Living-Deliberately.com

Yes, I know I spelled that…..creatively. You know what I mean.

Yippee-skippee I’m having fun with high speed service! On another day in “communicable diseases” land, otherwise known as “life with children who have Whooping Cough”, there has been buttery tulips blooming, a warm and stiff breeze blowing, eyes that are bleary-eyed and sleepy and drunk on pollen…and a chance to surf back into music videos: a tempting time sucker to be sure.

to ponder from Jewel’s song Good-bye Alice in Wonderland:

There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
I did not find paradise
It was only a reflection of my lonely mind searching
For what was missing in my life…

Yes a heart can hallucinate
If it’s completely starved for love
Can even make monsters seem like
Angels from above
Dreaming is a good thing cause it brings new things to life
Pretending is an ending that perpetuates a lie
Forgetting what you are
Seeing for what you’ve been told
And growing up is not the absence of dreaming
It’s being able to understand the difference between the ones you can hold
And the ones that you’ve been sold

snuggling with W on the couch tonight, he gave me this little gem:

“Mom. You do not even know how comfortable I am right now. I am comfortable like God loves me.”

It looks as though this dog is here to stay. “Boy” is what he comes to and what he has thus been named. He seems to know his job here is to follow little boys around, do what they say, and chase off any cats who might want a snif-see in our trash cans. He’s taken to the job quite seriously.

I wonder why, when most of the female population would probably hanker for some time out alone after being cooped up for weeks with sick children, I instead feel ready to implode if I don’t have some aggressive time alone to clean. It’s not even messy around here but in the fatigue I feel an adrenalin building that wants to scrub under things, move stuff around, throw things away, and even paint.

Maybe it’s the swede in me? Maybe it’s not very weird after all? Or maybe it’s spring fever. Whatever. It’s what I’m doing this weekend, with an intensity that just maybe could part very large things, like the Red Sea. Skin will be shed, leaves will turn over, and every other cliche one can think of.

From my friend Beth:

“Most people fail in the art of living not because they are inherently bad or so without will that they cannot lead a better life; they fail because they do not wake up and see when they stand at a fork in the road and have to decide. They are not aware when life asks them a question.” –Erich Fromm

I, am writing this…..ON MY LAPTOP WITH MY HIGHSPEED SERVICE!!!! Yes, I, the humble red-headed neophyte, have figured out to hardwire my computer and use the service I”ve been paying for. I have made HUGE progress in the battle. True, I’m not wireless yet. And true, my files aren’t transferred properly yet. But one thing at a time.

It’s DANCING TIME BABY!!!! Woot! Woot!

Anyone who has a problem with welfare, people living off the government, and enabling rather than empowering, needs to stand up and pay attention to this. “This” is one community’s effort to provide for themselves, transforming and beautifying previously maligned city property, when it was too ugly to be cared for by the powers-that-be. Urban gardening and homesteading is the path to the future, of stewardship for the planet and our environment, and gives those living in the concrete jungle a chance to attain a level of self-sufficiency. Not too-surprisingly the city now wants what is beautiful and thriving for it’s own purposes. Here’s a synopsis from one website:

March 3, 2006 1130 PST (FTW) - In L.A.’s Havana Experiment FTW told you the dramatic and compelling story of what 350 families have done over a 13-year period with a 14 acre plot of land in a depressed inner city. They are feeding themselves with organically grown and healthy produce that requires zero fossil-fuel inputs and requires virtually no transportation expense. This is being done on soil that was once paved, covered, depleted and ignored. More than anything else, this is the one area of effort most essential for America’s (and the world’s) major cities to pursue as Peak Oil takes its first deadly bites.

Two days ago the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department unceremoniously posted an eviction notice on the farm’s gate calling for the farm to be vacated by March 6th (next Monday). That would leave current crops in the ground to be plowed under by a developer’s bulldozers. The intended replacement for the farm is a warehouse intended to serve (primarily) Wal-Mart.

