Ethereal Eclectic فاس‎

Return to the Land of Qat and Man-Skirts

2009-07-21T12:18:00.013-05:00

Long ago, at the beginning of this blog, I journeyed to an ancient land, to explore what might await me. Today I had the opportunity to return again.

When I first visited, I took a picture at night of a new, great mosque being built. I accidentally used my flash, and one of the guard-soldiers made me delete the picture, on penalty of taking my camera. I went back to the hotel room and took the picture from a distance- for there was no logical reason why they would deny people the right of taking pictures of a mosque that can be seen from everywhere in the city. This incredibly beautiful mosque, the President's Mosque, is the largest in Yemen and one of the largest in the world, and it is now completed.

Paranormal Panorama

2009-07-13T05:54:00.004-05:00

Suqutra is that Yemeni island that I would really love to get to one day. Just now my Google Bots have delivered some radical new links. It's about as close as one can get without actually being there.

Dragon's Blood trees, Diksum Plateau, Socotra, Yemen in Yemen

Between two Dragon's Blood trees, Socotra, Yemen in Yemen
http://www.360cities.net/image/wadi-geneb-socotra

Wadi Geneb, Socotra, Yemen in Yemen

Homhil Protected Area, Socotra, Yemen in Yemen

Sand dunes, Socotra, Yemen in Yemen

Commitment and Calling

2009-07-12T21:21:00.022-05:00

For all my dad's preaching, as an adult, I've never heard him. Well, that's not true. You can take the preacher out of the pulpit, but you can't take the pulpit out of the preacher. So let me start over.

As an adult, I've never heard my dad preaching from the pulpit. He preached often when I was a child, but I don't remember it. Today in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, was my first opportunity to experience this treat. And, perhaps your first opportunity as well.

Video below is broken into five chunks, for uploading purposes. First off is my old babysitter singing:

The sermon began with my dad sharing how there was something really special going on at this church, Cornerstone Church, but some treat it like their favorite restaurant. They don't want to tell anyone else about it, because the chef and waiters won't pay as much attention to them if everyone goes there.

Technical difficulties kept me from video recording the segment about the open air double-decker bus police chase, where our band would play righteous rock n'roll from the top of an open double-decker bus down the streets of London, with the bobbies trying to chase us down as the bus wove in and out of traffic, and then shutting us down. For a block, after which we would wait for the police to leave and start up again.

At this point, I ran out of video, so there is an eight minute segment unrecorded. Here my dad discusses how God provides miraculously, and how the Jesus Movement changed Christian music forever. He goes to the invaluable contributions of the Steinkes (whose daughter is married to the pastor of Cornerstone Church) in the beginnings of the Jesus Movement in Wisconsin, and how they provided their best bed for my mother and father some nine months before I was born. The Holy Spirit works amazingly, and we are called to act in real faith. The economy will hopefully get worse. To hear more of this, go to the audio only link below.

To hear full audio only, go to Cornerstone Church's MP3.

The Apostle Junia

2009-07-09T18:02:00.011-05:00

This is devoted to the memory of Junia, the only named female apostle in the New Testament.. Though traditionally the name at the end of Romans 16.7 has often been translated as "Junias", the grammer at that point in the Greek doesn't leave an indication of the gender- the last letter is not included, due to the construction of the sentence. Millenia of male translators have assumed it to be a man. But in exhaustive searches of tombstones and other Roman archeology, the name "Junias" does not appear once. The name, "Junia", however (meaning "youthful" and taken from Hera/June, the wife of the head of the Greco-Roman Pantheon, Jupiter/Zeus), appears numerous times in Roman writings.

To read more, please visit:

A history of how Junia became masculinized, despite the beliefs of the early Christians.
Dealing with the Apostleship of Junia
An example of Roman references to the name "Junia", a ancient song dedicated to another Junia upon her marriage.
An imaginary letter from Junia

Above: Early Church female leaders including Theoda, the Bishop of the Church of St. Prassede in Rome in 820 A.D.; with her predecessor St. Prassede, founder of the church; St. Prudentiana, and Mary, the mother of God. The square halo shows a living person at the time the picture was made. Ancient graffiti is clearly marked, changing the name "Theoda" to "Theodo" to make it appear that the bishop was a man.

Left: "St. Andronicus, St. Athanasius of Constantinople, and St. Junia"

Books exclusively on Junia:

Junia: The First Woman Apostle in 2005
The Lost Apostle: Searching for the Truth About Junia in 2006. This is a definitive highly scholarly work, proving without doubt that Junia is female, by looking at every single Greek reference to her, and all the English translations.

Other books on women in leadership:

Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels is a recent work discussing Junia and other great women of the first centuries.
This book changed my life. In What Paul Really Said About Women, Bristow looks at the culture, and the original Greek.

Where can you run into Junia in 3-D life? There is a Mission of St. Junia the Apostle in Costa Mesa, California, part of one of the groups that has split off the Roman Catholic Church. Also St. Martin the Merciful Orthodox Church in Corvallis, Oregon has a six-foot fresco of St. Junia.

Right: A mosaic in a cathedral floor covering the tomb of Julia Runa, a presbyterissa/priest.

You can also now buy postcards and "pre-icons" of St. Junia for $2.50 plus postage from the bookstore of the General Theological Semnary of NY. Their number is 212-727-3907.

Celebrate an amazing woman, on the Orthodox commemoration and Feast of St. Junia (and Adronicus) on May 17th.

Following in Junia's footsteps, three centuries later Nina lead the entire country of Georgia to Christ, making her perhaps the greatest female evangelist of all time.

Care passionately about women's leadership in the church? Join Christians for Biblical Equality!

Nina

2009-07-08T17:27:00.003-05:00

The First Great Female Sharer

Nina (also Nona, Nonna) was perhaps the greatest female sharer of the early church. Through her efforts she introduced an entire nation to the Light. Most of what is written of her remains enshrouded in myth. But all myths have truth at their core. This is her story, and what we can learn from her.

There were some Christian groups in Georgia when Nina arrived there around 330 AD. (The date appears difficult to establish- other traditions indicate that she arrived in 276, 318, 327, or 335 AD.) Nina healed many people, including eventually the King of Georgia. The king then committed himself to the Light, and was advised by Nina to contact Constantine to obtain bishops. She continued to encourage the meeting and share truth until her death. She is responsible for founding the gathering of believers in Georgia.

The tradition of Nina is more expansive than the bare facts. The Georgian Church traditionally dates it's first understanding to the Mother of God, Mary, indicating that the church seems to have had an early psychological acceptance of women in ministry. Nina herself grew up in Jerusalem, and is portrayed as someone of noble birth, who came as a sharer to Georgia, according to Georgian Church record. However, most other sources indicate that she was a slave when she first arrived in Georgia. This would put her in the tradition of Patrick of Ireland, coming to share with the people who had enslaved him. If Nina was of the Patrick tradition, then her sharing of Georgia is even more astounding. As to the Georgian traditions, it would seem more likely that a tradition would arise defending Nina's freedom, rather than Nina's enslavement, as there is less honor in being a slave.

However, the Georgian church believed her to be a nun, perhaps "Nina" being a title rather than a proper name, deriving from her Egyptian order of "Nonnes". Other Georgian sources argue that it was a common name, like Gregory of Nazianzus' mother's name, Nino. According to the traditions, Nina was the niece of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and given up to God by her parents.

She is said to have received the cross of the wood of the vine from a vision of Mary, and this cross still exists today in Georgia. The present primary cross in Georgia is admittedly ancient.

On the way to Georgia Nina shared extensively and was persecuted in Armenia. Upon arriving in Georgia she began her sharing with a prayer against a festival of the gods that was about to begin. A large hail storm then arose that dispersed the revelers and destroyed the idols. The hail storm was ascribed by the natives to the anger of the gods, but three days later Nina started to share the truth of the Light. Nina here demonstrated familiarity with the power encounter, dependence on God, and trust in His miraculous power.

Nina came then to stay with the king's gardener, and there healed the gardener's wife's womb, to allow her to give birth to a son. Following this she healed a widow's son by putting a sackcloth on him. She met the felt needs of the people around her; sons are important in a society where women are degraded, and for a widow, the son is the only thing allowing her to be supported. She related to the Georgians emically, from their perspective and needs.

Tradition then indicates that the work of Nina began to expand through the convincing of the royal house. The queen noticed the healing, and, knowing of Christianity, she asked Nina to pray for her own serious illness. After the queen was healed, Nina began to have her own disciples. Likely this tradition of discipleship is accurate, as it goes against normal church beliefs of the next 1500 years to have disciples attached to a woman. Also, discipleship would have been necessary for Nina's ministry to expand.

The king, Mirian, did not appreciate Nina's success, so he decided to persecute the Christians and become himself more devoted to his gods. Mirian ordered his advisers to lead his wife away from the Gospel or else he would divorce her.

Sources contradict on the next immediate events. Some say that Nina healed the king of a sudden blindness, and others that it got dark suddenly when he was hunting. The king asked for help from his gods, but to no avail, so he asked for help from Nina's God, and promised to proclaim Christianity and worship the cross. It became immediately light. Whatever happened, the king made a promise to turn to the Light in the process of these events.

A beautiful cross was almost worshiped (not just venerated) by the Georgians shortly after these events. And the Armenian traditions concerning Georgia speak of Nina having people bow down before a cross as well. The people refused, however, according to the Armenians, as the cross was ugly, so God sent a cloud and light over it, and made a pleasant smell, and music came from the cross, at which the Georgians gladly worshiped. There seems to be a number of traditions supporting the idea that cross worship occurred, which of course would be heretical. But it does reflect a primitive understanding of Christianity. It appears that Nina, in her pursuit of contextualization, supported this worship.

Interestingly, the Armenian tradition states that Gregory of Armenia had to instruct Nina on her early mission, providing some of the ideas such as throwing down idols and worshiping the cross. This tradition is questionable though, as it comes from Armenia and magnifies the importance of Armenia's patron saint. It also appears to denigrate the abilities of women to make decisions on their own, reflecting the male hegemony of historians. But even if she had the help of Gregory, still, through her sharing, she established the Church of an entire country and people. She was the type of a saint.

After the king turned to Christ, so did the rest of the capitol city. Nina showed an awareness of the importance of leaders in a kinship society. She instructed and taught the leader, and the people followed. There is of course the danger of nominalism in this approach, as the people can follow their leader without making a decision for themselves. There is always also the danger that it would be forgotten that the Gospel is intended first for the poor and downtrodden, and for the wealthy and powerful only secondarily. But this was a more kinship, group-focused society, and it appears that Nina continued to disciple her followers throughout this time, to ingrain deep and not just widespread belief.

The Church of Georgia was then guided by Nina into the greater church. At her request, King Mirian sent to Constantinople for bishops and priests, and shortly thereafter the Patriarch of Antioch arrived with permanent clergy and sacred relics. This was the beginning of a strong tie between Georgia and Antioch, and with the establishment of Georgia as an autocephaly, there was also a strong liturgical link with Antioch for centuries.

Nina was also very vigorous in establishing the Georgian cult of worship. Soon after his conversion King Mirian built a temple, and when the builders could not erect the seventh pillar of the temple, Nina called for angels to help her set it up. Although it is difficult to know if this tradition is accurate, it demonstrates again Nina's awareness that the supernatural was ever present, useful, and could make an impact on people steeped in superstition and the spirit world. The king also encouraged Nina to look for the coat of Christ, supposedly brought to Georgia by the soldier who won it at the cross, and it was miraculously found by her, so a chapel was dedicated to Nina. (Another tradition has Nina sharing the Light with the Jews of Mtskheta and then receiving the coat of Christ from them.) Nina knew from her own cultural setting that physical objects could be imbued with spiritual strength- both holy and evil. She again affirmed the intimate presence of the supernatural.

Nina continued to build temples throughout Georgia. Even though much of her story may never be confirmed this side of eternity, the ideas in the myth show a woman depending on God. She was known as an powerful and constant preacher, and lead many people to the Light. She does not appear to have been afraid to share to men, even though her own culture was against it. She prayed and expected healings and miracles. Nina demonstrated a boldness to obey Christ's commands to share the Gospel. She was not only ethereal and idealistic in her beliefs, but set up practical church structures, to encourage the continuation of the church after her death. She was not only a great female sharer, but a witness to us all on how to do effective love and truth.

Sources:

Isoelian, P. A Short History of the Georgian Church. Saunders, Otley, and Co., London: 1866.

Myendorff, John. Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY: 1989.

4

2009-06-30T17:06:00.015-05:00

I had the pleasure of golfing yesterday for the first time in ages, with my fellow Glarites, Bret and Emily from my church, before going off to see Transformers and Star Trek at the Drive-Thru. (The former you really need to avoid. The special effects are cool but they get tiring because that's all there is. The latter is the only movie I've seen this year worth seeing twice.) When you move to New Glarus, you get a lot of cool coupons, and one of them is a 2:1 golf outing, so we took advantage of this.

This was truly a Wisconsinite golf course: cheese, and live goats.

It's a beautifully manicured course, where they achieved an incredible amount of packing in. Every hole winds in and out of the next. The water trap was mostly avoided, though we did have some difficulties in the sand traps.

Most of the holes weren't that innovative, though there was one loop-to-loop that only Bret was able to achieve on the first attempt. Actually, that was kind of the play on every hole- Bret did well, and me and Emily struggled to stay only a couple above par. (And I spent a few holes forced to yell "Four" to get the ball back on the green.) Thus we were pleased that Bret was not entirely Spiner and at least partly human, losing his ball- in the same bush that I lost mine in.

Yudl - Ay - EEE - Ooooo

2009-06-28T14:01:00.003-05:00

New Glarus is a town of festivals, with some eight over the course of the warm months. This weekend is Heidi Fest. (Not to be confused with the William Tell Festival, because a Swiss town really can't have too many celebrations of Switzerland!)

Unfortunately, the celebration began with a community presentation of Heidi at the local high school. Don't get me wrong- it's a sweet enough story. But the production was anything but sweet. As someone who's directed productions in the past, the acting was atrocious, and the directing not much better. It was easy to see where improvements could have been made. The 4th grade child playing Heidi did a better job for her age than most of the participants, but everything was at the level of what you'd expect in a junior-high play. Not being able to hear the loud whispers of the woman with the cue cards would have helped. There were a couple notable exceptions, such as how we saw the obvious theatrical training of the woman playing the mean Miss Rottenmeier. But largely, the high point for the audience was when the live goat began to chew on the rope near the end of the two hours. The rope was attached to a large Swiss bell, and we all began silently to cheer the goat on, hoping against hope of some relief from the tedium. We were finally rewarded with the clear dulcet tones of the bell. But it bodes not well when the best acting is done by the goat.

The next day I made my way to the main square, where the dancing, crafts, and music were. On the way I discovered that New Glarus has it's own Ents.

At the festival there was a delightful presentation of bell ringing, though unfortunately their drumming accompaniment left something to be desired, so it was not recorded. (This is not to speak ill. Keeping a beat is often the hardest part of an orchestra, and the drummer has to be that much better a drummer than any other instrumentalist.)

I was happy to see a live goat next to the cheese table, and across the way some Naughty Dolls.

Yes, I wondered about that myself. I think the woman selling them doesn't realize the modern connotation for the old appellation. What it actually means is dolls without faces but only hair, designed to look like they're standing in the corner. Trust me- that's not what you'll get if you Google "Naughty Dolls". (And may I say, dolls without faces, for me, is more "Scary Dolls"?)

Another booth at the festival had these amazing bottles, reheated to 1500 degrees and melted, turned in to beautiful wind chimes. I spoke with the proprietor, Creative Touch, about bringing back some of the Mountain Dew and Coke bottles in Arabic from my trip to Yemen in a month, perhaps even a couple extra for him to sell to others.

Towards evening there was dancing, but because of a spot of rain, hardly anyone came out. When I stopped by around seven, they were playing a series of songs with little kids dancing to them. Sadly, one of them was "Little Willy" by the British band The Sweet. I say sadly, for I have not been able to get it out of my head, and if you know anything of British culture, and are aware that the band is British, the song takes on wholly new connotations.

The end of a day was a treat of sunset over New Glarus, looking over the police station and town hall from the hill of the old United Church of Christ church, going back to 1850.

When a Tree Falls on You, Do You Make a Sound?

2009-06-28T13:37:00.005-05:00

Moments ago, with a great crack and a crash, I became convinced that the RV was finally falling apart. I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter, and what to my eyes should appear, but a giant fallen tree, rotten at the core.

There is a collection of these trees around here, mostly dead except for the new life springing at their roots, and mostly cut to stumps to remove any danger of falling. But a few have not yet been cut, and there have been high winds today. This fell about 20 feet from the bow of the RV- had it hit, it would have assuredly caused great damage to the roof and bow.

This is what it looked like after it had been moved out of the way, further from the RV, and this is it's size in relation to the RV.

