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.

Pondering My Own Faith

Lutheran that I am, I too have lost a Pope in John Paul II. The inordinate beauty of the last days of the Pontiff, with the devotion of the pilgrims arriving in Rome, the holy sights at the Vatican, the Cistine Ceiling, the pageantry of the days leading up to the funeral, the liturgical reading and singing from Rome were a blessing after the hell of that ghastly political death in Florida.

I remember when he was selected, but not as keenly as a dear friend's son who trained for the Priesthood in the Vatican and was there during the very short Papacy prior to John Paul II. He was there for Karol Wojtyla's selection as well. Reading history is good, living it is the best of all.
What memories Father D. must have. I have my own vivid memories of Father D's ordination and found it a Holy occasion, with Cardinals from Rome, I believe.

My Catholic friends are in my thoughts this past week. Especially a dear friend, whose cousin was Bishop of the Wichita Diocese until he was moved to Arizona to take on a great challenge there. This dear man also trained for the priesthood at the Vatican and then went on to work there for a number of years in Canon Law. Such Holy work, and a Holy Calling.

So today, I go to beliefnet and take a couple of tests. The one called "Belief-O-Matic" says I am 100% Church of Latter Day Saints. I cannot imagine it. The other one is called "What's Your Spiritual Type?" Three more points and I might have been an introverted candidate for the clergy, strange as it may seem.
The results are as follows:

What's Your Spiritual Type?
You scored 87, on a scale of 25 to 100. Here's how to interpret your score:
25 - 29
Hardcore Skeptic -- but interested or you wouldn't be here!
30 - 39
Spiritual Dabbler -- Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed
40 - 49
Active Spiritual Seeker – Spiritual but turned off by organized religion
50 - 59
Spiritual Straddler – One foot in traditional religion, one foot in free-form spirituality
60 - 69
Old-fashioned Seeker -- Happy with my religion but searching for the right expression of it
70 - 79
Questioning Believer – You have doubts about the particulars but not the Big Stuff
80 - 89
Confident Believer – You have little doubt you’ve found the right path
90 - 100
Candidate for Clergy