Job, Justice, Fairness, God

You know the only thing I've ever been able to deduce about the story of Job in the Bible is that the rain falls. Good things happen, bad things happen. We attribute them to God or the Devil. But things change.

Today I feel good. Yesterday was awful. I was knitting with a wool that was new to me, and I could hardly breathe. Once I finished that project and laid it out in the sunroom, I could breathe. Anxiety? Allergy to the wool/dye in the wool? The wind? God? The Devil? Things change.

Some days are good; some days are not. A smile can make a lot of difference. A good laugh can make a lot of difference whether I can breathe well or not.

And, Job. Well, Job had it good. In fact, the Bible tells us, according to fellow blogger Lindy, that God had built a fence around Job and his family. OOOOOeeeee! Wouldn't you like one of those fences. Then I'd be able to breathe well all the time; my anemia would not affect my doing things; my restless legs would stay still; I could buy as much yarn as my garage could hold and enough beads to build a house.

Things change. One day that fence would be gone, and then, where would I be. Unused to any kind of calamity or bad event, unable to cope with adversity, non-compassionate because I'd never been hurt or hurting. Don't think I'd like that.

I'm reading a wonderful spoof on fairy tales and stories in general. Cliches abound. And, I know those stories. They have happened to me. You know those stories, too, because we don't have fences around us - at least not God-built fences. The rain falls. Bad things happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people. Bad things happen. So do good things.

Blaming God or the Devil or Job won't make it any different. I try to just accept what the day brings and do what I can. I leave undone what would strain me too much. And, yes, I get angry and depressed and anxious and upset. And, yes, I cry and gripe. But, in the end, tomorrow is another day - a different day - maybe better, maybe worse, but another day. And, if tomorrow is not another day for me - well, hey, I won't know it because I'll be dead...and that's for sure different.

The Unread Books meme

What we have below is a list of the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing users. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
The Brothers Karamazov (?)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair

The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad (excerpts in school)
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations

American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West

The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid (excerpts in school)
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

More Alpaca pictures

Gin is trying to herd the white alpaca back into the other enclosure - unsuccessfully.







Mindi and the llama

















This wonderful baby is one of the show animals.Tom is part of the menagerie.














Baby Rhode Island Reds are also there. And, bees, and kittens, and their sons.

Ashwood Alpaca Farm Visit

sharecropper gets a kiss from Whiskey

Five of us went to Ashwood Alpaca Farm (they also have one llama) on Friday. We were warmly welcomed by Lisa Willis who is unbelievably excited about all her alpacas. They were recently sheared, and the blankets are currently being processed.

But, we were mostly thrilled because Whiskey was like a big lap dog. He followed us around and liked to eat carrots and be petted. Most of the alpacas were standoffish as we were laughing a lot and grinning from ear to ear. What beautiful animals they are and sooooo soft - even sheared.

I snagged two grocery bags of bits and pieces of blankets from the various animals and one from the llama...also some yarn from the cooperative of which the farm is a member.One friend found some yummy socks.

Here are the pictures:
alpacas in background, us in foreground












Whiskey, up close and personal

The bees aren't all dead

The magnolia blossom with the bee was taken on May 22, 2008 in my front yard. All the blossoms were covered with bees sucking pollen. The previous bloom was a cotton blossom from a farm in the Mississippi delta near Clarksdale.

Why?

A good reporter always asks five questions (at least that's what I was taught in 1963): Who? What? When? Where? and Why? The first four are often easy to ascertain, but that fifth questions leads us into places that are unsafe - physically, mentally, emotionally, psychically. Often the places that Why? leads us are untrod ground.

Growing up on the farm, we called it new ground. First the trees would be cut, and the timber used in appropriate ways. Then the brush would be rooted up and piled into huge piles that were burned (remember this was in the 1940s and 1950s). Some of it was undoubtedly saved for kindling because we used a wood burning stove for heat in the winter. Stumps were included in this burning. Rocks were pushed and lugged out of the field. Only then could the tractor with it big turning plow get in there and make deep furrows in the land. The soil that turned up from below was black and wet. But, when it dried, it was as hard a brick...gumbo, it was called. The fields were turned and disked and harrowed. Then the rains came, and the ground was like black glue; it stuck to anything that touched it. When it dried, it cracked open in geometric shapes. Beautiful to a seven year old, but dreadful to our father farmers.