The Presence of God From a Bike

2009-06-24T15:55:00.002-05:00

New Glarus has a very level extended bike trail, relatively cheap to bike on, and very long, extending miles in each direction. I traveled out to nearby Monticello today, six miles away, and enjoyed the beauty around me. There are long stretches of straight sun-filled fields, intersperses with over-arching canopy. With no people or buildings or roads around, one comes across a bridge disappearing above the bike path. Near Monticello are marshlands of pussy willows, and willow trees overhanging the creeks, with what I imagine the South looks like. It is a place of peace.

Until I neared completion, and discovered a wicked crick in my neck, necessitating getting the bike repair shop to lengthen the main handlebars of my bike.

A Century of Fatherhood

2009-06-21T22:33:00.014-05:00

I changed my first flat today. On my way to see my dad, a few bits of rubber flew out from underneath the car, but I figured it was only something on the freeway, since the tires looked good when I stopped. And when the rearview window was shaking, both me and my dad thought it was just bad Wisconsin roads. But on the way back, outside Sentry, a great whoosh informed me that the tire had gone flat, and I had to get a big Sentry worker to loosen two of the lug nuts.

But earlier, I took a trip back in time with my dad, visiting Stone Bank, where he grew up. After a great BBQ at the Steinke's daughter's house, we stopped at the house my dad grew up in, which he rented from the Kutz's in the 50s. They were remodeling, but the Kutz grandson, now owner, was there, and we were able to see the room he grew up in. My dad had a good conversation with Kutz III catching up on those of the family he knew.

We drove down the road, with my dad pointing out where all his friends used to live, and where he used to play, in the small town of Stone Bank, where everyone knows your name.

Down the road was Kutz's itself, the corner store, pub, and general hangout. This is where my grandparents worked, when not at the goat farm, and my dad hung out a good deal. It was extensively changed as well, but where he is standing there was some semblance of how things used to look.

This was the way Kutz's used to look.

The small town of Stone Bank had five bars. Across from one of them was the two-room schoolhouse where my dad went to school with Mary Steinke. I knew they had gone to school together, but I had no idea it was a two-room schoolhouse. I had no idea that those things still existed in the 40s. Now it's a Teen Assistance Center.

But the highlight of the day was finding the cemetery where my grandfather and grandmother were buried. My aunt knew the location, and then we arrived at a cemetery in Ixonia, much larger than I'd envisioned. I was thinking perhaps 60 graves, and this was closer to 600- all flat, and none alphabetized.

I began a long trek, looking through grave after grave, and found many Jaegers, a family my dad had known, before I got to the Palosaari stone. There they were, Sarah and Jon Quincy. I'd not been to their funerals in '82 and '85. This was my first chance to pay respects.

Their stone is in the sheltering boughs of a small tree, and we laid two wreaths on the stone, perhaps the only living flowers in the cemetery. We stood for a moment, remembering. I thought of all my grandfather and grandmother had seen. My grandfather was born in 1901- he'd be 108 years old were he alive today. When he was born, there was no electricity, running water, or cars- certainly not his first few years in Russian-controlled Finland. I haven't considered it before, but as Finland wasn't independent until 1917, my family were Russian citizens until they came over in 1906- much as the Russians were viewed as imperialist oppressors.

It was good to remember. No grave should be unattended, with no memories to hang over it. Much as we might believe in eternal life today, we neglect at our own peril the Jewish interpretation of life after death- in the memories of our offspring, and the generations of descendants.

Serendipity in Minnesota

2009-06-14T18:14:00.012-05:00

I know that many are like me, and have viewed Aimee's blog and just assumed that she's given up on the Truth Testimony, and is just making it up as she goes along. Like they've got a new house and are remodeling it, and bought a bunch of chickens that they're raising from the egg! So for all of those in doubt, I went to Minneapolis to obtain true unbiased pictorial evidence of Airemy's lives. The journey started auspiciously enough, with the roar of rockets. But rockets don't always land where one expects.

I had a four day grueling conference, from eight in the morning until six at night- without even a lunch break! I had little time to think or contemplate anything in those four days. I was on the same street, just a few minutes away, from Christians for Biblical Equality, that center of focus on emancipation of women for equality in the family and the Church. I have admired and followed their work for years, but was unfortunately unable to visit there during the times they are open.
Jeremy and Aimee were also living just a few minutes from where I was staying, and I was able to visit their cute (and very real) house, in the process of extensive remodeling that will surely greatly increase it's aesthetic value. It looks like it would fit right in with the old prairies. I had a wonderful dinner catching up with them (though of course any dinner is better with wine), and got to visit their pets in the back. They are named Squwak, Cheep, Chirp, and the other sister, Chirp. (I made those names up.)

Aimee has also worked on a beautiful Rain Garden, which in case you are unfamiliar with the term as I was, is a place where water collects to feed the plants and provide a home for the mosquitoes. Here they are standing in it.

But the most amazing part of my journey was all of the random people I ran into in the Twin Cities. I knew I would be seeing Scott and Kimberly, and hoped to meet up with Airemy. But I was not at all suspecting that I would be able to turn around and see I was sitting at a table next to Raja from North Africa, and be able to have dinner with Lillis, also from Africa, and her roommates- but when I looked up, there was Lillis, at the Lemon Water Stand! Perhaps most mysteriously, as I sat down for dinner, based on my first name and unique upbringing, one of Lillis' roommates deduced that we had been housemates at a conference in Chicago, fully ten years prior! Truly, Minneapolis is the Nexus of the Universe.

Proposal

2009-06-10T21:12:00.000-05:00

I am the hollow man
Who dreams dreams too big.
I am the hollow man
Finding hope when despair should be.
I am the hollow man
Blindly pursuing irreverent futures.
I am the holy man
Set apart for khawram.
I am the hollow man.

Still I rise from Sheol
Filled with the waters of Marah.
I have become Diogenes
Searching for a companion.
I have become Shiva
bringing despair where hope would be.
For love also is unyielding as the grave.

I am Sheol.
I am the barren woman.
I am the parched Earth.
I am the consuming fire.
And I shall give to the leach,
until finally,
he too,
is satisfied.

Selah

New Home, New Glarus

2009-06-03T18:12:00.013-05:00

If one looks hard enough, they can find an idyllic corner of Switzerland in Southwestern Wisconsin, where the older buildings and older generation still speak German, where the beer flows freely and the festivals and people are friendly. This weekend, I moved to the town of New Glarus.

It involved a day of packing everything into the RV, carrying many boxes of books while Erin crammed them into the stern, now Storage. (Not Steerage.) The next day, Erin went ahead in her more maneuverable lighter craft, scouting out potential sharks and shoals for my more bulky vessel, loaded as it was with shipping containers. There was some legitimate concern that she wouldn't make it (the RV, not Erin), considering all of the engine trouble she had suffered in the past. But we made it to the new berth safely- and there is no way the journey could have been accomplished without Tugboat Erin.

The new location is decidedly different. I am often the only one in the field, which holds only some fourteen berths. (There is one other empty camper in the lot.) On the weekends one other RV might pull in; on festival weekends, up to five. It is a bit more isolated than previously- but that's the price one pays for cheaper rates. Most of the time my companions are the wildlife of the area. Yesterday I watched one of the many robins working furiously in tug-of-war with an elastic worm. She won, and immediately her near-full-grown children hopped up to her, chirping furiously, demanding the regurgitated food- which she happily accommodated.

I wasn't aware of the weather when I moved in. My first night came with torrential rainstorms, with lightning and thunder. Water was falling in literal bathtubs per meter squared per second. (b/m²/s for the scientifically literate.)

Though I went out a couple times to shake the water off the canopy, I was not quick enough, and the rain - that powerful compound water - completely tore off half the canopy. For a few days, until I found some alligator tape, I relied on elementary principles of balancing physics to open the door.

New Glarus is a wonderful town. I'm at the South end of it, which means it takes all of five miles to bike to downtown New Glarus, and another minute to reach the North end of the village. The people here are amazingly kind and accommodating. Constantly they open the door for me, though I am neither female nor elderly. One receives a number of coupons for meals upon moving to New Glarus- but most of those restaurants are constantly offering me free drinks as well, once they find I'm a new arrival. Stereotypical of Small Town America it may be, but everywhere is a hearty hello and Hail-Fellow-Well-Met.

So far, the two drawbacks I've found have been firstly, limited wireless. There are only two public wireless signals in town, and the stronger of the two at Fat Cat Coffehouse is intermittent- often appearing to be working but more often on the fritz. I found a better signal at Puempels Olde Tavern, and a netcafe hidden in the shopping mall of nearby Belleveille. The second drawback was having to get a breathalizer test after one of those free dinners.

Actually, that's one of the positives of New Glarus. After a meal, and a full glass of wine, I felt a little off. So I left my car at the restaurant, walked the two blocks to the police station, and asked if they could give me the test. The officer there was very accomodating, offering to give me a lift home if it was too high, and we had a very good conversation about policing in New Glarus, and the history of the town. He told me consuming a large meal actually increases the length of effect from alcohol. He also pointed out that Al Capone had his first out-of-Chicago home here (pictured to the left), just across the street from where the police station is now. There's a network of tunnels running under the city for bootlegging, discovered only in remodeling of the last decade- and sadly, rather than taking advantage of the rather obvious sizable tourist possibilities, they bricked all the tunnels up! The officer also kindly filled me in on the other major feature of New Glarus- the largest urinal in the Midwest. It is impressive- waist-high, and you can almost walk into it. The plunger is helpfully positioned as a reference point. (Female readers should of course page down so as not to view the inappropriate commode.)

Oh. Half an hour after a big meal and a glass of wine, I came out at 0.00, and walked back to my car. That's what three years in Morocco does to one's tolerance.

But in truth, what people mostly come to New Glarus for is the Swiss atmosphere and Swiss Festivals. Some twelve festivals in the warm months, differentiated into Polka, Heidi, William Tell, etc. There are many more minutia to Swiss culture than most are aware of! And everywhere, homes and buildings are done in Swiss alpine style, with Germanic lettering, hearkening back to the original settlers of New Glarus.

Return to Islamic Memories

2009-05-25T17:40:00.037-05:00

Long, long ago, I lived in Dearborn, Michigan, the area with the highest concentration of Arabs in North America. Dearborn is 70% Lebanese on the East side of the city of 90,000, and 90% Yemeni in the SE corner, bordered by the Ford plant, an industrial area, and a vast graveyard. Thus no one cares what the Yemeni do there, and they live in their own reality, with the women wearing veils showing only their eyes, and the men gathering in the coffee houses, and the call to prayer going out over the mosque loudspeaker four times a day.

This past weekend, I had a chance to visit those places I lived in, back before the world changed on September 11th, and I stopped at the remnants of my people group along the way.

I grew up in a Jesus People commune, where we shared everything in common, living as one rather than as individuals, committed to living in the style of the Early Church of Acts. Jesus People Milwaukee broke up in different directions, and we became Jesus People Europe. Another group moved to Florida and various places, eventually settling in Chicago, becoming Jesus People USA, or JPUSA. When our community finally ended, JPUSA was the sole remnant of my culture and people group left. Yet I've not been there since I was a child.

JPUSA is located in downtown Chicago, where they have been working in inner city ministry for decades. When I visited, sadly, most of those I knew (who babysat me) weren't around at the time, but I did get to see the tour of JPUSA's facility, and spend time with my good friend and fellow feminist, Jon Trott. They've renovated an old and infamous hotel, and planted a beautiful prayer garden, outside of the worship hall.

Then, on to Dearborn, Michigan. The journey took much longer than we expected, due to Chicago traffic, so we got in very late, and went for the first hotel we could find- a rather dingy affair, though with humorous coke machines. At two in the morning I was on Priceline searching for better rooms.

My first in-class teaching experience was there, for half a year, teaching biology and learning the ropes on the job on how to manage a class, at St. Alphonsus High School- now sadly no longer a high school. This is the adjoining church.

I took the kids on a short field trip to nearby Hemlock Park, to learn how to observe life in situ, observing plants and animals in a local park. The goal was to find as many samples of life as possible, and observe all their features in detail.

Hemlock Park was where my church, alwahat alinjilliyah, used to meet as well, in a community center shed in the park. While we were there, a baby bird floundered to the ground, and hopped up to my feet, confused or curious, asking, "Are you my momma?"

After visiting the church and field trip site, we found my old friend Douglass, and had great Arabic food at Siraj- and rose water ice cream!

This is seriously an ice cream that should be available all over the country. It is clearly the finest ice cream there is. Rose water is a common ingredient in Middle Eastern cuisine. I discovered it in the book, The Day of Ahmad's Secret, which I bought at the annual Arab-American Festival in Dearborn, when I was a children's librarian at the African-American Cornerstone Schools in Detroit. Part of his secret (which I won't reveal so as not to
give away the end) is found on the way past the rose-water seller. After I taught all the 2nd and 3rd graders to write their names in Arabic, I then treated them to rose water ice cream, bought at the ice cream parlor, Shatilla. And surprise! Shatila is still here in Dearborn, at a new fancy location, and beautiful, beautiful rose water ice cream.

There is only one place in the world where America is North of Canada, so while in Dearborn, we took a trip down South to Canada, going through Detroit down to Windsor. There we found...Canadian leaves!

There is a wealth of others sights in Canada, of course. My towing company. Free Legal Aid for the Nuthouse. The remnants of the once mighty American economy (GM), as seen from the safety of Canada.

I knew there was this great Irish pub in Windsor, where you could get ostrich burger. We looked and looked, only to be told that the locals knew of this restaurant- and it was closed. We settled for an Italian place with fancy coffees. Since I don't agree that coffee should ever be drunk, I asked if they could gussy up some tea for me- and wallah- Fancy Vanilla Tea!

For a delightful moment, I was in two countries at once! (I am very confused about my allegiances.)

Upon returning to the States, we stopped by at the Arab Museum in Dearborn. There was some semblance of this before I left in '01, but they had poured millions into a new location, and it showed. Though the majority of the museum (on the second floor) is merely models showing Arab American immigration, there is some small collection of artifacts and interesting history. I enjoyed mostly the main floor, with it's segmentation of Arab history. I went immediately over to the writing and calligraphy section, but stoped by the ancient medical texts as well.

On the second floor was the immigrant diaramas, and the planned Khalil Khalil Gibran exhibit, perhaps the greatest modern Arab poet, writer of the The Prophet, with one of his paintings on loan to the museum. When I visited Lebanon, I made a point of stopping at Gibran's gravesite below the last stand of cedars in the Middle East, above Qadisha Gorge where the Maronite patriarchs are buried. While Gibran's poetry is beautiful, I wanted most to go to the site to see his favorite tapestry hanging above his grave. It's a 400-year-old picture of Jesus, on the cross- smiling. I took a picture, which sadly didn't come out, and I've never been able to find the picture online over the years since.

But perhaps the finest part of the museum is when you enter, and look up. There, above you, is exquisitely crafted Arabesque art, equaled only in one other place in town.

On another evening, we made our way down to the South End, Dix, to where the Yemeni are, and I visited my old home, with its holes in the wall and plagues of insects and the mail being delivered insha'allah, when God willed it. (See pink door.) There were some cool pictures and video of that sweetest sound on Earth, the mosque athan, the call to prayer. I was able to pick up some new Yemeni clothing (thobe) and the sweet bread, and I had the wonderful national dish of salta, a hot spicy soup, at the local restaurant.

Afterwards we adjourned to a hookah bar, where I got my first taste of hookah after far too long, a delightful mint and rose blend. (Yes, I do love my roses.) Then I rushed over to the local Tobaccy and got blackberry and rose tobacco to go with the new hookah I'd picked up the day before (at the same superstore where I bought my brother a sword so long ago- to this day his favorite present ever from me).

Our last stop was at the grand mosque of Dearborn. When I left, they had just bought the property, on Alter Road, where there are five other churches. Now it is built. To the left you can see an image of one of those churches, a Greek Orthodox. All told, there is a Catholic, two Orthodox, an Arabic Protestant, and a high church and low church Protestant church along this road, next to the mosque. I'm just saying, block parties must be very interesting there.

The interior is incredibly beautiful, with calligraphy to rival anything in the Middle East (and incidentally the Arab-American Museum in Dearborn), all in praise of God, and Mohammed, and Ali. You could tell it was a Shi'i mosque because of the focus of Ali as an equal to Mohammed, in the placement of the calligraphy icons. But the rules were a bit Byzantine (yes, I know) for being allowed to publish interior photographs, so you'll just have to be satisfied with the beauty of the exterior.

And then. And then. On the way back, just after I had lamented that there were no Del Tacos in the Midwest, which are frankly far superior to Taco Bell in terms of authenticity, there, in Jainesville, we saw the sign...for Del Taco. We stopped, and got some very good, very authentic tacos. The take-away from this? (Yes, that's right.) Visit Jainesville just for their Taco Bell. If they don't get enough business, they'll close. If they do, they'll open up two new branches next year in Madison!

