Expanse

Pin It If ever I was to worship any God-made thing which (heaven forbid) I would never do after reading Ezekiel, Jeremiah AND Habakkuk, it would be the moon. In the winter I sleep solitaire in a bedroom with a wall made of sliding glass. The glass is not blinded. In the summer I sleep outside on the deck in front of this glass wall. Either way, my view is unimpeded of whatever the night sky wishes to present to me. I am intrigued at the feeling of security the moon gives me. Unlike the sun, it always comes out of obscurity; it is not a brass trumpet in your face—and yet no less faithful. I am more comforted in the fact that the moon is always there than that the sun is always there.

I think I feel in good hands when I am awash in the beneficent bathing of the moon’s light. It does not share my worries or concerns and seems to make of them such little things. It doesn’t belittle them so much as it makes me think grander thoughts. If the moon glimmering at night awakens me with its single eye penetrating my night visions I feel like I could swim to the moon, following at my silent leisure its lighted path. Or perhaps I would hear only the rhythmic intake and wheeze of my own breathing, a soothing pump in that expanse of white light.

The moon’s state of being ‘tis a puzzlement'. It is as though it says to me; I don’t have to always be here. I could fall from the heavens. After all, I am a dead star. Nevertheless, I am here to lend silver and shadow to the black of night. It satisfies me somehow that a dead star is still of grand use, of divine design.

A fat moon makes me want to come closer and touch it. Indeed, if I were a pagan, a heathen, a gentile (and in my Christian climb I have been all those things) I would be a moon worshiper. Instead, I will be wiser and worship He who created its orbit and purpose, and be grateful for the evidence of what Father’s omniscience encompasses: a light for troubled children in the night.

Retina burnage

Pin It GUEST BLOGGER: EARL GIRL

As the lone female in a house six guys, I am a guardian of good taste and manners, and an enforcer of the clean socks and underwear rule. I love to laugh, especially when things go wrong. It's a good thing they frequently do!


For many years, I’ve had to share a bathroom with the family. What does this mean? It means I can never just sit down on the toilet without taking a really good look at the seat. It means my makeup gets desecrated by artists and my beauty tools disappear.

Sniff.

It was tough.

But following a cataclysmic flooding event last year, a remodel was in order. And I got my own bathroom. It’s not quite finished. My new bedroom that adjoins it still has no pad or carpet. It’s still very much a construction room; but my bathroom, my inner sanctum, is beautiful.

One day I was enjoying my new double headed shower (I can rinse both armpits at the same time!) while Lewis was painting in the bedroom. Dainon poked his head around the door.

“Don’t come in here!” Lewis warned.

Dainon just assumed he meant that there was wet paint and decided to walk in anyway. Just as I was stepping out of the shower.

Our eyes locked.

He screamed.

I howled with laughter and shouted, “BEHOLD THE HOTNESS THAT IS YOUR MOTHER!”

He dashed from the room and cried out in anguish “Burn this image from my retinas!”

I grabbed a towel and collapsed in giggles.

And now, he always knocks.

(Fresh) Air Time

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Image from photobucket.com

One day my high school English teacher gave us the assignment to watch the news and write a summary of a current event. The Shy Girl in class raised her hand. "Um, we don't watch T.V. at my house. Can I get a current event from the paper instead?"

A collective gasp sounded throughout the classroom. No T.V.?! What did they do at home? The rumor mill started at lunch... They must be one of those families who only eat organic food, and no meat... I bet they don't have electricity... I heard her mom makes all of her clothes... Someone said they have goats and chickens in their yard... The Shy Girl's family from then on was known as The Weird Family (With No T.V.).

Which brings me to my point. These days, my family is our local Weird Family. We stopped watching T.V. quite a few years back. We do own a T.V., but we only use it for watching movies and occasionally playing a round of RockBand. We are often asked why we would do this. How can we deprive our children (and ourselves!) of television?

Easy. You just turn it off and watch the magic happen.

There is suddenly more time for other things. Things like enjoying the great outdoors. Things like spontaneous lip syncing and impulsive dancing in the dining room. Things like homework and yard work and music and sports and sewing and cooking and reading and writing. Things like art projects and service projects. Things like building forts and building friendships and building amazing Lego creations.

Things that require action and imagination and learning.

Things that didn't happen as often when we had the television turned on.

Do I ever wish we had TV? I won't lie... YES. (Oh YESYESYESYES sometimes!!) But the pros far outweigh the cons. So, "The Weird Family" we remain.

And it's awesome.

Pin It Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance - Will Durrant

Have I mentioned that I’m in school? I mean, I work at a school, so of course I’m “in” school. But I’m also going to school – to college. So basically I’m paying for the privilege of spending 3 to four hours every weekday and 10 to 12 hours most weekends reading, researching and writing about various and sundry subjects from literature and Reasoning to Constitutional Law and Political Science.

The latest course I’m working my way through is Economics. Before the end of September I have to watch about 100 lectures online (more or less) in the effort to learn enough to pass a test and also write three more papers. So of course I am in the middle of writing one of those papers right now and it’s pretty much all I can think about. It’s also my day to hit the blog and, to be honest I’ve got nothing…nothing at all on the brain but Protectionism vs. Free Trade – and frankly not as much on the brain about that as there should be either. I need some help. I need some free association writing to get the juices flowing - the gears churning - the batter blending because I MUST get this paper finished before the end of the week. So I’ve decided to stop fighting my mental trend, kill two birds with one stone, and send some of my academic thoughts into the void. I promise this is in no way a political statement. At this point I could give a toss about cheap goods from China and I’m not sure what I’m for or against except that I’m FOR getting this paper done and AGAINST wasting my tuition money by not passing the course. I just need to attempt to fill the void with something, anything that gets me going in a direction – any direction. So what do you think? Are you up for a little Academia? Yeah, me neither, but here goes.

