When a Friend Dies

The following is from the Henri Nouwen Daily Meditation of August 29th, 2006.
As I read his series on death, I thought of my long time friend, schoolmate, cousin by marriage, and later traveling companion. She was ill and we spoke of her coming death over the phone and in person many times. I am grateful for the opportunity we took to say our mortal goodbyes when we were together the last time over the Labor Day weekend.

She explained to me how she no longer felt "at home" in her beautiful Black Hills condo. She said that over the last days she was less and less attached to the beautiful things around her. The Norwegian things that she loved and books she loved. She was in the process of giving them away to friends, relatives, the church, charity.

I was given items she had treasured over the years. Pillowcases my own mother had embroidered for her wedding to my cousin, a wooden spoon from Finland my mother had given her 25 years ago, books about growing up Lutheran, Finnish and Norwegian books.

Another friend was there when she was stripping the walls. She sent a framed Norwegian print, "The Boy With the Silver Flute," to be given to me. After we spent a month in Norway together, I ordered the print for her from a remote art gallery in Norway.

It was the stripping of Good Friday. She died, and we are celebrating Easter Sunday once more. My friend lives and is re-membered and loved.

The Companionship of the Dead from Henri Nouwen

As we grow older we have more and more people to remember, people who have died before us. It is very important to remember those who have loved us and those we have loved. Remembering them means letting their spirits inspire us in our daily lives. They can become part of our spiritual communities and gently help us as we make decisions on our journeys. Parents, spouses, children, and friends can become true spiritual companions after they have died. Sometimes they can become even more intimate to us after death than when they were with us in life.

Remembering the dead is choosing their ongoing companionship.

Numa Numa Dance

Last night I was inundated by brain stuff on television. 20-20 entertained the differences of female/male brains. There is nothing like gender differences to keep one glued to a program. Then our local Health and Wellness channel, which offers medical lectures to professionals across the state of Nebraska, examined brains and what has been learned about them. Having had a TIA several years ago the second half of the program, devoted to brain attacks, had me both mesmerized and horrified.

After 52 years of wedded bliss, I am daily mystified as to why He Who Must Be Obeyed and I almost never see eye to eye. I suspect it is all because his remarkable brain was flooded with testosterone in utero and mine repelled it and welcomed all of that soft gooey estrogen. Is it any wonder if I try to go off of Premarin, I go into waves of hot flashes, even in my age.

The only brain I have a conversation with is my own. Wouldn't you think a person would be consistent in their interests? Why then can I be so entertained by both the speakers on C-Span II's BookTV and yet be so delighted by the Numa Numa Dance? It makes no sense.

In 2004 I was so tickled by the Numa Numa guy that when I first found it on Lockergnome I sent it to all of my grandkids. I still like it...but not hours of it. This link repeats itself until a person's brain goes dead.

Owl Visit at Twilight

This afternoon I saw a Specialist, and was advised to go to different specialist, "I don't work in the sewer," he said. I told him I could probably just visit with He Who Must Be Obeyed, the Civil Engineer with his major emphasis in Environmental Waste Water or something like that. It is good to laugh over health issues. But I will be waking up to the same old unsolved problem I suppose. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely like the doctor. He saved HWMBO's life three years ago and that counts for a lot. But it is like he said, he doesn't work in the sewer. Odd way to put it, but funny.

About the picture of the owls. I have hoped to see them again ever since the neighbor's Fourth of July M-80's sent them out of the back yard trees never to be seen again this summer. I could write an essay about the dumb things I pray about and the owl visit would be right up there with good parking spaces or green lights when I am late getting off to church.

I swam again through twilight until dark; and as I was swimming laps in tepid water in the darkling day I prayed, lap and pray, lap and pray. Alone, comfortably warm, no joint pain, annoyances melting away. I did mention the owls again, as I sometimes do, for they gave me such joy this spring. We need unexpected joy at times, the kind of joy that can be replayed in one's mind and the same joyfilled endorphines swim about in the head as the first experience brought.

Looking up during a lap, I glanced toward the fence against a darkening sky. I saw the little owl. Who saw me. I spoke to him in a chucking sort of way and tried to give him a little hoot or two. He looked at me quite a while before he raised his wings and without a sound flew over the roof toward the front yard. This is most certainly true.

I wonder what is on his menu these days. In June and July I suspected that his mother gave him a regular diet of baby birds so numerous in our pine trees and row of hews. One evening I watched English Sparrows dive bombing the owls on their favorite tree limb. There are no baby birds now that Autumn is three days old.

Hope Returns

When I was sent an email that sent me into the depths, I passed on the downer by blogging. What kind of example is that? Or does one have to be an example until they die, just because they gave birth. I am thankful however for the good examples that come my way.

I joined a new women's circle at Holy Cross yesterday. The leader of the group spoke the previous day at the funeral of her 30 year old niece and two other women with us were family members. She started the group by stating that we were going to be grief counselors for one another for an hour or so. We were. It was a beautiful, sad, comforting, and incredibly meaningful brief time in our suffering.

The Lutheran Women Today Study this year is on suffering. I am so glad it is because I wallow in suffering. I might as well learn to do it with grace so some good will come of it.

Cosmic loneliness

Have you ever had a few days that went from bad to worse no matter how you tried to keep positive, no matter how much you promised yourself that tomorrow is going to be different?

Today was a hopeful start with bars delivered to church for two funerals on time, my favorite little grocery store has been remodeled and the wider isles are easier to navigate, I brought home a couple of pots of little mums. The small yellow buds just didn't do it. It is cold inside and out. It has been grim and unpleasant. As a school librarian, I used to read "Alexander's No Good Very Bad Day" to little kids. I can't remember how it ended.

This is one of those days that make a woman think she should have become a nun. Today I truly felt like the 52 years I have put into 'this' has been a failure. Families are not always the blessing Hallmark would like you to think, nor are mothers. The only perfect mother is a dead one. Isn't that a scary thought. The perfect family is a myth. I would settle for a kind one.

One warm bright spot was when Wol Suk stopped by this afternoon to bring Korean pears from her tree. She hugs me and tells us we inspire her with our kindness and generosity...maybe there really is a God in Heaven who sends foreigners to love you and give you a feeling of worth. But I am feeling that cosmic loneliness again.

What is Your Image of God?

The Opinion Journal from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page did it again; made me think about folks I know and their perceptions of God. You can certainly spot a Midwesterner.

A Baylor University study "found that Americans hold four different images of God," London's Times reports:

Nearly a third of Americans, 31.4 per cent, believe in an Authoritarian God, angry at earthly sin and willing to inflict divine retribution--including tsunamis and hurricanes. . . .