Except near the bayou, the soil would be turned, disked, and harrowed until it was black sandy loam - the stuff that farmers hold in their dreams. New ground. Lots of work went into creating new ground.

Lots of work often goes into answering Why? - the new ground of our minds...and lots of time. The answer doesn't always come. I will die never knowing why I like red so much or why I seem to need more...more of everything. Each time I answer a Why? question about myself, I change the answers to the other four questions. Who am I? Where am I? What am I? Yes, I realize that's only three of the questions: When? Time is so elusive for me. I understand God's time a little better as I remember the past and as I look to the future. I live in the present (most of the time), but When?

When am I in my life? Am I really a senior citizen? How do you measure years? Do miles count in that measurement? Does creativity count? How about love? When am I in the course of loving people? Near the beginning - the middle - the end or somewhere that I don't even really know? What I do know is that my computer (attuned to the atomic clock somewhere in the world) says that it is 8:13 pm on May 21, 2008.

My question then is So What? or Why does that matter?

New Knitting

Our friends Gin and Mindi from Denver have been visiting, and I've been knitting while we talked and after dinner each night. I offered to make Gin a pair of socks once I learned how to make socks. She said she had socks someone had knitted hung on her wall- they were artwork, not wearables.

So:













And, Mindi is getting a case for her Touch-pod. (front and back views)

Magic and Miracles

I've been reading a lot of fantasy in the last few years, and recently I've read a series by Tamora Pierce (Circle of Magic) about four young people who discover they have extraordinary magic. One is linked to the winds; she can see and hear things far away, and she can manipulate the winds and water and rocks and earth to change. Another's magic lies in weaving and thread; she can use woven movements to bind and to loose and communicate with cloth so that it does her bidding and other things that are made of string or wire or such. The young man of the group is attuned to growing living things and can make grass grow or nurture a forest. The other is a metal worker who makes things of living metal. Together they are very powerful as they have forged bonds of love and trust over their training years.

I believe in Magic, and I nearly always capitalize the word...so closely is it linked with God for me. I see nothing unusual in these four young people's talents. They are extremes of connections that we form each day with things that surround us. And, they are extremes of focus that we do not often have. Meditating is part of their daily routine, and from it comes their strength. Not many of us spend much time in meditation.

Once I had a green thumb with potted plants - bay trees loved my patio, orange trees grew from navel orange seeds and grapefruit trees from supposedly seedless grapefruit. My jade tree measured over four feet across before I dismembered it. Since it's name was Rocky, it's babies were Rockettes. I let the last of them die in the cold here this past winter. So my green thumb went away. It went away because I did not nurture it, did not meditate, did not pay attention to it. I lost my magic.

And, that's what happens when we lose touch with God; we lose our magic. I once had a healing touch that even people waiting to pay auto tag fees could sense and tap into. When we did healing services, many people waited in my line for me and those who gathered around to lay hands on them and channel God's grace a little stronger into their lives. Now, my oil stock is dry and so is my touch. Neglected and unused.

My Magic flows in other directions, nourished, focused and sustained.

Magic is simply God's use of our focus and our strength in ways that are particular to us. "God is alive, Magic is afoot..." sings Buffy St. Marie. I can't separate the two, and I suspect you'd find that your "Magic" is a focus and strength that comes from meditating and belief. When you train it, nurture it and hold it dear, Magic works and God is alive. Don't let your Magic die.

You Should Live in the Country

You are laid back, calm, and good at entertaining yourself. You don't need an expensive big city to keep you busy. You'll take the peaceful life over the stressful life any day of the week.

Where Should You Live?

Every day is different

Tuesday night I did not sleep well. Wednesday was a tough day. Wednesday night I slept almost 12 hours. Today has been wonderful. Good food, good company, fresh tomatoes, a few fresh strawberries, a mint plant, a wonderful lunch in Washington, NC. A few raindrops to make a perfect day.

Tomorrow I work at the yarn shop, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Missing my partner who is in New Orleans, but she'll be home on Sunday.