No one has better articulated what is at stake here than USC Professor Clara Irazábal who today in an impassioned letter to LA Mayor Antonio Villarraigosa, completed after 3 AM this morning, wrote:

[T]he relevant question is not whether this urban farm should be preserved. This is the wrong question and one that diminishes the stature of your office and the trust we have invested in you. The question is, rather, how can we best help multiply urban farms like this one throughout Los Angeles and cities of the Americas and the world. As the era of oil inescapably comes to an end, we are going to be faced with the need, whether we like it or not, to live more compactly, thrifty, cooperatively, and in more direct connection with, and responsible for, the production of our own food. In this context, not only does the South Central Farm not constitute a backward use of land in one of the largest and more prominent and modern cities of the world. Instead, it is a model for the future (and the future is now), one that can support the survival of our growing urban civilization. Maintaining the South Central Farm, Los Angeles and you as its mayor have the unique opportunity to become world visionaries and trail breakers.

Although this posting may appear too late today to get people to show up for a hastily organized protest at the Mayor’s office, there are a number of things which must be done immediately to save this incredible experiment; an experiment that is teaching us how to save hundreds of thousands of lives: lives of poor people; lives of disenfranchised; lives of those who are not fortunate enough to move away to an already sustainable region.

The words of Mario Savio ring truer than ever. It is time to throw our bodies into the gears of the machine and grind it to a halt. Some things are worth fighting for and if anything is worth fighting for the South Central Farm is.

If you are in Southern California you can do something. If you are anywhere else, what you can do may be just as important.

In the enclosed links are a sample letter (or email) that can be sent to Mayor Villarraigoasa’s office. There are contact numbers and links for additional activism. There are also instructions on how to actually be at the farm to protest.

If a large enough hue and cry is raised from around the world to focus a laser-like beam on what is at stake here then there might be time. There might be a window for a miracle.

I am cutting off this story now because every minute’s delay in getting this up on FTW’s web site is critical. If you understand Peak oil; if you understand the miracle that is the South Central Farm; and if you are committed to preparing the world and your family for Peak Oil then I won’t have to say more.

There will be many more battles to fight. Let us fight the good fight here and now, today. Were I in LA I would be there myself, willing to and encouraging others to engage in civil disobedience, to get arrested, to stop this travesty. In a ham and eggs breakfast the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. It’s time to drop everything for a moment, as long as it takes, to struggle and to pray for the Miracle on 41st Street.

~ from www.fromthewilderness.com and search for more on South Central Farm

• First today is my little Clara’s birthday. Seven years! I probably would have had combined birthdays for she and Celia; I think about it everytime I pass the butterfly party plates at the store. They’d have been thick as thieves. It’s a beautiful day today and that’s all I can say.
• It’s ironic that the day after I blog about the kids wanting a dog, one shows up. Not a demon-dog either, like the other ones in our past! This little thing looks like Bosco, the terrier mutt of my childhood. He is full of curly matted hair and and as near as we can tell, the neighbors moved out and left the dog behind. He loves the kids and plays well with them and since they aren’t allowed to name it, they call it “Boy”. Last night it slept on our front porch and barked at anyone walking past, showing he’s claimed us as his family. Thing is….the landlord said no pets. So, unless we can plead for mercy, I’ll have to take it to the pound. We’re giving it a week.
• Our cold turned out to be a little more than that. It’s Whooping Cough. I’m pretty upset about this one. I know immunizations is a testy topic with some people so be forewarned. If you are someone who thinks the CDC and shots are wise, infallible things, stop reading!

One gets immunized for Whooping Cough with thier DTP shot. WC is the Pertussis part of the combo shot. It’s been a controversial shot for years; before the switch was made to an alternative with fewer side reactions (DTaP) the DTP shot was the cause of numerous brain injuries. The CDC even has an Immunization Injury Compensantion that I understand comes from the court cases and incidents of injury from the vaccine. In that light, it seems rational to consider the actual diseases horrible things and *immunity* a desired thing. After all, if otherwise healthy children were being injured for this shot and the protection it was suposed to provide, it must be a pretty horrible disease and immunity quite the value!