At the other end of the scale is the Distant God, seen by 24.4 per cent as a faceless, cosmic force that launched the world but leaves it alone. . . .

The Benevolent God, popular in America's Midwest among mainstream Protestants, Catholics and Jews, is one that sets absolute standards for man, but is also forgiving--engaged but not so angry. Caring for the sick is high on the list of priorities for these 23 per cent of believers. . . .

The Critical God, at 16 per cent, is viewed as the classic bearded old man, judgmental but not going to intervene or punish, and is popular on the East Coast.

That adds up to 94.8%, which leaves some room for other conceptions of God.
Researchers found that Americans hold four distinct views, and these “Four Gods” are remarkably accurate diviners of how an American thinks about everything from politics, abortion, taxation and marriage. “You learn more about people’s moral and political behaviour if you know their image of God than almost any other measure,” said Christopher Bader, one of the researchers.

Men Smarter than Women, Scientist Claims

"Check out this Reuters dispatch from Norwich, England:

(In part) Men may have developed a psychology that makes them particularly able to engage in wars, a scientist said on Friday.

New research has shown that men bond together and cooperate well in the face of adversity to protect their interests more than women, which could explain why war is almost exclusively a male business, according to Professor Mark van Vugt of the University of Kent in southern England.

"Men respond more strongly to outward threats, we've labeled that the 'man warrior effect,' " he told the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting.

"Men are more likely to support a country going to war. Men are more likely sign up for the military and men are more likely to lead groups in more autocratic, militaristic ways than women," he added."

Hmmm? This is one of the little items from WSJ.com Opinion Journal Best of the Web Today.

The Man Warrior Effect is an interesting explaination for the rise in the noise level in my life.

South Dakota Sunrise

Ten Sleeps to Ten Sleep

From Buffalo, SD to Buffalo, WY and back to Omaha. Road trips are fun. Ten Sleep, WY is an interesting little town to visit. We spent time with relatives, classmates, and at the South Dakota Magazine office. Everyone was a friend and a joy to see and talk to.

We hung reproductions of two of my dad's paintings in the Buffalo, SD Museum and will take two more next year. We brought back a painting of a herd of buffalo that has gone to an Omaha photo shop to reproduce. It is in need of restoration. I have no idea of restorers in Omaha but need to do some research soon. I suppose Joslyn Art Museum, where I volunteered for over a decade, is the place to start. They have those skilled people on staff, but I don't know if they moonlight.

I was happy to go and to get home again. I have a great deal to be extremely thankful for. It doesn't hurt to think about that side of our lives occasionally. I am trying to be happy right now for the rain; with the 90 degree pool out my back door, I am wavering. The rain isn't putting me off as much as the chance of lightening striking me. I got the smallest electric shock from a faulty plug on a lamp last night that left my palm blackened. Do you think if a person got struck by lightening in a pool they would be boiled alive?

Grapes!

We have canned 16 quarts of grape jelly. The grapevines look like they have never been touched. It makes a person wonder how easy it would be to make wine.

Picking Grapes

He Who Must Be Obeyed was helpful in picking the Concord grapes along the east fence in the back yard. Taking only the ripe ones, we still got our huge berry bucket full. There will be more and we didn't even start on the back fence.

Now I must count how many wide mouth quart jars we still have; go to the store for sugar and pectin and start the process. Sometimes we work very well together. Sometimes we don't. But making jelly is a process that goes much better if I let him micro-manage the business. Engineers have a need to be in charge; teachers never want to stop teaching. Ours is often a dangerous and noisy combination; but we have made gallons of grape jelly together.

Follow that Rock!

As we were driving down the Oregon coast line on the 1st of August, my adventuresome auntie told her adventuresome daughter, my cousin, who was driving, "Follow that rock!" As you can see, it was only one huge rock on the truck.















Jetty repair was being constructed with the massive boulders being placed along the old one on the Pacific Coast where the Columbia River unloads its fresh water into the Ocean and opens its arms to the incoming tides..












An overlook provided a magnificent view. This is and has been historically a very dangerous place for sailors and their ships. I thought about Lewis and Clark, who ended up on the Washington side of the Columbia that long ago late fall. How would they get to the other side to the south where they would build Fort Clatsop; here they would spend a damp, cold miserable winter before going back to St. Louis. Too bad Jefferson just could not appreciate the magnitude of what they had done.

"The love of possession is a disease with them"

My title this morning is from Sitting Bull, Powder River Council, 1877.

"I (Sam Hurst) climbed Bear Butte with a friend last Wednesday, right smack in the middle of the Rally, in the heat of the day. Native prayer bundles hung from the low limbs of a hundred trees. In the shade of the north slope, two prairie falcons hunted. A tourist helicopter roared around the mountain, shaking their concentration. Two young Indians along the ridgeline sat quietly and watched the sun set in the west." Sam Hurst: Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Our Religion. RapidCityJournal columnist. Sunday, August 13, 2006.

He Who Must Be Obeyed and I experienced the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally several years ago with my high school friends, one of whom taught at Sturgis during most of her career. It was captivating in a hedonistic way with incessant noise, strange sights, and a devil may care attitude. We are glad we did it but once was enough even with front row lawn chair seats on LaCrosse Street at another teacher's home.

Hurst nails it this morning in his column..."This isn't a clash between native spirituality, tradition or treaty obligations and a week-long biker party. This is a clash of religions. They have theirs and we have ours.

Sam Hurst is a Rapid City filmmaker.

Rapid City Journal. Sunday, August 13, 2006.

Sturgis motorcycle rally our religion By Sam Hurst, Journal columnist

Astoria Photos

I uploaded a few photos from FinnFest in Astoria. A click on Flickr at the right will get you there. An Elder friend sent me the web site on the kantele. It has much more information than just that, for any Suomilainen, it is a treasure.

The Articles/Reviews click on that site will take you to Wilho Saari's "This Makes Me So Quiet."
He was one of the kantele players I heard play and speak.

Ram Sale

Bernie Hunhoff, who writes South Dakota Road Stories wrote yesterday about the Newell, SD September Ram Sale. According to him, Newell is the Sheep Capitol of the United States. I would kind of like to see that ram sale, myself. A cousin and his son and daughter raise sheep north of Newell.

