will be another next week across from one of our hospitals. There is a club for most anything under the sun. Once I was a quasi-member of the push mower group in Omaha. We gathered one evening in Elmwood park for a picnic and commiserated on how we loved our quiet little one person powered lawn mowers. I still love my little mower and it still does the job whenever I am up to putting on my old shoes and providing the power. That is simple living at its best.

I grew up with an understanding of how to operate a push mower. And I recall how glad I was when someone came up with the bright idea of putting a stinking, heavy, noisy motor on them. I suppose fifteen years ago, or more, I found a small antique mower at a garage sale for $5.00. I was thrilled with the way it worked. Since then, I traded it in on a new model of the same thing at the Dundee Hardware Store. It cuts a wider swath, works well, and is pretty grimy with all the WD40 sprayed on the moving parts over the years. Who needs a gym with a push mower and grass growing like crazy.

USDA Personal Food Pyramid

After watching the USDA change the food pyramid so many times in the past, I wasn't particularly excited about this new guideline. I simply assumed it was a little like obesity is killing us off in great numbers and now last week we are told that they were wrong; and how eggs will do you in and then maybe they won't.

This morning I finally knocked on the door of the pyramid folks and was in for a nice surprise. Actually this thing is interesting, to the point, and gives you your general guide based on age, gender and activity. There is a printable version of that and also a daily food and activity chart. I liked everything except the fact that my list is based on 1,600 calories and two cups of that, vegetables. http://www.mypyramid.gov/ Try it you might like it. Three glasses of milk, how good can it get?

That wonderful Austrian chocolate from Aldi's is not on the list.

Center for Public Integrity

If this isn't the neatest thing! I simply had to share it with you. It is the new Google Map.

It isn't what one needs to find a city in Finland or Latvia. I found that out last night when a son called that he was leaving for Riga, Latvia and Helli, Finland on business. These are the dearest words to a mother's ears: "Can I have a copy of my Finnish immigrant grandparents and thier birthplaces before I go?"

MapQuest International is still the standard, I think.

This morning on CSPAN Brian Lamb's guest was Roberta Baskin, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity since January 2005. She indicated the web site used to be only for journalists and is now for the public with an interest in the news. She probably meant bloggers.

With 24 credit hours of undergraduate journalism and having taught news and documentary to high school television producers, I found the link to "Journalism Ethics" a nice reminder of how it is supposed to be.

Code of Ethics. Don't you love the guidelines and the safety of the boundries that they embrace? I wonder if the code is taught with the emphasis it was in the days after Yellow Journalism and before Watergate.

It is Earth Day and I am happy that the little piece of the earth that I tend and care for is clean, green and growing. What is with the link? In big headlines it has 2006. Beats me.

Pope Benedict XVI

I am glad we happened to be watching the noon news when the bells confirmed the Holy Smoke at the Vatican introducing to the world, a new Pope. "German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the strict defender of Catholic orthodoxy for the past 23 years, was elected Pope despite a widespread assumption he was too old and divisive to win election." Reuters sounds a little heavy handed with its word choice "too old and divisive."

The National Catholic Reporter, April 16, 1999 ends a rather lengthy article on Cardinal Ratzinger with this statement in reference to a Pascal quote: “A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.” If that’s the standard, then despite his intellect, his piety, his sense of purpose, all that makes him remarkable, history may not be so kind to Joseph Ratzinger after all."

That was written in 1999. If it foretells the future, Pope Benedict XVI may be in for a great test in our Post-Christian era.

The following was written yesterday: " From Ratzinger's record and pronouncements, his agenda seems clear. Inside the church, he would like to impose more doctrinal discipline, reining in priests who experiment with church liturgy or seminaries that permit a broad interpretation of church doctrine. Outside, he would like the church to assert itself more forcefully against the trend he sees as most threatening: globalization leading eventually to global secularization."

This new Pope certainly does need our prayers.

Time On Your Hands?

I finally created three links to other bloggers. Thank you Cordelia. Did it take long? Only about three hours with lunch in between. They say it takes longer for old dogs to learn new tricks. I will attest to that. I thought about giving up a couple of times. Now that I can do it, you will see more in the future.

Passionate Spirituality

The term 'passionate spirituality' intrigues me. I am on a new committee at church dealing with this aspect of our personal and congregational lives. Googling the term in quotes brings up 965 hits, a great many in reference to blogs. We are using Natural Church Development as our guide: Effective ministry flows out of a passionate spirituality. "Spiritual intimacy leads to a strong conviction that God will act in powerful ways..."

We could use a little of that intimacy around here. I am glad I am on the committee. I know, I know, that probably sounds self-serving. I don't mean to be; it is just that I am so, so needy at the moment.

No, not needy as in needing stuff. I mean needy in wisdom to deal with our mentally ill daughter, needy in knowing how to talk to He Who Must Be Obeyed, needy in my compassion for those around me; I am so clueless about what I should be about, the meaning of life. Even at seventy, (oh, Lord, really seventy!) I am not ready to chuck it all. I could have 15 years to amount to something after all.