When my kids start coughing, I never think “whooping cough”. I assumed it was pretty much out of circulation, living in a civilized country where people get shots for that kind of thing. Two of my kids had the origional DTP. One of them got the alternative DTaP. And one of them is too young for the shot and I stretch shots out until they are 5 anyway; I’m not comfortable with multiple shots at one time.

But my baby’s cough was something I’d never heard before. It sounds gaggy and like he’s going to vomit. He turns blue, he stops breathing. He WHOOPS. A friend suggested that’s what it is and I headed to the internet to do some reading. It didn’t take long.

A quick google search turns up the biggies. Info boards put up by mainstream sites, the CDC, Mayo Clinic, drug companies. Nothing obscure or weird. Here’s what I found:

In the developed world, where most children are immunized, whooping cough most commonly occurs in adults!

• Many cases occur in adults and older children because protection from the vaccine lasts only 5 to 10 years after the last dose.
• Pertussis vaccine is used to protect young infants from severe disease and death, but even vaccinated persons can get less severe pertussis infections.

Since then, however, the incidence of whooping cough has been increasing, primarily among children too young to have completed the full course of vaccinations and teenagers whose immunity has faded.

With proper care, most teenagers and adults recover from whooping cough without complications. Whooping cough is more serious in children, especially infants younger than 6 months of age.
So, basically, it’s thought that the vaccination program is a good one because it reduces the intensity of the older people getting Pertussis. One site said it reduced the liklihood that babies would be around it, but apparently not if all it does is make for milder symtoms! Babies and elderly are most at risk from intesne infections. In fact, boosters are needed every 5 years. How many adults do YOU know that go in for a Pertusis booster? In other countries, children get this and they have lifetime immunity! So all our shots are doing (in best case scenarios) are putting off incidents of whooping cough until people are older. It’s just a delay. And, in the worst case scenario, children are being harmed from the vaccine itself. I’m thinking about those poor children and parents whose lives were completely changed, for a vaccine that doesn’t even really make people immune.

Something similar is going on in the chicken pox realm. Sure, the vaccine is keeping down incidents of pox. But guess what is also from the same strain? Shingles. So, whereas someone who gets pox natually is immune for life from future pox *and* shingles, the rate of shingles sufferers is reportedly going UP. That’s because the vaccine doesn’t surpress the shingles for life and they have outbreaks in adulthood because they didn’t have a chance at childhood immunity.

They say Whooping Cough is the “100 Day” cough. We won’t be going anywhere for quite some time yet; it’s very contagious and there are little babies in our church. I’m glad my kids will be natually immune now and how ironic it is that yet again, it’s not due to thier shots.

I’m so excited about this! Awhile back she had Dave Ramsey on her show and while her new program doesn’t mention his name, it sure seems to espouse the same principles. Oprah has such power and influence and I know alot of ears are open to her that ordinarily would just keep living life as the status quo. So Go Oprah!

One thing that struck me about watching the families she’s tracking is that they really face a challenge on the food front. The financial counselors rightly pegged food as one of the biggest budget busters but that’s only part of the equation. One of the women in the story had no dishes in her kitchen. She’d never cooked. And she’d never grocery shopped. They outfitted her with appliances and dishes and got her some recipes. They walked her through the grocery store. But this is a lifestyle change of huge proportions! She only shopped with a list *once* after that report and I don’t blame her! I’ve been shopping my whole life and putting together a list, making a meal plan, and having a stocked pantry still takes me quite an effort. She probably doesn’t even know what a stocked pantry is…and yet it could make or break a large part of her goal, which is to live on $200 a week for groceries compared to $700 a week for eating every meal out. A process like that can take years to transform and she’s going to need a helping hand with more than just appliances.
As a result of seeing Oprah’s show, I’m adding in her links to my Dave Ramsey stuff on the beans and rice meal plan forum. The way I see it, they are working in a kind of tandem and my service/site will directly apply to anyone trying to accomplish either of thier plans. Meal planning is crucial!! I’m still working hard to get the main site up, with the subscription menus and grocery lists. Hopefully many will find this a powerful tool!
I especially like how Oprah is nailing the credit card companies that are helping to enslave America. There is power in financial freedom and it really is attainable! Even for us po’folks who don’t have as many resources as some. We can do it!

