More Rocks

Sometimes He Who Must Be Obeyed brings gifts. On Monday I was ceremoniously presented two lighted rocks, one a rough pink quartz and one a single smoky quartz point; both are beautiful in their own right, but really quite spectacular when plugged in to sparkle our night wanderings.

That was the first; the second really set be back on my heels. He off loaded 400 pounds of South Dakota sandstone moss rock which he had hand picked, weighed, and then loaded into his pickup box. He actually handled the 400 pounds three times before I got my eyes on it.

Yesterday morning the minute HWMBO drove out to do his Omaha daughter duty, I got a little two wheeled appliance mover and hauled them over to a row of bushes beside a walk and proceeded to level the dirt and lay them in as orderly and logical manner as I could determine. I like the rocks, I like the results of my own sweat equity. The photos do not do them justice. They contain the color palette of my artist father's South Dakota landscapes.

And So It Goes

Kurt Vonnegut used the chorus "So it goes" every time a passage deals with death, dying or mortality, as a transitional phrase to another subject, as a reminder, and as comic relief. It is also used to explain the unexplained. There are 106 "so it goes" anecdotes laced throughout the story. (Slaughterhouse-Five)

This morning it all started with a blogger writing of the Zen of Picking Berries. Another of those in your blood things passed down by Finnish grandmothers, perhaps. We northwestern South Dakota berry pickers didn't have to stand in swamps to pick cloud berries, we stood in prairie creek bottoms, swatting our own brand of mosquitoes, jumping rattlesnakes, and eying poison ivy to fill our buckets with June berries, wild plum, chokecherry and later in the summer or early fall the buffalo berries that sweetened with the first frost. I can easily understand the zen of it.

Kurt Vonnegut wasn't the only author that intrigued me; when I read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," it was neither the mushroom experiment nor the repair of motorcycles that intrigued me, it was Pirsig's exploration of the meaning of the concept, "quality." He explored the term by assigning his Montana State University students the task of defining the word. Then he said it cannot be defined because it empirically precedes any intellectual construction and it (Quality or value)is the knife-edge of experience known to all. This is all out of wikipedia, and we don't know what that is worth. It fills space and so it goes.

Paralyzed by Hate Mail

Some letters should never be mailed. Our bi-polar daughter sent He Who Must Be Obeyed a 16 page letter detailing my parenting faults. A lot of hate for me was spewed out in it. Apparently she spent days on it as it was dated on various pages. "You sure picked a winner!" she told him.

She and her daughter agree on one thing; I am a mean, selfish, hateful woman. My working was among my wrongs. Apparently both of them would love to drum me right out of the family.

Have you, dear reader, ever experienced real hatred? It is difficult to get through day to day knowing that if you were not alive, it would make some people happy. I wonder if every person experiences this? If they do, I have never been told about it; if they don't, that must make me as horrible as the letters indicate. Am I the only hated person on the earth?

I wonder if I am being delusional and my perception is skewed. I was told to 'forget it.' Some insults are seared into ones brain and are not easily forgotten. I see that HWMBO burned the letter in a trash can. I dove in for the scraps of it this morning reading through and around the scorched and blackened uneven edges of the few pages that were left. I just wanted to see if what I had read a few days ago was real or my imagination. It was real. It was damning. How dare I set foot in church, sinner that I am, I was told by both of them.

Finnish Grandmothers

If it is in the Scientific American, must it be true? The article is "What Finnish Grandmothers Reveal about Human Evolution."

"The 33-year-old Finnish biologist, aided by genealogists, has pored through centuries-old tomes (and microfiche) for birth, marriage and death records, which ended up providing glimpses of evolution at work in humanity's recent ancestors. Among them: that male twins disrupt the mating potential of their female siblings by prenatally rendering them more masculine; mothers of sons die sooner than those of daughters, because rearing the former takes a greater toll; and grandmothers are important to the survival of grandchildren. "I'm trying to understand human reproductive behavior from an evolutionary perspective," Lummaa says."

"The evolutionary biologist has also used this historical data set to ponder the conundrum of grandmothers. That is, why human women often live long after they are able to reproduce (on average around the age of 50), unlike almost all other animals. "If your ultimate purpose in life was to create as many offspring as possible or pass off as many genes," Lummaa says, "it's kind of strange that human women stop halfway."..."That suggests that perhaps one reason why women do carry on living is because they are able to help."

Me here again: What an irony to have sons, destroy your immune system, die sooner; but not before you help, or raise, the grandchildren. It is interesting that Lumma theorizes that it is the testosterone flooding the womb to make boys that destroys ones immune system. The article was interesting.

Lummaa has now turned her attention to the effect of grandfathers on grandchildren. If grandmothers improve survival odds, what do elderly males contribute? "If anything there's a negative effect," she says. This could be because of the cultural tradition of catering to men, particularly old men. "Maybe if you had an old grandpa, he was eating your food," she speculates.

Pitchfork Fondue

This cowboy cookout served almost a hundred folks that came to the High Plains to join the family that celebrates together every other year. This rowdy bunch of Vikings stirs the souls of those of us that were brave enough to marry into the tribe. The story of their 1857 immigrants is what Western Epics are made of.

"The Norsemen, also known as Vikings, ravaged the coasts of northwest Europe from the 8th to the 11th century and were ruled by local chieftains. Olav II Haraldsson became the first effective king of all Norway in 1015 and began converting the Norwegians to Christianity. As a teenager he was given ships and men by his father to "go Viking".

Even if King Olav II brought Christianity into Norway because the Viking tribal control made it easy for him; this particular tribe brings Jack Daniel to the council fire. It seems one can control a Norse tribe, but not much. He Who Must Be Obeyed knew exactly what it meant to "go Viking."

The photos are those of a couple who were there and took the pictures to prove it. Thank you to K.B.H. and N.C. I wish I had been with you longer.

The T-Rex Stan

Family Reunions

Finns and Norwegians have different ways of celebrating families. Oh, we Finns are so solemn and serious. Our reunion started with coffee and pulla, then church and communion. We filled the little rural church front to back and we were so grateful to gather this way. The ladies of the church prepared our meal. In a new community center couples married over 50 years were recognized, door prizes were drawn, and the Finnish dance music began. We bonded with long lost cousins not seen for three years.

An aunt and cousin took me to my hometown for a couple days of blissful amazement. One highlight was spending some time with a bone hunter cousin who showed us his latest triceratops find. He was the finder of the T-Rex Stan in the Hell Creek formation in the Cave Hills, Harding County, South Dakota. You can check it out in Hill City, SD at the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, Inc.