Aquarium With the Water That Which Tastes Bad

2009-05-10T13:41:00.031-05:00

I recently found there is a freshwater aquarium a couple hours away, along the Mississippi in DuBuque. Granted, the water tastes all wrong, not having the salt of our mother from whence we all came and shall one day return. But it's the closest I'm going to get to aquatic species out here.

They have fish and surprisingly for this oceanic observer, amphibians; feathered and non-feathered reptiles; and mammals. But we began with a little lesson in alluvial soil erosion.

Mississippi fish are big! Each was at least five feet long.

This guy is just sitting there waiting for the owner of the boat to return...

They aren't as smart as their marine cousins, but they have a whole lot more fun.

Yes! At this aquarium, you get to touch the sturgeon head!

ROUSes, Quaint Coffeeshops, and Gaming

2009-04-19T23:50:00.007-05:00

In the light of day, much of what we fear loses its potency. Scary Ass Mouse quite definitely had a different feel to him today. It appears it only requires the right accessories to turn fearsome into the ultimate in cuteness.

Fennimore is an exceptionally small but delightful town. We spent the day there, halfway between Madison and Decorah, relaxing in the atmosphere. There are bike trails just outside of town, where Erin prepared for her MS150 across Wisconsin, and I struggled to keep up. (Note the beginning of a recurring theme.) The countryside, unspoiled by glacial scarring, is like something out of Celtic lore, with winding creeks unstraightened, and stark lone trees, laying claim to the bend in the river.

I think I found the perfect place to build a home, between the trees, abutting the river.
In search of a place to finish our election game we'd started the week before, we found the perfect coffee shop, run by a very friendly family. We talked with the proprietor for perhaps half an hour, learning all about his adventures teaching in Saudi Arabia, and discovered we had much in common. (Erin won the Election Game.)

Our final stop was bowling at the local alley. Erin obtained near double my score; I was striving to copy Obama. You can see here her form was far superior to mine.

We then tried for a game of Settlers,a game we're both passionate about, and I learned to appreciate when in Morocco. This was the Sea-Faring Settlers, particularly attractive because of the ocean. I'll give you two guesses as to who one this game. (I had to continue repeating my personal mantra. "It's not whether you win or lose. It's how you lay the blame." I was...insufficiently prepared for such a formidable opponent. Which probably makes it my parents fault.)

Fear not though. There was this game of Scrabble that I won, once, long ago... I'll just have to adjust to dating an incredibly intelligent and able woman.

And play more games of chance.

My Neighborhood is Burning!

2009-04-08T17:02:00.012-05:00

As today was a bit warmer, I thought I'd take advantage of the weather for a walk up the nearby hill. But just around the corner, I discovered a great burning sensation.

The neighboring farmer was burning the field next to the creek that borders his land and our neighborhood, in order to keep trees from growing too large and clogging up the creek with their roots. I would think that trees help reduce erosion, but he said these are the wrong kind of trees.

The result was a controlled burn and a partially blackened field, reminding me of the plausible origins of my own name- "island of fire" from burning fields to prepare the land for crops in Finland.

Another fire burning in the distance framed the disturbed birds. The same farmer told me he had actually dedicated this wetlands as a federal bird sanctuary flyway, where he could hunt birds in season, and the rest of the birds could find a place to relax in their travels North and South.

At the top of the hill I found a rusty can, riddled with holes, and spent casings on the ground below. All next to the quarry- for the farmer told me that was indeed what it was, lending greater credence to my earlier rendition of the plot of Brother Sun Sister Moon.

Returning down the hill, I felt a bit like Moses, shocked in his return down the mountain with the stone tablets. I looked down, and it appeared as if my entire neighborhood was burning.

I experienced one last thrill, walking on the straight path, between the flames like Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego, and pointed the camera straight into the smoke cloud. This is what smoke looks like, while you're choking and have your eyes closed and are hoping your foot doesn't step into the flame.

Behold, I am the Resurrection and the Life

2009-03-31T12:03:00.007-05:00

It is a common misconception that Jesus was dead for three days. It was actually a day and a half. He was killed Friday afternoon, and resurrected Sunday morning. But what if he'd died on Sunday, and been resurrected on Tuesday? And what if he was a car? Then you have my Saturn.

(Yes, I recognize the irony, Saturn being the Roman god of agriculture. Is this sacrilegious? I can never tell...)

I must praise God, for the good work he has done. Just a few minutes ago I got a call expressing surprise. My mechanic, Meffert Oil, had a welder look at the car, and the welder came running out, to tell the mechanic that he had to see this. My mechanic was then greatly concerned, thinking, "Oh, no? Is it worse? Is there a hole in the engine?" Well, it turns out both they and Sears didn't initially see the real problem- it was buried that deeply. When they looked again, they discovered it was only a bolt missing. All that would be needed was a replacement of a bolt, and the fan belt, which had shredded from the movement of the alternator, all for around $180! (So high for labor, for the alternator is buried deep in the Saturn, for it is such a poorly designed car.) So, thanks to amazing work by Meffert Oil, who always takes care of their customers, I'm off to return the rental car two days early and pick up my car today- for 1/10th of the repair cost, when I thought the car was dead, without hope for resurrection. Truly, if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

Why Cars Suck

2009-03-30T16:06:00.007-05:00

I took the car in today. The news is not good. I had to take a cab into the airport and get a rental car for the week, to get to work, and was told they would be able to take a look at my car on Wednesday, and it should take up to a couple weeks to fix it, if the worst were true. However, they couldn't imagine that Sears Automotive was correct- it didn't make sense that a loose alternator could have destroyed the engine.

Then around noon I got a call from the repair shop saying that they had actually found a whole in their schedule, and were able to take a look at it. The body shop had come over and looked at it, and had determined the accident definitely did not cause this current problem. However, Sears was correct. The alternator had come loose from it's moorings, and was no longer attached to the engine. The engine would have to be removed, and the alternator rewelded to the engine. That was a beginning- there might be more problems with the engine. Engine removal would cost $1200, and my mechanic doesn't do welding, so I have to find someone to pick up the engine and weld it for an at this moment unknown amount. There might be further problems with the engine.

Now I've got a decision to make. I'm looking at around $2,000 at least. My dad says that he finds my type of car selling for around $5,000 online, but I think he's thinking of the asking price, before bargaining. Kelly Blue Book tells me only $2,605. Edmunds tells me up to $3,500 - what the car is worth, and what one person in the US is selling it at. Either way, that's not a lot of margin, if I fix the car, and then sell it. The alternative is selling it as is, to a guy who knows how to fix cars, for around the same amount of money as I'd profit from if I fixed the car. I'm leaning towards that.

But there's not much I can do for a decent used car for $1,000 -$1,500. A scooter might be an option. I don't live on a bus line, so to get work I need to have something. The big kicker is, without a car, it'll make it very difficult to visit my girlfriend in Iowa. And this is after all the previous problems with the alternator and starter, in a car with only some 60,000 miles on it.

And this is why cars suck.

Meeting Friends and Intertwining Lives

2009-03-29T20:56:00.013-05:00

This weekend, I got to meet Erin's friends, and she some of mine. It was also a weekend of car troubles. There was a game night of Carcasszone with Erin's friends, who are decidedly pleasant, and meeting others for ice cream at a dairy plant on the UW campus. (Actually, her friends are really rather wicked cool.) Erin came out to my church for service (and was of course roundly appreciated), and we had plans to get in a last ski of the season- she even brought her skis with her from Iowa- but as you can see, in a matter of hours the 5" of snow had entirely melted. It appears there will be no Swedish Snowdragon this year.

There was a play, The Birds That Are Your Hands. It meant well. It had great ideas. Intriguing ideas. The writer had compared the wall being built around the West Bank to the wall we are building between the US and Mexico- something I have commented on in the past here. I had never before considered how there were similarities in the Palestinian people having been in their land for years and the Israelis invading and claiming that the Palestinians were interlopers, and the Mexicans having lived in the Southeast for centuries, until we took their land in the Mexican-American War, now claiming anyone who comes there is an "illegal alien".

The play- a series of propaganda vignettes more than any concerted storyline- took place in a small community three-quarter round theatre, with minimalist set. We were both particularly moved by one true story, where a woman lost her baby at an Israeli checkpoint because the soldiers wouldn't let her go forward, though her husband begged and pleaded.

It was fairly well written. It wasn't just a good premise. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the directing and acting. I kept on thinking, "I could do a better acting job there." "I could direct that bit better." With a couple notable exceptions, nearly every actor was wooden. The director evidently felt that shouting and "running amok" replaced disciplined emotional expression. The result was not in-your-face so much as instigating boredom. The director felt that shock value (like stripping a guy down to his speedos or simulating sexual assault) was better than honestly dealing with issues in an intelligent and imaginative manner. We found we couldn't take much more, and left at the intermission.

But most of this weekend has been taken up with car troubles. Saturday morning my car sputtered to a halt, purely because of carelessness. I'd run out of gas. I began the 10 minute walk to the gas station, ordinarily nothing of significance, but that last snow storm of the season was about to begin, and it was cold. Thankfully a minivan pulled up and offered me a ride to the gas station, and then they waited for me, and drove me back to the car!

Having filled up, I thought my troubles were over. It was not to be. For the past couple weeks there has been a squeak when cold and a rattle when warm, coming from under the hood on the passenger side. It sounded like I needed to replace a belt. Then began a death rattle, at first when I turned, and then also when I accelerated, and finally nearly continuously. We stopped at Sears Automotive, and they took a look, and the prognosis is not good. They asked if someone had replaced the alternator. (Someone had- a shadetree mechanic back in October.) Turns out that guy had not put a bolt on right, and it had hit other things in the engine, rubbed up against the drive train, and destroyed the entire engine. Then I asked if the accident two months ago could possibly have caused this, and Sears said it was 95% certain that it did- but they couldn't say for sure as they hadn't seen what the car was like before the body shop worked on it. (I don't think "95% certainty" means what they think it means.) They recommended it be towed home.

This seemed to both of us to be overkill, so we headed to a delightful Moroccan restaurant, the only one in town, Casbah. In warm weather, they have shisha out front, which is something I definitely miss. There are three levels to the Casbah. The lower level is on the left, and the most authentically Moroccan, our natural destination. You can recline on benches with pillows, in the midst of what feels like a dungeon- but in a good way. While the waitresses weren't aware of Arabic or many Moroccan customs, they were certainly very hospitable, and, may I say, the food is to die for. It's reasonably priced by Moroccan-American standards, and the tajine dajej- chicken solid soup- was just like mom used to make it, if my mother were Moroccan. It was just as I remembered it when I lived there. The tea actually tasted like mint tea with gunpowder, and the qisqisu- cous cous- was far better than the ordinary box variety we get here in the States.

Then we headed out to the car. It was now dark, and I noticed immediately that the window was slowing down. The windshield wipers were sluggish, and it seemed there was little light coming out of the headlights. I've been through this before. Sure enough, as soon as we got to our destination for the gaming night, when I turned the car off and tried to restart it, nothing. The alternator had failed, just as Sears had predicted.

I had to get the car towed back with my last AAA tow, and then Erin picked me up for service and the play on Sunday. Tonight I'm trickle charging the car up, and hoping, and praying, that there will be enough juice to get me to the repair shop. But I'm not optimistic. I'll need the body shop to come over and take a look at it too, to determine if the accident caused this problem. Of course, I gave the insurance company of the instigator of the accident a heads up, that there might be further developments, but probably Sears was incorrect, just to be polite. Of course, the insurance rep, Denis of Chuck Rafferty Insurance, called me back to say that he would be out of town again for the week, and I couldn't reach him until the end of the week, but he was going to respectively decline my request to pursue the insurance matter further. Thus I had to call and leave him a message reminding him that I wasn't saying there was a problem, but only being polite in apprising him of the situation; that I had stated to him earlier that I thought Sears had made a mistake; and that this wasn't a matter of what he might feel was good for his client or not, but a simple matter of fact. If the experts (car repairmen) determined the accident caused it, then his client was at fault; if the experts felt the accident didn't cause it, then his client was off the hook. This is what I've been dealing with with this insurance company.

It has thus been a bad weekend for cars. But far outweighed by a delightful weekend in terms of people, and thoughts, and new things beginning.

Terrorists Love Too Much

2009-03-25T18:56:00.006-05:00

Faithful readers will remember I love my bumper stickers. I like them to be provocative and parabolic, like Jesus was, encouraging people to think, but not offensive just for the sake of offending. Thus, in a liberal area like Seattle, I had a sign saying "Jesus is a Liberal", to reach the liberals. But in a conservative area like the Waunakee countryside, I removed that sticker, as I felt it would be offensive without being provocative. Were I living inside Madison itself, it wouldn't be an issue.

So imagine my surprise today, when I experienced my first real persecution for following the Light with my stickers. I've had many people read the stickers. I can tell in my rear-view mirror- even what sticker they're reading. Some like them, and even shout out encouragement as they drive by. Others frown in distaste. In the past one woman complained directly to me, about the above bumper sticker, saying that it shouldn't have said "Jesus was a liberal," because Jesus was alive. I thought she made a good point, and so changed it in future versions. Today, I have the obligatory Obama stickers, an IXTHUS fish with legs, a Free Palestine sticker, and two self-made ones, stating "When Jesus said, 'Love your enemies', he didn't mean al Qa'ida, did he?" and "There is that of God in everyone. Even George Bush. Even Osama bin Laden." All very right Quakerly stickers. And seemingly suitable in a city like Madison, if anything redder than Seattle.

On the freeway, a guy was honking at me, and I turned around, probably too wrong, wondering if I had cut him off in some manner. But we were traveling too fast, and I thought nothing more of it. Then at the off-ramp, the same guy was to my left, motioning insistently for me to roll down my window. I did so, and he stated, "Do you know how stupid you are to have those bumper stickers?"

I must say, I wasn't prepared for this. I had expected something more congenial. Had I more time, I might have said something more parabolic, like, "Perhaps. But I am obligated to follow Jesus, no matter how stupid that might seem." Or "Love often is stupid." But all I got out was, "God be with you," with a smile, as I rolled up the window. Just in time to hear him say something along the lines of, "You know if you have those stickers, you're just like the terrorists, don't you?"

And that got me to thinking. I hope so. Because my stickers were all about love. All about how much God loves everyone, and how we need to emulate that love. So the only reasonable implication by this gentleman was that he was advocating that terrorists love too much.

Of course, he was suggesting nothing of the sort; it was only his words that suggested it. He was actually suggesting that I was in some manner providing "aid and comfort" to "America's enemies". But it is precisely this love that is offensive. It is that part of the cross- the part that causes such offense. Many have accused Christianity of being too violent and too power-hungry- and of those who have claimed the name of Christ, our accusers have too often been right. There are others who think it horrible that any religion, including Christianity, would condemn others to hell, for how could a good God do this?

And yet, when we get to certain peoples, suddenly the ground shift. Those same accusers, complaining of the lack of liberality in traditional orthodox Christianity, think nothing of condemning Hitler and the Nazis to hell, or even as we saw recently, condemning to hell any one who denies the full scope of the Holocaust. These are certainly great evils, and never to be supported, but there is a certain offense to claim, or even consider, that a good God could love such people. Indeed, how could he? He is good, they are evil. How could it be that God could love us while we were yet sinners? And how could the Christians claim that we happy chosen few are in the same league as Hitler and Osama bin Laden? How could the Quakers claim that, yes, there is that of God in those two as well, for they are also in His image?

Oh, I have no answers. I don't know. I do know that, forget the Trinity, and the manner in which Jesus is both divine and human. The real mystery of it all is how can God love those who do evil, when he claims that we all do evil? How can there be such love present in the universe, so outpouring.

And how can I come to see that, even in those I despise the most, even in those I like the least, there is that of God in them, and they have something to teach me of God? For this is why Christianity is by far, the most offensive of all the religions.

Decorah Days

2009-03-22T08:52:00.020-05:00

This weekend, I braved the wilds of Iowa. But I had a very good incentive to do so.

It's a three hour drive from Verona to Decorah. Uneventful iPod travels, until I reached the small town of Postville. As at that moment I was unaware of the history of this town, I was shocked to see, coming out of the darkness and the gloom like some sort of Night of the Living, everywhere shadows swathed in black, women in veils and men in large black hats. It was Shabbat, and within seconds of driving into the town, it seemed like there were Hasidic Jews everywhere. More surprising still, for a town of 2,000, were seeing four police cars in the three minutes it took to drive through town. Actually, more than three minutes, but one of the Jewish families walking by was kind enough to point the way.

It was a relaxed two days, getting to know the town and more of Erin's life. We watched one of the finest movies of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (deep Christological allegories), and played a couple games with one of her friends, as the other friends were off for Spring Break. Then Erin took me for a walk through a very quaint and beautiful town, in the midst of the bluffs of glacial moraines in Northeast Iowa.