You know that feeling when the blankets and sheets are all tangled up around your legs and feet and your toes can’t find their way out to some cooler air? When every spot on your pillow is hot and you just want to find a refreshing corner? When you’ve had on flannel bottoms a T for too many days and you desperately want to shower and change but still feel dizzy every time you get up?

Physically and metaphorically, that’s how I feel. We’ve had two weeks of whatever virus this is and there are still fevers and coughs in the house. So, another week and we still won’t be going anywhere both for our own benefit and everyone around us. Cabin fever took a while to set in though…it pretty chilly out there and feelin’ yucky, no one really wanted to upset thier cozy little spots. It’s  a weird cold: We don’t particularly want to watch TV or read or work puzzles. Just layin’ there is just fine.

An interesting aspect of this line of germs is the fastidious feelings it leaves it’s sufferers with. I chuckle sometimes when reading in my homeopathic book some of the symptoms that say, “sufferer wants attention but not to be touched”, or “patient feel intensely about thier environment and may spend time straightening thier bed covers”. And sure enough, there are cold strains that make us feel just like that! This one has nagged me with cleanliness. Far away from just lying there and not caring, if I’m going to go through the effort of being up, I”m going to have the laundry cycled, the meat laid out, the counters wiped down. It bugs me that the floor needs mopping and yesterday I vacummed in spurts every time my sinus pressure let up a little.

It’s gorgeous outside this morning, so sunny and bright. We had frost on the hill so I know it’s cold. But I can almost hear the ground pounding and asking when I’m coming out to turn it over. We’re suposed to put in a good gardening weekend this coming Saturday, health allowing. I’m somewhat ambivilant. I think I’m feeling the reality of being a “transplant’. If I put alot of work into this garden, how long will it be mine? A year probably but there’s also a chance I won’t see it to harvest. As fat cats cross our yard in pursuit of birds and ground creatures (we see 6 or so a day) I long for the ability to have pets again. The kids want a dog. I feel that old link to St. Francis, the saint my birth hospital was named for, the one who I sometimes wonder doesn’t mysteriously have some affect on my longing to be around animals. Being sick, we’ve missed important contacts with new friends. It’s nice to be included in party guest lists and makes us feel like we are starting to belong. Then, to miss them, and realize how easily it would be for us to just fade away, almost unoticed is unsettling. After all, a short 10 months ago these people didn’t know we even existed. Miss a few more functions and we won’t be missed. It’s no one’s fault; just a result of a transient society I think. I LONG for some ROOTS. I want to put some down on land we’ll own. I want the kids to stretch on ground they can be sure will still be part of our lives next year. This transplant is getting thin and leggy, reaching for light, and whose little tendrils of root are hitting the sides of the pot and getting circular and tangled.

I’ve got tons to do and probably not enough time to get it all done. It seems what is needed first though is some time to straighten things out. Beit covers or searching roots or emotions or tasks…it’s time for a little order.

this article, by Rosalind Wiseman, whose book Queen Bees and Wannabees was the inspiration for the movie Mean Girls, had these little gems to offer, in the realm of Momma Drama:

One trait of a Queen Bee Mom:

If she or her child does apologize for something, they expect a return apology: “Well, I’m so sorry that you took it the wrong way.”

Sidekick Moms:

Is very focused on getting her child into the “right” activities and classes and sees her motivation as based solely on acting in the best interest of the child.

Starbucks & Sympathy Moms:

Have you ever had another mom approach you after you’ve had an unpleasant encounter with someone else, offer to be a source of comfort, agree with your assessment of the confrontation, and then suddenly turn on you at a convenient (for her) time? That’s what Starbucks & Sympathy Moms do.