As I mentioned this particular evaluation (the official name given to the assignments) asks students to evaluate the justifications either for protectionism economic policy or for free trade. I am supposed to describe the justifications for both of these theories and then defend or support one of the positions, based on both macroeconomic theory and personal opinion (sounds exhausting just talking about it doesn’t it?). Well, of course I have been doing a lot of reading both for and against each position and find that I am having a difficult time attaching my personal opinion to an entirely free trade market or to a strong protectionist system (another reason why I why I would make such a lousy candidate for office – innate wishy-washiness).

Protectionism generally keeps the US out of global markets and keeps foreign products from being imported. Free trade, in a nutshell, is an open market where the best price makes the rules. Most discussions I have read regarding free trade seem to see “protectionism” as a dirty word. However I cannot come to the conclusion that free trade is always good or that protectionism is always bad. Most “free-traders” seem to conclude that global competition is a good and valuable outcome of a free market system. But what are we competing for exactly? Shouldn’t we be competing for a good standard of living for our people? What is the value of competing to lower the incomes of working people? We have options if we truly want to be more internationally competitive, such as moving back to child labor. But didn’t we spend decades implementing policies to reject that type of option? From what I understand there are two basic methods to make products cheaper for the consumer. One is to increase efficiency, which everyone seems to agree is a good idea. The other is to reduce environmental standards and employment standards. Reducing the wages paid for a given amount of productive work is a lowering of standards, not an increase in efficiency. Free trade may encourage domestic industries to work towards the most efficient production methods, but is also creates a competition to lower standards. Of course, there are real gains from trade, but there are also benefits in maintaining a degree of local self-sufficiency. During the course of my reading, I came across the name of John Maynard Keynes quite often. Keynes was a British economist whose ideas or “Keynesian thought “ has enjoyed resurgence in the wake of the most recent economic crisis. In 1933, Keynes wrote an essay on national self-sufficiency. While I do think that the theory is idealism run amuck, there is still an interesting idea at the core. "I sympathize therefore, with those who would minimize, rather than with those who would maximize, economic entanglement between nations. Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel, these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible. And above all, let finance be primarily national." (Keynes) This quote clearly comes down on the side of protectionism which, as I said, I am not entirely convinced is always good policy. Being raised in the cold war years, anything but straight-forward capitalism conjures memories of communist regimes. But should industry be allowed to fail if it means the loss of thousands of jobs and untold damage to the economy? This is an especially relevant question in the wake of the recent Government bailout of the U.S. auto industry. If we truly believe that free trade is good because it fosters competition and allows the best goods to be sold at the best price – the US auto industry should be a dead horse - so to speak. But one does have to consider, not the trickle down, but the deluge-down of economic impact the failure of that one industry would have on the economy overall. It could be argued if we as a nation had implemented strict protectionist measures and concentrated our purchases on domestic consumption in the auto industry rather than the influx of foreign imports, the bailout would never have been necessary. Once again I realize that this is idealism run amuck because one could also argue that the bailout would never have been necessary if GM had just built better cars.

Is it even possible to be a largely self-sufficient country? Perhaps not an autarky, (a new word I learned in the course of my reading – yes, a real word even though it sounds like some sort of hybrid fowl for holiday roasting), but an economy that spreads the wealth of our nation largely among our own industry rather than competing for the lowest common denominator. Capitalism is at the heart of the United States economy and philosophy. Implementing protectionist measures that would encourage and actualize this kind of internal self-sufficiency is hard to imagine. As things stand right now, I think the debate about and hopefully the balance between free trade and protectionism will be with us for a long time.

Hmmm…some of that doesn’t sound too bad. At some point though, I probably ought to decide what I actually think about all of this. I do drive a Chevy though….so what does that say about me?

_____ on Earth

Pin It The four grocery sacks weighted arms like lead as I emerged from the grocery store. Under their weight I made my way to my car at the far end of a parking lot under a scorching August sun. Just why had I parked so far away from the store in the first place? Mostly it was because of the lone patch of shade I’d managed to find—therefore I’d been willing to traverse the extra distance hoping to find a car somewhat cooler when my grocery shopping was finished.

The earbuds of my iPod were securely positioned as I walked—and my playlist was set to random. A much-loved Billy Joel song had just ended, and as I moved myself and my heavy load across the welted asphalt, I wondered what tune would be next.

Spice Girls – Wannabe.

I did a double-take and shook my head in surprise; what in the world was that doing on my iPod?

However, at the moment didn’t matter how the song had gotten there, the point was is that it was there; and with arms loaded down there was nothing I could do to stop it. I quickened my pace as I practically ran the distance through Dante’s inferno with this fiendish noise ringing in my ears.

This is how I picture Hades.

When I finally reached my car I practically threw the bags into the backseat and ripped the earphones from my ears, switching the music to something else—anything else—after all, if that isn’t warning enough to live right in this life, I don’t know what else could be.