Icicles

This is the view from the west window in the living room. Icicles are always a brief and lovely phenomena. I suppose they are creating a problem in the roof gutters but what is one to do but enjoy the sparkle.

He Who Must Be Obeyed taught me a little trick yesterday. He said if he double clicked, or clicked depending how your system is set up, that the photo would enlarge to huge! I didn't know that.

New Rights and Old Wrongs

This morning as I waited for my meds to kick in, I watched Book TV from the cozy comfort of my down quilt. The topic was the Japanese Internment Camp from a fiesty lady who lived those drastic times and measures. Following my usual routine, I logged on to the Internet and had a Google Alert on "South Dakota." Among the hits was one to the blog, "South Dakota War College." The entry indicated was Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007, titled "This one will leave you silent. More on the Clinton/Obama South Dakota Connection."

I keep track of South Dakota politics a bit. They have been in the news since Dakota Territory days. I thought the Janklow jailing was justified but damning; I heard the other side of Janklow this morning. The story and audio link on the South Dakota War College blog, described as "South Dakota Politics, Campaigns, Personalities, Elections, Political Advertising, and a bunch of rambling nonsense from a smart aleck Republican," was interesting to me. The audio clip was a Public Television archieve from a Feb. 1, 2001 press conference.

He Who Must Be Obeyed has at one time been a little too willing to chase Omaha garage sales but like I once described, I am drawn to glass sparkling in the sun and the anthropological interests I find, HWMBO is always on the lookout for another tool. To get to the story here, we once bought a few bar glasses from a former Omaha Court Reporter who played poker with local FBI guys. One of them, he said, was in a wheel chair as he had gotten shot in the Wounded Knee confrontation of 1972.

Back to Clinton, Janklow, internment, empathy for ethnicity and fairness, and the Leonard Peltier pardon issue. According to Janklow, he was instrumental in President Clinton not pardoning Peltier the month he left the office. It is a first person oral history that I found very interesting. Maybe it explains some of the bizzare politics of my beloved home state.

As the old court reporter wrapped the heavy bottomed glasses in newspaper for us, he said that a generous jigger of burbon and a couple of ice cubes in one of these glasses was the beginning of a nice afternoon.

A Love Affair

"The Boy With the Willow Flute" 1889, Christian Skredsvig

G.K. Chesterton said "Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair."

My forever friend, now on the other side, once gave me a little flip calendar called "Voices: Words That Shaped Our Souls." It is daily wisdom for a new century. The gift was just right for me, as I am one of those people with the attention span of an ant and my favorite things to read are quotations, Proverbs, and short meditations.

As I capitolized the word, proverbs, I wondered a bit about why these little bits of conventional wisdom are called: pro verbs. So I hunted around for meanings and proverb is literally "before action or state of being."

"After the verb to love, the verb to help is the most beautiful verb in the world," Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914). From Answers.com

I have a good friend who calls her deceased friend, her "Dead Friend." I prefer to think of my forever friend as not dead, but somewhere else, because everywhere I look she appears to me in the books she gave me, a counted cross stitched picture of the Bath Cathedral we visited together, letters she wrote with handwriting so small I nearly had to get out a magnifying glass to read them, the His Essance candle made in SD of the scents of Jesus time, book marks, two beautiful kitchen towels I hang rather than use, memories of our Saturday phone calls.

I have a framed print of "The Boy With the Willow Flute" by Christian Skredsvig 1889, waiting for me when I go home to SD again. Perhpas I was too bold when she was near death and asked me if there was anything I wanted. The print was an internet hunt, inexpensive and came to her in short order from the Skredsvig home/gallery. She fussed over the mat and framing and changed it at least once. Of course I wanted it. She and I spent an amazing month in Norway a few years ago. I am lonely for her on Saturdays especially.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a pleasant break in the long dark winter of the Midwest. He Who Must Be Obeyed gave this child bride a bottle of Chanel No 5 on our first married Valentine's Day. It was so unexpected, so expensive, so thoughtful; a gift remembered forever, if over 52 married years is forever.

Today we celebrate with lemon meringue pie which we will take across the street to share with our elderly neighbors, shut in with our -20 below wind chill of earlier this morning. We picked it up at Village Inn on our way home from my appointment with my neurosurgeon. (If I am careful, I can start using the treadmill.)

This morning's happy discovery is that of a young man in Astoria, Oregon, who is creating a web site for those of us interested in learning the Finnish language. The article is in the Daily Astorian. "The site contains a catalogue of more than 4,000 words divided into dozens of categories such as family, food and arts and literature. It also includes grammar help, quizzes and an "inflection engine" giving a word's proper conjugation."