Minnesota Lakes

Going to our friend's MN cabin for a few days was a dream you want to last longer. K.C. had undergone her first chemo treatment, had to get a son to a swim camp at the U, and couldn't predict how she would feel. Tutu was with us but was up front about driving 40 mph if she had to. I was a decrepit back up; but I was pleased to be chosen and did do a bit of back up driving on our way home, until the dark of night blurred my aging vision.

We spent the first night with P's 91 year old mother in the city. It was love at first sight, just like it was with E.S., our friend in a chariot ie. wheelchair. Sunday morning we went to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. Both K and Tutu wept through the service. K's friends were there from 20 years ago. K was with her tribe. The Crucifer carried in the Cross, hands properly gripping the pole which was pressed into his forehead with such devotion that I too could have wept for the beauty of it. Liturgical, with a Cantor; it was such sweet reverance. Later we would stop to see the Chisago Lutheran Church, built by Swedes in 1802 which was breathtaking in its restoration.

The cabin was restful and restorative. We were not without our medical alarms, however. K had a blood draw which indicated a danagerous white count drop and a need for antibiotics. Her Omaha doctor's office called immediately after the faxed results. Tutu lept upon a flopping sunfish on the dock and got stabbed in the thumb with a fin. When it redlined we took her to emergency, coming home in the dark of night, with the big dipper shining its welcome back.

Tutu sang Bengali songs to us and tried to teach me one of religion making life smooth. A neighbor gave us a pontoon ride around one end of the lake where I made a photo of the old church we looked at.I am going to try put some of the photos on Flickr, there is a nice one of the old Swedish church and the interior of the cabin.

Waiting for Midsummer

Juhannus is celebrated on the Saturday between the 20th and the 26th of June. It is the Feast of St. John the Baptist on the church calendar but we called it Juhannus and it brought every Finn, spouse, and friend, tick and mosquito, into Casper's Gulch for a picnic, homemade ice-cream, games and competitions, and my Grandpa Tuovinen auctioned off the fancy work for the Ladies Aid of the Cave Hills Lutheran Church.

Other folks came as well, and it surprised me that my hero, Frankie Clark, told me that he came as a kid with his parents from Buffalo. They were English Papists, but they must have enjoyed the congeniality, or maybe watching the Finns loosen up a little and have some fun. Anyway, he said they came every year; it made me happy to know that.

Later when I was in my 40's, my mother and I enjoyed the bonfires and dancing in Finland on Juhannus. The next day we arrived at our paternal Finnish relatives who had asked all of the clan over to see the American Cousins! After the greetings, meeting and feasting, Seppo took out his accordian and all the women danced together in the livingroom. I wanted to Polka with Seppo, but he was the music so that was out. The torte was so tall and so wonderful I have never forgotten it, and the old women dancing was a sight to behold.

When the women wore out their hips and knees, Seppo put the accordian down and took me for a motorboat ride.

Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory

"Underground science is a hot field. Physicists use deep labs to shield experiments from cosmic radiation. A “neutrino detector” that operated underground at Homestake for 30 years won a Nobel Prize for researcher Ray Davis. Deep labs in Russia, Italy and Japan have yielded results that are forcing theorists to change their view of how the universe works." From the Rapid City Journal, June 4, 2007

A little exploration, not for gold, but on the web, brought me the realization that Homestake Gold Mine, the stepping stone, or drop off into the abyss, of my forefathers, is in direct competition with an iron mine near Ely, MN. But it isn't Finn vs. Finn this time. It is state vs. state and Colorado and WA are also in the final four compteting for a National Science Foundation decision. The state that gets the tap is in for a huge grant, many jobs and lots of publicity world-wide.

Sometime soon -- maybe this month -- the National Science Foundation will announce a site for the proposed Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory. The NSF envisions a DUSEL that would also host geologists, seismologists, biologists and even experts in national security.

I discovered the Ely, MN Soudan connection in the news article. There are interesting photos of all sites on Bill Harlan's blog.

A geological engineering son's first job out of the SD School of Mines and Technology was working for Homestake doing surface exploration for gold in the Northern Black Hills. He once told me if you buy land there, be aware that you could have a gold mine for a neighbor. Then gold dropped to $42 an ounce and the big companies lost interest, even Barrick out of Canada, who bought the Homestake called it quits.

I once had dreams of living in Lead. There is a Hearst Additon of new homes, named for the Newspaper family that owned Homestake and much of the town of Lead.

In October 1877, George Hearst arrived in Deadwood to view the "New El Dorado" with his own eyes. His initial stay in Deadwood only lasted 40 days, but the impact of his visit would reverberate through the Hills for more than a century. In early November 1877, Hearst wrote back to his partners in San Francisco, describing the vein of gold ore on the Homestake claim as being 30 feet wide, 1,500 feet long, and at least 100 feet deep. He estimated that 60-70% of the assayed gold in the ore could be easily reclaimed with the correct equipment. He then recommended that 100 stamps be brought to the Homestake, stating that it would take at least 25 years to do the job. Hearst continued, telling his partners that many of the claims immediately north of the Homestake were almost as rich.

When Homestake discontinued operation, housing was available and inexpensive. But that is no more, the wealthy from both coasts have discovered the charming pristine Black Hills and land prices have shot up; not with the lure of gold or neutrinos, but perhaps Kevin Costner and his brother had something to do with it; or the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. It has been said that HBO's "Deadwood" has had some kind of impact on the viewing public leading to a new source of tourist visitors to the Black Hills.

Blessed are the folks that had the sense to hold on to the land they once acquired in the Black Hills. Unfortunately, when we left in the late '60's we sold everything we once had. Drat.

Taking Time for Thought

Mark Twain's War Prayer from a blog called The Glyphians.

I realize that 14 minutes is a bit of a sit for the average American, accustomed to having thier attention span programmed to seven minutes by the commercial break on television of our past; but this short film is amazingly produced and worth the time to listen to this little homily with two sound tracks.

Genesis and Dark Skies

14: And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16: And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

Instead of walking out of doors at night for a sky check, today we have to rely on the Hubble, or artists, to show us what we are missing. How long has it been since you were able to actually count on seeing anything up there other than contrails, aeroplanes approaching the landing strips at your local terminal, or a planet or two trying valiently to beam its light to our good earth?

I am not the environmentalist that my mother was, but I do recycle and plant trees; however, there is one group that I admire and they don't get enough attention in our culture that is too busy at night with thier own pleasures to even think about the Milky Way. This is the International Dark Sky Association.
Their number one goal is to "Stop the adverse effects of light pollution on dark skies."

