Striking!!

I was standing outside our church building this evening waiting for classes to begin. We often are early for classes due to our eating at the building every Wednesday (they serve a meal there for anyone who wants to eat there…it’s $3.00 a person) at 6pm. Classes don’t start until 7pm, so there’s usually some time available.

In any event, I was standing outside the building when another member came to me. I said I was outside because it was quieter out here than inside. He remarked the same and said he had come outside to take a cell phone call from Guyana. Guyana is a South American country. This man does mission work there a couple of times a year, so the phone call wasn’t unusual for him to receive.

What struck me, though, as I wondered on out into the parking lot, was the fact that someone in South America dialed a number (actually, they probably punched in various tones that represented numbers) and a cell phone in central Wichita Kansas USA rang and these two people carried on a conversation. What an amazing technology telephony is! How wonderful! Then it really hit me.

Why is it that our government seems to have so much trouble counting votes in an election?

The End

Today, we went to our house in the small community southwest of here for what we hope is the final time. If all goes well, this coming Tuesday we will sign papers handing over title to the property to the buyers. When that happens, a long history with that property and with our family comes to an end.

Dad bought the place in 1939 and moved his bride to it that year. They lived there, raised a family of six children, and made a house a home for 45 years or so. Following their deaths in the mid-1980’s, I bought the place out of the estate and raised my family there. We moved away in 2000 for what we thought were greener pastures, and have rented the place out since then. Now it is for sale, and now we think it is sold.

Today, we got the last of the personal items out of the house and outbuildings that we want to keep. We dug up some day lily bulbs and also dug up some old fashioned rose bush roots that we’ll try to transplant. I don’t know how successful either of these ventures will be, but we’ll see.

When we were about ready to go, I took one last look around in the house. Although it looks nothing like it did when we lived there due to wear and tear and some bad renters, it seemed that each window, each doorway, each wall, each item I looked at released a flood of old memories about that particular item. Some memories came from the time I lived there as a child. Others came from the time I was the Dad in the house and was helping raise our kids. But they all came, and came in a flood. Some choking up came as well as I realized that what has been a part of my life from my birth was about to be taken from me, leaving only memories.

Just before I left the house, I moved a small folding table that was remaining there into the middle of the living room. I placed a “Dad cap” (family will know what I’m talking about here) on the table, looked at it for a moment, then went out the front door and locked it. I know it won’t be there long, as the new people will be working on the house soon. But it’s there right now, and in a sense will remain there for many years to come, because a neighbor came over while we were there. Among other observations he said that the house will always be known as “The (my last name) House” in the community.

And that’s just fine with me.

The Inevitable

It seems that in the span of about three days, the trees changed from green to all the colors of fall. I’m not certain why, but the air indeed is more crisp and for the first time this morning, I noticed frost on our roof and on the grass in the yard. Fall is not my favorite season of the year because it portends winter and the dying, so to speak, of the things that are outdoors. I much prefer to see spring come than fall.

Having said that, I also know that fall is inevitable. I should make the most of it and enjoy what God provides, and I do. The crisp air, the smell of the morning, the bright fall days, and the coolness of the environment are both appreciated and enjoyed. I also know that winter isn’t far away. Knowing that, I always sort of skip thoughts of winter and immediately look forward to the coming spring, counting the days until the solstice and beyond.

Sometimes we allow work, issues, problems, and other things to interfere in our perception of what is going on around us. Oh, life goes on, and these things happen with regularity whether we’re aware of them or not, but it’s so much better for us when we take the time to perceive and appreciate.

It doesn’t take a lot of time or effort to do that. Just a few minutes a day looking out a window or standing on the drive in front of the house can do it. Looking at the night sky for 20 to 30 seconds is sometimes all it takes. Or finding a place to go out and dig in the dirt for awhile, if you have such a place, can be very fulfilling.