Two kinds of Wanna-bees:

Torn Wannabes are unpredictable and frustrating. Usually everyone has a good friend who falls squarely into this category. She’s the mom who privately supports you when you’re in conflict with someone but abandons you at the moment of confrontation. She never tells you exactly what she thinks. It’s not that she’s deliberately being deceptive; usually she genuinely doesn’t know what she thinks because she wants to please the person in front of her or the one with the most power.

The Desperate Wanna-bee…doesn’t realize when her actions don’t match her purported values. But at least she’s predictable. She’ll always please the person with the most power, and she will always back her up.

Steamrolled Moms:

The Steamrolled Mom sacrifices her needs and judgments because she wants to avoid conflict; she’s the one who’s always saying, “Whatever you want is fine.” She’s unlikely to stand up for what she thinks is right because she’s afraid to offend and wants to be “nice.”

Floater Moms:

Floater Moms can move easily from one group to another without arousing resentment. They embody “nice popularity” in that they’re genuinely liked for who they are.

Reformed Moms (woohoo!! A mature role!):

Reformed Moms are able to analyze their behavior and make improvements when and where necessary. These moms — especially the ones who used to be Queen Bees — often have the best sense of humor. Reformed Queen Bees have kept all their positive attributes (they’re charismatic, fun to be around, intelligent, capable, and can make fun of themselves) and lost most of the attributes that made everyone (including themselves) miserable.

Invisible Moms:

nvisible Moms are well-meaning parents who attend school functions but never, ever say a word. They have a few close friendships with other Invisible parents.

She also mentions “outcast” moms and then brings it around to an air of mature hope with:

I’m describing these roles in hopes that we can better understand what motivates us. If you identify yourself or someone you know here, it doesn’t mean that you or she is doomed to stay that way for the rest of your lives. It can be difficult for adults to change, but when we do, it’s usually because we’ve come to realize our role is hindering our ability to have honest relationships.

Whether we beleive in a vending-machine God or just that we can control outcomes…

Whatever today’s ethicists might say, I believe that trying to select a gender means buying into the silly belief that fate can somehow be bought.

Article on Gender Selection, losing a child, and buying fate.

As early as last fall I had plans for this weekend. For several years I’ve been a part of a fluidly sized online group of women and we kind of a have an annual “retreat”.I think there has been one a year but that would almost be coincidental; they are planned when a: someone offers to host and b: we get desperate to see each other.  I missed the one before this one because baby was only 4 weeks and a very sensitive one at that. So I set my sights on the one in Baton Rouge this weekend, set the money aside, and eagerly anticipated going! It’s a time to be a “girl”: get nails done, hair done, wear clothes without snoogers on the shoulder, listen to “grown up” music, get a change of scenery…
Then stuff started to happen. There is one member who is not active on the actual forum but is still involved with a few of the members who was coming. I was very apprehensive about how that was going to “mix”. I had doubts about how I was going to get there and every time I said, “when I’m at the retreat” I realized that in the back of my mind, I couldn’t really envision it at all. Weeks passed. The friend I was riding with had unexpected dental expenses and had to cancel. Other options of transportation didn’t work out. And, finally, I withdrew my name from the list.

In the days leading up to the trip, the ones going are full of the fun of planning and anticipation. They are going to have a great time! Last week, when I got sick and then so did the kids, I realized that I while I was a bit jealous of my friends, thier time away, and the giddy fun they were about to have, I was also relieved that I wasn’t trying to plan to “get away” when I was sick and my family so obviously needed me. Then this week’s sickness turned out to be much, much worse than last’s. I’m relapsing, probably from a lack of sleep, and the ones that have been healthy over the last week are now getting sick.

Add in that David has a very important meeting tomorrow that could affect our future and I can see, feel, and realize how critical my presense is this weekend.  Maybe it’s a fever-induced headache, but just now I’m perfectly content that my plans were spoiled. The opprotunity for some girl-time away may or may not come; I’ll not hang my hopes on the idea of “later”. That comes from years of wondering when David and i will have a night alone when in all of our marriage, that has never happened. As we say, “the stars never align”. There are too many LOL. But, happening in the future or not, what really matters in the here and now. I’m needed HERE, NOW.