I used to sit by my grandpa, John Tuovinen, at the Buffalo, SD Ram Sale. I would push up close to him so I could smell his pipe and get in on his buying action as the auctioneer cried out the increasing price for the bucks. Papa, as my mother called him, was a little nervous that I might get into the buck pasture across the road from their house on their sheep ranch in the Cave Hills of SD. A ram had knocked Roger out cold when he was little. I think I heard that story a dozen times when they were trying to get it through my skull that I could get killed if I went over that fence.

The last time I saw sheep was on the South Island of New Zealand a few years ago when two of my high school friends and I went there and to Australia for three weeks. We watched as one type of ram after another was called to the front of an auditorium and they mounted their properly labeled stand on a man-made mountain of magnificant rams.

FinnFest

The week in Astoria was the best. Seven days with my aunt's family in that mossy northwest was nirvana, the ideal condition of rest, harmony, stability, and joy. Six women spending three days together without men around created the type of bonding that might happen to nuns on a holiday. When the men started joining the group the dynamics immediately changed. They cooked and we ate.

FinnFest 2006 reinforced the love of my heritage. I loved the familiar food, the humor, the varied music, and being able to listen to published papers on the culture. A cousin and I got carried away with yoiking and she yoiked a beautiful blessing for our Cave Hills dinner in Astoria on Saturday. Mother and I were yoiked in Finland although we didn't know what to call it then. We were mesmerized by it and knew it was other-worldly. The dinner yoik was equally enchanting.

For Craig

This is just for Craig. I found it on the South Dakota Magazine link and they linked it from The Black Table. There is a nice photo of the bird there. It isn't me talking about the boyfriend so those of you that are my relatives can calm down. I suppose you are wondering about this Craig guy. He is a Civil Engineer I chatted up on a flight from Portland to Salt Lake City, who wants to hunt pheasants.

#1. The State Bird = Good Huntin'.
We have the ring-necked pheasant, an import from China. And we like to blow the crap out of it. About 150,000 hunters annually shoot up about 1.3 million pheasant. Wow, that's nearly double our human population!
My dad, rightly, likes to point out that hunting brings loads of tourist dollars to the state, but all those guns can be a bit disconcerting. My boyfriend recently took his first trip to Sodak, as we sometimes call it. A New York native, he found the clutches of hunters with rifles blasting away just feet from the highways more than a little nerve-wracking. He also was a bit wary of the fellows waving around guns in both hands at the local Wal-Mart as they showed off their wares. And darned if they didn't have a better ammo selection than they did paper towels. Michael Moore would not be pleased.

Something New

"Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new. "

The above was written in regard to Paul in Acts 17. "Some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" It goes on in restaurants all over Omaha by tables full of ladies who lunch. Once a month I am one of them, getting together with five to six of the women who worked together in the Media office at Westside High School between the 70's until today. We are all anxious to hear something new, the latest literature, movie, school or family scuttlebutt.

It happens in homes and on cable news channels and the network nightly news programs. We all tune in to see what the babbler has to say. Some think it could change over time as more and more people check out the blogging babblers.

Recovery Agent

This morning a man with the words "Recovery Agent" on his shirt knocked on our door. He was looking for one of our two new neighbors next door. I sort of wish I hadn't Googled 'recovery agent,' as the hits were not exactly what a middle class, quiet, old neighbor lady expects. Jeepers, even the Interpol was mentioned in one of the links, as well as bounty hunters.

He Who Must Be Obeyed, my own bounty hunter, got $20 in 1955 for a couple of coyote ears. The rest of the coyote rotted in the car trunk, rendering the car useless and had to be gotten rid of. Today's bounty hunters might be after coyotes of a different sort, those who carry other folks in the trunks of their cars. I believe they make more than $20 for a find.

Perhaps this Recovery Agent was after absconded bail bond money. I do love a mystery but prefer them in books and not in the house next door.

Doing What You Shouldn't

Happiness happens. This past week a former student of mine wrote a note in response to mine. I googled myself, which is embarrassing, but was a good thing actually. I found a hit on a former student's site. A note sent was a note reciprocated. God's Blessings Mark!

I prepare for seven overnight house guests. Beloved family members warm these old parent's hearts. I try to pack for the FinnFest in Astoria. I clean house and yard. I hem shirts and pants. We went to Saturday Services in 100 degree heat last night.

Doing what you shouldn't is fooling around on the computer right now. Fooling around is what I do best.

A Psalm of Gratitude

1. I sing a song of thanksgiving to the Lord. What have I done to deserve all this abundant goodness?

2. The Lord God created for me a beautiful prairie homeland in which I grew to womanhood. The buttes and pastures delighted my eye. The Meadowlark lifts my heart with the memory of its trill. The smell of summer showers linger in my nostrils forever. I praise the Lord my God for my homeland.

3. The Lord God created for me a majestic land in which to raise my children. The sacred Paha Sapa sheltered us from every storm. The trout streams filled my children with glee. The tender horses in pastures were wonderful to behold. Bluebirds made nests and raised young by my door. Our souls were nurtured and we sang praises to the Lord our God.

4. The Lord God created for me a great city in which to work. Work was plentiful and held rewards unimagineable. The streets were paved for my ease in travel and the Lord brought me safely home each night. For the pleasure of work I shout praises to the Lord.

5. The Lord God created rest and peace for my old age. He fills my life with contentment and joy. He places me in the arms of loving friends and shines his light on me through their eyes. I praise the Lord God for each of them.

6. For a good life with a good husband, I sing and shout praise to the Lord my God. The house of the Lord will be filled with my song and joy forever. Amen.

No Control Snarky

When I can't really do anything about anything, I start getting snarky. I just downed a glass of blackberry merlot and let stuff happen today.

This afternoon He Who Must Be Obeyed crashed for a couple of hours, the guests went to Nebraska Furniture Mart, and I mowed my yard, front and back and hit the pool to discover the darned thing needed vacuuming. Believe me vacuuming a pool is easier than mowing. The water was 92 degrees and I couldn't tell which was hotter, the water or the air. It felt darned good anyway.

Watching the Swimmers

A grandson took this photo last week. The pool was full of swimmers watching them with equal amazement. The parliment has flown the coop, so to speak.

He Who Must Be Obeyed made a two day trip to Rapid City. He left Omaha on Friday, visited G. and S. in a campground, bought rock lamps in Keystone, payed his respects to the Sacrison dinosaurs at the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, Inc, spent the night in the Last Chance Motel in Hill City, completed his tasks in Rapid City and was home Saturday night before dark.

I have nightmares about stopping at the Interstate Rest Stops and as I go in to clean them, HWMBO dissappears, leaving the car where it was parked. Having dreams about cleaning isn't as alarming as losing my antagonist. I use that word carefully. He thinks he is the protagonist, but he is wrong, I am.

