how we should behave when we win

as we would mourn when we lose the great decisions that mean a little death for many of us, let us also celebrate the great decisions that mean a better life for all of us.

what if, again?

this is an excellent article in which a couple seti (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) researchers comment on exactly the question I've written on previously.  their takeaway:  because humans haven't been at the center of existence for a while, most religious would simply take it in stride and continue.  I'd like to believe that.  unfortunately, that presupposes a willingness to adapt to circumstances that isn't always borne out by history.  would most religious accept extraplanetary bacteria as evidence of a diversity to the universe we can only guess at or as creations of the adversary meant to be destroyed?  my religious mind believes the former; my political mind suspects the latter.

link to "de nada"

once again, this is a link to another blog I've posted to in fulfillment of coursework and wanted to crossreference on my regular blog.  this one refers specifically to what I have taken away from the course. 

baby snakes

few things make me as sad as accidentally killing animals with machines.  often it's as if I can't do anything about it--a bird flies out in front of the car, an insect hops directly into the lawn mower--but sometimes I think that if only I'd been paying better attention maybe I could have.

when it comes to cars I think we're talking the makings of a holocaust even if all we consider are insects.  I don't know how many hundreds or hundreds of thousands of insects I kill each time I drive for any distance.  there are always fresh markings on my windshield and bumper and even when I'm driving slowly I feel bees and flies slam against my arm. 

I've hit fewer animals with my car than I have with the lawnmower.  if you haven't screwed things up too badly then if you have a couple acres out here on the rim you'll have billions of squirming, breathing life, and the odds of your having a fatal interaction with them increases. I have no clue how many insects die under the blade but I know I've hit rabbits, frogs, moles and mice.  once I ran over a nest of baby bunnies and killed three.  two were just smears but the third that was probably under them was on its back next to the divet they'd been in, wriggling and thrashing.  I had cut off one of its paws.  I drowned it in the spring that forms in the early summer by one of the outhouses and threw its body over into the cornfield.

today it was a snake.  it was about six or seven inches long, probably immature.  on one of my passes across the lawn I noticed a movement in the grass and saw its sleek black and tan body turning over and over.  there wasn't much left of its head; it had probably struck at the blade like it would against a predator.  but I couldn't bear the thought of anything continuing to move like that if I could help it so I picked it up--its body was dry and warm and felt like living meat rolling in my hand--took it to the road where there's a lot of new paving being done, and pressed most of it under a goodsized rock.  that seemed only to make it thrash more and I'd gone beyond logic now and was reacting like the snake's body, just on nerves, and I couldn't imagine anything being in that much pain so I dropped it into the water that's collected in the culvert at the end of the drive.  it seemed almost immediately at peace, or stopped moving at least, and settled into its place at the bottom of the pool.

a sermon in the time of humiliating defeat

as many know by now, out here on the rim we lost a major and historic election to unseat governor scott walker for his assaults on workers' rights, the working poor, the just plain poor, and education.  when I made a comment the day after that defeat a friend said she wished she could hear me preach the following sunday.  I realized I didn't need a pulpit to preach and composed the following, recording it last night, and putting imagery to it today.  it won't leave you feeling any better about the result--you shouldn't feel better about the result--but it will remind you where your priorities lie.

gudwara sahib (link)

again, this is a link to a post I've made on my class blog.  it is all I have time for tonight.

ocean of grass (link)

I don't know how kosher this is, hyperlinking between separate blog posts I've written, but as the intertubes is the newest old west frontier, I suspect anything goes.  I'm in the midst of a class, nearly ended now, that focuses on global encounters within an area and that involves a lot of reading, discussing, listening, and traveling.  I have to participate in a blog for that class and so am linking to it, since it's relevant to what I post here; I'll post there again before the end of the weekend or monday, and then again near the end of the week, and will link to those as well.  in addition, I'm also taking part in a junowrimo (the june version of the november novelwriting exercise) and trying to be diligent about keeping up a wordcount for that.

in the time of humiliating defeat

I'm tired of living on hope.  out here on the rim we made history by forcing a recall election of scott walker, only the third time in american history, and then put up against him the same guy who was trounced by him two years ago and who was now trounced by him again, only by a larger margin.  depressing doesn't begin to cover how some of us feel.

it's gutwrenching to see this happen, to have our hopes, which are all we have, really, dashed so completely and irrevocably, to have to watch the opposing team, carried to victory, dance in the end zone and then rub our faces in it.  that, of course, is politics, but it's depressing to no end.  and disheartening.  and humiliating.

in the midst of all this, as I sat and watched the returns and got further and further into a funk, my dog who is nearly always nervous and afraid came in and lept onto the couch with me, then leaned against me until she was folded on my lap and compressed against my chest like she was a blade and I was the handlecover she was melded to.  I petted her, saying "you really do count on me, don't you?"  her respoonse was a soft, thick thump of her tail.  her eyes closed and she fell into a deep sleep, trusting that I would keep her from sliding off me.

this, in the midst of all the rest, is what we must do.  we must hug and hold one another and be equal to the trust of our dogs.