One of the last times I literally saw stars was on the steps of a rural church (Lat: 45.7729645 Lon: -103.5583496). He Who Must Be Obeyed, a son named after him, and I sat in the warm night facing west for a couple of hours and watched the Milky Way approach over the McKinsey Butte and sail west while a shooting star or two enchanted us. It is rated a 7 on a dark sky chart I found. One of the darkest spots in the midwest. If people knew what a show we had on those wooden steps, we wouldn't have had room to sit.

Memorial Weekend

"Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen collected the pet peeves and angst-ridden pleas of people of Helsinki and composed a choral work around the list of complaints. Music composed by Esko Grundstrom. This is from the expatraveler, another blogspot blogger.

We really love our country, even so much that we can complain about it to the point one would think we actually disliked it. The Helsinki choir could have been singing about America, except about turning our forests to toilet paper.

They even sigh (while singing) about outsourcing. I am surprised our own major thinkers haven't outsourced the elderly to be cared for in a foreign land. It might be worth the trip for everyone concerned.

Not Alone in the Dog House

He Who Must Be Obeyed came home two days before he told me he would. I had left some things undone downstairs; while I cleaned the garret bedroom and removed the water marks from the carpet up there from the roof leaks during our seven inch rain a while back. I love to clean house.

It is nice to have him back in the dog house with me, even if he was growling and snapping when he left. I worked off all the stress upstairs and his soft snoring will be a pleasant lullaby again.

I read a lot of Henri Nouwen and a couple of other spiritual thinkers, too. It is nice to have those guys to fall back on when I can't think straight myself. Is change all that good, if you think you are on the right track in spite of being growled at by bigger and noisier dogs?

In the Dog House Again

It would be good to get things right once in a while. Apparently, I am so mean and selfish that neither He Who Must Be Obeyed, nor this daughter/granddaughter can stand anymore of it. They are both taking a break from me.

It is my 'Christianly love'(sic) that irks them and is the reason that she won't go to church and probably the reason that he does. " You can be a very mean woman sometimes." "Sometimes you just amaze me with your Christianly love. Another reason not to go to church." It was put so pointedly within the two page diatribe.

You know the lemons thing; while they are taking a break from me; I will use the opportunity to clean the garret, take care of some correspondence, and start a long put off project. I have wanted to enlarge and develop some of my dad's black and white negatives from the 1930's and '40's and maybe this will be the opportunity to spend some time on it. When an artist takes photographs they don't need much cropping.

Sharptail Grouse

Today I discovered a fascinating description of photographing and audio taping the mating ritual of the sharptail grouse in its lek, a new word for me. "The lek is generally circular with a diameter of about 30 feet in which each bird claims a certain space for his display and confronts any other bird that enters into that space. (Dick Kettlewell/Journal staff)" By clicking on "Kettlewell" you can shut your eyes and be there yourself! By clicking on the words "sharptail grouse" you will go to the article and see a Kettlewell photo of one with his 'arms' akimbo.

Speak Finnish in Three Minutes

A person could read this list in Finnish in less than three minutes; but "Speak Finnish in Three Minutes!" is another of the Finns elaborate jokes, in the Helsingin Sanomat International. I would love to learn Finnish in three years, if I could.

I have seen this before, but this morning I got it from Dave in Soumi, a research meteorologist in Finland. He writes an interesting blog about his adventures in Finland. I am going to check out all of his links in time.

So we swim. It is good for the soul and probably good for everything that ails me. I am no athlete, I can't even walk a straight line, ever. "Look where you are going," He Who Must Be Obeyed tells me.

Mother's Day

I used to think Mother's Day felt like a lot of work. He Who Must Be Obeyed did a lot of helping or maybe it was me helping and him doing it. Anyway for several years we set the table for four generations of women, and the men in our lives. Today I can see the blessing that it was and I cherish the memory of all of us seated after church, white table cloth, best silverware.."Be present at our table Lord, be here and everywhere adored. These mercies bless and grant that we may feast in Paradise with Thee."

On this Mother's Day I think of the women that mothered me over the years, starting in January, 1935, on the kitchen table in a small homestead ranch house. The doctor got there from Buffalo, 12 miles away. I love looking at the photographs of me as a baby in my great grandmother's arms, in my grandmother's arms, in my aunties arms, and in the arms of my mother and father. How blessed is the child who is loved.

My own mother, grandmother, my aunties, and my great aunties were all women I greatly admire and love; women of great depth, large hearts, room for everyone, ever ready to take me howm with them for a stay; always willing to help one another, they loved the extended family, and held huge picnics get togethers.

I remember one time at my Aunt Lillie's when the entire clan gathered. It seemed there were hundreds of us, and maybe there were. Old aunts and uncles, little cousins, and babies in arms, two of them my own. Those dear, dear mothers in my family with the wonderful men in their lives. Men who smelled of homemade soap and pipe tobacco.

I thank God for them, every one. But most especially, I thank God for my own mother, outspoken, demanding when I was small; she saw to it that I knew how to pray, to clean house and iron clothes, and in her age softened to the point that I almost didn't recognize her. It is a happy feeling to be a mother.

Quasars and Gideon Bibles

image credit: NASA/ESA/ESO/Wolfram Freudling et al. (STECF)

The image above was the Nasa: 2007-04-19 Image of the day. It is an artist's impression showing a primordial quasar surrounded by sheets of gas, dust, stars and early star clusters. Stars are born, creating emmissions of very specific colors of the element iron and die within the first few hundred million years of the universe. So what did the first quasars look like? The nearest are now known to be supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies.

This beautiful universe, our beautiful galaxie, our beautiful blue marble; we are blessed by beauty in every direction we look. Just because we appreciate the earth do you think we need Gore's global warming book in the night stand instead of the Gideon Bible? It was one of Drudge's headlines today. Would that tempt a thief?

Bursting with Intolerable Pride

South Dakota Magazine | Filed by Bernie Hunhoff at 1:19 pm South Dakota Magazine | Filed by Bernie Hunhoff at 1:19 pm April 18, 2007

Our May/June issue of South Dakota Magazine has a big spread on the Finnish people who immigrated to the Black Hills and worked at Homestake Gold Mine. A big group of them decided to leave Homestake and take their chances as homesteaders in Harding County.

One of the Finns, Axel Sacrison, became a self-taught artist. His daughter, Willo Boe of Omaha, Neb., collected his stories, photographs and many of his paintings and put them in a big book that tells an immigrant story unique to South Dakota.


If you follow the link you will see the rest of the story with a picture of a painting. When I first read it, "I was totally embarrassed about my own happiness and had to work hard to calm down myself!" I copped this from a Finnish blogger who has the same quality of self-deprecation that comes with our genetics.