This lack of optimism at the moment is so senseless. Life is rich. My world is stunningly beautiful. I have hope for good tomorrows. I probably suffer from a lack of control. We do love control, don't we! Maybe it is simply meaning that we seek.

We both had appointments with our health provider a couple of days ago. Both of us have had a spike in our blood pressure, to the point that our medications need adjusting. Stress does that to a person, my nurse practioner told me. I thought difficult circumstances toughened a person instead of killing them. Four phone calls in two days; another 600 mile drive soon: the blood pressure isn't going down yet.

Deep breathing and a lot of prayer, some cursing between clenched teeth; I must not cave into this challenge. I feel a little histrionic myself at the moment. My epitaph looks different today than it would have in 1995 when I retired, or in 1975 when I started teaching, or in 1954 when I first got married, but then so do I. Everything changes, everything.

Remembering Names

My altar guild tasks were at the 11:00 service this morning, giving me some time to watch CBS Sunday Morning. During the commercials I drop down one channel to CSpan II's Book TV. First I get the good and bad according to CBS and then in little commercial length snippets I get the harangue from Colorado, the wishful phony Oglala called Churchill. I was going to remember his name with a little image of Winston peeking out of a cell still orating. His name is Ward Churchill, as in mental ward.

He equated the scene at Wounded Knee with the one at the Nazi concentration camps. He was quick to say that the numbers were not the same but the photos were similar. If you haven't seen the Sioux photos at Wall Drug or photographs at the Jim Gatchell Museum in Buffalo, Wyoming, you have an awesome display awaiting you. The Wounded Knee photographs taken by the Cavalry were horrific and I agree with him about that.

It would be nice if Churchill liked our country just a little. I realize I am like Pollyanna, wanting everything to be for good. Something in me does not like to listen to people rail on our nation's past and current errors. He does not look, nor sound, to me like a person that has a good handle on morality. Maybe he should be researching what is happening with Colorado's football recruiting and harp on that a while. I really find him irritating.

He had a litany of U.S. Cavalry slaughtering Indians in the West. He even mentioned the Battle of the Slim Buttes. My mind latched on to the Battle of the Crow Buttes which was between two Indian tribes. I could probably sharpen my listening skills.

Nonetheless my mental image to recall his name works.

http://www.top-blogs.com/cgi-bin/rankem.cgi?id=Willo

Still A Beginning Blogger

I can't figure out the things I want to do with this blog. I am not reading the instructions with any understanding. It is a foreign language. I want to run a list of my favorite bloggers on the side. I have only added one photo and that was just dumb luck, I still have no idea how it happened. It is probably good not to give up, but after nearly a year I get a little discouraged. The only thing I have learned for sure is how to string mindless sentences together and how to include a hyperlink.

Some of my favorite bloggers remain in my top ten list, even though they do not appear on my blog. Always at the top is the Salty Vicar, now on vacation. Real Live Preacher is perhaps next; there are an endless group of thoughtful and interesting people blogging with knowledge of life, philosophy, and the mechanics of making blogs do what they want them to.

People are writing books based on their blogs. A dead friend's grandson has a book out there called "Group Hug." It started as sort of a confessional blog. Real Live Preacher has published a book. Judging from his blog, it is undoubtedly worthwhile and well written. He has an article in The Christian Century called "Personal Space." The Salty Vicar has been queried about writing a book from a publishing company. Good blogs, like cream rise to the top.

Today a generous check came in the mail from a former Congregational pastor in my SD home town. He wants one of the "Axel Sacrison: Artist and Blacksmith" books. In the envelope was a photograph of another of the paintings that I did not know about. The amazing little connections to my parents and Buffalo, SD make life rewarding and good.

One of the three women named Willo from the area where I was born and schooled has died. She married a rancher. On that ranch a few years ago a dinosaur was found and named Willo, the dinosaur with a heart. Later, I think the heart turned out to be a rock, at any rate it was as hard as a rock. It was found in the Hell Creek formation.

Willo from Hell Creek, with a heard heart. Kind of like a song, don't you think? Now there is one less Willo. The name Willow is gaining popularity, probably from that odd movie a few years ago, and also from that pretty news anchor on that cable news network, Willow Bay.

If you are wondering what the below is all about, you are not alone. I can't get it where it belongs. I don't know whether to leave it alone or delete it.

Voices from the Heartland

Cordelia, who commented on my cold coffee, has a few links under what she calls "Voices From the Heartland." That is enticing for this displaced person from the short grass prairie. I found another high plains web site a few years ago. I was first enticed to the URL by the aurora borealis he photographed. If you are longing to look at some wonderful prairie flowers or pintail grouse photography, "Prairie Journal: Where the Prairie Comes Alive" is the place for you.

Sadly, on one blog search I found only 22 South Dakota bloggers. Wyoming, only nine, North Dakota, 19. Do you suppose those folks are so busy living life they don't have the time, nor inclination, to write about it. I wish my immigrant grandparents had blogged, or someone would have had the sense to save all of their letters. I know they wrote letters. When one arrived at our house we would circle up with relatives and someone would read them aloud. My mother was always the reader as she had a good strong voice.

I will always seek more voices from the heartland. Thank you Cordelia.