Twitter and Karl Rove

Karl Rove is following me on Twitter.  Well, I followed him first but I didn't expect to be followed back, nor do I expect my tweets to be paid any mind.  But the thought of a connection to someone with whom I probably mostly disagree with is an idea that amuses me and also makes me very happy to be living in a time where I have access to both opinions agreeable and disagreeable to me.  It's a great thing.  It's a good thing to have your thinking challenged as long as you know what you think or more importantly why.  The why part is the important part.

Why do I think what I do?  Good question.

before and after

Wicked fun with jackhammer.  I have yet to cut the floor and finish the trim out around the hearthstone but what a satisfying project. Mixing and pouring the concrete under the hearthstone was weird to be doing indoors and reusing the mantle from a neighbor's house that was torn down got the correct mantlepiece for the house, which is colonial.

Doing a project like this is in stark contrast to creating ideas all day.  You get done and you have something three dimensional you can touch.

Barred Owl

In a tree at home.  He eats mice that pass by.

In Ewigkeit

Sometimes you arrive at a day and look back at the other ones before and realize that something shifted behind you or underneath you and tomorrow you'll step into a new heading. Stuff moved.  Like groundwater.  It didn't mean to conspire-- and it didn't-- but sense that things that fail at the same time makes you look for connections.  But they do not breathe together and flipping things over in your mind is a waste of time.  Like being on an airplane where you can't actually feel that you are turning but the fact that the sunlight in the cabin is drifting slightly is all you need to see.  Not a sound, just this realization and a 'huh' in the back of your head.

So that was last week.  Last week was proof that nearly everything I touch, smell, experience and inhabit are grossly impermanent and rather don't conspire.  When all you read about is how wealth can evaporate and loss and change are rapid, you wonder what's left.  How far can it all go?  

What if I didn't have a house to live in?  

Will I be eating canned goods and living in someone's basement when I'm old?  

Why are the stores noticeably empty?  

Where'd all the bumper to bumper traffic go?

What if there are more cutbacks?

What if we both lose our jobs simultaneously?

What if the warranty had expired?  What would I have done with a $2200 repair bill?

How much would have those nine stitches on my face cost if I didn't have insurance?

What if.  What if.  They're always there for me, compulsive list maker, worst case scenario planner optimist guy.

Last Monday was Candlemas.  Half way between Solstice and Equinox, dark and light.  The candles,  a source of light, were blessed.  We commemorate Jesus brought to the temple and the Song of Solomon and Anna the old woman who stayed and stayed.  Waiting is a kind of toil. 

I like beeswax candles because little bees toiled to make them. It's even in the Exultet, those bees-- bringing the means to make light.

Creation toils. Anna toiled in her way and we do too except we're fooled by the notion that toiling results in a shiny reward in the end and if we've learned anything in the past six months, toiling does not result in an equal and opposite reaction of reward.  It isn't the point.  

In Ewigkeit.   In eternity.

I like how the thought of what does endure can be something comforting.  Toiling is pretty much a constant and how different am I than a bee?  I'm choosing then, to not conc

ern myself with candle making but to go headlong into the toiling.  Because I think when I can find those things that are eternally true, I sort out what I believe.  See, the consideration of "In Ewigkeit" leads me directly in a path beaming "Wir Glauben All an Einen Gott".  

And when you know what you believe, you're standing in a good place.  Dark behind, light ahead.

www.history.org

Counting down to vacation and then vacation meets CNN.  Turn on the tv tonight to see President Obama (God that was fun to type) giving a pointed and motivating speech about this stimulus bill to Democrats at an annual retreat in the tiny place we’re going for vacation.  He was speaking from Williamsburg, Virginia!  Oh happy day when we will be there too, less than a month until I’m out of this icy hell called Minnesota and into First Class overnight sleeper car service to Virginia.  Three trains, two days, decent food and spectacular scenery.  All with my sweetie of 19 years.  I can’t stop smiling thinking about it.

Pictures from London

A friend sent me these pictures of the snowstorm aftermath in London where travel has become problematic.  I suspect it will all melt eventually and just be wet and gray, if only that happened here.  Can you imagine if London had our winter?  Yikes.