Politically, I've been speaking out for Hillary, but the votes don't seem to be going her way - and it's really difficult to think or type with a 16 pound cat in my lap - sooo...later pals.

What if...

What if computer programs worked the way the blurb you read said it would?

What if you and your partner could always talk things over?

What if you didn't forgo exercise because you were too tired?

What if repair people called you back when they said they would?

What if doctors had time to listen to you?

What if therapists believed you when you said you could bullshit the pope?

What if you could actually knit all the beautiful yarn you have and crave?

What if pigs could fly?

I get very frustrated with the lack of time that most people experience in today's world. I like to think we had more time in previous years and generations. But, that's simply not true. My Mom got up before daylight to milk the cow before breakfast and work. She always had a large garden, and we canned the produce. When did she find time to work 8 hours a day? She was never able to bathe until after we went to bed because she was tending to our needs. We had no bathroom; so she bathed in the kitchen where she could heat the water on the range and have a few moments of peace and quiet. She didn't have as much time as I did when I was working.

Of course, her life did get easier once we left the farm, but she always had something that needed to be done and for which no time existed to do it.

Now, I have time to browse the knitting sites on the computer, IM with a friend, write a blog, knit and make jewelry. Of course, my floors are dirty, my laundry undone, my winter clothes half packed away, and I don't know what I'm wearing to work tomorrow.

Time. When I went to Cursillo in 1988 or 1987, I gave up my watch. I own several, but they are decorative, not useful. And, time is more useful. I do get harried and hurried, but I am much more casual in my approach to what really needs to be done. The world has enough clocks that I am on time for appointments and work. In fact, I wish I could turn off some of the clocks in our house - microwave, range, water cooler, refrigerator, coffee pot, weather clock....and those millions of little LEDs that dot the house - I don't need a flashlight at night; I can navigate by the little red and orange dots.

Time. Do I make time to talk with my partner?

Time. Do I consider how busy doctors and repair people really are? Seems as if a shortage of them exists because they never have time.

Time. What if I didn't sit in front of the computer until my neck ached and my restless leg syndrome kicked in? What if I actually cleared the space around the treadmill so that I could get on it?

Time is a human construct. The universe doesn't really know about time or the time/space continuum. The universe is.

So, I'm keeping track of time in different ways. I have a list of concerns/problems that I want solved - some in therapy, some in discussion with my partner, some by getting off my duff, some by managing my life differently. And, I'm tracking my progress (or lack thereof) not by time but by how important each item is in my life. And, success - well, success is so relative that I have to say that I'm not doing much tracking by success. My nightmares are mostly gone. My emotional flashbacks have decreased a lot. My knitting is getting better.

Today has been rest day. Yesterday and last night were worry periods. Tomorrow is a work day and a knitting night. What's important to me right now is a good night's sleep, the love of my partner and the medicine that keeps me going.

So, I'm going to tick tock right off to the other end of the house and take the meds, hug my partner, and stretch out in bed. It's time.

Success - part 2

After a bit of discussion of other things, therapist and I spent about 5 minutes on success last week. I am confident about who I am in that respect. I've done a lot of things and gotten bored with them before I had a chance to be a success in the usual sense of that word - money, title, prestige, renown. And, of course, I have my times of feeling worthless, but deep down, I know I am a beloved of God and that I have worth in and of who I am without regard to what I do or don't do.

I've had a couple of successes in my career path. With a partner and later without, I operated an advertising agency for five years in a town of 30,000 people in Yeah. We did for five years.

Then, I organized, found funding for and operated Neighbors in Ministry, an ecumenical social service organization that had a thrift shop, a Kid's Cafe, a food pantry for persons who were HIV+, a coalition of agencies who worked with the Hispanic population, as well as intra organizational events to bring neighborhood people, churches and organizations together. We had a very good time and made a lot of difference. Later, other organizations took over some of the ministries and the Hispanic Ministry formed its own group. A good lot of work done by a good lot of people with me as their helper, guide and gofer.

But, my greatest success has been anchored in who I am. According to "What Color is My Parachute?", what I do best in the world is love people. And, I have loved all sorts of individuals in all sorts of ways to the best of my ability all of my life. That is my greatest success: I can and do love.