Good Morning!

I don't know if these guys are going to bed or trying to wake up. They sat through eight flashes and then like phantoms were gone. Silently and in unison they lifted off and settled in the next tree.

Owls, Owls, Owls

I should have put one more 'Owls' in my title. As He Who Must Be Obeyed and I were having our evening swim, we detected some soft fluttering in a pine tree near the pool. There in the branches were four small owls just spreading their wings for the first time. This is the first time we have noticed them, anyway.

They seemed to have no fear of us and I walked right under them before I came into the house. One opened its eyes and blinked at me a couple of times before it nodded off again.

Owls! How fun! I hope their mama gets the moles that are burrowing around under the pear tree. We have our own little ecosystem right out the back door.

Transylvania: farmers used to scare away Owls by walking round their fields naked. We are not going to be scaring the owls away soon.

Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary

A couple of weeks ago He Who Must Be Obeyed took me along with him on a trip to the Black Hills. On our way home we caved in to the tourist 'thing' and went for a two hour tour of the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. It was truly horse heaven.

This lonely mare is rejected by the stallion and his herd of mares in the background. Every time she comes a little too close to them, he runs her off. Even then she doggedly continues to follow them, grazing on the periphery.
Here are a group of newcomers to the ranch, some Spanish Mustang decendants and their foals. Their coloring is unique and they have a black mane and tail connected by a stripe down their backs.

This was a wonderful time of the year; nearly every mare had a very young foal.

FinnFest 2006

I read that procrastination is a good thing on Maeda's Blog Simplicity. It can make for more stress than a person can endure, sometimes. When one completes one of those lines on the TO DO list, the relief creates enough endorpines to make it worth the waiting.

I registered for FinnFest2006 yesterday. The plane tickets are purchased, the lists of events for four days is stapled together, and I am set to go. It is during the last week in July. As I look over the Cultural Programming
Series, I wonder how I can possibly take it all in. Every topic interests me.

"Finns, Saamis, and Laestadians: Delving into our Past." Those Laestadians have a way of edging into our history one way or another. My mother visited the Saamis (Lapps) in Finnish, near lake Inari, while I eyed the raindeer ambling down the street too near for comfort, about arm's length it seemed.

Even Chihuly, who put blown glass orbs in a Finnish river with Finnish glass blowers has a spot with the films.

Not only will the Helsinki Police Choir sing but I see they will also have a panel discussion comparing Police Work in Finland and the USA. After nearly a lifetime of hearing about it, I will hear the kantele played.

There wil be all of this and added to it will be the opportunity to spend a week with my only remaining aunt,my mother's youngest sister and her family.

New Socks and Old Friends

New socks are not always predictable. I am a little too sock fussy; no seams, not too thick, plain with no foo-foo. He Who Must Be Obeyed surprised me with a whole bunch of new socks in black, white and navy blue. They are perfect. I am amazed, as he is not much for either surprises or presents. I was pleased with the socks and his thoughtfulness.

When I was a young(ish) woman and I used the term 'old friends' it meant friends my own age that I have had since I was a school kid. Now that term has taken on several meanings. It might be new acquaintances my own age, and they might be old acquaintences the same age as I am, or it could be people I know older than myself by ten years. You just can't tell exactly what an old friend is anymore.

This past weekend we went to Wichita to a graduation party for two grandchildren. The party was perfection. The outdoor graduation was comfortable, the gift opening and card reading was touching. We have a nurse who will work in Pediatric Intensive Care. That is serious nursing duty. The high school grad is like the rest of us trying to sort life out. For some of us it takes longer than for those who know right off what life is all about and how they fit into the big picture.

I am still church conflicted, pain challenged, and startled that I have been wrong more than right all along. I can't figure it all out but I have discovered what I thought was right, wasn't. It felt better thinking I was right though, than knowing that I wasn't.

Another truth came to me on our drive to Wichita. We have to stop and walk around after a few hours on the road and we pulled off the highway about a block and walked through a "flea market" in a small Kansas town. I have nothing to complain about. I should be thankful for lumpy socks. This handfull of folks with their caged animals and small assorted nic-naks on tables were so poor, that my heart went out to them. Both of us felt bad that we didn't peel off a few bills for each of them and tell them to keep their bunnies, chickens, doves, kittens, and guinea pigs.

I don't know why it is that in the middle of a friendly conversatin about how to raise doves, one feels awkward about giving poor people money. It somehow seemed rude to offer money without taking the little critter being sold. Even poor people have lots of pride. They are friendly to a fault.

I could have sat in the dirt with any of them and made a friend. It was obvious that a little dirt did not put any of them off. You have to carry a dove around a long time to tame it. You only put it down if you have to go out of the house "for one thing or the other." No mention of going out to school or work, however. I can get judgemental a bit too quickly.

Perhaps the need for friendship is as immediate as the need for money. I just hate it when I think about the money I didn't hand out. We could have turned the animals loose maybe. One sweet woman in her thirties or forties handed me a little kitten, so sick it was almost limp. It is free she said. I bet there was a lot of undiagnosed illness among that little group near the 4H barns with their cages and tables. There was also a lot of friendship between the cages of crowing roosters and pregnant bunnies.

Bedtime Stories

I don't really have trouble sleeping at night and during the past two months find myself falling asleep during the day. I don't know what to make of that.

AA battery businesses depend on people like me who keep their ancient Sony Walkman powered up in the middle of the night...I don't bother my room mate with the head set; but you are correct in thinking he finds it isolating. It is. But it makes for diverse (mis)information and great bedtime stories, classical music as well, and even a local NBC affiliate TV station with those infernal advertisments. I find the Catholics more to my liking than the other choice. Some nights it is all annoying.

Last night it was an old rerun of John Lear on "Coast to Coast."

"Publicized space missions such as the Shuttle are actually a cover-up for what is really going on, added Lear. Also kept from the public, is the fact that there is life similar to ours on most of the planets in our solar system, he declared. For instance, Mars has a population of 660 million (mostly underground) and Venus is actually "green and beautiful." Further, the sky is blue on both Mars and our Moon, Lear said."

When I was a kid I enjoyed the likes of Hansel and Gretel, a fairy tale, no matter how fantastic, is simply to entertain and be enjoyed. Even the gory stuff and there was plenty of that in Hans Christian Anderson. John Lear had a theory about missing people, God, our souls, and animal mutilation. It was on par with pitching a witch into the oven.

A person has to be a lunatic to even listen to that stuff; or else you love a good bedtime story.