A few days ago I googled 'Finnish self-deprecation' and got 18,000 hits. Obviously the whole world knows about it. He Who Must Be Obeyed gets annoyed by it and doesn't understand it...but Norwegians don't show any problems with this character flaw.

Well, enough of this. The magazine came today. The article takes my breath away. How am I ever going to calm myself down? To further quote Matti Pitkanen, "It is very difficult for us... to tolerate the feeling that one of us, just one of these ordinary Finnish people, might possibly have done something that might possibly distinguish him or her among other Finns some day." I know just how my dad would have felt had he still been alive today. We are bursting with pride and can hardly tolerate the feeling.

Thinking Outside the Box

When things close in, become difficult, it is far better to think about others. I have some very dear 'others' who have or are facing grim health situations. Better by far to give my knees a workout, metaphorically, in prayer for them, than to whine about my own pitiful self. My friends are people of immense inner resources.

First a cousin informed me he had cancer, the same type that my father did; that rocked me to the core. Saturday night after church a young friend told about how God caught her up in the kindness of others when she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few days ago. People called her out of the blue...even Tutu called. Tutu, who is our India/American citizen, celebrating the American Dream coming true, offered to stay with her during the treatments. Family and life has to go on during the healing. Now the 'caregiver' has great need of a caregiver.

And I think of our sweet beloved Jewish friend, written up in the Jewish Press in Omaha in a story called "Silent Exodus:..." her story reads in part:
"On Aug. 8, 1962, Helene Avigdor was 13 years old. She lived with her parents, an older sister and a younger brother in Cairo, Egypt. “I came home that day and I saw the luggage by the door,” she explained. “My father kept us in the dark, and until that moment, I didn’t know we were leaving Egypt.”

Speaking to his family in French, their primary language, Maurice Avigdor cautioned his children, “Don’t tell anyone we are going!”

Since the founding of Israel, pressure mounted on Jews through the Middle East. The Avigdors, a Sephardic family, experienced a great deal of prejudice, Helene explained, “My father told me that on a number of occasions when the doorman of their four-story apartment saw him coming, he would turn off the power in the lobby, forcing my dad to walk up the four flights.”

That was not the only discrimination he faced. Her father, who spoke seven languages and had a good job working for an Italian import/export company, stated he had been stopped often on the street. There had been a number of times when, without cause, he was stopped, questioned by authorities, and occasionally arrested. He knew of others that were roughed up.

“When we left, we took only what we could fit in a suitcase,” Helene commented. At their arrival in America on April 18, 1963, Helene was 13, her mother, 45 and her father, 55. While Helene was multi-lingual, at the time speaking Arabic, French (her first language), Spanish, and some Hebrew, she and her family spoke no English."

This wonderful friend also took on the battle of breast cancer and after the rigors of the treatment has been cancer free for four years...and sadly, she suffers occasional prejudice here in our land of the 'free.'

All of these people I love so dearly, including He Who Must Be Obeyed, have looked cancer in the eye and never faltered during their challenge; becoming people of even greater compassion than before.

The Inkslinger

There is an old Inkslinger in this world that is loved by more people than he may suspect. This fellow was the editor of the Buffalo Times Herald, my hometown newspaper, when I was growing up. He knew more than anyone else in town, worked harder and later at night than anyone other than my dad, who didn't consider either his blacksmithing or his oil painting 'work,' but after a day of smithing, he was at the easel past my bedtime and was at it again when I woke up. When I was really little, I thought he painted through the night. But I digress again.

The Inkslinger "Ramblings of a Newcomer" is a featured column in my present hometown news, The Nation's Center News. In the April 5, 2007 hometown paper and also in the Arco (Idaho) Advertiser of March 22, he writes of a St. Patrick's Day evening in my great uncle's sauna.

He writes in part: "The Inkslinger and many of the buddies along with a number of real Finnish old timers would take advantage of the 25¢ fee which included the sauna bath along with a fresh towel and a bar of soap for that special bath.

Gotta tell you, those old Finns could take the extreme heat of the sauna which was almost enough to “peel the hide off” most of us. The sauna was a two room building built specially for the purpose, one room housing the actual sauna, a big old wood burning furnace with a wash tub size container on top filled with rocks. The super-heated rocks would be doused with water with a garden hose and the steam would be so thick and hot that we non-Finns had a hard time breathing as we soaked and scrubbed and sat on the benches provided. The higher up the benches, about five or six rows, the hotter it was, even though folks traditionally think of going down to a “hot place.” Of course, not wishing to be seen as “tenderfeet” by these old timers, we young bucks would take our washing tools and go right to the top."

"...The full treatment at the sauna involved, after the steam bath, a cold shower and a cooling down period in the second, or cooling room, or for the old timers, a good old near naked roll in the snowbank within about a rod of the bathhouse. After the ritual cooldown, not in the snowbank, the Inkslinger and one buddy went out to the car, in a hurry to get to the house for the special supper, a little late already. Opening the car door was a surprise of surprises. The overheated buddy was asleep on the back seat and the heat that he generated against the cold of a heavy early spring snowstorm had frosted the windows and windshield so that the boys had to scrape peepholes in the frost to see to drive. Near a foot of snow had fallen during the time of the sauna bath..."

By no means was that the entire story; but it was very plausable as all of Uncle Matt's neighbors, who were also his sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews got in without the 25 cent admission and we got the soap free also. It might have been the lye soap my mother made regularly that could also take the hide off of a person.

I don't think the non-Finnish females of Buffalo, SD trooped to the sauna like the fellows did on a Saturday night. My own two older sons got a taste of it with the town guys when we visited their grandparents; and undoubtedly my kindly old great uncle showed them 'the ropes' of the proper way to sauna.

Thanks to that elderly loved Inkslinger for reminding me of an integral part of my past that made my life easier than taking out the old round tin tub for a bath.

The Oral Tradition

"SuAnne Big Crow will long be remembered on the Pine Ridge Reservation as a spunky young leader who could shoot a basketball like few others. A youth center has been built in her honor, and stories are still told of her achievements." South Dakota Road Stories, April 13, 2007. That is the beginning and there is a link to her winning shots at the basket in the 1989 Class A State Tournament. It is worth watching.

The first time I came across a story of this young girl was when I read an expert from "The Res" by Ian Frazier in The Atlantic magazine. Tonight I live again the spine tingling story I read years ago, probably on a trip to the Black Hills. It is told in an Easter Sermon of all places:

"As the Pine Ridge girls are lining up at the door waiting to go into the gym, they can hear the white fans of the Leed (sic) High School team chanting these fake Indian chants to mock the girls. The girls at the front of the line peek through the door, and see the fans waving food stamps to make fun of the Indians. And then someone hollers out, “Where’s the cheese? Where’s the cheese?”—the “joke” being that any time Indians are standing in line, it’s for government handouts.