Guess I’ll go change my shirt. This one has snoogers on it.

called, “why you shouldn’t buy a Dell”. Stick that in the search engine! If personal testimony on a product (and more importantly SERVICE) can vouch for anything, let future buyers beware because of my experience. The world is large my friends, and there are many other people to do business with.

• ruptured ear drums with infection behind them produce some truly nasty effects. On the bright side, they also hurt less.
• waking up to day that holds: our only commode not working, a late UPS plane, a meeting, a job offer, three family members with relapsed sickness, and the medication prescribed being “discontinued” without a substitute, can lead to anxiety. On the bright side, with a fantastic landlord, a helpful pharmacist willing to go the extra mile, and just doing one thing at a time can result in a pretty clear day by noon, and everyone ready for naps.
• it’s electric, boogy woogy woogy….spring color, that is! Popping everywhere: huge damp skies with heavy clouds, bright green grass, explosive color bursting from bulbs. It’s cold but *gorgeous*.
• Tostitos Restaurant Style Salsa with triscuits is addictive.
• Dell computers continues on a nasty streak, now wanting me to PAY nearly $200 in “shipping and restocking” fees to RETURN MY COMPUTER that not only never worked, but wasn’t fixed when I sent it back. Can we say, “not over?”
• Maynard’s reading a truly excellent book called Norms and Nobility, which has some awesome quotes, but I can’t get it away from him long enough to post them.
• W has finally named his bird: “His whole name is Paco Katrina G.” Because birds need middle names you know…

CHRIS DAUGHTRY!!! Every week I can’t wait to hear what he’s gonna do. In a field of “really goods”, he’s GREAT. I’d buy his record *right now* and it could have all of his competition songs on it. He makes the rest of ‘em sound like they’re on Star Search. He gets my vote, the first time I’ve ever gone from “lazy TV viewer” to actual voter!

We almost made it. Our “risk” of going without health benefits for these past 9 months has been quite uneventful. The kids, even W, have been enormously healthy. We are ONE week out of the start of our policy and last week we got sick. The rest of us got over it but it seemed to find a flourishing home in W’s ears. We were unsure of the status of his second set of tubes (placed not for infections but for mucous that tends to solidfy and hurt his hearing) but two days ago the right one drained. Miraculous!! They should have fallen out last September. I thought he was on the upswing until bedtime last night when it moved left. After three hours of crying and ineffective pain meds, I knew to go get dressed and head out.

Our little town was dark and empty and wet.  One car passed us on the way to the hospital and W said, “hmm…there is more traffic than I thought.” That’s my boy…always sweet and comical even while sick. Hospitals these days all look the same and there was no denying that lump in my throat, the onslaught of fear and memories as I drove in. Our hiatus from the system is officially over. We had no problem finding a parking spot or getting seen by Triage…the nurse said it was a busy night with four people in the waiting room. Not exactly like our previouis experience in a much larger city!

It was wierd. The nurse took his medical history and it fit on one line. I had to tell her how to spell the condition. But having had such a long period of time where it would seem he’s outgrown the worst of it, I realized I didnt have to explain and she didnt’ have to curve the description up the margin to fit it on the chart. She asked me how much he weighed and…I didn’t know! All that time of charting every ounce, always knowing, and I had no clue now how heavy the guy is. All I keep up with these days is his clothing size and what season he needs.

The doctor found the tube in his right ear to be intact and the one in the left to still be in place but crooked. We got some numbing drops and antibiotic  and wrapped up the visit in less than two hours. When we got home the baby had been essentially up playing the whole time and David had not slept at all. He had to be up in two hours but it was still another 45 mintues before we could get everyone down. This morning the infection is draining and he’s still asleep.
And so it goes. In another week or so I’ll get a list of doctors and start interviewing and selecting. He’ll get his ears and hearing checked again. At some point those tubes will probably have to be replaced. I’ll have to explain the history, the reactions to anesthesia, the precautions on down to the kind of tape they use. He will probably grumpily tell the nurse not to babytalk to him, that he “is used to” having his blood pressure taken. I don’t expect the rollercoaster to be anything like it once was;  he’s a strong boy and just needs maintance like the rest of us. It was a nice time away while it lasted though.