Part of the tour was a rare treat, getting to see some of the more interesting aspects of the Luther campus. Most notable, of course, was Erin's special atomic force microscope, able to analyze friction on the nanoscale. The stuffed animals of the biology labs were fun, as was the marine aquarium, full of invertebrates, but of particular interest was the planetarium, where Erin gave me a private showing. We listened to classical music with the lights dimmed and the stars brilliant, as Erin pointed out the various constellations she highlights in class, and how the planets move in their retrograde motion, all the while with no guile on her part, thereby proving that she is simply inherently romantic without having to strive to be so.

It has been long, far too long, since I engaged in Open Worship. There are no Quaker churches in Madison, and the closest is an hour and a half drive away. So it was with great delight that I discovered that Hesper Friends is only a few miles away from Decorah. Thus off we went, to experience for the first time (for Erin) a Quaker service, and rejuvenate myself in my need for silence and the Spirit and Light speaking out of that silence.

And it was an even greater joy to discover this is a very traditional building, with the Meeting going back some 150 years, and the building nearly as long. The Meeting is small, but very warm, and the sermon was actually on John 3.16! For all it's quoted, I don't know that I've actually ever heard a sermon on John 3.16 before, and this was a particularly good one. He traced how we have repeatedly, in the past century, thought humans were getting better, and yet the 20th century has been one of repeated horrors, not limited to but in

the superlative with the Holocaust. And then, we return to John 3.16, and must struggle with, though we might not agree, God still loves those who have committed the worst of the atrocities, as he loves the whole world, while we are yet still sinners.

The weekend was rounded up with more romantic moments, as we shared food around a picnic blanket at the waterfalls, and read the first chapter of Anne Rice's Christ the Lord.

The drive home was long and dark. Particularly frightening were the giant man-eating mice that roam Northern Iowa, staring at me like I was more appetizing than their big hunks of cheese.

It was a weekend book-ended by strange creatures in the numinous moments of twilight. The whole weekend, I had been contemplating the Hasidic Jews I had seen Friday night, and thinking, "Since there are also many Amish in this state, wouldn't it be awesome to see a Hasidic and an Amish sitting down for coffee together in a small shop, discussing the issues of the day?

I wasn't to be fulfilled with that vision yet, but I did see the next best thing- a surreptitious photograph taken as I passed a horse and buggy in my car. For those in the Midwest this may seem like an everyday occurrence, but for a West Coast boy like myself, this was my first time seeing both Hasidics and Amish, outside the movies. An eventful weekend indeed.

Life on Mars No More

2009-03-19T14:17:00.005-05:00

Last night, I was enjoying one of my favorite shows on TV, with an exceptional episode. That says something, since, in my opinion, it is the only good new show of the season. (I'll give you Kings, but we've only seen one episode of that.) It is one of the finest dramas I've ever seen, with amazing writing, directing, and acting. I love all of the 70s references, for it brings back so many memories- some of them good. (I don't remember the 60s.)

And then, right after the episode, when they gave the preview for next week, they also stated that you should be sure to watch this episode, for there was only one more episode before the series finale.

I did a double-take on that one. Actually, I rewound the DVR a couple times. I thought for sure they meant "season finale", and it was ending early. But no- series finale. This is it. One of the finest shows on TV, but suffering declining ratings, especially since ABC made a rather foolish move of putting it up against Law & Order, with it's strong fan base, and another cop show, splitting some of the demographic.

Yes, it is going one more episode more than it's British forerunner. But British shows never go for that long. And we had just begun to really set up the characters. They had just begun to start to evolve, now that they've been laid down. There's some major plot twists and developments that could be resolved in two episodes, but not with justice to good writing. It's a series that was wonderfully set up for continual exploration of mystery.

The 20-somethings-who-buy-more-products-demographic-bomb hits again. Of course, you have to be at least in your 30s to appreciate this show; otherwise it's merely an exploration of ancient history. And evidently, no matter how well a show is written, ABC's policy is to cancel if it provides only some revenue, rather than the high revenues of 20s-focused shows. Yes, they could do a mix, recognizing that anyone older than 29 also buys products, and having some well-written shows are good for publicity too. But it would appear that that's asking too much.

Dude! I got my car!!!

2009-03-18T08:53:00.009-05:00

Well, it was a lot of work, but finally everything is completed. After having to work through everything with insurance and the "responsible" party, the car is finally fixed. Not without having to really pull though. I insisted on going only through insurance, but Chuck Rafferty Insurance kept on sending me to the party that caused the accident. I insisted that they go through insurance, but they insisted that they didn't have to. My insurance company, Geico, told me that I have the right to make a claim, and Chuck Rafferty and the responsible party denied it. Geico clarified I could file it, and usually insurance companies accept that if the other party is 100% at fault (such as, when they back into your car at high speed from another street, and your car is stopped at a stop sign), but the insurance company could throw up roadblocks and make it difficult to get money, if their client wasn't interested in honoring the law and her obligations.

So I figured it would be easier just to have her pay it, rather than forcing this or going to court. I called her up, told her where to send the money, and when to get it there- by Monday, so that the autoshop would have the money before they worked on my car. Monday I dropped my car off, and discovered they had not received their payment yet. Monday night I called the responsible party, and she told me, "Oh, I thought you wanted it to go to the other shop, and were considering which one to go to!" Except no such thing had been said. I went to a second autoshop, at her request, as a favor to them, so they could get a second estimate. Then she on her own initiative decided to try to contact her shop, and set up an appointment with them for my car, though I had told everyone repeatedly I would be using my shop. Then she decided that I had suggested I wasn't sure which shop I wanted. Now that the payment was late, she would have to send it overnight.

Which she did. Only to leave a message on my phone to order me that she had decided, since she had to send it overnight and I had not been clear on which shop I wanted, she would be deducting the $25 from the two checks- and had already done so. Probably about what you'd expect from a couple who has four accidents between them and is trying to hide a 5th accident from their insurance and auto records by not paying through insurance.

Happily, Waunakee Auto Body is really excellent. They not only repaired my car to a T, but told me not to worry about the additional $25. Any other issues in obtaining payment, if it was needed, would be dealt with directly between them and the responsible party, who may thereby learn a bit more of what it means to be the responsible party.

Wandering in the Land of the Dog

2009-03-14T22:50:00.009-05:00

Today seemed a good step forward. After the last date, we thought to meet halfway in-between, in the town of Prairie du Chien- from when it was a French colony, and called Land of the Dog.

Prairie du Chien has a very intriguing history. It is Wisconsin's only War of 1812 battlefield (we lost), and was owned by the French, and then controlled by the British for years after it was legally supposed to be returned to the US. America only finally gained control after the War of 1812.

Prairie du Chien also houses an unique site, the Effigy Mounds, just across the Mighty Mississippi in Iowa. After a brief respite, it is there that we headed, up the slope, and through the woods, to ... the chipmunk's house we go.

It is quite a climb up to the mounds. I fact, it took a whole lot of trying, just to get up that hill. At the top we were promised these famous giant earthen mounds, built hundreds of years ago by the First Nation peoples. While this is found in other locations, uniquely here there are extensive mounds in the shape of animals, like Brother Bear and Sister Bird.

However, we soon found that Brother Chipmunk was going to be the most defined animal we saw for the day. From the air, they're huge and easy to spot. Once up there...well, this is Erin, standing in front of a Bear Mound. See it? (She does, but she has some rather wicked excellent abilities at spotting things. Me, I saw a big pile of leaves.)

Evidently I wasn't far off. At the visitor's center below, we were told that the leaves had largely covered up the mounds. I am more inclined to think there are no mounds, and they just rake piles of leaves together for unsuspecting tourists.

Prairie du Chien is beautifully situated along the banks of the Mighty Mississippi. I had no idea it was so wide this far North. I'd always pictured it as a wee stream at the Wisconsin level.

There is a bit of interesting white man history in Prairie du Chien as well. Before dinner we explored some parts of the ruins in the area. At what looks to me like a pagoda, but Erin assures me I'm about a continent off on that one, there is the remnant of the fort from the War of 1812, Wisconsin's only 1812 battlefield. We lost; Canada won. I mean England won. Future President Taylor's daughter, Sarah, met future President Davis there. They fell in love, but Taylor insisted they leave the harsh frontier and move to Louisiana. So they did. And both got pneumonia three months later. She died. Taylor and Davis didn't speak for 10 years, since Taylor blamed Davis for her death, though he had been the one who insisted they move to an area

where she caught pneumonia. A tragic love story. Taylor and Davis patched things up eventually, and Taylor became President, and then died, and then Davis became President. Briefly.

An interesting story to contemplate on a second date. This is what I was ruminating upon, this romance linked with death, as I traveled down the two-lane highway at 65 mph in the dark of night, only to see a doe, a female deer, step out four feet in front of my car.

I quickly swerved out of the way of the deer, fish-tailing and skidding, spinning twice around, ending up facing the opposite direction on the opposite lane curb, slowly reversing into a ditch. Once I realized what was happening, I put the brake on, and tried to start the car, praying. It would not start. More prayer, and I tried again. It started, and I slowly turned around and continued on, flagging a police car a mile down the road, to let him know about the wandering deer, searching for an honest man in the dark of night. Either that, or trying really, really hard to be selected against.

The Beginning?

2009-03-07T23:49:00.013-06:00

Today I met a most intriguing woman. At the point where I wasn't thinking seriously about dating, or even paying, eHarmony had a free weekend. No sense looking a gift horse in the mouth, so I went on, and tried out a few leads. One of them seems at this point to be perhaps promising, and we met for our first date, after numerous emails and some phone calls. But since she lives in Iowa, three hours away, this was a very long date, as it's a very long drive. (I had accidentally misset the distance parameters on the eHarmony search when I first logged in. Usually I look no more than an hour's distance away.)

Nothing seemed to go as planned. We had hoped for a long walk in the arboretum, but it was a miserably rainy day, with Seattle-style rain- a cold, persistent, wet drenching that reaches into your bones and pulls them out of your skin. We had planned on going to the Geology Museum in town, where I recently set myself up to do volunteer tours, but I didn't realized it closed so early on Saturday. Happily, our first event, meeting at Macha Teahouse, went off without a hitch. Macha is rather cool, as it has a Moroccan Tea Room, representing where I spent three years, and a Japanese Zen Cave, representing where she spent a number of weeks and became enamored with the language. The Moroccan room did bring back memories. Additionally, Macha has some really excellent tea.
.
After some awkward introvert getting-to-know-you time, we headed out for a walk, to spite the rain, driving in and through the arboretum.

There she pointed out to me that wild turkeys roam the Madison woods, occasionally gobbling up unsuspecting children.
.
.
.
.
.
.
This is largely because they have no respect for the rule of law, whether that be rules against the eating of humans, or traffic violations.

The walk was short, due to the rain, and we found ourselves wandering into the zoo, the last major free one in America, where I'd previously been with my dad, and had him committed. Here he is, still trying to get out:

The museum was closing shortly after we got there- for two strong Js, it was a difficult day! We were having a great time getting to know each other better, but none of the events were going as planned. We visited my aunt's place, to care for the dogs, and then I - unknowingly - suggested the movie "He's Just Not That Into You". Unknowingly because I didn't remember that she'd already seen it, and I thought for some reason it was more romantic than the title suggested. (It's basically a long argument for not trusting men and ending relationships. I think I'd been won over by the use of Facebook within dating relationships, prominently featured in the previews.)

At the end of the day, it was gratifying to be able to talk, and find we were both on the same page. I personally have found the way she thinks, and what she thinks, incredibly provocative and engaging. We both felt there was promise here, and yet were mystified that there was not an immediate click. But there is definitely enough promise for a future meeting, and we are considering how to do that, somewhere between Wisconsin and Iowa.

Trust in Times of Twisted Metal

2009-02-20T21:51:00.007-06:00

I seem to have some difficulty with cars. As I mentioned, while stopped I got into a car accident two weeks ago, when another car rammed me. Since then I have been endeavoring to fix my car. I visited a body shop the very next day, reported the accident to my insurance company (as required in my policy), and began communicating with the at-fault insurance company. They transferred me down the line repeatedly, and I finally found the right person to talk with. He told me he would be in touch, and a few days later contacted me, saying that the owner of the vehicle wanted to come by to inspect the damages, to determine if they were truly as much as the body shop had claimed. I told him I couldn't meet at the requested time, but I would be amenable to visiting a different body shop of his choice, to determine the amount.

We met a couple hours later, and the body shop he chose determined that the price was about $70 less- around $1030. They determined that one part was hard to find and it wouldn't be possible to replace it as cheaply as my body shop had thought, but they also found that another part wasn't torn off- it only appeared so if you didn't look at the car symmetrically. (Underneath it has a purposely torn look.) This difference in price was fine with me- it's basically the same. The insurance rep took pictures, and alluded to some mysterious issues with his client that he couldn't discuss because of confidentiality, but he would get back to me. I was thinking if he hadn't said anything, I wouldn't have wondered about the mysterious issues. The rep has the feel of a man who is endeavoring to obey the law because he has to, but who is a consummate salesman, and not to be trusted. At one point at the body shop, the rep suggested there were a couple ways to go. "I could, for instance," he mused out loud, "give you in cash directly a smaller amount of money, say, $400." I absolutely refused this, saying if I ever wanted to sell the car in the future, it needed to be fully repaired. I told him I needed the full amount of money to go directly to the body shop for repairs.

A few days later, this past Monday, he still had not contacted me, so I called him. He apologized, saying his client had still not contacted him, but he would immediately get in touch with them, and call me back. I filled out a Wisconsin Accident Report, as required by law for any accidents over $1000 in damage.

Today, he still had not called me, and so I called him. This is when it began to get weird. The insurance rep insisted up and down that we had talked, and he had told me that the driver had decided to pay out of pocket, and that the driver would be contacting me directly to arrange this. (The driver is not the insurance holder.) This is despite my repeated instructions to him that I did not want to be involved in payment- that I wanted this all to be covered and paid to the body shop directly. This was also despite that conversation never happening. He never called me back. He never told me that the driver was going to pay. I know this, because if he had, I would have told him that this was unacceptable- as I told him today. Paying through an individual is too dicey, if there is further damage that is not yet found, or if checks don't clear. So I reminded him of this, and further reminded him that the conversation never happened. We went around on this a few times, with him stating that he had made a record of the conversation, and my telling him that was rather immaterial, since we hadn't talked. It ended with him saying that, now that he knew the driver had not contacted me, the rep was back on the case, and would be contacting the driver and insurance policy holder shortly.

I then immediately went to my insurance company, Geico, with whom I have only liability, but who is there to assist me also in dealing with other insurance companies if they are recalcitrant. Geico immediately began to intercede and speak with the insurance rep, and will follow up on Monday. They were very surprised that the insurance policy holder was desiring that their insurance not pay, but instead that it happen through the driver, especially considering that I had expressed that this be paid through insurance. We'll see now to what extent Chuck Rafferty Insurance maintains ethical standards.

The Gift of Evolution: The Kenosis of Christ

2009-02-15T13:38:00.005-06:00

Now in it's fourth year, Evolution Sunday is the Sunday after Darwin's Birthday when churches all over the nation- and in a number of other countries- commit to sharing about God's presence in evolution, or how science and religion aren't in conflict. It's grown by 100% since its first year, and now is often referred to as "Evolution Weekend" to encompass synagogues- and mosques, if any ever join up. This is my second year participating in it, and it's rather momentous occasion, being that it's the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birthday.

As my church wouldn't be delivering such a sermon, I looked in the Madison area for a suitable church. There were two churches, and one Universalist group, so I went with the Presbyterians, being closest to my beliefs. I called up Westminster Pres to confirm, and in the process had a very excellent conversation with the pastor. He was trying to decide what to speak on when I called him, with the assigned passage being the story of the leper being healed, from Mark 1.40-45, and was finding it difficult to see how evolution fit into that passage. Using my Gift of Evolutionary Discernment, I shared with him some thoughts on how I saw evolution fitting in. Truly, it immediately jumped to mind, as if inspired by God, with a good deal from John Haught's God After Darwin. And I was humbled to hear him say that I had helped him write the sermon, and he was planning to use these ideas in his sermon.

The pastor began by sharing of his visits to AIDS patients, back when the disease was first being discovered, and still called "Gay Pneumonia". At that point, even doctors and nurses wore surgical gloves, goggles, and masks when visiting these patients- everyone was afraid of them. So the pastor followed the lead of everyone else. Gay Pneumonia was just something too scary, and unknown. He confessed that he wasn't sure how helpful he was to these patients- but he learned more about compassion in this time than at any point in his life.

Then he spoke of the leper healed by Jesus in the beginning of Mark. This man asked to be cleansed- meaning to be able to return to society. A leper was ostracised and excluded, not allowed to touch anyone and having to wear bells and call out to warn travelers outside the town who might get too close. Jesus was moved by splagchnizomai, compassion from the gut. He reached out and touched the leper, causing himself to become unclean, by the standards of the day. Jesus identified with the man wholly, and truly cared for him. He not only healed the man physically, but relationally as well, as he helped return the man to society by visiting the priest for a certificate of healing. Jesus fully cleansed him.