Here's to all of you who can love! Keep it up.

College Reunions

I've never been to my own college reunion, but this is my second visit to my partner's college reunion. Her classmates and their spouses remembered me!!!! Amazing. And, it was fun. So tomorrow we head home to our cats and our creek.

With new yarn, new beads, my happy goddaughter who went to Costco with me today, a happy partner who saw her long-time buddies and friends, a pleasant visit with close friends - what a cache of good memories.

Didn't take a single pix - sorry. I'll do better when we go to New Orleans in a couple of weeks.

Success

So far I have four or five working pages of scattered notes about success - what I think it is, what I think I am, what my partner thinks, what "they" think. I'm working today to combine them into a coherent mess to take to my therapist tomorrow. At least, this isn't something that I've cried over all week. I've been thinking about it deeply, but I'm not sniveling all week.

My categories on one sheet are finances, education, career, relationships, spirituality, physical, adn something else (papers are in the dining room). On another sheet, I put down what are/seem to be necessities for me to function at my best - like safety, good bed, good food, love, respect, availablity of new ideas,.... The "they" sheet includes things like peer respect, good salary, retirement planned, job title, ability to travel, high degree of education, long time in one field,.....

My partner said, "Don't tell me what you are, tell me who you are." If you are happy with who you are, then you are a success. Of course, she named three or four successes for me that were career achievements, but she also listed five qualities that she considers to be who I am - one of them was inquiring...the others were to be supposed from a partner - loving, caring....

Success has so many definitions and connotations that I find it difficult to contain. One thing is certain, I will not be able to say truthfully again that I am worthless. And, yes, I know that none of God's creation is worthless, but don't we all feel that sometimes?

What is your definition of success? Do you judge others the same way you judge yourself? I'd like to hear your responses.

Another Therapist Question

"Next time, I want you to tell me your definition of success." And, I really thought she liked me. Okay, so what kind of success do you mean, I asked. "All of them."

But, the session went well, and I will deal with that between now and next Monday - then I'll have a week off as we go to my partner's college reunion.

The west wind blew in cold air and stiff breezes; so we're back to long sleeves again. One woman came in the store today all bundled up with coat, hat and gloves. Not that cool.

Woke up coughing from allergy drainage. Took medicine, drank hot tea, back to bed in a few.

Monday is therapy day

Thanks to all those who have continued to leave encouraging comments and send emails. Today is a good day with therapy at 3 pm today. I am hoping to keep it contained, but emotions spill out throughout the week and realizations of the reality of situations long past. So, I am hoping for direction, hope, light, and recognition. That's a lot to hope for, but I'm optimistic.

Had a note this morning that a best friend and running buddy from about 25 years ago has died. Sad. We had lost contact, but I had heard that she was happy. I hope she heard the same about me. She was a delightful sprite who brought much sunlight and laughter into my life.

One day we were cleaning my apartment in preparation for a party that night. She suddenly realized that she was cleaning with only one hand; the other arm was full of my beloved poodle Sarge - we called him a sack of potatoes. He would just drape himself around your arm, in your lap, on your shoulder, and, often as with Ginni, you'd never know he was there. Sarge loved us all and so did Ginni. May light perpetual shine upon her. I'll try to find a picture of her as the sprite I knew.

Bill Clinton visits

Yesterday my partner and friend went to hear Bill Clinton as he did a sweep through North Carolina. They stood and sat and waited several hours to hear this charismatic man speak about problems within NC. And, they were rewarded with ideas, possibilities and legislative solutions that could be enacted. Of course, he was campaigning for Hillary, whom he believes could do all this. And, possibly she could. She certainly knows the ins and outs of politics now. She knows how to get things done in Congress, when to make compromises and when not to compromise. I will vote for her in our upcoming primary. And, I will vote for whoever is the Democratic candidate in the November election. Both have fine points in their favor.

Therapy Plus

Just as growing old is not for sissies, therapy is not for sissies, especially therapy for post traumatic stress syndrome. Many years ago, a therapist at her first meeting with me told me that she thought I needed to work on PTSD about my brother's death. I fled and never went back, using a very flimsy excuse. I couldn't think too much about that then.

