Try, Try Again

The Harvest Moon at 9:15 p.m., Sept. 27, 2007. Gray's Anatomy does not pre-empt this wondrous sight, nor the half hour of experimental photography. Is it any wonder our pre-history forefathers spent nights in worshipful amazement.

Harvest Moon

After collecting garbage for the morning pickup, pulling some weeds; O.K., and replanting some ferns, a warm swim as the Harvest Moon was rising was almost an adrenaline rush. Night photography is tricky and I don't have it mastered, but the results are nearly always surprising.

Correction

Hildred of daybyday is an amazing blogger from British Columbia, Canada. I have had an error to her link. I believe she is of such consequence that I spent a bit of time this morning trying to correct it. I believe I have. It works for me now and I hope it does for you as well. Sorry Hildred.

Such Sweet Swimming

I had a lovely swim in the rain a couple of nights ago. Am I a poor steward of God's goodness when we heat our water to a comfortable 90'? I get a little twinge of guilt about it, even if it is almost as therapeutic as a Finnish sauna.

Now there is a nice idea: have a Finnish sauna and jump into a cold swimming pool. No matter, I luxuriate in happiness and am glad for a few moments when I swim in the rain, snow or sun. Who would know that when we built the small back yard pool when we were in our 40's that we would enjoy it more then ever in our 70's. Life is good.

Good for Google

I have a Google Alert on my beloved homeland, "Harding County" to be exact, of South Dakota. It astounds me at what I learn from them. Today it picked up a news article from the Black Hills Pioneer newspaper.

"According to Mark Gabel, BHSU emeritus professor and curator of the Herbarium, the primary goal of the Herbarium staff is to document the little known flora of western South Dakota and the Black Hills including the Bear Lodge Mountains of Wyoming. An example is the ongoing study of the flora of Harding County that is an example of combining field studies with collection based research. The Herbarium is a vital resource for conservation research.
"The flora of the Black Hills (including the Bear Lodge Mountains of eastern Wyoming) is unique, with elements of the eastern deciduous forest, the Great Plains, the boreal forest, the Rocky Mountains and southwestern United States. Species of plants previously unknown in the region are being discovered from the Black Hills every year," Gabel says.
The Herbarium obtained a major grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create a database all of the plants from West River South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. The grant will provide a Web-accessible database with all label data from over 100,000 specimens by 2009.

For this past prairie walker, who loved the plants I pondered as a child, this was indeed good news. Now I will be able to explore the prairie floor once more.

Contradictions

The Museum of Religious Art in Logan, Iowa, was one of our destinations last Tuesday. It was indeed amazing. The early southwestern-style mission chapel above consists of pieces from a variety of sources - including area churches, and even a local barn. A quiet place for reflection.

Life is full of contradictions. A term used by Karl Marx to refer to mutually antagonistic tendencies in a society.

After NE State Senator Chambers made public his lawsuit against God, today's Omaha World Herald has a column in the Living section, "Nonbelievers Finding and Audience." It alludes to this as the age of the New Atheism. "So-called new atheists are distinguishable from the old by the nature and tone of their attacks on God and religion, said Hector Avalos, a professor of religious studies at Iowa State University." Avalos is an atheist himself. "In fact the New Atheism challenges religion as an immoral and destructive force." I wonder how many athiests teach religious studies at our universities in the US?

Martin Marty, Christian Theologian Nebraska native considered one of the nation's foremost religion scholars, said "Your average Baptist, Catholic or Lutheran is undisturbed by them (ballyhooed atheist books). Marty said religion's most recent critics don't hold a candle to such "great God-killers of modern times" as Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud.

Marty goes on to say the worst enemy of Christianity is indifference.

Really, Really Mad at God

I would imagine that most of us, if not outright mad at God, sometimes wonder about all of the bad things that happen to good people. Our Omaha, District 2 State Senator, Ernie Chambers, has filed a lawsuit against God. I love the photo that Jeff Baker has of the noisy senator in his blog "Defend us In Battle" It has been said that he is the angriest black man in Omaha.

We all know it is to prove a point about frivolous law suits...but I think it was actually to get the attention of the media. The honored senator is a self proclaimed atheist. For an atheist to sue God, you'd think he might think God is 'out there.' He could have sued Santa Clause, to prove a point as well. If you follow Jeff's links you will be able to read the whole story.

Sometimes when our Nebraska Unicameral is in session and times hangs heavy in the house, I go to the channel that carries the loquacious Chambers in session. He obviously loves a captive audience. Once upon a time I had a student documentary crew that chose him as their subject. He was receptive to their interview and as always, not at a loss for words.

Salty Salsa Dancing

It is easy to read a few hours away. Having our computer between the kitchen and living room is good when there are children in the house; but when one is in their own second childhood, the location is much too tempting. I was on my way to a different task but got side tracked by a well written priest.

The Salty Vicar's column in the SOMA Review was great fun to read. I can identify with his getting caught up in the moment of dancing, in or out of his collar. For this one time jitterbugging/schottishing country girl, his description of the dance was my own reverie of an unsophisticated time and place.

Cattle Gates and Buffalo

A trip home gives weeks of pleasant memories. Photos are a reminder of the sights seen, sweet prairie smells, the sound of a meadow lark.

High Plains Sunflowers

Coming home to Omaha on highway 20 which follows the Niobrara River is a beautiful drive. I had an opportunity to take a few photos of sunflowers and we stopped at the Museum of the Fur Trade: Traders, Trappers, and Indians. It is a marvelous place. It was good to learn more about the early American entrepreneurs.

I wish it were closer so I could spend more time in their book room.
The museum publishs books also. I learned that the Josephine Waggoner papers are in England being edited by a British historian, Kingsley Bray, and will be published by the Museum in a couple of years. The actual work of printing and binding is being done in China. That was an epiphany.

Josephine Waggoner was the grandmother of Carl Braine. "Hokshila Waste (Good Boy in the Sioux Language) was born in South Dakota on the Standing Rock Reservation, once the home of famed Hunkpapa Sioux leader Sitting Bull. In those days woman still carried their babies in shawls on their backs and from that high, snug place Carl watched his Teton Lakota grandmother stir big kettles of corn soup on an outdoor fire. When it rained or the wind blew, Carl's mother covered him completely and he bobbed along against his mother's warm back."

Looking Through Blue Windows

It is always good to go home for Labor Day to see friends, classmates, cousins, and have breakfast on the Lion's Club with the other Old Timers. Once again we hung two prints of my dad's paintings. While we were at the Harding County Museum, a group of cousins and friends took over a table and had a good visit.

I need to go there for a few days to read old newspapers for a writing project I am attempting, the biography of my Great Aunt Elizabeth. But before that I have a stack of papers from Aunt Liz's sons to go through. They take me back to my own childhood as she lived in the same end of town as we did. Actually the entire northwest end of town had been originally in my great-grandparent's name and so consequently there settled my grandmother and two of her brothers and two of her sisters as well as my parents. I grew up with about 14 cousins, mostly boys.

Our strange little house had windows Mumu Haivala brought from the Lead/Deadwood area and were concave and turning blue with age. I loved them; they were wonderful windows. I just bet the glass was beveled.

It is good for the soul to go home.