No, it doesn’t have to be a lot, and it doesn’t have to be much. We really can appreciate what we might call the small things in life. And by doing that on a regular basis, we gradually find ourselves less concerned with the latest drop of the Dow or the most recent failure of government and more enamored with those things that have preceded those other things by eons and will for eons to come outlast anything we can devise. And therein may just be our sanity.

More Thinking

Some more things I’ve thought about recently:

A fertile hen’s egg goes from a single cell to a fully-formed chicken in 21 days. The chicken is, almost from the moment of hatching, capable of drinking, eating, walking, scratching in the dirt, and many other instinctive things that chickens do. How can all of that information be packed into a single cell and that cell transformed in 21 days into a complex organism?

While we’re on the subject of chickens, if you know anything of the habits and ways of chickens in their more natural environment (on the ground or free-range), you know also that they are a marvelous and wondrous creation. They may not have the largest brains in the world, but they have been given wonderful and amazing abilities by the Creator.

Can anyone tell me why many people say “hot water heater” instead of just “water heater”? I’m guilty. Are you?

So, is it really ArKANsas? Or is it ARkanSAW?

Do politicians running for office ever really answer the questions posed to them in debates?

According to Wiki, no century ever starts on a Sunday. If true, isn’t that strange?

Why do morticians mostly all look the part?

I wonder what percentage of our national oil consumption is taken up by private automobiles? That’s where everyone is wanting to conserve, but are there other parts of our society that take as much or more oil daily that could conserve as well? What about commercial vehicles? Industrial uses of oil? Other uses?

If the universe is young (circa 5,000 years), but God created it to look mature and old, did God deceive us?

Since some of the months of our calendar are named after gods of myth and legend, should Christians adopt other names for our months? Is the use of these names tacit approval of these gods? Isn’t this the same basic argument used by those who don’t celebrate Christmas because of its pagan roots?

Will we ever get back to civility and cooperation in Washington?

Serious Quiet Time

We worship at a downtown Wichita church. It is only a block from Century II, and is on the East bank of the Arkansas River. This day, as we got out of the car in the parking lot to go in for services, I took notice of the sounds that were invading my ears at that particular time.

An EMS siren was blaring only a couple of blocks from us (As an old EMS attendant, I can still tell the sirens [EMS, Fire, Police] apart by their sounds…mostly). Waiting at the intersection, a car had its radio on entirely too loudly, and was entertaining the whole neighborhood with some kind of something some people call music. A motorcycle pulled up to the light, too, and when the light changed, the throaty sound of a too-loud cycle muffler sort-of killed all other noise for an instant.

Off in the distance were church bells, certainly electronic or perhaps digital, and the general noise of a downtown on a weekend occupied the few quieter seconds when something else didn’t fill the air.

I don’t remember thinking much of those thirty or so seconds between our car and the building, except to think that it seemed noisier than normal, and I hoped for some quiet once in the building. Now that I think about it a little more, I am reminded that for many people, noise and activity are what help keep the demons away. I don’t know if any of these noisemakers had any demons working on them, but think about it.

Most of us have to have some kind of noise or activity going on just about all of our waking hours. The TV has to be going, even if no one is watching. The radio or some kind of music is on in most vehicles all the time. We have radios or stream audio over our computers at work. IPOD’s and other such devices are so commonplace now that we don’t think about them. Why?

Could it be that we don’t want to think about the things we many times think about when we happen to wake at 3am and can’t go back to sleep? It’s quiet then, and we are there only with our thoughts (and maybe a snoring partner). It’s then that we think of job security, our financial situation, our relationships with others, or things even more serious, like our mortality, the existence of God, guilt, forgiveness, and our eternal future.

But as long as we’re preoccupied with something else, these thoughts seem to be pushed out of our minds. They come back, though, as soon as they get the opportunity. We can’t really shake them permanently. We can only suppress them for a time.