I learned that Tolkien used Finnish as a model for the elfin language in "Lord of the Rings." The language is that beautiful and that mysterious. I am ready to try to learn it and I thank Khan Gorlewski for providing this huge help. A click on his 'Articles' takes you to some very interesting methods of memorization. Retrieval is the key, and it needs to be practiced.

Life Outside the Box

A son told me he disliked technology. I was taken aback, as I recalled the Montana cabin dweller who hated technology so much he set out to make life miserable for so many it got him life in the penitentiary. What is to hate?

In my past life as a library/media specialist I was kept up to date on the latest and the newest technolical wonders of the world. I miss that. My own attitude was bring it on and show me how to use it. Life as a teacher had many rewards and that was one of them. It all started in with a summer class called "Electronic Information Systems." All of us in the class were given our first Internet accounts through the university and we went online in those early exciting days of the WWW. Good Bye to the sturdy solid Card Catalogs that did not alphabatize themselves. Welcome Brave New World.

I still have email friends from the early days of listserves. I am a part of a group of retired people from every walk of life imagenable and many continents. From them my world view is enriched and my personal life is enhanced through email.

It is good to challenge oneself, I think. It is easier to do and at the same time more difficult then you might first think. Why do you think I have linked "Simplicity" to my blog? There is really nothing simple about this writer from MIT. Salt is far from simple. If theology today interests you, this Rector's reading and thinking will challenge you. St. Bartholomew's home page is loaded with information.

Today I found a link in Artic Finland regarding the Aurora Borealis that would take a few college classes to get my head around. Who knew that we not only have a Geographic Longitude and Latitude, but also a geomagnetic latitude? Somewhere on that site is a live web cam to watch the aurora as it happens.

But a person can't mess around on the computer all day. I am going to get back in my safe little box and soak in someone else's thinking while I read.

A Finn Knows

What is "Sisu"?
Sisu is a unique Finnish concept. It stands for the philosophy that what must be done will be done, regardless of what it takes. Sisu is a special strength and persistent determination and resolve to continue and overcome in the moment of adversity…an almost magical quality, a combination of stamina, perseverance, courage, and determination held in reserve for hard times.

In the past Finns were obliged to struggle against nature and against foreign intruders. Despite all of the drawbacks along the way, the struggle gave a lot of strength. The early settlers found inspiration in the Finnish landscape, sky and in mythological heroes who taught them that it was possible to overcome obstacles. In more recent times the same sources have been the basic source of inspiration for athletes, artists, designers and architects who have made Finland known to the world.

When she was alive, my mother reminded me of sisu with pride and regularity. As a kid, I learned early on that to go on an impromtu picnic with my parents took a fair amount of sisu. They would go at the drop of a hat, at the change of the weather, at a need for another look at thier Earth; and with an artist father one looked at the Earth a lot.

But back to sisu and thier idea of a picnic; they would slice some homemade flat bread, pack a tin of sardines, fill the thermos with coffee and off we went to some place or other to look at the Earth. Not liking sardines a whole lot was where the sisu came in for me. Everything else about it was "a picnic." I do eat a sardine occasionally and it always reminds me of a windswept Dakota prairie picnic.

Spiritual Literacy

The sub-title of the book, Spiritual Literacy is "Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life." A friend came to visit and brought it to me with a printed interview by Martin Marty of "Grace Matters" with Mary Ann Brussat.

The Introduction states that "Spiritual literacy is practiced in all the world's wisdom traditions. Medieval Catholic monks called it "reading the book of the world." I am very anxious to get into the body of the book. Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat co-authored this book, in order that we readers might find the sacred in our own culture today.

I once went through a 'God Sighting' experience with the St. Timothy congregation. We became aware of God in our everyday life. That was when I put away the terms, luck and coincidence. If we think of God in our happy unexpected events, does that mean that God is micro-managing the bad stuff? I choose to think not. If we are loved by God, can we think that the serendipitous delights are put in our path to make us more aware of Him? It is all so mysterious.

If you wonder where I have been lo these many days; I am home healing from a back surgery last week, actually on my birthday; less pain is a gift. We in Omaha, are blessed with excellent medical care. My chosen Neurosurgeon is skilled and concerned; he performed a laminectomy on the 4th lumbar vertebra. This is my second second spine surgery in less than four years. My post surgery instructions are excellent: sleep late, take a nap, go to bed early. Sit up for 15 to 30 minutes at a time. I have exceeded that so it is back to my comfy, warm bed and my new book!