The girl at the front of the line turns back to her team and says, “I can’t handle this.” Sue Anne steps up and says, “I’ll lead us out.” But the girl at the front of the line, Donny Dacori, is a little suspicious about why Sue Anne volunteered so quickly, so she says to her, “Don’t embarrass us.” And Sue Anne answers, “I won’t.”

Ian Frazier tells the rest of the story like this: “Donny gave her the ball and Sue Anne stood first in line. She went running onto the court dribbling the basketball, with her teammates close behind. On the court the noise was deafening. Sue Anne went right down the middle, and suddenly stopped when she got to center court. Her teammates were taken by surprise and some bumped into each other. Coach Zamiga, at the end of the line, didn’t know why they had stopped. Sue Anne turned to Donny Dacori and tossed her the ball. Then she stepped into the jump ball circle at center court facing the Leed fans. She unbuttoned her warm up jacket, draped it over her shoulders, and began to do the Lakota shawl dance.

Ian Frazier is interviewed by NPR and tells the story in his own words. It is better than reading it.

Miracles for Easter

Easter Sunday 2007. He Who Must Be Obeyed went to celebrate at Holy Cross without me. I was hopeful at 6:30, but the occasional relief didn't occur, so I thought I might just have a pity party alone under the down in our bed, which has become a little too familiar since spine surgery in January.

It was "Grace Matters" on the radio that gave me hope this morning with a stern lecture about clinging to dirty sheets to savor ones own painful pitiful self. It was just the thing I needed to realize healing is moment by moment right now. So I got up and enjoyed a few miracles.

One was in our Omaha World Herald on the front page. It was about an Ashton, NE man who has rang the bells at St. Francis Catholic Church nearly every day since about 1960. "He is 66 and has had a knee surgery...in spite of all of that he has climbed the 17 steps up the loft, consulted his pocket watch and pulled the rope to ring the "Angelus" bell at 7 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. for three minutes, as part of a Catholic tradition calling the faithful to prayer." I learned seven paragraphs into the article that the faithful bell ringer is developmentally disabled. God chooses people that are weak and imperfect and calls them by name. Sometimes if I turn off the televison, and pull the ear buds out of my ears, and set the radio aside, I can hear even my own name being called.

The second miracle was an email from a relative on my maternal great grandmother's side of the family. He has discovered through history going back to the 1600's that we are also related through my paternal grandmother. It makes me happy to find another distant double cousin. And it makes me happy that in genetics mothers matter.

Safe Places

On March 29, Bernie Hunhoff of the South Dakota Magazine wrote about the book, "Montana 1948." When I first read it a few years ago it both mesmerized and bewildered me. I couldn't put it down once I started on it. It is true that we bring our own experiences to that which we take in, be it film, books, television, or a story told one more time by He Who Must Be Obeyed.

"Montana 1948" dredged up many of my own small town memories of the way things were that year and until 1953 when I graduated high school and moved on. I was going to say 'moved away.' but I have found that I never really moved away.

I had two Great Uncle brothers who were Sheriffs of the county over those years. We thought everybody knew everything about every one. But of course we didn't. After I sent a book about my dad to the then editor of the local newspaper did I learn how much I didn't know. This august editor and my dad had served on the first township board when my hometown was organized. In a letter he shared some of the events of that town board, and a later one that he served on with a cousin. These events included a car bashing and an arson that could have been intrepreted as an encouragement for some members of the board to comply with one group's issues.

Small towns may not have always been the safe places we like to remember of our childhoods.

Heartbreak

I read once that love and hate are so closely linked in the mind that each emotion can come on the heels of the other in seconds. When the hearts break close to home it breaks our own hearts. When one of our own goes through a divorce, we find ourselves divorced from a family we have grown to love.

Our broken hearted one sent this to me over the Internet this morning from work.

"People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Suceed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, People may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building someone may destroy overnight.
Build anyways.

If you find serenity and happiness they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow.
Do good anway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see in the final analysis it is all between you and God
It was never between you and them anyway."

Stomping on the Clock

In other words, I am still killing time. It isn't that I don't have a dozen things I could do right now but I wait for pain meds to kick in again; I am keeping quiet as we have a sleeping baby in the house; I can't get out and do the yard things I would like; and I am flummoxed as to how to get a handle on the Lutheran Women Today Bible Study for March...which I lead on Tuesday. Mostly, I am the world's champion procrastinator.

So I poked my nose into SOMA, The Society of Mutual Autopsy, and read around in their links list where I found a couple that I subscribe to. Being so incurably introverted it wakes me up for a while and certainly gets my mind off of everything going on in my world. To give you an example of what is uptop today: "Jesus Christ Ass Kicker" by John D. Spalding got my attention. Just when I was commenting to He Who Must Be Obeyed that our pastor conducts a lovely worship service I read this: "get to the part where the Lord goes ape in the Temple. Now that's a man for Men, or more specifically for GodMen, a growing group of Christian guys who believe that traditional church services are too feminine and sissy, explaining why less than 40 percent of churchgoers today are male."

To tell the truth, I like a sissy church service. I know a few others who do also.

One of the links on SOMA was the Martin Marty Center. I have subscribed to "Sightings" for over a year now and always like it when Marty writes. He starts his March 12, 2007 essay, "Getting Religion Wrong" this way: "In 1970, as remembered in a story I've (too?) often told, for my sins I became associate dean at a Divinity School. Dean Joseph Kitagawa, scholar supreme and human being to match, did not like to raise money — so he equipped me with a tin cup. As I headed out on the trail, I posed this question to a colleague: "Given all the world's problems, on what grounds dare I ask for money to fund the graduate study of religion?" Answer: "On the same grounds as those for undertaking college-level sex education. Sex, if you get it wrong, is very dangerous. So is religion."

My question is what if you don't 'get' religion at all? This March study is how we see God in our suffering. There is something in me that doesn't much want to associate God with suffering. When my neurosurgeon tells me in the kindest way he possibly can, "you will have pain the rest of your life," where is God in that? Now, dear reader, where is God in all of that? Not only my own 'suffering' but all suffering, all bad stuff, the damned ungodly people that mess up lives in spite of liking sissy church.

All of that responsive liturgy, sung or not, the sitting up and the sitting down and kneeling when we had kneelers, the standing up and the standing down, (sic) just the getting through it all and the anticipation of the deep intellectual, down to earth sermon and finally the Holy Communion, is that SO SISSY? The older I get it almost seems intellectually and physically athletic.