I don’t think the people downtown that day were intentionally making noise in order to briefly chase away serious thought (with the possible exception of the radio person), but I do think that we should probably take more time to think about who God is, our relationship with Him, and His with us. And that requires, for the most of us, some serious quiet time alone.

Cattle Call

Tonight, we went to the Prairie Rose and enjoyed a barbecue dinner and western entertainment. Now, I’m not normally a western-type person, but this is an enjoyable place just northeast of Wichita, and I urge you to try it if you haven’t yet.

In any event, during the entertainment, one of the songs the group sang had to do with cattle calls and someone calling cattle. I don’t know the name of the song or the words, and that isn’t important. And for those of you who don’t know, stockmen of old had certain calls that they used to call in their herds of cattle from the pastures when it was time to feed them, count them, doctor them, or whatever needed to be done. Some of the cattle would accept training to come when called and the others would follow.

During that song, I was reminded of the calls of my dad. He had two calls that he used at the pasture northwest of town where he kept his cattle. I can play them in my mind as if I heard them day before yesterday.

The first was a loud suc-calf call with the emphasis on the second syllable. His voice started rather high, but not too high, and it went up rather than down, kind of like he was asking a one-word question. There wasn’t much melody to it…it was just kind of a yelling of that word somewhere around middle C on the piano.

The second was a soo-ook in definite falsetto. The o’s in the word were pronounced the same as in the word took. This call started somewhere around the C above middle C, went down during the mid point to somewhere around G or A flat, then went up a half step or so at the end. The emphasis was on the first syllable primarily, and on the end of the word secondarily, with the middle note just a kind of connecting tone.

This second call could (and did) put chills up your spine. I don’t know what it was about it that did that, and I don’t know if any other of us siblings had the same response to it, but when he used that second call more than just a time or two, you knew he meant business. That second call also carried farther than the other, many times from the lot all the way to the far end of the pasture over a half mile away.

Dad had a kind of a bond with his herds. Oh, they would come and go, and some did better for him than others. But he’d talk with them, move among them, feed them well, doctor them when needed, and never allowed flies to torment them longer than it took for us to make the time to go up and spray them. We used a hand sprayer so as to not have the loud noise of a mechanical one upset them.

Once in awhile, there was one in a herd that just seemed incorrigible, and he’d sell him so as, it seems, to not spoil his experience with the rest of the herd. Dad never abused his cattle. He never used whips, prods, electric shock, or other means of that kind to get them moving, and he didn’t appreciate it when others came to load them up to take to sale and did use that kind of thing. He believed, I think, in the basic dignity of all of God’s creatures, even those that were destined for slaughter, recognizing that they were providing him with a means to feed and clothe his family. And he appreciated that, and treated them with respect.

I could tell of times he sent me to the pasture to bring the herd up to the lot, of times with the branding irons, of giving shots, treating for pink eye, chopping ice, filling the tank, fixing the windmill, shoveling grain, putting up hay or silage, cleaning out manure, fixing fence, chasing down strays that would get out, going to the sale barn, putting up electric fence on fall wheat, mowing prairie hay, spraying for flies, and a host of other experiences with cattle, now only memories. Those were good times, and times I’ll always cherish.

Dad’s cattle calling days are long over, and his voice has long been silenced by death. But the flood of memories that have come over me as I write this have caused me to appreciate even more my upbringing and the hard work and incredible risks that my parents took to provide for us. And in so doing, they provided us with life lessons that are with us all today in some way, shape, or form (respect for life, care for those [human or animal] who cannot care for themselves, relief of suffering, providing for family, perseverance, patience, the miracle of the creation, and a host of others). We are blessed.

Ramblings

Some things I’ve been wondering (or thinking about) recently.

Does anything taste better than vine ripe cantaloupe?

Why do some people seem so helpless? Today, one of the staff at the home told me that an alarm wasn’t shutting off when the “off” button was pressed. She had changed batteries, checked the wiring, etc. It turned out that a switch on the side of the alarm disables the “off” button when it is engaged, and the switch was engaged. When I turned the switch off, the alarm worked fine.