To Know Thyself

"Know Thyself." This famous Greek maxim is attributed to any number of ancient Greek philosophers, including the great Socrates.

The quest for the meaning of life is foremost in one's mind, if one cares a snap for it; the second and more valuable is, "Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices." -- Benjamin Franklin. That is almost too exhausting for words.

Self examination is painful and incomplete. Forty days of Lent are too short for it. Embarrassing oneself helps a little bit for a short time, as does humiliation which lasts longer. Being told outright how pathetic you are keeps a person humble, but unfortunately that old shield of defense always seems to be right there. Too bad it can't be dropped as easily as it can be picked up.

Old Benjamin had it right. I don't think he wrote a self help book to go with his pointed little maxim. All I recall from his autobiography, which seems to be a self-help book for life, is not to sleep your life away.

It isn't easy to listen to criticism and think about your critic's virtues.

Why Write?

I have been asked not to write. Told I muddied the water of understanding.

Why then would one continue to do so to the consternation of people that matter?

Why indeed? It was in the Henri Nouwen Daily Meditation for today that says it precisely. When I was asked, could I say it? No...but this is why:

Writing to Save the Day

Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write.

Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating day can be "redeemed" by writing about it. By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too.

The Savages

My own history/geography books in school had references to the SAVAGES. They scared the bejeebers out of me and I hoped I would never meet one. Like Pogo says, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Now I meet them every day and they are indeed us.

He Who Must Be Obeyed was home Sunday in time for lunch. Monday he packed again and was gone this morning early. I am certain that I am experiencing a prodigious amount of neurosis. I had one whopping headache the whole while he was home. How crazy is that, anyway? Maybe I got a little too comfortable being in charge. I think I have some control issues. I am not a headachy person. While talking to him on the phone, he mentioned that perhaps he gives me a headache. I told him we better hang up before I gave him one.

Where did he go? To the Black Hills to make life easier for our daughter; he bought her a dishwasher and will do her bidding. "Bless his heart. He is a good soul," my friend says. He is that.

Intricate Lace

There is more to life than "Book TV" on CSPAN II. It is, however, a nice distraction from the news, while being news of a sort. Old news though is sometimes like yesterday's newspapers. Early Saturday morning a former governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating, was reading his book, "Theodore" (Roosevelt) to a group of children in Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington D.C. I was captivated. I had an interesting conversation last night about that book store with a good friend. Her brother took an active part in the book review group that met there. There it is again; life looping around, weaving an intricate lace through experiences.

I see that Megatrends 2010 is going to be discussed this morning. I am probably wrong about yesterday's newspapers.

He Who Must Be Obeyed is dropping in for a vist on his way to the Black Hills. He reminds me of "The Accidental Tourist." He is something of an accidental visitor, perhaps. Unfortunately, I am no leading lady...or does it just seem that way? That leading lady went on to be president. I am not all that confident about the facts in Wikipedia, if she does have an IQ of 140 she has nothing over on HWMBO.

Tenth Day

He Who Must Be Obeyed is still on a mission. "Doing God's Work" he calls it. Apparently he is good at it and can scrub, paint, plumb, and shop for whatever is needed. Cars are being repaired, rooms are painted, carpets cleaned, beds and bedding have been purchased and made up. Kitchen walls and cabinets have been scrubbed and furnished with needed cooking equipment. Vehicles have been repaired. Meetings with Social Services and mental evaluators have been attended. There is more to be accomplished.

HWMBO is a doer. Not much of a talker, though. The phone calls have been short and terse with his exhaustion. His recipient's have been cheerful, helpful and appreciative.

Cultural Hatred

Do you ever really think about hatred? I had an 84 minute phone call from a son Friday night saying he read a lot of 'hate between the lines of my email' to the family. I was floored and very, very disturbed about the accusation. Apparently that is how I come across in my email.

As I think about hatred in our society I think that word is flung about as loosely as is the word "love." I looked up "hatred in our culture" on Google and got 12,800,000 hits. There is a lot of hate talk, hate blogs, and obviously hate.

The first 20 hits are very interesting. Don Closson in Culture Wars states that "Americans are highly polarized when it comes to issues of morality and social norms." He states "Unfortunately, in the eyes of the secular world Christians are often seen as angry, intolerant people. At school board meetings, outside abortion clinics, even at the funeral of a homosexual who was murdered because of his lifestyle, Christians are there to angrily condemn sin and it perpetrators...Although understandable, I don't believe that we are called as Christians to respond to the culture war in anger, especially anger directed at people.

In the New Testament, Paul condemns "hatred" and "fits of rage" immediately before listing the spiritual fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

Closson has some good advice concerning 'righteous indignation.' I didn't react very well when I followed up the disturbing phone call three days later to ask about it again. When I learned my indignant son had been drinking when I was jammed up about my hatred, the feelings of my own righteous indignation welled up in my throat.

If I am not careful, with one foot in hell, I am going to completely slide over the edge.

The Death of a Pastor

The death of Pastor Jack Hill makes me more lonesome than ever. He was such a part of my parent's lives that he seemed more like a family member. My dad climbed the buttes and rimrocks of the Cave Hills with him and another friend, Ted Seppala. They carried sticks, binoculars and cameras.

I wonder what their conversations were about. Surely they commented about the Indian Dance Ring to the SE of McKinsey Butte, and how the Indians caught eagles in their rock traps baited with a live rabbit; actually it was catch and release for them as all they wanted were a few good feathers; did they remark about the ancient and more modern petroglyphs on the sandstone walls? I wonder if there was any 'God' talk? They were men of deep faith, all three of them. They loved the out of doors and the high plains.

He was my mother's confidant and spiritual advisor. He helped her bear the sad realities of life. He wrote me wonderful letters regarding the book on my dad and just this past month about the 'Sisu' book. He complimented me on some of my poetry. His life was cut too short.

He was a wonderful preacher, writer, pastor, encourager, friend. I was blessed just to have known Pastor Jack Hill, and my parents were blessed to be able to call him their pastor, their friend.

Maundy Thursday at Holy Cross

Holy Thursday at Holy Cross was a first person observation of the Last Supper. "Remember When..." P. Jim was eloquent, he sang, his wife sat beside us, his teen aged boys were friendly. M. picked me up and was weepy on the way home. Because the soloist moved us to tears, because it took us so long to make the change. Because we are so thankful to have a shepherding pastor again. She has made the move and we will after Easter.

How strange it is to go to both churches. I went to the noon service at St. Tim's and helped clear communion and "made the house" for tonight. Making the house isn't what you might think. It is setting up the chalace with the corporal, the burse and all of that on the altar. It isn't as easy as you might think.