Now, with the emotional flashbacks, I have no choice to but to think and, worse, to feel. Last week after I had carefully enumerated how I had felt abandoned by various important people in my life, my therapist said that I needed to write down the feelings I had at the times of those abandonments.

The first was my father, and I don't recall the event of his leaving to go back in service and returning home only two weeks a year (he had to go somewhere). I can't put any emotions to that event except an intellectual knowledge that Mom, Brother and I drew much closer together.

Now, I realize that my brother played the role of father in my life even though he was only six years older. He was left to drive the tractor and help make the crop that my father had planted before he left. He was left to do the heavy work around the farm that my father had done. He was only 13, but he took on the father figure.

And, truly, he had been the one to take care of me most of my memory. I went everywhere with him - even to school occasionally. I have often wondered if others had siblings who occasionally went to school with them, but the people who would know are all dead; so I can't ask.

So, this brother of mine was father, brother, friend, confidante, teacher, and very handsome even at 13. And, I adored him. He was mine. I was his. No hanky-panky. No fooling around. I just knew that Brother would take care of me always.

Always lasted until he got a girl pregnant and married her at my mother's insistence. Then he moved her into the house with us and went off to work as a welder's helper on the pipeline. When he came home, I was no longer primary in his life. And, I hated his wife.

He died following an accident during at storm on an oil repair barge in the Gulf of Mexico. He actually died on the operating table in Morgan City, Louisiana, two weeks after my 16th birthday. Always didn't last very long.

And, I have finally re-created the emotions of that abandonment - both his marriage and his death. Let me tell you, that's not fun. I feel as empty as I did then. I feel as angry, as fearful, as hurt, as whatever as I did then. I cry occasionally. I stare a lot. I play a lot of computer games. I can't even knit much. My brain has shut down for the moment except for the this re-creation of those times.

And, it's hell. Intellectually I know that we have laundry to do, the floors are getting filthy, things need putting up - but I just cannot do anything except feel and re-member.

Okay, so now I have those feelings. What do I do with them? I am tired. I am useless right now. I am crying. I am feeling. This is not fun. And, I don't know the next step. I see my therapist on Monday afternoon. Maybe she'll tell me what to do next.

Meanwhile, as my online buddy Lindy says, just do the next right thing. Since it's 3 am, maybe going back to bed is the next right thing.

The compliment game

Been catching up on my reading. Ya gotta go over to Warriormare's and check out the tab at the top "the Compliment Game". Add your thanks - tongue in cheek to others.

Sardis, Mississippi, Lake and Dam

Well, I was just looking at a picture of the spillway on a lake near Pseudopiskie's place, and it reminded me of many happy times at Sardis Lake/Dam in Mississippi. It was the largest earthen dam until the Aswan Dam was built in Egypt. And, I remember sleeping in the sand on cool nights when I'd be on my way from Memphis, TN, to Mom's house. You burrow out a body sized spot in the warm sand and cover yourself with a blanket to keep the warmth in. Of course, you froze your tootsies off the next morning as you went down to the water to wash the sand off your feet and legs (since you were wearing a dress back in those days).

And, I remember playing around the spillway as a child and watching how many large fish were being caught. The beaches were wonderful and I always wanted to roll down the grassy embankment (long green strip in the picture) naked until I hiked myself up there one day and discovered that the soft-appearing grass was about six inches to a foot high and the embankment was broken with drainage ditches. That would have been one very uncomfortable roll. But, it looked so beautifully green and inviting.

My experience was mostly in the lower lake (left side of picture) below the spillway where we would have family gatherings. The adults would fish and tell tall tales, and the youngsters would run around all over that part of the park (now much larger I'm told) chasing one another, playing around the spillway after being cautioned not to go over there. We'd talk to the people who were fishing, and it was the only place I remember that segregation was not practiced then. Old black ladies and old white men sat side by side on home-made stools with their poles in the water...sharing tales and bait. I ahve some pictures of the spillway back then, but I'll dig them out later. Meanwhile, the photo at the top is from the official site - and it's mostly of the upper lake.

Beautiful drive if you're ever down that way.