The pastor then moved to some of the writings of Haught. Haught brings in two key elements. Firstly, that all of creation is God's children. He is intimately connected with all of his creation, and loves all of his creatures. Secondly, there is the kenosis, wherein God, just as he did on the cross, suffers with the suffering of his creation. This unity of life that we find in evolution provides the impetus for God, and should provide the impetus for us all, to express the same compassion for those in trouble, and for those suffering. They are our brother and sister because of the tree of life. Just as God suffers with the least of these creatures, so he suffers with the least of these humans, and so we ought to suffer with.

The pastor ended with returning to the AIDS patient, so long ago. He was covered with sores, and in great suffering. And one woman, an AIDS advocate, came in. Of all the visitors, she alone did not wear a mask, gloves, or goggles. She touched the man. She gave him human contact, and bathed his sores. She alone showed him the compassion of Jesus Christ.

I'm posting this not just because of my involvement in the sermon. It was joyous, because I do so love the rare opportunity to give or write sermons. But more so, this was an excellent sermon, and very moving. I'd encourage you to listen to it when it's posted shortly on the church blog. Click on "Worship Notes and Sermons" in the lower left of the screen.

Of Fossil Children and Chocolate Chip Cookies

2009-02-11T17:35:00.003-06:00

As I mentioned earlier, I've started training to give tours at the local Geology Museum. Whereas my previous volunteering for the Seattle Aquarium was in my field, this is a bit more of a stretch, though I am more comfortable with the paleontology side of things. But I'm welcoming the lack of awareness, as it gives me the opportunity to be in a more learning mood.

For the past two mornings, I've "shadowed" tours, for 6th and 3rd graders, for an hour each, to learn some about the rocks, and gain a better understanding of how the tours work. In the process, I've learned a couple cool pedagogical geology ideas.

When discussing rocks and minerals, discuss chocolate chip cookies. Each mineral is like the ingredient of a cookie. The cookie itself is the rock. Discuss ways we use minerals in every day life. Face glitter and sparkles in shampoo are pieces of mica. Kolinite Clay is what makes both Kaopectate and McDonald's milkshakes so thick and functional.

When discussing fossilization, have a child volunteer act out the process. First they die (but we'll bring them back to life as a fossil later). Then animals scavenge them, there is weathering, and they are covered over with many layers. Add a great deal of pressure, in a place without bacteria and oxygen. Slowly they become mineralized, as their bones get replaced with rock. Stress that all these things have to happen, which is one big reason why fossils are so rare, just as we'd expect.

Listening to Tales of Horror

2009-02-09T19:11:00.003-06:00

Tonight I drove down to Janesville to listen to Kathy Kelly, who has recently returned from visiting Ghaza after the Israeli invasion and massacre. What I heard was horrifying.

There were whole neighborhoods destroyed and bombed out. The IDF told Kathy's team that certain areas had no women and children left in them. When they got in, they discovered women and children still around. One place had a grandmother, paralyzed from the waist down. The family was trying to get her to the hospital, but IDF snipers were shooting at Palestinians who got too close to the hospital. So Kathy got a stretcher from the hospital, yelling out, "I'm American," and ran over to the family to help the grandmother get to the hospital.

Kathy spoke of listening to a doctor taking a call to answer if the oranges were safe to eat. The IDF had bulldozed many orange groves, which the families depend on for their livelihood. They were therefore going through and picking up the oranges on the ground. But they had to call the doctor after they noticed that their hands were itching, and a foul smell was coming off the oranges. Were these safe to eat? The doctor knew that if they didn't use them, the families would no longer have a way of earning a living, or getting food. So he told them to wash the oranges really well.

Chemical studies confirmed that white phosphorus had been used on the population of Ghaza. There are reasons most human rights groups condemn the practice. Those injured by white phosphorus were brought into the hospitals, still burning. The burn seeps into the skin, going deeper and deeper. If the burning is stopped, and the wound exposed to oxygen again, the phosphorous flares up and begins burning again. Doctors treating burn patients would get secondary effects themselves from breathing the white phosphorous fumes. Two patients whose burn wounds were cleaned and healed completely were shipped to Egypt for further treatment. They both died, not from burns, but because white phosphorous is also a poison in human bodies when it gets into the blood stream.

If you're an American, it was your tax dollars that funded the ammunition and chemical weapons that were used on the people of Ghaza.

And I thought LA drivers were bad...

2009-02-08T21:41:00.004-06:00

Well, you know that it would happen two days after getting new insurance. Yesterday, just after leaving that conference I spoke of, I followed another car to a stop sign. They turned to the left, and I turned on my right blinker to turn to the right. The car went about three car lengths, and then suddenly began to reverse course. I blared my horn long and loud, but the car acted as if it didn't hear. He continued to reverse and turned, in anticipation of a three-point turn to go to the right instead. Unfortunately, at this point, I was in the spot that he had previously occupied. So it became one of those exceedingly rare cases where the lead car is at fault for a rear-end accident. This other car rammed my front end with his rear end, going what looked like about 30 mph.

We traded information and had a police officer come out to file a report. It looked to me like the damage to my car was only around $100, and worse to the car at fault. Sadly, the driver is the boyfriend of the car owner (a passenger at the time), and her insurance is in her father's name- which doesn't spell anything good for the future relationship of the boyfriend with the reckless driving habits. Also unfortunately, the shop today determined that the damage was more extensive than I had thought, amounting to around $1100, for the driver had plowed into my vehicle with such momentum as to force a number of chassy elements back into the engine. At least the driver admitted full fault at the scene, and the police officer also determined him to be completely at fault, based on our two statements.

Thank God for Darwin

2009-02-07T20:26:00.003-06:00

In celebration of the upcoming 200th anniversary of Darwin's Birthday, today we had a conference at the UW, celebrating all the wonder of evolution and a man who changed biology, science, and all of life, born 200 years ago. As I begin volunteering for the Geology Museum, I had the pleasure today of assisting at the big event. And don't forget to celebrate this Sunday, on Evolution Sunday, where pastors across the nation (along with some rabbis) are preaching on the compatibility of science and religion and the theological beauty of evolution. Check here for a church or synagogue near you.

Most of the day involved sitting at the Teaching Table, providing information to people for the mid-day seminar on teaching evolution. Throughout the two floors were small exhibits, where I could talk with a table on the philosophy of evolution (similar to my own table), look at replicas of skulls from our genus and Australopithecus (though sadly, no H. floresiensis, the newly discovered minature human species, or hobbits), and ask for more clarification on cladistics (a field of taxonomy that is now dominant but was in its infancy when I was studying biology in undergrad). I learned that crocodiles are now not birds anymore, but are only your average reptile, and birds are now completely dinosaurs, as there are too many wingless dinosaurs with feathers- meaning of course that there is no longer a meaninful line between reptiles and birds. But I also learned that there are problems with cladistics, too- it is more precise than traditional Linnean taxonomy, but not without its own form of guesswork.

My table was on teaching evolution, so I got to share with people some of my experiences teaching, and some of the difficulties I had with a recalcitrant administration trying to block science. (For those unaware, I left a former position because the school began teaching official mandatory classes in Intelligent Design, and it undermined all scientific authority I had in the classroom, so that the students weren't sure what to believe and no longer accepted scientific reasoning as true. Additionally, my very presence became the justification for the classes, as they were now teaching "both sides". Yes. I'm one of those who lost my job for teaching evolution.) I had some really great conversations about how to communicate evolution to those of religious faith, not predisposed to the theory. After an hour I realized something better, and drove home to pick up some books to lay out and share with people, of good pedagological tools for teaching evolution.

A book that is sadly no longer published, but which I read when working at the Seattle Aquarium: How Whales Walked Into The Sea. One of the very few out there that describes evolution accurately and with beautiful illustrations, at an elementary-junior high level. See my full review.
The Tree of Life, a beautifully illustrated book on the life of Darwin, for junior high students. See my full review.
Defending Evolution, a great book for teaching methods with practical exercises for studying evolution. See my full review.
The Counter-Creationism Handbook, a handbook I wish I'd had when I was teaching, but found only just after I left. It contains every Literal Creationist argument you're likely to run into in the classroom, and many you won't- with the appropriate scientific responses. See my full review.
Why Intelligent Design Fails, a good book if you want to start to go on the offense. See my full review.
Finding Darwin's God, one of the first of an emerging genre to explore the relationship between theology and religion, and advocate a positive relationship where one can fully embrace the Christian faith and evolution as well. Good to recommend to a student of faith who's main difficulty with the Theory is religion, or to read to understand how to positively approach these students. See my full review. Despite my own personal beliefs, I was in no way recommending these books for religious persuasion of conference participants, as much as to help convince students of the truth of evolution.
For the student who is more into predestination, or who wants to go a good deal deeper into theology, I recommend God After Darwin. Haught argues that evolution makes full sense only in the light of Christianity; and Christianity is only understandable fully in the light of evolution. Excellent for the recalcitrant student who won't accept evolution because her faith tells her it's wrong. See my full review.
I used to teach in a Muslim country, and so would also get Muslim students who wouldn't accept evolution because of their faith. As far as I know, there's only one book out there that addresses this issue- Creation And/Or Evolution: An Islamic Perspective. See my full review.
Of course, there are many other good books out there along these lines. Some of them can be found at my Amazon List, Books Reflecting Christ's Presence in Evolution.

And behind my table there were conferences going on continuously, and I popped in from time to time to listen. Some of the more interesting topics were:

On dogs and their emotions, and how closely they often emulate our emotional facial expressions, but also differing in certain ways. A particularly delightful image was a child all smiles hugging a dog's neck with her arms. She's a primate, and her eyes are crinkly with joy. The dog is a canine, and doesn't like hugging, so the white's of his eyes are showing and the mouth is drawn back in fear response. This is a classic fear response that we share with dogs- head drawn back, eyes big, corners of the mouth drawn back slightly.
Bottlenecks are when a species or population go through a narrowing, so that most of the individuals are killed off. This of course substantially reduces the genetic diversity. The talk was on how this relates to declining populations of nearly all major species on the planet. Even though they might not be extinct, since most of them are going through bottlenecks, ther genetic diversity will be substantially reduced, meaning they won't be able to respond as well to new threats- like Global Warming, Ozone reduction, and pollution.
The one talk I listened to for the entire hour was on the health of our oceans, by Dr. Jeremy Jackson of Scripps Institute. Basically, our oceans are about ten times worse off than we thought. Ten years ago, we were looking at about 100-150 Dead Zones- areas that have so little oxygen that only bacteria and jellies live there. Now there are 400. The primary fishery in North America, cod, has been overfished to below sustainable levels. But we are continuing to fish it, because we project that without any habitat stress in the future, it would naturally rebound. Of course, not only us, but also the climate are putting substantial stress on the fish. It is not just cod, but nearly every marine species that is being stressed beyond hope for recovery. The acidity of the oceans are increasing substantially, effecting everything from coral to plankton. The coral provide a basis for the food chain, and more coral are destroyed in one year in the Indian Ocean than all the trees we have cut down. The plankton skeletons are being destroyed by the acidity through the Greenhouse Effect, which means that that last great food source predicted in Soylent Green won't even be an option- our world will be worse off than predicted in environmental catastrophe movies. And the good news is that, if we act now, to reduce pollution and carbon emissions significantly within the next 35 years, our oceans will be able to recover in the next 1000 years. The bad news is we will probably not act in time.

Authentic Democracy

2009-02-03T23:28:00.008-06:00

Tonight I went to my first ever Town Hall Meeting. It was excruciatingly boring. But I'm going to make you sit through and read about it anyway.

It is touching to be at the center of democracy in action, to see the decisions being made at the base level. But there was something missing. And it is not to detract from the Town Council, who as far as I can tell are doing an excellent job. Rather, it is like going to a church after you've experienced the authentic communal lifestyle of the early Church. No matter how good that church might be, you've experienced something better before.

So there were many similarities between this meeting and Quaker Meetings I've been part of. But it is like the similarity between a lamp and the sun. Both provide light, but one reminds you of the original light, for it is only a pale imitation. Here, those on the board made all the decisions. There were occasionally times when they would ask for thoughts and comments from the audience- but that is what we were; an audience. We were not participants in democracy. Our true role ended the minute we put our ballot into the box. Whereas in a Quaker Meeting at any time anyone can rise to share, and everything is determined by consensus. At one point my old Meeting was considering a name change, but one person was reluctant to agree. Rather than forcing the issue, we waited a year, until he came around. And though there can be many boring items raised in Meetings as well, like anything having to do with finances, since everything is approached with an attitude of agape and worship, even the most mundane tasks are flavored with a taste of the parousia. At the Town Hall meeting, I got no such feel, and so most of what occurred tonight was not so much irrelevant, as that we the citizens were largely irrelevant.

There were two items of greater interest. A few weeks ago one citizen of Springfield had been required to pay his home business garbage fees. This pissed him off so much that he told on his neighbors, saying that they also weren't paying their fees. One of those neighbors was in there tonight, complaining that his business was remodeling other's homes, so the only garbage that his business produced was at the homes of others, and not at his home. It would be ridiculous for him to have to pay for an extra bin at his home, when they can't even fill up the residential bin they already have. The Town Board declared that there can be no exceptions, and all businesses in the township must pay this fee. I thought to tell him of an idea I had- to declare that he had no home business, but rather that he conducted all of his business outside his home, on the road- but when I followed him and his wife out, they had mysteriously disappeared, as if they were never there.

I also found out that there are plans to build a freeway through the area in 2020, and there are many arguments on where this freeway should be placed, and how far North or South it should be. It turns out all the routes go through some wetlands, and most of them run right next to the neighborhood I'm living in, disturbing the developing fly-way there. A freeway running right next to us will drastically change the feel and atmosphere of the place. And though I don't intend to still be here in 2020, it is a shame, because this neighborhood is not only the only concentrated area in all the township, but it is probably the most friendly and neighborly area in the township as well. It is certainly one of the most so that I've lived in. But that closeness is scheduled to disappear.

Celebrating Sup Erbulsun Day

2009-02-01T22:28:00.011-06:00

This is my kind of place.

Sup Erbulsun Day, as everyone knows, is the greatest holiday in America, far outstripping Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving combined. At no other time is this people so united on one task, so focused on the production of plaque and the clogging of arteries, so dedicated to a display of quasi-homoerotic violence between two totem creatures endowed with mystical portent and power- in this case, the producers of steel, and red birds. Considering the importance of steel at the center of the American myth of power and providence, it was perhaps therefore predestined who would come away with the coveted venerated prize.

(That bit on the homo-erotic, over the top? Perhaps so. But I can point you to a really excellent anthropology study I read in seminary looking at the latent homosexual tendencies within football. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

But, to return to my celebration of the holiday...it was at the church I've been attending these last couple months, Living Hope. At the rented center where we meet, we gathered to watch the game, eat, fellowship, and maybe play some other games as well.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the dome. No one watched the game. Well, there were, I think, two. Everyone else played Wii, talked, and played board games. (I participated in a couple rounds of Scruples, which was quite enjoyable.) Sure, when there was an exceptional play on the giant movie screen, we would stop and watch the replay of it. We stopped for a couple commercials, but most weren't that good this year. That 100-yard touchdown was exceptionally cool, as were the two last-minute touchdowns by both teams. But no one here considered the game itself to be of great importance. It was more the opportunity to gather, and share.

I think I've found my people.

Life Will Find a Way

2009-01-31T22:55:00.007-06:00

I've been to peace protests and anti-Iraq War protests, to protests to free the people of Ghaza and stop their slaughter. All solid pro-life issues. But I'd not yet been to a Pro-Life abortion protest.

As I approached the library downtown, there was a small crowd gathered. I was one of the counters at the Million Man March, evidently, so I am the last person to ask on numbers. I figured about 400- four times the amount that showed up to the Ghaza protest a few weeks ago. I'm told it was actually closer to 1,500.

We were protesting the consideration by UW Madison to open up a 2nd-Trimester abortion center at their hospital facilities. They currently do plenty of 1st-Trimester abortions there; they're looking to expand. The crowd was filled with eager participants and signs, some more tasteful and others the typical gory dead child- including giant pictures on a roving truck that went back and forth on the street.

It never ceases to amaze me how those who support the Pro-Life agenda often insist on showing such vivid pictures of death. I avoid computer games, TV shows, and movies that show vivid gore, because I find it disgusting. I feel compassion for those who are going through it, even if they're fictional. Many people I know have been turned off to the Pro-Life agenda because of the gore and the antagonistic approach- and yet it continues, as they shoot themselves in the foot. When I see those pictures, to my mind the person holding it supports whatever is on their sign. My emotional response is that it would make much more sense for the Pro-Choice protesters to be holding those signs. It would certainly be more honest.