A 2007 Immigrant Story

Night before last a friend held a going away party for our friend, now a naturalized citizen. Actually all of the eight or nine there, myself being an exception, had been fired by Tutu, who had cleaned for them at one time or another. She has a bit of a problem with American ways and who fires whom in these relationships.

My mother introduced me to Tutu, who was working at New Cassel, a retirement center, where my mother lived for four or five years. One afternoon as I was entering the front door, Tutu met me as she was leaving. "Your mother is so ill," she told me, "I will do anything you would like me to. I will spend the nights with her, help her with her bathing, wheel her to meals, anything." "Weello, I love your mother so much," she said. I went up to Mother's room with her mail to find she had died during her afternoon nap.

My friendship with Tutu began as did my education about her childhood in Calcutta, India. This darling young woman's marriage had been arranged by both sets of parents when Tutu was 15 and Harry was 19. She was schooled by Catholics so had a fair grip on English but Bengali was spoken at home. She had been taken to see Mother Theresa with her grade school classmates. Both sets of parents remained in Calcutta.

Harry invited Bryce and I to his father's one year death anniversary. Father Tiegs at New Cassel circled the five of us and another resident on chairs around a candle in front of the chapel altar and conducted a memorable honorary service for this Hindu father of Harry. A few years later Harry invited us to his graduation dinner.

She went to church with me for almost two years. I offered to read English with her. She would read to me until it exhausted her and I would finish the chapter. We were well into "The Diary of Anne Frank" when she told me she didn't think this was going to have a happy ending and that was the end of that. So she worked at New Cassel and cleaned for the women that honored her before she and Harry move away today.

Harry graduated with a MBA from Creighton University, Tutu worked, they purchased a house, two cars, she studied and last summer at her Naturalization Ceremony had her photo taken with President Bush and our Nebraska Governor. She battled breast cancer in the fall and now she an Harry will go to Dallas where he will be a Bank Vice President and while they are in temporary housing, Tutu will have a maid.

Why We Are the Way We Are

Everything below comes from Virtual Finland: People or The Finnish Way of Life.
It seems to be how it is, coming from four Finnish grandparents, three of them immigrants to the US before the 1900's.

I used to wonder why my matriarchal elders were so spotted. If you notice the second thing that makes Finns happy is sunny weather. None of us spent any time indoors when the sun was outside. Sunscreen in those days of wicked sunburns was a long sleeved shirt. I was 23 before I discovered I would never burn if I took the sun in small doses for a week or two. After that I could spend all day in it without burning. Now that I am well aged, I am spotted from my head to my toes just like my mummu, her sisters, and my mother and her sisters were.

It made us happy, almost as happy as cleaning house which is number six. I notice that He Who Must Be Obeyed doesn't get so happy over a clean house as I do; especially if he is the one pushing the vacuum cleaner and picking up the piles that accumulate around his favorite chair. But then he is a Norwegian and I am not certain just what makes them happy. Maybe nothing. I jump to that conclusion from spending time in the National Gallery in Oslo. There are some very grim paintings there.

So below is the happiness factors right off the Internet:

What makes a Finn Happy? "Very recently, one of our big circulation, middle-of-the-road popular magazines, entitled Seura, meaning roughly (good) company, commissioned a big survey to find out where happiness lies. The magazine used a wide sample of 1,015 individuals, who were each given 678 questions to answer. That produced a massive 688, 170 items of information. Well, I'm not a statistician so let's just get to the point, which is to set before you the Finnish nation's top ten happiness factors.

First on the list was home sweet home, a home of one's own - expressed in Finnish by the proverb "Your own home is as precious as gold." Then came the weather. This is not as surprising as it may seem, since Finland has four very distinct seasons, but one of them is too long. Thus, the second feel-good factor was sunny weather.

Now we move into the Finnish soul. It never takes long in a country where people on the whole lack a small-talk culture, but are ever ready to open a seminar on "Why are we here, where are we going?" So, happiness factor number three in the poll was an honest relationship, and number four was so closely related as to confuse the unwary. It was a trusting relationship. Number five reveals something of the Finn's innate independence of mind, and it is simply the freedom to be oneself. No mention yet of money or worldly possessions - apart from the initial roof over one's head.

Feelings beat materialism

No, instead of materialism we're in for more relationships, but not before number six, which is a freshly cleaned home. It would be truly interesting to have on hand a comparative survey covering countries both far from and near to each other. I wonder which ones would replicate the Seura people's replies from seven to ten, which were: friendship, gestures/words in a relationship, friendship, actions in a relationship, fidelity in a relationship and security in a relationship. The survey findings go on in much the same vein.

People are obviously content with simple, honest pleasures such as the smell of newly washed laundry, falling in love or walking in the countryside. The first direct reference to money appears at number nineteen and it is that great feeling: "there's more money in my account than I remembered".

Icicles

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

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

New Rights and Old Wrongs

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

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

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

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

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

A Love Affair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Valentine's Day

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

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

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

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

Life Outside the Box

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Finn Knows

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

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

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

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

Spiritual Literacy

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

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

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

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

What is it All About?

The world we live in is too much. The super markets are bewildering, the new housing is obscene, wars are worse than ever before, every thing is over the top. I can't make any sense of any of it.

Art Buchwald died, he knew he would and he wrote a column to be published after his death. He said some things I agree with. He said his mind keeps turning to food and he has found it hard to pass up a banana split. That makes sense to me.

He thinks it is egocentric to believe that someone is put on earth for a reason. He would like to think his last column might wind up on a cereal box or be repeated every Thanksgiving Day. If anything I ever wrote ended up on a cereal box, I would hope it would be "Eat your vegetables."

It would be a good thing if we were here for a reason other than to make love and war. Making love in the 50's gave me a reason for being here, five to be exact. The eternal question for me is what about after all that? The five, or six, or seven are off with their own reason for being here. After working and saving for a rainy day, or in my case my old age, then what? More precisely, NOW what?

Buchwald ends his posthumous column, "What's it all about, Alfie?"

Bad Calls

My wake up call was from a South Dakota pay phone. I thought pay phones were a thing of the past. The first words that rattled my ear drum was a blast of profanity. "Are you really so stupid." "Where is my twin?" "Your name is ruined." "The FBI and CIA and Hillary Clinton are all on to your evil schemes." I am flummoxed with the profanity. I should have known better than to answer it.

Novels pale when one's real life is besieged with the dark mind of the mentally ill. The hatred has become predictable over the past 20 years. It is not easier, however. For the moment she is safe and so are we, it would be a relief if it lasted a while, but nothing ever lasts.