In other news, we are considering different mission possiblities, here and there and in all kinds of capacities. I’m confronted with me fear: I’m perfectly willing to work hard in all kinds of places for God….but am I willing to fly over water?

Barzun is a writer whose name I have frequently heard mentioned in the the classical education circles but one I have never personally read. In fact, I didn’t know he was still alive, from this century (or the last), or anything really about him. I wouldn’t have gone looking for one of his books or works in the library. Thankfully, David is someone who would. And, that he would know from page one that we’d just found someone whose writing would strike such a chord that we would gleefully giggle over the stretching of our minds. In fact, as it turns out, Barzun is the kind of writer who takes what I was trying to articulate and does so with such excellence that I’m not only dumbfounded to read *exactly* what I was trying to say, but am blown away with his genius and skill in doing so. The first essay in the book, Toward a Fateful Serenity, he brilliantly excites with the following:

On things done well:

Growing up before the first World War in an artistic milieu in Paris and also a conventional one in Grenoble, furnished the mind of the child I remember with two main perceptions. One was that making works of art by exerting genius was the usual work of adults; the other was that such a life was hedged about by traditions, manners, and prosperity.

Needless to say, neither of these notions was explicit–or abstract as in the retelling. But faith in thier reality encouraged a precocious interst in all subjects, persons, ideas, and words half-understood. The joy of being was the joy of being there: the zest for life was tied to the spectacle of good things being done with confident energy.

Take your pick: the following quote hit my school/educational musings on head, applies to my dread of rote worship and mega-church infrasructure, and is precisely why I fight against putting my faith in systems:

Where, then is the enemy? Not where the machine gives relief from drugery but where human judgement abdicates. …”methods” substituted for reading books and judging art are a perversion of what belongs to science and engineering: “models”, formulas, theories. Specialism too turns machine-like if it never transcends it’s single task. The smoothest machine-made product of the age is the organization man, for even the best organizing principle tends to corrupt, and the mechanical principle corrupts absolutely.

On maintaining perspective and the benefit of studying history:

History is concrete and complex; everything in it is individual and entangled. Reading it, mulling it over does not weaken concern with the present, but it brings detachment from the immediate and thus cures “the jumps” –seeing every untoward event as menacing, every success or defeat as permanent, every opponent as a monster of terror.

Elsewhere online, I’m considering the difference between being a “joiner” and a “skeptic” and the suggestion that one is either one or the other. Feeling inside that there has to be more to this but not being sure why or how to exactly say it, I was happy to read this resonating thought by Barzun:

A sense of “how things go” in history –how they came and go– also protects against the worst among machines: the bandwagon. To keep from climbing on is harder than ever since that other machine, the media, has been installed. So many projects, attitudes, and “concepts”, as they are quaintly called, are launched with all the trappings of true ideas that holding aloof looks like egotism or the sulks (or, my note, skepticism?): but it is not sulking to stare as the lemmings rush by; it is self-defense.

On history and it’s study leading to more than just defensiveness but on admiration, and let’s hear it for those who are so entrenched in the everyday living of life, raising little ones in all its thankless glamour, that you have a story worth the telling:

The past is full of men and women (and children too) whose lives and deeds are worthy of honor, wonder, and gratitude…lives of this kind confirm or reinstate a just estimate of life itself. The modern dogma that art is the only redeeming feature of the much-pitied “human condition” rejects nine-tenths of life, and with it those not dedicated to the highest pursuits. Faulkner in that mood said that one of Keat’s odes “was worth any number of old women”. Such literary conciet is also bad logic. Life is good because it is the source and container of everything we value. It is old women, not Grecian urns, that have in thier time borne Keates and Faulkners.

I of course have much more to share but The One Who Found This Book is clamouring to come read to him…..;-)

My friend Sarah, who surely has touched a poetry-nerve within me and introduced me to words that will impact and imprint my life, has done it again:

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

–e.e.cummings