We began with a short intro at the rally, and a couple short speeches. They were supposed to be short, and only a couple. They became much longer, and manifold. I appreciated the introduction, admonishing us to be respectful and loving towards those who disagreed with us.

I found myself in an odd situation. When I protest in favor of Ghaza and at peace marches, I tend to agree with most of the political views of those around me, but only a minority are Christians, of my faith. Here, everyone was a Christian, and I agreed with them on basically only one issue. This too, is something that does not make sense to me. It seems natural to me that we should have a seamless tapestry of belief. Life is good, or else choice. Either abortion and capitol punishment are wrong, war is always not an option, and the environment and poverty need to be alleviated to save lives- or else everyone can make whatever choice they want no matter how much it might kill others. I can respect the logical consistency of the latter belief, much as I might find it morally repugnant. And yet, most in our nation, and in particular our political parties, are divided. One is pro-choice, and tends towards being anti-war and is the only place where you can find anti-capitol punishment politicians; the other supports the death penalty, is much more eager to go to war, and defends the rights of the unborn.

And so I found myself surrounded by those whose views were antithetical to mine, except for the reason we came together. And this in itself is understandable, and a lesson in tolerance. Yet, there were difficulties. The American flag waiving behind the pulpit as we were preached to that this is a Christian nation, or once was. The brief references to Obama being our President being a bold new step for our nation in being willing to elect a person of colour, a justice issue just as is the issue of abortion- gathering a smattering of applause from maybe twenty people out of 1,500. No reference, of course, to Obama's plans to dramatically reduce the abortion rate, despite him being pro-choice. So I was most struck with the continuing of the culture wars here in front of me.

And logically, the way to continue that was to speak only to your side. In the gathering of 1,500 Pro-Life Christians, with the media watching, speech after speech (for about an hour in the windy cold) dwelt on the Christian perspective of why abortion is wrong. Needless to say, it was not an effective protest. It convinced those who needed no convincing. It was not multi-religious, or areligious, for the primary focus was on Christianity, and not the purported issue at hand. Anyone watching the news, or driving by, who was Pro-Choice, or not a Christian, would have seen the stereotype they already have of Pro-Lifers, and would not have been swayed in the slightest. Indeed, I would guess those watching the news this evening would have their suspicions confirmed, and be more adamant in their belief in a woman's right to choose.

There was one significant exception to the speeches today. Not in terms of the Christian focus, which it was filled with, but rather in the attempt to cross the cultural divide. An African-American pastor from Texas gave a rather excellent, moving sermon, if you are predisposed towards the Christian line of thinking, with numerous references to Obama and building on his call for change. It was even a call of love and hope for Obama. Though at times the volume dips considerably, I'd encourage you to listen to it below, divided into two parts for upload purposes. I certainly enjoyed it.

As with the Ghaza protest, this protest lacked a certain solemnity for the occasion. I believe the best protest I've ever witnessed was the historical fiction one in Malcolm X, with the Brothers of the Nation of Islam lined up in black, silently, standing, waiting for a doctor to come out to confirm that their brother was okay. That had impact. Marching silently, single-file, without a word, all in black- that would have impact. But the group, though large, and more organized in street-crossings than those protesting the Ghazan slaugher, was too rambunctious to be fully effective, in my opinion.

By the time we got to the clinic, we stretched all around the block and back again. It was only there that we met up with a small group of socialists, supporting the Pro-Choice position. They were more organized than us, having the call and response of the 60s down. But it was an odd mixing, with jumbled signs and slogans, with the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life merging into one amorphous disunified mass.

In truth, I don't know if any rally or protest changes minds. It lets those in authority know that there is a small group of people committed enough to stand in the cold, and logically this small group represents a larger group. I am pessimistic about the authorities listening to us, even in the Age of Obama. I don't know if any lives were saved today, any more than Ghazan lives were on January 6th. But all of us felt better about ourselves, as if we'd done something to advance the cause and save lives. And in the end, in post-modern America, isn't that what it's all about?

Choosing Life, in All It's Wonder

2009-01-30T17:41:00.025-06:00

Many years ago, I read a book by the Great One, Stephen Jay Gould, called Wonderful Life. It was all about the Burgess Shale, a place in Canada with the largest collection of fossils on the planet from the Cambrian Explosion. The Cambrian Explosion is significant because some 530 million years ago, which saw the largest explosion of life in the greatest diversity, ever. There were organisms with life plans like nothing you've ever seen. Some were arthropods that are nothing like arthropods today. Many were whole phyla that have gone extinct. Gould's point was that nearly all life is now extinct, and that the truly weird life plans no longer exist. And my favorite example of this was Hallucigenia, a stick walking on five long tubes, with a double row of spines sticking out on top, and five eyes on a bulbous head. Truly worthy of Owsley.

Imagine my joy then, on finding out that there was a collection of the Burgess Shale fossils right here in my city! And today, I finally made the opportunity to visit the UW Madison Geology Museum.

Just outside the museum is an oceanography department, whose most salient feature is a very cool map of the current weather on the planet.

There's also a bunch of rocks and meteorites at the Geology Museum. I was eager to get to the fossils, so I only stopped by the phosphorescent rocks. (And now were back to the acid.)

Then, on to the fossils. The museum actually begins with the oldest of the old, the Stromatolites, the very first fossils: algal mats from 3.5 bya- that's a b for billion, and only a mere billion years after our planet began. This is significant because it shows that life isn't all that difficult to begin. Our planet formed from a ball of gas and dust, cooled down, formed oceans, began life, and then formed life that could actually fossilize, all in only a billion years, a quarter of the planet's lifespan. The formation of life isn't all that amazing, history would tell us. Rather, it's the formation of multicellular life that took some time.

One of my two favorite phyla is Cnidera, one of the simplest, with only two cell layers. Most Cnideria fossils are coral. It's rare to find jelly fossils, like these below.

Most though not all fossils in the museum come from Wisconsin. Here are some delightful gigantic cephalopods from ancient times.

And then, what I had been eagerly anticipating, the collection from the Burgess Shale.
It began with Pikaia gracilens, found in the Burgess Shale, and may perhaps be the earliest Chordate ever found- what our ancestor looked like.

I was particularly delighted to see some specimens I recognized from the book, including Marella splendens.

When I was teaching biology, every year I would trot out overheads of the Burgess Shale animals for the students to see. One point I wanted them to get was the same that Gould stressed: the process of discovery in science. When the Burgess Shale were first discovered, we found a strange animal that looked like a flat marine jelly.

Another looked like parts of the typical shrimp.
And then, they realized that the jelly was actually a mouth, and the shrimps were the tentacles, all of one organism- Anomolocaris, a veritable fossil Frankenstein. The complete animal is pictured below.

Just beyond the Burgess Shale was the Echioderm display, my other favorite phylum. (Hey, I have a thing for radially symmetric animals with nerve nets.) Most of the fossils were that class that every one forgets about- the Crinoids - the sea lillies. To the right is a fossil bed of them. Below is Crinoid Limestone.

Beyond the invertebrates I came to our phylum. The Xiphinactus predatory fish, a fish fossilized in the act of eating another fish, and an ancient rhino.

Someone at the museum has a bit of a macabre sence of humor. In the same enclosure, facing each other, was a three-toed horse and a young sabertooth cat.

Towards the end, I arrived at some very great delights. I found some of my favorite organisms- ancient giant pigs (above),

and when I glanced up, I was surprised to find a Mosasaur and Pteranodon swimming above. And then, a invatory sign, and a thought I hadn't previously contemplated. Darwin Day is coming up on the 12th, the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the greatest biologist in history. As of the Darwin Day celebrations on the 7th, I'll be working towards being a volunteer tour guide at the museum, and getting to work with the ancient organisms I love.

I Fix Things

2009-01-16T12:57:00.007-06:00

My brother Seth always wanted to be a "workerman"; he knew how to fix things. That's not my gift.

These last couple days have reached -35°C windchill. (Not, unfortunately, that magic -40°, where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet.) I have spent a great deal of time preparing. I moved a blow-up mattress to the side, between the wall and the bed, to protect me from the cold seeping through the wall. I covered in blankets, ran two electric heaters, and sometimes had the gas burners on.

Now, since the water needs to run continuously or it will freeze, the hot water can't be on all the time. It would burn out the heater, and waste a great deal of money on gas. Since there are separate pipes for the hot and cold water, both faucets must be on. So, when I want to take a shower, I have turn on the hot water heater, which takes about half an hour or more to heat up, to give three minutes of hot shower water, if the water isn't run continuously while you're in the shower. In order to heat up the water, I have to turn the hot water faucets off. So yesterday morning, I turned the hot water faucet off, turned the hot water heater on, and waited.

In about an hour the pipes had frozen up. Cursing my stupidity, for waiting too long, I opened the valves, turned the hot water heater off, unscrewed the wood panel over the pipes leading into the shower, and set up the hairdryer to automatically blow on the hot water pipe, and waited. And waited. There was no change. I've done this before, and after about an hour of blowing it works. But this time, it was too cold.

I was very depressed. I'm fine living in an RV in the middle of bitter cold. It's an adventure. But it's wholly different when I make a stupid mistake. So I sat here hoping and praying for thawed pipes.

Today I thought to open another cabinet beneath the stove, and traced the shower hot water pipe. I placed the hair dryer to automatically blow on it, and about an hour later- the glorious sound of a splurging outpouring of water!

I'm overjoyed, and off to shower.

There is a Season

2009-01-09T19:17:00.004-06:00

I came out to Wisconsin to help my dad, and look for work while I was here. But God had other plans- my dad found work. And, simply to confirm the stereotype, the job was in Florida. So today, he left in the middle of a snow storm for Tallahassee, and his job in sales with tax-deductable charity annuities. (I have no idea what that is. I just memorized it.)

And I'm left quoting Greta Garbo in Grand Hotel, but with irony.

765 and Counting

2009-01-06T17:31:00.004-06:00

As of this writing, 765 Ghazans have been killed by the Israeli "Defense" Forces. The vast majority of them have been civilians. Of course, in a territory where 50% of the population is below the age of 15, and 75% is below 25, you'd have to work really hard not to hit a child with a cluster bomb.

Today I participated in a protest of the Israeli invasion of Ghaza. It is always difficult finding my way around the streets of downtown Madison- mainly because I'm still so new to the area. But the one-way streets don't help.

We circled round the capitol building, stopping at the offices of our Senators and Congresswoman. The 150 of us were dressed in black, and were supposed to have a mourntful attitude. Twenty marched single file in front, wearing white masks and the names of the dead.

As we came to Senator Kohl's office, one rambunctious gentleman started going off on how we were the ones in control of the government, and our leaders were there to serve and work for us. We don't ask, we demand- and we should go immediately in and occupy the offices. I'm not sure if he realized that no one had yet denied us the right to see our leaders (nor would they). I'm not sure if he realized that he was taking the focus away from the dead and dying, and putting it all on himself.

But about 100 of us marched up to the offices, and briefly, for a few minutes, occupied the hallway.

I must say, I wasn't expecting the deal with the shoes. Evidently the guy thought it would be a cool visual display, because he'd read about it in recent news, not realizing what a real incredible insult it is in that culture. Or else he actually holds Congresswoman Baldwin in the same contempt as he holds President Bush.

The one exuberant guy in the video is that same one demanding we invade the offices earlier. You can see he is very uncomfortable when anyone else speaks, whether they are for or against the Israeli invasion, because he is so eager to share what he thinks are erudite words. (He later spouted some anti-Semitic diatribe, which thankfully wasn't caught on video, as I'm using Flip Video, whose editing software doesn't work.)

I was impressed with the politeness of the representative, and indeed all of the representatives. It may be that he knew he was being recorded, but he had the look of a man who knows his job- no matter the views of those who come, he takes those views to the people's representative.

(I was unable to get a unobscured picture, as the same guy in both videos kept on feeling it more important to get his shots in front of others who were trying to get video.)

After that session, we made our way out of the building. For some strange reason, I kept on finding myself at the head of groups as we traveled in and out of buildings. In this case, I found the stairwell, as 100 people using the same 4 elevators made for slow going. But the stairwells are not direct, and more like a dimly-lit maze, and I had visions of leading some thirty people into the beginnings of a horror film.

Our last visit was to Senator Feingold- but his office is all the way over in Middleton, an adjoining town. This meant that nearly all the protestors had other obligations, and only four of us made it to the last office. (It was much easier for me, as his office, it turns out, is only five minutes from where I live.)

I have no illusions that our protest, or our requests, will do anything to stop the carnage and bloodshed in the slightest.

Uncle Ron's Cabin

2009-01-04T20:34:00.019-06:00

This has been a whirlwind New Year's holiday. The evening was spent in pleasant company with the Spransys, and then off to Jenny's for sleeping and a pleasant breakfast. I hadn't seen her since this summer; my dad since a summer 25 years ago. But she was her usual incredibly hospitable and creative self. (The creche was hand-built by her and her husband Bob.)

Then it was briefly off to the South, for Lynn Malmberg's New Year's Party, with the Damrows and many others from yesteryear. And then, the same day, a long, long drive, through numerous wrong turns, till we reached our destination an hour south of Duluth at 2 in the morning: my uncle's cabin next to Lake Minerva.

See hovertext on selected photos.

Early the first evening, I got a chance to get on my skis again. It was difficult plowing through the snow on classic skis, for the tracks had snow blown in them. But there was a certain thrill, to ski on top of a lake, walking on water as if I were some incarnation. Sure, there was 16" of ice between me and the water, but there were thinner spots to watch out for. And constantly, there was a unique echo of the swish, swish, that you hear only on top of a frozen lake, as my skis beat their sound into the water below.

I toured round the lake, till I found two companions, the larger one with freestyle skis, able to blaze a more ready trail. On our return, with the freezing evening, we hit just the right temperature for a perfect glide.

Later that evening was the bonfire, on ice. But it was too cold, so I stayed out only for a few minutes.

I've long wanted to the experience of ice fishing. I was planning to do this with my dad, but sadly, he's heading off to Florida in a few days, so I jumped at the chance when my cousins, Eric and Michael, were heading out.

When we arrived, we discovered a fishing village already on the ice. Upon seeing the blue and green one, with the TV and woodstove, we developed a severe case of Fish Hut Envy.

This was my first time out, so my cousins generously allowed me to drill the hole. We had only a hand auger, and one of the other fishermen, the one with the super fish hut, came running over to drill with his battery-powered auger. Upon hearing that I was their cousin, he asked incredulously, "You made your cousin drill by hand?!?"

"I know!" I said.

Our home for the next few hours was rather dismal compared to the others on the lake. But it fits two people nicely, and allows for conversation. Cold conversation.

There is a thing called a tip-up. You put it up a few feet away from you, outside the shelter, and it hunts automatically for fish. When a fish is snagged, it tips-up, and you run out and get it.

While Eric was preparing the tip-up, we got to see how bald eagles do ice fishing. He got one more fish than we did. (Though the next day Eric and Michael got 2 fish apiece, each the width of this blog.)

The next day was back on the lake for a morning ski. Eric and Michael had previously created an ice rink, now covered with newly fallen snow.

Cross-Country is immensely more relaxing than downhill. You have the opportunity to sit and admire the beauty of God. Or, follow the path of all men, and be impressed at how you changed the shape of nature behind you.

Ahead, the snow piled like frozen oceanic waves.

I paused, and could go no further. I'd been warned that the ice was thin at the strait, and so turned, for an easier ski in the tracks I'd made.
It was a weekend of getting to know family for the first time, or the first time since I was an infant. A weekend of evenings of long talks on literary criticism with my uncle- a far too rare pleasure. I even got a chance to play my election game, though we all found it went far too long. And finally a weekend of long six-hour drives.

Our Pond

2008-12-30T18:30:00.006-06:00

For the last few days, there has been a persistent drip out of the RV. Actually, not a drip. More like a drizzle, continuously, pouring forth, about the size of small button. You only hear it when you open the door, and it was mostly masked by the dripping of the snow and ice in this latest thaw. It would appear that this drizzle also began with the thaw; that something was frozen up and broke forth. But the result has been our own pond, beginning beneath the RV, spreading to the side, and then on to the back. Then with colder temperatures again, God provided us with some ice skating surface, as the pond began to freeze over- but the drizzle continued. It became obvious that we had to get this fixed, or over time the pond would become a very large lake, and inconvenient to the neighbors.

We called a plumber to come out, and it just so happened that they were already doing a job in the area, at about that time. He came out, crawled in the mud under the RV, and saw immediately what the problem was. When he came inside I showed him where the leak was in relation to the interior, and he pulled out some drawers. Some brilliant engineers had decided that the best place to put an overflow valve was behind the kitchen drawers, so that when you push the drawers in and out, you run the risk of pulling the overflow valve, and cascading water out of the RV. It seemed at some point the valve was opened, and when it thawed, the water was released. The problem was fixed in five minutes.

Or so we thought.