K. is experimenting makeing bread for communion. She thought it was too crumby this noon. She is going to have her confirmatin guide group of girls learn to do it next year as thier service project. That is a lot of bread baking on a weekly basis. Because of the loaves the Priest Host is no longer used.

I love church talk. Full and complete Liturgy is a relief after leaning toward being neither fish nor fowl. Maybe going to two churches is neither fish nor fowl. Going twice today can't be as sinful as wanting to tell Pastor F. that Henri Nouwen is dead. How can you quote someone like they were still alive when they are not? I get an Henri Nouwen daily devotion. I keep him alive by reading him, not by pretending he is still alive.

It is the devil in the darned details again. I always have one foot in hell.

The Givers and the Takers

My sons make comments regarding how Jesus-like their dad is. He certainly isn't afraid to take on the problems of the underclass in our family. People that suffer mental illness and brain damage cannot or will not work; that leads to desperate situations in families in of lower economic situations.

Desperate situations are gut wrenching. Without resources people's children are removed, they live in poverty, filth, and hopelessness. Can life be made better for a dear niece that has suffered so much in her 50 years? Her parents were killed in a New Year's Eve car wreck. Three young drunks hit them head on and lay in the morgue with them that night all waiting for someone to come identify them. A baby under two years old in a coma in the hospital for three months with no parents, no siblings, only uncles, aunts, and cousins; all of them busy with their own cares and concerns. It is so easy to turn aside and forget; it is so easy to forget.

He Who Must Be Obeyed has a challenge this week. He will wade through the piles of dirty clothes and take them to the laundry. He will scrub toilets and wash dishes; he will lay out plans for a better future and make demands that will fall on angry and unhearing ears. He will spend time with social service people and try to help sort out the demands of Family Court judgements. It is indeed a Holy Week, one of great 'com' passion and one of difficult choices. And he will make a difference.

It's the Ladder Thing Again

He Who Must Be Obeyed is working on the pool. A few minutes ago the ladder slipped on the deep end and a bucket of wet cement, the ladder and you know who all landed on the bottom. That is nine and a half foot in the deepest spot. When I got out the door and looked over the edge of the precipice there he was akimbo on the bottom surrounded by spilled cement, the ladder, and himself a bit dazed.

No complaining, no comments, just dogged determination to finish the bottom of the pool before we get the tornado tomorrow morning. Omaha is an exciting place weather-wise in the spring.

I am mowing with my little reel push-mower. Not all at once of course, just a few rounds at a time and time to breathe in between. If I can get ahead of the grass and stay that way, I might be able to do this again. I love my quiet little old fashioned mower. A prerequisite is a clean lawn, every little twig gets caught in the spinning blades and stops me in my tracks. Bending to pick up things and pushing this great invention back and forth takes me back to my teen years in the early 50's when I mowed my parents yard in Buffalo, SD.

April Fool

April 1st was always great fun in this house. My four sons were always dependable tricksters. Today the joke is on us again. But it isn't funny.

He Who Must BE Obeyed and his family have been trying to solve a gritty problem for a niece, now 50, who was orphaned at 18 months when her parents were killed in a grizly auto accident.

She is in a desperate situation and needs some help. Money, time, distance, and the court system are all at issue and everyone is either too old, too poor, or too busy to do anything. Yesterday it was all figured out and today someone might just as well have shouted "April Fool!"

Necessary Procrastination

Prof. John Maeda at the MIT Media Lab writes a profound INFP explaination for "Necessary Procrastination" on March 29, 2006. Of course I am just guessing about the INFP part. I have a link to his blog at the right, Simplicity.

He states: "The more you overcommit, the more that procrastination becomes intolerably expensive to engage..yet it is when procrastination becomes exceedingly costly to do, it is then that extreme (underlined) creativity emerges. "Necessary procrastination" is a prime factor in the creative process."

All of this time I had great guilt when I spend time thinking instead of doing. Prof. Maeda is absolutely correct in the profundity of those radical new thoughts coming at you from out of the blue.

The work ethic I grew up with, our USA educational style of teaching and learning, and living with an engineer, Libra born even, can make a person such as myself feel very out of sync with the world. Marcus Borg had something to to say about the lonliness aspect of it also.

I don't know how in the world I can live in a marriage, in a family, or in our society when it is extremely difficult to figure out the small bug that I am. Understanding the way others see the big picture nearly does me in.

The Diamond Ring

That Eclipse was beautiful and unusual. To see the ring of pearls around it twice and the diamond ring event twice was amazing. The temperatures went down a little over 20 degrees through the totality. The corona was great to see.

It was a joy to hear the crowd, filled with the children of the Turkish city, cheer in totality. They were filming this in a 2000 year old Roman ampitheater. It was even unforgettable streaming live on the Internet.

Turkey Eclipse

This is a awful/wonderful time in history. It is amazing what is possible. As you know I am a middle of the night AM radio listener on occasion. It was good to be wakeful tonight. I was directed to a site to watch a webcam live from Turkey waiting for the total eclipse. I suppose it will be rerun and you can see it all later also.

Actually I was awakened by David Icke's strange ranting on the Illuminati. Wikipedia doesn't paint a pretty picture of him. It was, however, very good to be pointed to the site in Turkey. Maybe I will quit eating Splenda if it scrambles my brain waves.

The last total eclips was in 2003. The announcers are explaining the phenomena in front of some ancient hunks of ornate cement from old buildings. Science guys par-excellance with a variety of telescopes, an H Alpha that shows the sun spots and the moon's shadow. The Corona camera projects a very beautiful image. It is getting very dark there. Coronal mass ejections live are dynamic in time lapse. It disturbes our earth in communications and now NASA is showing the aurora resulting from it.

To see the Earth's image from space with the beginning of the slice of black caused by the eclipse slicing Africa, going through Turkey, and ending in Russia somewhere is almost more than I can believe. Twenty-five percent of the sun is now covered. A huge crowd is watching this from a collesium. I am such a bumpkin that listening and watching this even live is almost more than my little brain can take in.

The Ghana guys have seen totality. And we will see it in Turkey in 20 minutes.

I am thankful that He Who Must Be Obeyed got the best computer he could afford a few years ago! And I am thankful to be alive today! Holy-Moly!

Forever is a Long, Long Time

It does seem like forever since I have visited and written. For almost a year I have been living in the past. That is what writing history gets you. Life a hundred years ago wasn't exactly 'the good old days' some people talk about. I am certainly ready to put all of that behind me and get on with it.