Is it possible to go back to the Andy Griffith Show times? Times that are slower, simpler, and more sensible, if you will? Or do we have to satisfy our longing for those times by watching the reruns?

Why does Dillons not have Post Grape Nuts Flakes on the shelf?

Does anything taste better than fresh, ripe pineapple?

If Pat Roberts, incumbent candidate for the U.S. Senate from Kansas “listened to Kansans” in voting “NO” on the bailout, and if he’s been “working for Kansas” all this time (as his campaign ads say), what things has he been working on? Does he have an alternative to the bail out he’s presented to the Congress that he developed by listening to Kansans? Or is he just a “NO” voter and a complainer?

I’m thinking that Barack Obama is underrated.

I’m thinking that John McCain will run the Executive Branch just like he’s run his campaign…terribly.

Does anything taste better than a tree ripened peach?

I’m still thinking about who I should vote for.

How do composers of music think of the tunes and harmonies that they eventually put down on paper? Do they have all of these ditties of songs playing in their heads continually? How can classical composers keep all of the parts straight? Are composers a little “strange” in some ways?

If gasoline has fallen in price, can’t one save even more money now by continuing to drive conservatively compared to driving like a wild banshee? Why, then, do so many people continue to drive like, you know, a banshee?

Does anything taste better than roast beef, cooked rice, and brown gravy?

The Rub

I got up early this morning for a quick trip to Topeka to visit a friend. Waking at about 5am, I left the house about 5:35. I was reminded at that time that the early morning is kind of a whole ‘nuther world.

The first glimpses of the morning dawn didn’t come until I was well on my way up the turnpike at about 6:20. The sun actually appeared about an hour later. Being able to watch the proceedings of the coming of the sun and the daytime was a good thing.

We seem to be far too cloistered in our homes, cars, and businesses any more to notice the things that keep our lives ordered and that are really the more important. We instead fret about the stock market and our 401k’s, the boss at work, or when we’ll be able to go shopping next.

All of these things might have an element of importance in them (at least for us), but they of themselves are all manufactured things…things that we deal with and have as a result of the human society and human interaction with nature. Things like the sunrise, however, aren’t dependent on us. In fact, the sun can rise very well with nary a human inhabiting this planet.

And maybe that’s the rub. We don’t like to admit that we aren’t needed for events like sunrise to happen, so we instead fill our lives with those things that do require our attention. Think, however, of just what we know about other bodies in space. Ice crystals on Mars, methane oceans on some of the moons of the gas giants, active volcanoes in the outer reaches of the solar system, giant storms, flying ice balls, the interaction of matter, the obedience to the laws of physics (even if we don’t understand them all), and the orderliness of the cosmos is not dependent upon us and happens all the time without as much as a speck of interference from humanity.

It kind of puts things into perspective.

What I Think

I received an email from Senator Sam Brownback's office today, part of a mass mailing, I'm sure. In the email, he talks about the financial crisis, what he thinks, and why he voted "no" to the bail out. He also asked me what I thought. I thought I should reply, since he asked. What follows is my reply, word for word.
By email, you asked for my views on the economy. I agree that we are going into a recessionary time. I also agree that some kind if intervention is necessary, and that intervention will be costly.
My concern has long been that we are not looking at the long term; rather we are wanting immediate, short term fixes that will continue to promote greed and self-serving action.
This is nothing new. Our nation's history is filled with such times. However, one would think that someone somewhere would get a clue. One would think that someone somewhere would truly have the best interests of others at heart. One would think that someone somewhere would do the right thing.
I'm sick of the political games. I'm sick of the callousness. I'm sick of the gridlock. And right now, I'm sick of the Congress and those who go, bloody hands out, to the people for relief when they are the very ones who have, over the years, been trampling the people to death in search of ever-greater billions.
You wanted to know what I think. Thanks for letting me write.