About an hour later, my dad noticed a puddle forming, but this time, inside the RV, under the carpet. Pulling the drawers out showed a puddle underneath the sink too. Evidently, closing the valve put too much pressure on the pipes, and something had burst. We began to think we would have to contact the plumber yet again. But after a bit more research, removing more paneling, I found the leak. I turned off all the water, untightened the pipe and then retightened it, and wallah, no leak. Just a squishy floor to deal with.

The bonus was today, when I called the plumber. Ordinarily the standard is $96 for a visit, and the absolute minimum is half that. But considering the plumber was only out for five minutes, and financial difficulties, the plumber was generous, asking me to pay only what I thought reasonable. So it came out to be only $20. EZ Plumbing- not only do they know their stuff, but they are kind-hearted as well.

Kicking it Finnish Style

2008-12-24T10:03:00.004-06:00

Thanks to an old friend and my brother, I recently acquired a pair of cross-country skis. I got the boots just today, so I eagerly tried them out on the short run from the corner store to home. Walking, it's only about 25 minutes, but this felt like far longer.

View Larger Map
In between the cold and the deep snow, it was a long journey home indeed. It took awhile to get the boots into the skis in the dark, and even when it was done, I wasn't completely weather-prepared. I had my ski mask, for cold weather or robbing banks- I'd lost my old one from working in the Bering, so had bought a new one in green-leaf camoflauge, suitable for Wisconsin in deer season. But my hat was my Seattle-style fedora, and it did not keep out the cold.

The skis I have are best for prepared tracks, and of course, the bike path I used was not a prepared track. Much of the path was obscured by the snow and wind, so I found myself repeatedly floundering through deep drifts, often using the skis as snowshoes, as my forehead began to experience frostbite. At one point the winds blew the hat off and into the nearby gulley, so I had to ski down to get it, and then back up. (Just like my forebears, the Finns resisting the Russian invaders by skiing down, shooting, and then skiing back uphill faster than the Russians could follow.)

It wasn't the most pleasant skiing experience. The best snow for cross-country is something light and hard. Most of the snow was deep and soft. I kept checking behind to see how far I'd come, and how far I had to go. When I finally arrived at the intersection near my house, I had to climb up snow drifts, as nothing had been prepared for someone actually using the bike path in the dead of winter, and then ski through the snow covered streets. I arrived home, cold, hot, and sweaty, finally getting a work-out.

I'll have to try for the more peaceful experience of the day time, in the next couple days, before the rain and warm temperatures of 1° C arrive.

Winter in Wisconsin. In an RV.

2008-12-22T19:30:00.029-06:00

It's cold. Frightfully cold. The witch has come, and Narnia has entered its 100 Year Winter.

Getting to work has taken on new meaning, as I have to buy some deicer to be able to roll the window up and down. I poured boiling water on the door to be able to open it. But even before I get into the car, I take a shower with three minutes of hot water, as I step on frozen ice shards on the shower floor. And since the community washer wasn't working, the dryer wasn't able to get the soaking clothes dry, so I woke this morning to find pieces of ice had formed on my jeans that were stored in the closet.

We've now had three dumpings of snow, at 7", 11", and 7" respectively- the last two within two days of each other. And behold, everything is made new.

I looked out and saw all along the ground, fairy dust, sprinkled liberally. Sadly, try as I might, I couldn't capture it in this photo to the left.

That morning, we beheld our new world, snowed in.

For some reason, the neighbors have a tradition of plowing our private road early in the morning, even on the weekend. We were woken to a pounding, demanding our cars be moved immediately, so the entire road could be plowed. Not sure why they couldn't plow around us...

We took a drive to see the world around us, to see Wisconsin in the Winter. One of the first hurdles for a drive was finding the road.

These woods are lovely, dark, and deep- and a twenty minute walk from where we live.

Then, the power went out. This time, it wasn't just one breaker- tripping all the breakers produced no result. There was no power. And it got cold. I spent the first part of the night huddled with a small airhole, and began to find even breathing the -18° C air intolerable. My dad spent it with a dog. After a couple hours, despite the danger, we turned on all the burners of the stove, and that made it livable. The next morning we discovered what a frozen dawn truly looks like.

This was the dog's water dish.

And this, what showed on the door. That would be the inside of the door.

The weather outside is indeed frightful. Inside, it's so...well, still rather frightful. But happily MG&E came by at noon the next day, to fix the problem in two seconds- their breaker had tripped on their outside pole. And the extreme weather ads a certain ambiance to the joy of the holidays.

Better Angels

2008-12-09T09:31:00.002-06:00

Recently, a friend from college contacted me, out of the blue. She'd been thinking of me, and got ahold of my email address. We hadn't talked for fifteen years, so there was a lot of catching up to do. She learned that I was having great financial difficulties of late, as work has been few and far between, and expressed that she felt lead to send her tithe to me, which I certainly appreciated. An extra $100 would certainly go a long way.

I received the check in the mail today. It was for a bit over $2,000. God is truly good.

Living in Laura Ingalls Wilder's House

2008-12-06T16:55:00.005-06:00

It seems that the troubles of an RV in the Wisconsin winter never end. After getting the water fixed, finally getting heat tape, we had to wait a few days to actually get heat tape, because the first heat tape was broken. Once we had the heat tape, we were told we didn't need to run the water, for heat tape and lots of straw would be enough to keep the pipes warm. And that's true. But in our post-modern world, just not a truth we can relate to.

See, our metanarrative also involves the RV not having enough power within itself, and continuously tripping the breakers. And I was unaware that there is a separate breaker on the heat tape itself. So when the water went out three nights ago, I had to wait till I got home that day to find out there was a breaker, and go out and check the light- and indeed, the breaker needed to be tripped. But by that point, it was far too cold out (around -16° Celsius) for the heat tape to work, so we were without water for the foreseeable future.

I'm finding more and more that living here is great preparation for living overseas in the Middle East. (The irony is my dad didn't want to come with me to Yemen, for it would be roughing it too much.) If only RVs had been around in Laura's day, I'm sure there would have been a Little House on the Big Wheels. We've had to do a number of workarounds on the water. The first day was skipping a shower. That evening I took a walk across the entire park, in the icy wind and snow drifts, without boots, to the public toilet and shower. The benefit is that the shower has an endless supply of hot water, unlike that of the RV. The drawback is the primitiveness of the shower, though, were I in Yemen, I wouldn't think anything of it. (Except to be exceedingly stoked that I was in Yemen.)

I take my hairbrush and toothbrush into work, so I can use the water there, and not totally make my coworkers uncomfortable. Water for drinking and the toilet is another issue. With a failed starter, it isn't so easy to go out and buy water. But we have an abundance of snow. I've been getting a little snow nearby for the dog, and finding untouched snow further away to boil for the humans. Thankfully there's a continual supply of gas.

And now I must check the breaker every little while, to make sure it's still on. And wait, hoping and hoping that the water unfreezes.

Two nights ago was incredibly cold for not just water. I had on three blankets, and the electric space heater on full, and the front of the RV closed, and it was still incredibly cold. It might help in the future to remember to shut the shower vent on top of the RV.

Today was a hopeful day. It rose up to -3° Celsius, which is the best it's going to get for the next week, except for Monday at -1°. On a whim, I tried the bathroom sink, and lo, there was water! A thin stream, with no hot water. No water at all in the kitchen sink, or the toilet, or the shower. Turning all the faucets on, under a shining sun the shower began spitting out water about fifteen minutes later. A few minutes later, we got water from the kitchen sink. Then the hot water came on in the shower, but nowhere else. Unfortunately, it became clear that the shower wasn't draining at all, and began to fill up the small minitub.

Then hot water came on in the bathroom sink, and the kitchen sink. Still nothing in the toilet. I took advantage of the shower water to bathe, so the minitub could be filled with hot water to unplug the ice dam in the pipes. Finally, about half an hour after it all began, water appeared in the toilet. And a couple hours after it all began, a great glug came from the minitub, as the last of the foot of standing water burst the dam and flowed down.

Rest assured, we will now be letting all the faucets run, day and night, regardless of heat tape and straw. But I must wonder- what's my next preparation for living overseas?

-------------------

Postscript, 12/7: We woke up to running water, but hot water only in the kitchen sink. Turns out that the pipes are freezing inside the RV, and the hot water pipes to the bathroom sink and shower are frozen. We'll have to wait until tomorrow, when it gets up to -1° Celsius, to see if we can thaw out those pipes, and from now on, run the cold and hot water, with the gas hot water heater turned off until we need it. Not such a big deal though, as you get only about 5 minutes of hot water at a time anyway, provided it's not too cold outside. (If it's colder, you get less than 5 minutes.)

We also found the breaker repeatedly tripping- the breaker that runs most of the RV. We took nearly everything off it, and it still kept on tripping, giving power for only a maximum of thirty seconds. I removed the face plate to see if, in all my inadequate electrical training, I could see a short. No change. Then I went out and disconnected the external plug for the heat tape, and lo, there was power, with no breaker tripping. After a while I reconnected the plug, and then reinstalled the breaker face plate, and everything seems to be working again. Insha'allah.

Life Circumscribed by a Failed Starter

2008-12-05T14:06:00.011-06:00

I've been having many troubles with my car of late- the Saturn with only 45,000 miles on it. Suddenly, everything is falling apart. And it makes no sense, since the warranty ran out on it years ago.

The latest is, a week ago, my starter began to fail. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn't. And so I now find my life circumscribed by a failed starter.

Initially I could push it with my dad in the car, and get it started. Then the snow came, and, worse yet, the ice. You can't get any traction on icy roads, neither human nor car traction. I actually had some work secretaring at a schol on Tuesday, and made sure to park at the top of a hill, so I could coast to a start.

Thankgsiving arrived, and we went off to my cousin Dave's place in Lodi. It's great to see family, especially family I've never known before. I have an aunt living in Verona, and a cousin in Lodi, and a first-cousin-once-removed who I met two years ago on Facebook, who happens to be the son of my cousin. (Weird how that works.) So it was off to their place for Thankgiving, a night of good discussion, great food, and weird games. I was happy to get to meet so many new family members, trying to trace how they were related. Happier still, to see my dad have the opportunity to connect more with family, and how much he enjoyed talking with people. (He's an extreme extrovert- 100% E on the Myers-Briggs Scale.)

And very exciting- my first deep-fried turkey, something I've been wanting to try for years. My first-cousin-once-removed Aaron made it, as he's a top chef at a high-end restaurant near our house. I particularly enjoyed his genetically-deformed turkey. They're grown without head, legs, or wings, with the dark meat on the inside, and look like giant maggots when crawling around the farm- but they are so juicy when on the plate.

Then it was time to leave- but the car wouldn't start. So a few guys came out to push the car backwards up the hill, and then down the road.

The next day began a long tradition of being pushed by other cars, as most days are far too icy. This means being pushed down one stretch by a truck, and not catching enough speed to pop the clutch, and having to be pushed down the next. With enough speed, we were able to head over to the Five Os, Oconomowoc, where my dad grew up, and the Spransys now live. I got to see Linnea of Kansas City again, have another great meal, and have the pleasure of my dad enjoying long, leisurly talks with Matt, something he hasn't had the chance to do in decades. And then it was off to be pushed. Perhaps best of all was something I've been looking forward to for months- introducing my dad's dog Sammy to the Spransys' bitch, Maya. (You may recognize her from her acting gig as the Polar Bear on Lost.) She's half again as big as Sammy, but I think he likes big women, and I think I saw a spark between them. I'm really pulling for those two!

Oconomowoc gets a lot more snow than the Madison area, so it was a number of guys pushing me around the corner and down a slope to get started.

We had a break on Saturday, and then it was off to Black River Falls, to meet my uncle and brother coming in from Minneapolis. Black River Falls is about half-way between us, and surprisingly, the car started right up without any pushing. We drove the two hours into ever-increasing snow, for a comfortable meal with my uncle and brother. (I had a stack of blueberry pancakes.) It was the first time I'd gotten to see my uncle since my journey out West, back in August of '01. While my dad and uncle talked for a bit, me and Kent went out and played in the snow. They have a very large orange moose there.

Again, the car started on his own, as if by miracle. We took US-12 all the way back, mistakingly thinking that it would be quicker than 94, through many small towns that grew progressively less interesting as darkness arrived. There was, however, a sojourn through The Dells, which bears further investigation in the future. (The Dells is Wisconsin's Disneyland, with a heavy focus on water, about an hour from where we live.)

My plan for the next week was to get the starter fixed. Shockingly, I got more work- two temp jobs. Sadly, this meant that I didn't have the time to work on the car. So every day, an incredibly kind and generous neighbor (who thankfully is already up) has taken his car and pushed me down the road. Each day, it seems he has to push me further. Friday, it was pushing me down the first stretch, then the second, then the third, then up the main driveway, and then out on the main road, before I could pop the clutch. I've been trying to pop it into second, to avoid the traction issues of wheels spinning in the opposite direction in first, but I think now I need to try for first, as second gear requires too much speed. And I found a Yellow Book near my current assignment, who were kind enough to allow me to park in their parking lot, which is at the top of two hills, allowing for an easy clutch popping to arrive home.

This, however, doesn't assist me when I stupidly stall at a red light, on the way to work. Friday morning I was stuck in traffic, in the middle lane, and had to get out and push my car over to the side. Another guy came up behind me and got out to help, and then a policecar arrived with flashing lights. The officers helped push me over into a gas station, but I didn't have a chance to tell them I wanted to pop the clutch as we went down the hill into the station. Happily, one of the attendants was kind enough to get in his truck and get me going after two pushes.

But I can't keep on relying on my neighbor Tim to get me going in the morning. I understand a friend, Mike Drahfel, has gone hunting for a starter, and, provided that's the problem (and not a solenoid), we will be one step closer to getting the car repaired, and moving forward.

Blogyear Three

2008-12-01T11:52:00.008-06:00

Yes, it's now been three years of blogging. Three years since I began my first real post. Three years of sharing my soul within unknown numbers of random people all over the planet.

As has become tradition, I now review the significant events of the past year. And it has certainly been a more eventful year than that of the previous blogyear. Naturally, what I pick as significant reveals far more about me, than it does about the events themselves.

There were themes this year. Politics played a large role in my life, as I followed my favorite sporting event in the world, the U.S. Presidential elections. I went to Obama's largest rally at the time. (Ah, the halcyon days when we thought a 20,000 person Obama rally was large!) I attended my first caucus, and got to celebrate the the first time the guy I voted for actually won; the first time someone from my culture (TCK) is President; the first time I can relate to the President. (I basically just voted for the guy I wanted to have a drink with. This is just the first time there's been anyone running I wanted to have a drink with.)

Health issues figured prominently this year as well. At the very beginning of 08, I had the opportunity to help someone with a seizure. I had my first operation, and my dad became gravely ill, having to go to the ER and stay at the hospital for a couple weeks. Sadly, he suffered great loss this year too, as a few months before he got sick he lost lost his wife of ten years.

For this reason, I moved down to LA, and then to Wisconsin, leading to travel being another theme. I felt lead to Wisconsin in the HMS reunion this summer, and it seemed a good place for my dad to recuperate. (Actually, we'd heard about this "snow birds" thing, and thought it meant that you travel up to where there's snow...) That trip was rather hellacious, with repeated car problems that continue to the present. But I did get to see the oldest town in America along the way, and we arrived safely in our new country estate. Now I spend most of my time preparing for a Winter that is even now upon us in full fury, and wondering day to day if we'll have running water.

Oh, and my most significant travel- I finally got to see what I'd wanted to get to for the past two years: the remains of the greatest flood on Earth for which we have evidence. Geology expressed itself again later in a minor 5.4 earthquake. (I've lived through Northridge and Whittier, so this was just a little bit of fun. Northridge and Whittier were a lot of fun.)

Economics has played a major role in the world this year, and has also in my life. I had a part-time permament job in LA, getting finally to teach again, and moved to Wisconsin hoping full-time jobs would be easier to come by. Alas. But God expressed his presence earlier in getting an issue of potentially having to return unemployment funds worked out, as well as, finally, after two years of working on it, the IRS admitting that, as an overseas worker, in truth I did not owe them $1454 in back-taxes on money I made outside the U.S. when I was receiving no services from the U.S. government.

And some minor housekeeping posts- I realized my long-lived Geocities HMS page had become a bit old school, with blogs supplanting the old Geocities, so I moved by HMS page to my blog. And then I realized that there was just far too much bling on my blog that no one knew of, so I gave a helpful navigation post to blog bling.

Truly, I have the Chinese blessing: I live in interesting times.