The past weeks I have only caught little bits and pieces of news, short minutes of curious and intriguing BOOKTV authors talking about the God Meme and dangerous professors, seen the throngs of people resisting the Senate Hearings on immigration but not the hearing itself. Life as it is for me at the moment, I never get all of anything. A true half-wit. I felt the same way when I was in college with six kids in the house.

The book "Cave Hills Finns: They Had Sisu!" is done. After a flurry of mailings it has gone into a second printing. Second printings are good. I should have had a recall on the first one. It had so many errors, typos, and slip-slides that I am completely humiliated by it. The second one will be much cleaner. Not, perfect. No.

He Who Must BE Obeyed was gone eleven days recently doing what he calls "God's Work." I was home feeling giddily independent. Growing up an only child, I love to be alone. It was a win/win for everyone concerned and I can look forward to more of the same every three weeks. It is pure bliss.

A Sad Day

In 18 minutes the funeral for a grandson of a dear friend and cousin will begin. It is sad indeed. I am grateful for one very large thing; governors in South Dakota and Wisconsin have signed laws restricting the hateful picketing at the funerals of Iraq soldiers. Small solace, albeit very important.

The funeral will be officiated by another cousin. Life and death become such a tangled web.

This young father didn't die in Iraq; but he did spend a good deal of time there seeking and dismantling land mines. He leaves three little children fatherless and a host of distraught relatives. "Burial with military honors in the Black Hills National Cemetery."

His death could have brought out the sleazy Topeka families with their hate signs and slogans; I see by the news that they are busy in Minnesota. They did their dirty deed in South Dakota long enough. WE BLOG addresses the issue of free speech this morning. I am not, however, painting this with a wide brush. There are fine people in Kansas and I love them a lot. Some, however, are horrid.

The Devil is in the Details

"Even the grandest project depends on the success of the smallest components. This version of the proverb often implies that the details might cause failure. A more positive version is "God is in the details," a saying often attributed to the archetect Le Corbusier." He was a 20th Century French city planner known for designing buildings with unusual curves and unconventional shapes." Gurunet and Bartleby.com my, ever there, sources of information.

The book is an embarrassment. It would be easy blame it on those tempting templates in MS Word. The blame is entirely mine, for looking for an easy way, and not reading manuals. The hiccups and errors in the final printing are irritating. I need to get over it. Iimperfections get in the way of the viewer or reader. The last thing a person would do is purposely annoy a reader.

The book annoys me, like a baby, so sweet after a bath and two hours later it needs changing.
Drat.

Miracles Still Happen

The book has gone to print. It feel like sending a child off to grow up and become a person. Books, like children reflect thier author-parents. They can embarrass you half to death, give you some pleasure, do things you are proud of, or make you wish you didn't have your name written all over them.

It is a scary thing, this book thing. Writing to market would send me right over the edge. Vanity press is very safe. Expensive, but safe.

What I have done for for nine months is gestation. Have I given birth to a beauty or a beast? I have prayed to God every day before starting that I can give honor to my heritage; and to the people and place I try to put into print. I pray that I can stay awake, that my computer keeps working and that I can endure the pain. The stuff of consequence.

Iit is a miracle. It is done. He Who Must Be Obeyed has read proof pages, made good suggestions, a dozen phone calls, cooked for and fed me, and put me to bed. Even though I resisted a lot of it, and called it "loud, pushy behavior," and I made noises back; I couldn't have finished without it.

This morning I woke up, too early, to hear him talking on the phone about school sections determined by the Homestead Act. My source was correct. That is what I mean about the baby. When you are footnoting names like Mykkanen, with an umlaut, you can't rely on your spell checker.

Like babies, books are miracles.

Tomorrow: to the Printer

After three or four very long days, I anticipate a tomorrow of minor correction instead of writing and scanning. Only the deadly proof reading left on the last half of nearly one hundred-fifty pages of family story and old photos.

It is a deadly business, this writing, and I am not likely to take on another project such as this. Don't get me wrong. I like what I am doing, actually I enjoy it. A lot. But the deadlines are as deadly as they were in the real world. Why a deadline? You know we ancients are the world's best coupon clippers! This one is saving me nearly a helf-K. That is enought to deal in deadlines.

Retirement is not the real world. It is that twilight where a person relives the past, even before they were born. I told He Who Must Be Obeyed that it would be more fun to write script for shows like House, Gray's Anatomy, or Judging Amy. Whatever happened to Judging Amy?

There you have it, script writing would be dealing in deadlines. I guess I will enjoy the twilight zone

A Pain in the Patoot

I have sat in front of this monitor until I am cross-eyed.

Any of you that have written a book or two, know what I mean by it being a painful endeavor. The first one I attempted to write, edit, do the layout, and go through the agonizing Library of Congress Copyrighting ordeal, just about did me in. Actually, I ended up in the hospital for back surgery when I was done with it.

Today reminds me of that.

He Who Must Be Obeyed is proof reading for me; and cracking the whip at every page turn, I might add. He has me on a deadline that I cannot meet; all to save a few hundred dollars. I don't think it is worth it. I still have material to locate, Finnish letters to get translated into English, and more photos to scan, push around in Adobe Elements and then push around into a pleasing page layout. Researching a little corner of the earth and the events of a hundred years ago doesn't exactly drop into a person's lap.

To tell the truth, I am darned sick of the whole business right now.

Hokshila Waste

He Who Must Be Obeyed is working on his ancestral Norwegian Cowboy history again. Over the past few months he has corresponded with a man who has the most beautiful Palmer Method Penmanship I have seen since my own father's. Carl's hand is larger and looser than my dad's. Just looking at it I would think he was an open friendly guy with a heart for people and his surroundings.

He writes a beautiful letter. Not only is it lovely to look at but it is full of information and knowledge. I Googled him and sure enough he is on the Web. He is from Sitting Bull's tribe. My family and I lived on the reservation that he was born on, the Standing Rock at Fort Yates, ND, for three months many years ago when the children were small and two of them attended the Government Indian School there.

Today we ordered a book that his grandmother wrote called "With My Own Eyes: A Lakota Woman Tells Her People's History." I can hardly wait to read it. I just have to think he lives up to his Lakota name, "Good Boy."

Amadeus

According to The Writer's Almanac today is the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756.

It was the film, Amadeus, that brought his life, the time, and the music to life for me. It might be a good day to watch it again. Today we are still blessed by his brilliant mind and the music he wrote in his short 35 years; forty-nine symphonies, forty concertos, and a wide range of other works including operas. Mozart wrote: "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together make genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."