He Who Must Be Obeyed has been gone for nearly a week picking up the pieces again. He calms me with frequent phone calls, his own quiet acceptance of difficult days, and kind warnings against picking up the profane calls.

R. is in the South Dakota Mickelson Center for the Mentally Ill after a week in jail and some time in the hospital. Why, I wonder, do they allow their patients to make harassing phone calls? She is "protected by the FBI and CIA and they are on to our evil ways." "The Eye in the Sky is watching your every move, you know." "Hillary Clinton has taken over your computer. Did you know that, or are you so stupid you don't know that either?" "I know the entire Kennedy family, even the one they hid away in a convent." "Why did you name my twin the same as me?" "Why are you so f***ing ignorant?"

Friends have made me happy with food and girl talk.

There are worse calls than those from telemarketers.

Start the Year With Humor

NOAH: If the few remaining polar ice caps melt, are we in danger of another flood that would cover all the dry land?

TLGA(The Lord God Almighty): When is the last time you read Genesis 9:11-17? I thought you had some new questions to ask Me. If My Promise doesn't satisfy you, calculate the volume of water required to bring mean sea level over the top of Mt. Everest, and then see if there is that much water in your entire planet. More than half of your habitations may be flooded, your expensive vacation homes may be demolished, your insurance rates may rise beyond what even the wealthiest of you can afford. In the worst-case scenario, your best farmland may be flooded, and two thirds of you may starve to death. But there will still be dry land. You aren't ALL going to die.
By the way, before the polar ice caps totally melt, a corrective mechanism will be invoked, but you won't find it comfortable. It is called an Ice Age – kicks in every time sea level goes above a certain point. Might be good for you.

When I read the WittenburgDoor and laugh at the absurdity, does God laugh with me, or is he wagging his finger at my boorish behavior? God is probably too busy with this godforsaken, no pun intended, world to give a snap about what I laugh at. If he did, I could keep him busy. I find way too much humor in my world.

Happy New Year, my dear reader. If that sounds like a joke to you, maybe you need a laugh or two right now, also.

Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka

This is a December occurance. It is the Astronomy Picture of the Day for today, 2006 December 29. I use these beautiful images often as my computer wallpaper.

Mintaka comes from the Arabic word for belt. Alnilam means "a belt of pearls." Alnitak means the girdle. All three are Super Giant Stars and are 35,000 times greater than the Sun in brightness and 20 times the mass of the Sun.

Turning Off Lights

The photo exemplifies our existential Christmas Eve. It is our dearest A, and her darling Z. A to Z, thank you for being ours. A California grandson can attest to the fact that it happened. The more I think about it the more wondrous it is in my memory. I love our family so much I feel gushy.

More of our family spent the afternoon of the 27th with us. We have grandsons from California that I think of as our Gentle Giants. B is 6'4: and his brother D, is 6'3". It makes the rest of us feel like shrimps; well maybe not their uncle, B, who is about 6'. People of height are noticed when they come into a room, when they walk in a mall, when they sit in front of you at church or in the movies. They can reach things. They show up in family photographs. Their height alone marks them.

He Who Must Be Obeyed has an ancestor that was seven foot tall or more. It is in the family history written in Norway. The work starts out with the giants fighting in a field near Laerdal, a municipality in the county of Sogn og Fjordane, Norway. His great grandmother was married in the Borgund Stave Church there.

What is this all about? I started writing about wrapping up the Christmas lights. That is how my morning started. He Who Must Be Obeyed was winding up the light strings from the front bushes and the little row of White Spruce in the front yard. I don't think Christmas is over until after Epiphany. I am not turning off the lights inside until January 6th. Speaking of epiphanies, that A to Z was mine this morning. Yes it is a web browser too.

The Boe Barn

A son and grandson built this beautiful barn. Last year about this time he added trout to the pond; they all had to be taken before the water got too warm in June. Fly fishing in ones back yard is as good as a Black Hills stream; closer to the freezer, too, or the grill.

I suspect my daughter in law took this photo last December and emailed it to me. I think it is lovely. Thanks J. for sending it on.

In the olden days when we lived in Nemo, SD, a neighbor boy would often knock on the door with a string of trout just caught in Box Elder Creek. They were cleaned and pan ready, ten cents apiece. My own children swam in the creek but I don't recall very much fishing going on. One caught a trout in his hands that had spilled over a dam behind our house.

There is More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

The above maxim is strange but the meaning is true. I have spent three days trying to get the sheep picture below uploaded. It was just too large to handle so I emailed it to myself from my picture file. That was an automatic jpg.

Our eldest son is in Italy for a month. He had to leave his family to take on a task for Boeing. He tells me he might be able to go to Rome for Christmas. That is very exciting news. It is good it is him instead of me as I would surely die of the moment.

I love getting his email. I hope he writes about every little detail of his experience there.

We in Omaha are getting rain instead of snow. Every city is beautiful in a snowstorm.

The Shepherd

My father was a sheepherder in his youth. That is a lowly position and one that, for years, I wasn't terribly proud of. To make matters worse, I doubt very much that in that wild western land he herded on horseback. I just bet it was on his two feet.

What I am certain of is that he spent some of the time when the sheep were safe and still in carving on the rocky outcrops of the South Cave Hills. I have seen only two of these petroglyphs by his had. There are more. He also painted many canvases of sheep. Many of them include Archer Gilfillin's sheepwagon and dog. In some ways I can compare my own father to today's readings which are all centered on the care of sheep. I am not so timid anymore about saying "My Father was a Shepherd."

"He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." Isaiah 40:11

"For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand..." Psalms 95:7

"How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nice, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?" Matthew 18:12

Saints and Christmas Trees

The tree is up, the flocking vacumed away, He Who Must Be Obeyed is so terribly exhausted. I am still addressing cards and with every envelope, I pray a little blessing for that person or family so very dear to us.

This 12th of December is the Saint Day for St. Jane Frances de Chantal. Born at Dijon, France in 1572, she married and had six children. After her husband's death, Francis de Sales became her spiritual director. She founded the Congregation of the Visitation for women who wished to live a religious life but could not endure the austerities of existing orders. She spent her life in the care of the sick and poor, and died in 1641.

We still exist, we women who would like to live a religious life but can't endure the austerity of it all. We not only want our comforts, but our Christmas tree as well.

I have a dear e pal who calls himself the English Papist. He sends me the Saints and Readings every single week and has for years. I am thankful for his faithfulness. J.R. you are the saint, me thinks.

Called to the Table

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. - John Burroughs. Me too.

