Prediction

I am sure many of you would agree—we are not only overwhelmed with being "in touch 24/7" but addicted to cell phones, Twitter, Face Book, YouTube, email, Blogs, etc. We have NO time to be with ourselves, to understand and appreciate what is really happening around us. Today we stand accused  of being ill-informed and/or non-informed and/or stupid and/or iliterate about what is really going on around us.  I'm not  sure when it will happen, but it will in not too distant future, that we will retreat from 24/7 contact towards a quitter, more introspective state of being.  Amen!

"Come dance with Me."

Every
Child
Has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don'ts,
Not the God who ever does
Anything weird,
But the God who only knows four words
And keeps repeating them, saying:
"Come dance with Me."
Come
Dance.
  ~Hafiz Sufi Master 1320-1389 Persia

I've been rough on Obama lately

Last night i watched Bill Moyer's—if you are not watching him weekly you are not informed—and they were talking of foreign policy.    I believe Obama is a genius on this.  I know he is in a no win position on Afghanistan but he is struggling for the right approach, listening to all sides of the debate, knowing he will be attacked from one side or the other.  It is his total approach that impresses me—a willingness to encourage all to participate in the conversation and yet he does not give in on his basic principles, way beyond unilateralism—"we're right so get along with it" mentality of the last eight years.  He is willing to lay himself open to a one-term presidency, to engage in his new approach to diplomacy.  Here, Here. . .

Being Snookered

I received an email from a friend this morning wondering what all this attention on Olympia Snowe is about.  She is getting the kind of praise that a new Saviour would get.  Come on folks, she is one one-hundredth of an organization AND ONLY 1/40th of her party..  And her vote is really not needed.  If this is what Obama has spent the last 9 months on—bipartisanism—what is the next 3 years, three months going to look like?
Then in another month or so we are going to hear "what great people we are, look what we have done for the American people, we have ALMOST covered everybody. when they pass some watered down health bill that doesn't do what WE wanted and asked for.  THIS IS A STRONG BI-PARTISAN EFFORT? . . .   Again, to quote my friend, I'm pissed.

                        I wish they would get their head . . .

I sent this to Obama this morning. . .

There had to be one man who said yes.  Somebody had to agree to captain the ship.  She had sprung a hundred leaks; she was loaded to the water line with crime, ignorance, poverty.  Was that a time, do you think, for playing with words like yes or no?  You grab the wheel, you right the ship in the face of a mountain of water.  You shout an order, and if one man refuses to obey, you shoot straight into the mob.  Into the mob, I say!  The thing that drops when you shoot may be someone who poured you a drink the night before; but it has no name.  And you, braced at the wheel, you have no name, either.  Nothing has a name—except the ship, and the storm.

                        ~from Antigone

I am so fortunate . . .

As my friends know, I NEVER lock my door.  This afternoon I was taking a nap, I awoke and went to my computer to check email.  A few minutes later Leslie T, came around the corner and said I am on your patio having a drink—so I joined him. He had let himself in, saw I was asleep and decided to stay and have a drink (bourbon) from the corporate bar. We had a fabulous conversation about the state of the world, Michael Moore's new movie and much more.  Everything was spontaneous.  This happens at my home over and over again.
DOES ANYONE ELSE LIVE IN SUCH AN EMBRACING SITUATION?

When I am sick or want to hide and I do lock the door they will use their key, let themselves in, check on me and leave.  Can't feel anymore cared for than that.

When I am on vacation they stop over and have a drink, pet and feed my cats and sit around and BS.  The bar is always open.

What a privilege to live in such a caring community.  Others point to us as unique.  We are!

My home is always open.  It came from my parents.  When I was in high school, my place was where me and 12-20 of my friends headed most weekend nights.  Mom and dad would be up playing cribbage, we'd all gather and talk, they would go to bed, we would turn off the lights and neck.  We never went to anyone else's home.

I know that I am loved, accepted just as I am, and  part of a community that cares.

Short story # 1—The Making of Maple Syrup

As a small boy, every Easter vacation, we (uncles, aunts, cousins. . . )gathered at my grandparents home on Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota to make Maple Syrup. The first day we would move through the woods, drilling holes into each Maple tree, pound a spiget into the hole and hang coffee cans to catch the sap.
The following days, wearing a long yoke with large buckets on each end, we gathered the sap which was then poured into large barrels. A 'sap pan' was placed over a long fire pit, filled with sap and over 2-3 days and many gallons of sap, boiled to, maybe, five gallons of thick syrup. This was taken to the kitchen and carefully boiled down to Maple Syrup and bottled in Mason jars. This process repeated several times.
Some of the syrup was boiled down to make, sweet, delicious, Maple candy. My brother and me would go out on the lake, which was in midst of a thaw, and get 'hunks' of ice, take the thick syrup, pour it over the ice, making sweet, hardened, maple strings that we would eat.

Each summer, from a little shack down by the highway, we sold the Maple Syrup along with rugs, baby and doll clothes and several other things that were produced by the scattered family during the winter. My grandmother got up early every summer morning and made fresh donuts for sale. I remember, going to the lake each summer and 'manning' the small shack by the highway.