Running Water

2008-11-22T12:40:00.007-06:00

The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that running water? ¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ ¹³Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ ¹⁵The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

Our manager spent an hour in the middle of the night trying to repair our frozen hose, but to no avail. He came the next day, and had an awful time of it. He and an employee spent hours wrapping the line in heat tape, and then laying down straw above and below, over the ice pond that had formed, to ensure that the line is kept warm and he doesn't need to come out again in 30 below weather. He put down bricks to keep the wind from blowing the straw away. And then, I asked him about the water coming out. He had felt our special hose to keep the water tasting clean was not wide enough, and would freeze too easily, so he used his own hose. But that one had sprung a major leak. In a fit of rage with much cussing, he removed all of the electrical tape and straw bales, to discover a large pond forming beneath the hose. He had to turn the water off, and come back to it later. (I feel for him, but, had he done this two months ago, when he said he would, when the weather was warmer, his work would have been far quicker.)

As he was doing all this, we had to run the water inside the cab so that it would clean the lines. Unfortunately, it appears that the bathroom sink runs down into the sewer line. RVs typically have two lines, grey and black. Grey water is water from the sink. Black water is for your unmentionables (sewage). Typically, only one line is open at a time, to prevent undesired smells. And one would think the bathroom sink runs to the grey line.

So I opened all the water lines, and went below the RV, to open the black line (which must be done from outside), just to flush everything out. Unfortunately the black line was frozen shut. And while I was below, trying to open it, suddenly a torrent of water began dripping down over me. Yes, the the bathroom sink runs to the black line. It filled up the tank, and ran into the shut valve. Then every opening began backing up, including the toilet. So yes, this was raw sewage dumping down on me. And yes, when I went back into the RV, the sewage from the toilet had dumped all over the carpet of the bathroom. (Who puts carpeting in a bathroom? How does that even begin to make sense?)

So the next two hours were spent renting and using a steam cleaner from Ace Hardware (who gave us a generously discounted rate), driving into Waunakee and back only to discover I'd left the carpet cleaner at Ace, and driving back into town and returning. The RV is now cleaner than it ever was, and happily, the raw sewage is no longer sitting on the bathroom floor.

Meanwhile, our manager was able to repair the hose, only to discover that the heat tape system was now soggy with water, and had to be replaced or dried out. Evidently, heat tape isn't actually tape. I had this image in my mind of something like electrical tape, wrapped round and round the water hose. Heat tape is actually a euphemism for an electrical system with a cord running down the length of the hose and plugged into an outlet.

Late in the day he returned, applying more bales to completely cover the hose. He has to wait for the heat tape to dry out before he can reapply it in the next few days. But after hours of work, our manager has provided us something immeasurably important this winter: running water, so we don't have to return again and again to the ~~well~~ Piggly Wiggly to refill. I am forced to admit, he is an agent of the coming Kingdom of God.

What's going on behind our RV right now.

2008-11-21T03:00:00.005-06:00

Our manager has taken his own time to apply heat tape to the hose for our water. It was supposed to happen two months ago, but he seems to be always too busy. So today, even before sunset, our pipes froze, again. We would have run the water tonight, but didn't expect it to run into freezing between 2 and 430 in the afternoon. While I was off at a theology discussion Meetup, the manager came over for an hour in the bitter cold to try to unfreeze the hose, but was unsuccessful. Therefore the water has to spray out so the whole thing doesn't freeze permanently, creating a beautiful fairy winterland outside behind our RV.

Mystery is in part unveiled in the light of day...

Countryfied RV

2008-11-20T14:18:00.006-06:00

A shout out to Siv, for helping me countryfy the RV.

A Horrible Dream

2008-11-19T09:59:00.003-06:00

Last night I dreamt I was on a road trip with Obama. He was still about to be President, but he was ten years younger- my age. Obama, another friend, and I were driving in a small car over a great distance, when we came to a very mountainous coastal area, similar to what you find in Northern California, but on the East Coast. Our friend was driving, and Obama was instructing him on how to shift, for evidently this particular manual was rather complicated.

Too complicated for our friend. As we came to a particularly sharp curve, above a particularly tall cliff overlooking the ocean, he shifted wrong, and didn't pull the right lever. Instead of going around the curve, we went over the cliff, falling 1,000 feet to the sea below. All three of us fell out of the car. I knew enough to angle my body to surf the wind, so that I would not land on the rocks below. I continued to catch the updrafts, looking for deep ocean to catch me, but aware I might not succeed. At the last moment a rocky islet appeared, and I almost hit it, until I kicked my feet up at the last moment, and splashed in the ocean beyond. (In a dream, falling 1,000 feet into water doesn't kill you.) I was relieved to have landed safely, but had a foreboding feeling of dread, that Obama and out other friend had not managed to land in the water.

Shortly thereafter a massive rescue operation commenced, looking for Obama and our friend. They were never found. We knew that they had both died, and I wept. I knew Obama would be the first black President Elect, but never the first black President. All around me people cried, for the end of a dream.

Drinking the Kool-Aid

2008-11-18T15:30:00.006-06:00

This moment marks thirty years. Thirty years ago today was the greatest mass murder-suicide in modern history. It's the first political event that I remember, and it profoundly changed my life.

I remember seeing the centerfold of Time Magazine, with the bodies splayed everywhere. It seemed only a centerfold could hold them all, there were so many. I still remember the smaller photo of a dead child, sandwiched between the bodies of her parents. I was in the second grade, and our commune was there in the city of San Francisco, where the People's Temple of Jim Jones had started, and where most of its victims had lived.

It's hard to know why memory remains. Maybe its the horror of the event. Maybe its the similarities in difference with us that caused it to stick in my mind. Maybe its the impact it had on my future.

My childhood was fairly typical. I grew up in a Christian commune, surrounded by 80 brothers and sisters, something like a fictive kinship society. I tell most people overseas that it was a like a traveling tribe, as that is the closest it comes to making sense to them. We were inside American culture yet outside, at times traveling in 8 buses and sleeping in church basements, at other times owning property like 24 acres in Southern Oregon. We shared everything in common, and put the group before the individual. Privacy was minimal, but not immorally so. Individualism was greatly devalued, and it felt like one giant family. Though I lived in a separate room or house with my nuclear family, Those 80 others, mostly older than I, were genuinely older brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers. It was a wonderful way to grow up.

It was part of the Fourth Great Awakening- but this Awakening was the first in American history that wasn't primarily Christian. America tends to go through revivalistic cycles every few decades, when a new social paradigm emerges, and there is an intense battle between the old lights and the new lights. This was the 60s. We were part of that small Christian element, the Jesus Freaks, or Jesus People. And we were growing.

Though there were some fringe elements of the Jesus Movement like Calvary Chapel, the heart of it was communal. It wasn't organized in the slightest. It was perhaps the first major Christian movement not tied to one leader. Though Lonnie Frisbee comes the closest to being a founder, even he played only a bit part compared to the movement as a whole. It was the Spirit who truly lead, and he did that through communes. There were hundreds of communes cropping up all over the U.S., in Europe, even as far away as Afghanistan. Christianity Today hailed the Communal Movement as the next great step in Christianity.

Then came Jonestown. My father was visiting Keith Green that day. As my dad drove up, Keith told him, "It's a dark day for Christian community." He was never more prophetic. Immediately the Communal Movement ended. We had 80 people in our commune. After Jonestown, we never grew in numbers, and eventually, like every other Jesus People commune except for JPUSA, faded away. The entire nation became freaked out. There were people coming up to my dad, the head elder, telling him that their parents had told them to leave, because he happened to share the same first name as Jim Jones, and ran a commune. No one could think straight anymore.

To this day, I see its legacy. Most of my peers have no memory of Jonestown, for it didn't have the impact on them that it did me. But there is an underlying fear of anything communal. In communes I have participated in since then, like Intervarsity in Southern California, parents remember, and try to dissuade their children from joining. Other members of communes don't want to admit they are in a commune, but prefer the more generic and unspecific word "community", because they remember how badly everything went arwy in Jonestown. Though "intentional communites" have become more in vogue over the last few years, they lack the commitment that we had in communes, and often seem to be little more than a number of Christians who are friends and roommates. Some are a good deal more, but it doesn't compare, yet, in numbers to what we saw in the 70s.

How do I reconcile something like Jonestown with my memories of such a wonderful childhood? Certainly, there was also darkness in my childhood, and some darkness that I didn't find out about till years later. We weren't perfect. But I loved how I grew up, and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I think that is how Christ calls us all to live, when we can.

I see Jonestown as an abberation, and a warning. The greatest goods in life can be corrupted into the greatest evils. Jonestown is a warning of what we do in community if we seek to much power. Jim Jones stripped his message of the power of the cross, with no willing suffering of his own. The message of grace and agape of love of Jesus Christ was lost. Indeed, though he began within the covenant of Christianity, by the time the People's Temple arrived in Guyana, it seems to have mostly been devoted to Communism, and the Soviet variety at that. While there were Christian communes that truly went off the reservation and had too many heresies and errors of control, Jonestown doesn't seem to be among them. It is rather a Communist heresy, going further along the road of Marxist-Leninism than even Stalin in all his purges would have desired. Jonestown wasn't part of our tradition in the Jesus Movement, though it was a reminder of what can happen if we don't follow the Way. And it we in communes were all perceived as being part of the same hydra organization as Jim Jones.

And so today, we find a very lonely Christianity in America, stripped of it's communal element of the First Century, or the 1960s, and often among Evangelicals, filled with unnamed and named fears. Countless times in this last political season, I would have people tell me I had "drunk the kool-aid" in supporting Obama. People who had no idea of the meaning of those words to me, and how much they had torn my life apart. Drinking the Kool-Aid has become a political metaphor, part of the modern lexicon, and is now used blithely without conscious memory of the horror of its origin, and aftermath.

I find our society now views much that is good as more Jim Jones Kool-Aid, much as they percieved all of our communes as mere extensions of the evil of Jonestown. But as with us, many times, it's not actually Kool-Aid. It only looks like it from the outside. Once you drink it, you can find it is actually cool, clear running water. But fear reigns so supreme, no one can reach out and taste the living water.

The Key to Good Neighbors

2008-11-05T13:17:00.003-06:00

I have been repeatedly impressed at the community built up here at Don's Mobile Manor. It's a small collection of maybe some seventy homes isolated here in the middle of the Waunakee countryside. Perhaps it's because there are no walls, and no fences. Nor is there anyone who can expect a tax increase under Obama. But repeatedly, when we have been in need, neighbors have stepped up, often offering even before there was a need. There is a constant spirit of sharing resources and tasty desserts. This was most impressed on me this morning at 730, when my next-door neighbor knocked on the door, his dog's leash in one hand, and my car keys in the other. Somehow, the keys had been left all night on the street next to the car. Not only had no one driven over them, but no one had taken the car, or even dreamed of it. Instead, a neighbor came by in the early morning to deliver the lost keys.

I've never done this before.

2008-11-04T14:52:00.009-06:00

Vote for someone who actually wins the Presidency. Will this be the first time ever? Oh, glorious day!

You should all totally move to the country. Waiting in line to vote is a lot more fun here.
This is an Obama Papa.

I asked for more than one, but they would only give me the one ballot.

For only the second time, I got to vote for a man to be President who will be the first person of colour in the Oval Office. (Well, if you count the VP, the second person of colour in the Oval Office.) Last time was a caucus- this was the first time I was able to put a mark next to his name. Let it be known, for all time, I got to vote for the first black man for President.

And a bit anti-climatic, but still a joy- there was actually a ballot initiative, in our supposedly initiativeless state, but at the county level. Thankfully it was a gimmie, similar to Obama's plans- universal health care, at the state level, mandated to be the same as what those in state office get.

Pretty Animamals

2008-10-30T17:54:00.030-05:00

My father and I had the opportunity to visit the Henry Vilas Zoo, one of the few remaining free zoos in America.

I've never heard lions roaring before. These lions roared a lot, sounding like a barking dog more than something from The Lion King.

We visited some of our close relatives.

It was rather eerie how much this sleeping chimp reminded me of my father...

They definitely had some sort of communion, as they both stared at each other, disheartened at the glass separating them.

The capbara, at four feet the largest rodent in the world. Imagine these rats under your floorboards!

It's exciting that the zoo has some marine life, like harbor seals. Sadly, the penguins and river otters were hiding, so we'll have to visit the zoo another day to see them. But there were some freshwater fish.

I actually didn't know there was such a thing as a freshwater stingray.
Piranha!

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree...

and black swans sleeping.

The other marine animal at the zoo. (Or, if you're Sarah Palin, the other white meat.) Along with the elephant, the most dangerous zoo animal.

The Henry Vilas Herpetarium

A lesson in diffraction. Beware the actual location of the alligator.

Or else lose a foot.

One of only two poisonous lizards in the world, the Gila Monster.

Aldabra Tortoises aren't Galapagos, but they look to be the same size. I remember getting to kiss one in South Dakota.

My dad remembers dogs in the UP coming back, covered in these quills.

At one point, this beautiful animal was believed to be related to the pig, but we now know it is closely related to the rhinoceros and the horse.

Aaaaah- kangaroos! (Let the reader understand.)

It is well known that camels are no fun to ride. I'd sooner ride a horse than the one-humped camel, or dromedary. But the Bactrian Camel of Mongolia- that looks to be a lot more pleasant.

Our final stop was to visit a Brahman and Pot Belly. I was disappointed that the Pot Belly didn't want to talk much, even after I uttered the standard swinian mating call, chant de coeur, which usually never fails to please.

Set Free

2008-10-28T17:36:00.001-05:00

Today, my cellphone stopped working. And I immediately praised God, maker of Heaven and Earth.

For two years, I have endured them. Hours spent on hold for customer service- hours on one call. Constant dropped calls, with occasional reimbursement. A gamble on if I would have reception in major American cities. And today, freedom. So many times, I had asked to be released from my contract. I simply wanted a cellphone that worked. I wanted to be able to call people, to receive calls, and be able to stay on calls. I wanted to be able to hear people when they talked. And so many times I was told that I had to simply endure bad service, because of the American two-year contract system. But yesterday, yesterday was the last day of my contract. Today, today I woke up, and the phone didn't work anymore. I am now free of the shackle of Sprint.

How to Navigate This Blog

2008-10-27T12:32:00.001-05:00

Blogger tells me that most people pay no attention to the sidebars on blogs. We can't have that! My sidebar is too utterly sweet! So here's what I've got goin on.

Firstly, remember this blog only makes full sense in Explorer, not Mozilla Firefox.

I usually have about ten posts on the front page. To look at a full post, type on the title or the link below the post. Below the post you can make comments, and also see what the predominant themes of the post are in the labels- since I recognize my diverse audience may understandably not enjoy every subject I post on. Clicking on a label will bring you all the articles I've written around that subject.

There are two sidebars on the right, a blue one above the green one. At the top of the blue one is information about me, in My Profile, followed by a new feature, Followers. You like this blog? Want to keep up to date on it more easily? Click on Follow This Blog. Currently I have two Followers, one I know, and one I don't.

Another way to follow a blog, one I really like, is through Bloglines. You get an alert every time one of your blogs posts, so you don't have to visit the blog every day. You can choose to follow posts and/or comments to this blog.

Are you in a different country, and have trouble reading English? I've got 12 other language options, including Arabic! (Of course, if you don't read English, then the previous sentence won't make much sense.)

The Blog Archive gives a list of all posts in the last three years, by date, and the present month, by title.

Below this are two pictures, changed regularly. The top one is my most recent Amazon review, with a link to that review. The bottom one is the book I'm presently reading, which should be reviewed soon.

Then we have a list of the ten most recent thoughts- comments- on my blog, regardless of post. This is followed by the last five postings on my other blog, Say it with me. President Obama. Again, recognizing that not all my readers share my peculiar political inclinations, I set up my devotionals to Obama up in a separate blog. But I still want you to read it :-)

Then there is the Green Sidebar, which most people don't see unless they're reading a long post. You can see what blogs are linking to this in the first link. Then there are a number of links that I enjoy.

I've divided the blogs I follow into five categories. The first one, and growing, is the Domestic Blogging, arranged in order of most recent post by blogs of friends of mine, who might be you, or someone you know. The titles and possibly pictures of the most recent posts are listed there too. Below that is the shrinking category of International Blogs from friends of mine.

Then I have Blogs of Change- those blogs devoted to changing the world. Most of them are not personal friends, but I think they are key advocates for making all things new. Following are three science-devoted blogs. And lastly, Blogs from Sheol, for those bloggers who have now departed. Currently, only the martyr, Tom Fox, is listed here.

Way down at the bottom, where few have dared venture before, I have other (non-blog) links of note. A link to all my Amazon reviews. Geocities pages on how the commune I grew up in is an anthropological type, the Apostle Junia in the Bible, and Nina, the first great female evangelist in the Church. The last link isn't mine, but to Counterbalance, run by Adrian, which looks at the emerging dynamic between religion and science. Heartedly recommended.

Ever wonder who visits these blogs? Sure, I've got a list of the numbers, but far more interesting is where the people are. That's the map at the bottom of the sidebar, which expands when you click on it. Click on Map With Smaller Clusters, and you get more precise locations. Of interest, shortly after a couple Chinese readers showed up, the Chinese government blocked my blog. Sorry, my loyal Antarctica readers- you still aren't listed.