Weather Forecasting and Hypothermia

December 5th, the countdown to the 24th is on a slippery slide. Holy Cross is having Advent Services on Wednesdays using the Holden Evening Prayer as liturgy. It will be a good way to quiet oneself for Christmas.
The only thing I have done in preparation is to address some Christmas Cards. It feels like I am farther along than I actually am, as I started with the 'H's' in my Address Book. I am doing them the old fashioned way, with a pen. Having married a Boe whom is the fifth of ten siblings, I have the largest amount left.

Sometimes I write a Christmas letter...at the moment I am all written dry. Perhaps after this Wednesday's Advent service, I will think on a higher plane. Lately, all I can think of is what is not right with the world. What sort of letter would that make? I have gone there in an email or two; but I have deleted the paragraphs of nasty temperament in a couple others before sending them off. Half empty glasses are nothing to write about; and they only drag one's reader.

A sister in law sent me a book, called "Sister Chicks." I would never have picked it off the shelf by it's title. It has surprised me in that I can relate to it and a trip to Finland with the main character. If you read this, E., thanks. I like it and I am about half finished.

A cousin sent He Who Must Be Obeyed a book when he had his shoulder joint replaced. I am reading it aloud to him as it sooths both of us, even though the story is chilling to both of us. Being children in Dakota, it is a bit too close to our own experiences with cold weather. "The Children's Blizzard" is about the January 12, 1888, killer storm that took Dakota Territory, Nebraska, Montana and Minnesota down in disaster with below zero temperatures, strong winds, and blowing snow. It caught rural children not dressed for disaster, as the morning walk to school was balmy. Those trying to walk home or to a warmer place were in for trouble of the worst kind.

The author describes weather fronts, lows and highs, temperature changes and exactly how a human dies in below zero temperatures. We are not done with it, but we are learning a lot. He has also put familiarity into the children and parents involved in this ghastly disaster. And thank you to L and N who sent this to HWMBO.

He Who Must Be Obeyed was lost in a blizzard once while deer hunting alone in the Black Hills. We talked about it some the other day. He was dressed for the cold but was lost in deep snow getting deeper by the minute. He was ready to find for shelter for the night about the time he found his pickup that he had left hours before. He said his pockets were full of candy bars but he made one bad mistake. He didn't have any matches.

Small Talk

People who have a gift for small talk amaze me. Maybe Finnish folks as a rule are not as glib as our more gabby cousins. I say cousins in a more universal way. Most of my cousins are also Finnish or half Finnish Americans and are about as small talk handicapped as I am.

Family reunions and Class reunions separate the small talkers from the shy "lump in the throat" people. Debra Fine says the ability to connect with people through small talk is an acquired skill.

I married into a huge family; my husband is the fifth of ten siblings and not all of them have the gift of gab. But their heritage is Norwegian and we all know how morose they can be. The term "dark Norwegian" was exemplified by Edvard Munch in his "Scream." Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum featured a traveling exhibit of Odd Nerdrum some years ago. Some of his works could give a person nightmares.

Being a melancholy Finn married to a dark Norwegian I regret that our house isn't filled with chatty small talkers. It would be a good self improvement study. The Internet seems to be helpful. Along with Debra Fines suggestions there are more on the Net, one is titled "How to Make Small Talk." The tips and warnings at the bottom of the page are worth reading, but if someone pulled her exit line on me I would never bother to speak to them again.

On second thought maybe it is too late to "small talk" if it simply is not one's nature.

Gratitude

This morning I woke up to Grace Matters, which is perhaps my most favored radio program. Sleeping through it isn't the loss it once was as I can go online and listen to them at any time. "Thankful Beyond Understanding" was today's broadcast. "This program’s reflection speaks to the joy contained in one of Loder’s prayers of thanksgiving, in a week when Americans are remembering what it means to live thankfully".

My simple little photo is of my current table decoration. The tiny evergreens came home in a water bottle from the top of the Big Horns the day after Labor Day. A dear sister in law cut out the leaves and painted them on the gourd in 1999 and the pears were picked by a son in September. The last of them have ripened now between newspapers in a box in the refrigerator. Each item a memory ripe with gratitude.

Living thankfully. That is a good mantra.

The Jerk and the Jounce

I am one of 600,000 people world wide who subscribe to A.Word.A.Day; it is a good feeling to belong to a group. I hear it is good for your health as well, especially if you are in a crowd cheering on a sport. As long as I don't do that I am glad that I am one of something.

Once a week readers have their say over the words used the previous week. A couple of folks wrote in about 'jounce.' "Jounce is also a technical term in engineering, although perhaps not in the widest standing. Some fairground ride designers make use of it." This fellow goes on to say that "human animals really, really enjoy jounce, so long as it's kept to a healthy level."

Jounce is defined as the change in acceleration over time.

Another fellow writes: "It turns out, after much graphing of results, that the excitement you feel on a ride is not so much to do with the speed of the ride as the acceleration - how fast the speed is changing. And it's not so much even that, more how fast the acceleration is changing -- the 'jerk'. And, lo and behold, it's even more to do with how fast the jerk is changing -- the 'jounce'.

Words are certainly enjoyable and I like being a part of a group of 600,000; I can't see that it is improving my health, however.

Schadenfreude or Journalism?

This morning I learned something new about something old. New words, even foreign ones, if they can be used in an English sentence, are enjoyable. I learned the word "schadenfreude" this morning from Martin Marty's Sightings.

Marty, University of Chicago Divinity School, writes "Considering Ted Haggard's Plight." He says reporters find this discovery "....an occasion for enjoying Schadenfreude among those less friendly to him -- many of whom regard themselves as wounded by him, and oppose him now as a front-rank motivator to "get out the troops" to vote on Election Day for measures focused on by the Christian Right."

"...expressions of Schadenfreude don't go well in the week when Democrats are embarrassed by Senator Kerry's blunder...."

SIGHTINGS :Under the editorship of Jeremy Biles, and the sponsorship of the Martin Marty Center, reports and comments on the role of religion in public life via e-mail twice a week to a readership of over 5,000. Through the eyes, ears, and keyboards of a diverse group of writers—academics, clergyman, laypeople, and students—Sightings displays the kaleidoscope of religious activity: a reflection of how religious currents are shaping and being shaped in the world.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2497 By the very nature of their profession, journalists have an obligation to serve the truth and not offend against charity in disseminating information. They should strive to respect, with equal care, the nature of the facts and the limits of critical judgment concerning individuals. They should not stoop to defamation.

The long thin line between reporting the facts and Schadenfruede emerge when a public person says something or commits an act defaming himself or herself and is the tightrope the media has to navigate. Does it only seem that the difference between print and broadcast divide the situation? The act of telling and listening makes Schadenfreude all the juicier.