I enjoy listening to The Writer's Almanac because I find Garrison Keillor voice soothing in our world of harsh voices. In addition to noting the historic events of the day, he reads verse.

It is also the birthday of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, a relative modern, being born in 1832. He found he did not stutter when he talked with children. Through his imagination we discovered Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. One day, while on a tour of Oxford, the tree limb outside of his office window was pointed out to us; the very limb on which sat the Cheshire cat in Alice's Adventures.

"He was good at charades, he sang, he told stories. Soon enough, jokes, puzzles, games, questions-and-answers, tricks with numbers and with words, and mental exercises became for him a means of everyday amusement and for his family and friends source of fun and diversion. He also played traditional games - chess, croquet, billiards, cards - but his mind was not content with these, and he expanded, extended, and experimented with all forms and fashions, pushing traditional entertainments to their outer limits and inventing new ones. In the 1870s he created a veritable cornucopia of conundrums and mental challenges, brilliant additions to the store of magic and game playing ... He was so creative and so productive that his games and diversions fill sizeable anthologies."

Dodgson lectured and tutored Oxford students in mathematics and was a fine photographer. I have a book of his photographs, many of them children. I have discovered if a person has a lot of books, it is hard to memorize just where they are. Do old librarians keep their books in Dewey order? Not this one, who is more interested in the Chi of her surroundings. There is something to be said for Dewey and his Decimals.

Trying to Forget

Last night we watched a local access channel lecture from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, one of the two teaching hospitals in Omaha. A person can get too much information. It isn't always helpful. Last night's lecture was on genetics, and our genetic predisposition to act like the parents we always said we would never be like. It cannot be helped, it seems.

This afternoon He Who Must Be Obeyed was acting a little too much like my father-in-law did, God rest his soul, and I told him so. He asked me for an example and I gave him one he didn't like any better than I did. "Why do you remember those things?" he asked me.

Why indeed I have no idea. Sometimes I feel like I never forget anything. My mother told me that I was born on the kitchen table of the homestead house of my parent's first home. That was way too much information. Do you think I can forget it? Never have, and probably never will.

It came back to haunt me again with an email inquiry from a grand-daughter who was doing an interview for a biology class regarding birthplaces and disease and vaccination. There it was again, the homestead table event. I didn't tell her that but I am sure I gave her more information than her biology class ever needed to hear. Youngsters don't even know what Whooping Cough is; but I spared her wondering what being quarantined meant.

Having the county health department slap a quarantine sign in the front window of your house is about as humiliating as it can get for a kid, whose only entertainment is the street out front and one's playmates. I probably was too young to even read then.

Actually, I am not up at this unholy hour pondering birthing tables, I am giving the devotional reading at a woman's luncheon next week and do I go to my many books? No, I checked it out on the Net and you would be amazed, as I was. Have you checked out the podcasts on devotions? They are certainly aimed at the hip and attractive. It makes me wonder if everything has to be tied to a television program or a movie today. Is that all people think about?

"Where Legends Live"

He Who Must Be Obeyed spent some time at the Adams Museum in Deadwood, SD a few days ago. He visited with the curator about a planned exhibit on his family that went into the Gulch in 1877, one year after General Custer and Wild Bill Hickock bit the dust as they say. General Custer actually "bit the dust" but Wild Bill just hit the floor of Saloon No. 10 which is still in operation. It was probably filthier than the dust of the Greasy Grass, which makes the dying no more comfortable.

Having families whose lives coincide with the history of the Black Hills makes for interesting writing and day dreaming. I am one of those individuals whose imagination has a way of filling in all the blanks between the dry facts. One can get carried away with the what ifs and the fancy thats.

It is nice to have the family honored at the Adams Museum. The stately photograph of the immigrant mother who endured incredible hardships and difficulties, and her spinning wheel have been the basis of the display. It is good to honor people other than the infamous and the wild women who serviced them. I am sort of relieved that we do not have HBO so I don't have to watch "Deadwood." Reading the history is about all the excitement that I need. Taking a college class on the Ghost Towns and Gold Mines of the Northern Black Hills brought those days to life for me.

My own quiet Finnish immigrant ancestors left the Homestake Gold Mine to take their families a hundred miles north to the short grass prairies to obtain land of their own. They were a quiet group, along with their neighbors, simply surviving the elements of the northern high plains, establishing schools, churches, and cherishing their tight knit neighbors. Maybe the likes of Calamaty Jane were just too much for them. She died in Terry, one of those ghost towns and gold mines, the year after they left to homestead.

Henri Nouwen

The Daily Meditation from HenriNouwen.org often compliments my thinking. Some wise words like those of today make me thankful that situations I have been in have somehow been lifted. Day by day I have realized that occasionally I feel a complete peace; and joy has replaced despair.

Today this little nugget sailed ethereally into my inbox:
"Sometimes we have to "step over" our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there. Then we become the "offended one," "the forgotten one," or the "discarded one." Yes, we can get attached to these negative identities and even take morbid pleasure in them. It might be good to have a look at these dark feelings and explore where they come from, but there comes a moment to step over them, leave them behind and travel on." Henri Nouwen.

Life After Dark

Night Photography is enjoyable and so much easier with digital cameras. Years ago a son and I went near this spot, set up tripods, used plunders so as not to wiggle our ancient film cameras. There was nothing automatic about them so we counted the street light changes to estimate exposures. The photograpic image seems better with digital, but I forgot to take a plunger and had a wiggley tripod. This was my only decent image.

Nebraska: The Good LIfe

There was a time that I thought I would simply die if I didn't get to move back to the Black Hills. Being away from Harding County was agonizing. The older I get the more I realize that I had better get used to the idea of being transplanted in Omaha and I too have taken root, like the 35 trees we have sucking up water in our own yard.

He Who Must Be Obeyed put in a swimming pool about 30 years ago, built a nice redwood privacy fence around it and planted 13 Scotch Pine trees in the back yard. It is ever so pleasant, but it isn't the Black Hills.

There is something about planting trees and staying long enough to see them tower above the roof to make you feel you that you belong. I am not sure a person can own a tree. You can plant one and rake up the leaves and pick the pears; but other than cut a limb here or there, you can't really control a tree unless you cut it down. I think the tree really owns you. We found that out when we had to dig out the sewer line from the house to the street and discovered the tree owned that as well.

So we tried to make our own little Black Hills in the back yard. Pines, water, birds and a few flowers. It isn't. It is nice and I like it but it doesn't smell of petrichor when it rains, it just smells like earthworms.

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.