Thursday, December 24, 2009

Rusted Sleigh Runners




As Santa heads home for a long winter's nap, Mrs. Claus may want to have some blade wax ready for him. We've had so much rain here that after today's deliveries, he'll need to tend to his sleigh runners before they rust on through.

I've learned some practical stuff about dealing with Christmas this year; in a spirit of magnanimous generosity, I will share this wisdom with all who care to keep reading:

#1 Don't choose the powdered doughnuts from the buffet if you are wearing black trousers. Confectioner's sugar has built-in sensors and short-range levitation capabilities that enable it to fly to dark colored surfaces.

#2 Some gifts are almost worse than receiving no gift at all. It is not that anything is inherently wrong with the gift per se. I certainly don't have any personal animosity against lightly scented bath soap or its companion lip gloss. The problem is that—and I will allow an exception for blind gift exchanges where you must draw numbers and don't know who the recipient might be—receiving a pre-packaged bath set from someone who knows me is like having them scream at me, "I could not care less about you! I had to go waste my precious time and money on this stupid social convention just to keep up appearances so I won't look bad." Except that it doesn't work. The giver will still come off looking like someone who has all the shallowness, the vapidity, and the insipid empathy of a Malibu Barbie doll. In other words, buying pre-packaged selections on the end-aisle display directly across from the checkout just because you "have to give a gift" will make you look like the unimaginative mindless twit that you are. A two-finger rendition of Heart & Soul would be far more impressive. At least there would be some light-hearted irony in being blown off.

#3 Christmas Eve MUST be on the night before Christmas. Our church tried to move it a day earlier to fall on Wednesday this year. I guess the staff is set up for Wednesday night services and they probably figured that holding two evening services in a row was asking too much. But it is wrong to short-sheet Christmas Eve. When half your family is employed in retail and others must come in from out-of-town, you just can't expect them to show up for a candlelight service a day early. Getting gypped out of a pleasant tradition stinks.

#4 All the effort you put into making happy memories is worth it; if not this year, then someday. When my kids were little, I wanted Christmas to be a happy time for them. Now that they are in their twenties, I am finally reaping the satisfaction of learning that I succeeded. There is something better than seeing a smile on a child's face, and that is having that adult child tell you that they remember smiling.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Christmas Skittishness



We had the annual Christmas children's pageant at church today. It was a scaled down version this year—somewhat befitting a precarious economy, congregants out of work, and the unexpected recent passing of our pastor's father. Nonetheless, it had all the requisite elements of a terrific kid's Christmas show:
It had the mumbled lines for the audience to guess at; it had the sweetheart who couldn't decide if she wanted to be onstage, and so walked off as soon as she realized she didn't know all the lyrics; it had the show-stealer who sang her Fa-la-la's at twice the decibels of everyone else; it had the kid in the back row who just had to pick his booger, (and can't you feel his mom cringing in the pew even now?); and it had the angel who, instead of a fallen halo, this year sported a broken wing. The only thing really absent, and it was absent in a good way, was the squealing feedback of a mike.

Most of all, it had heart. And in the end, it is the heart that really matters. It was fun, playful, even pushing into frivolity. Yet it still covered the essential message that God came to be with us.
And that is reason to celebrate.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Things My Sunday School Teachers Got Wrong

Kids are impressionable. Someday I would like to write a book about all the wrong impressions I got in Sunday School. The funniest one isn't my wrong impression, but I do remember the class where the teacher said it. It was the five-year-old classroom at the end of the first-floor hallway. The teacher wanted to make Jesus "more real" for us kids so she described his clothes and what he must have looked like. She told us that he probably had brown eyes and an olive complexion, like most kids who were from Nazareth.

Fast Forward seven years and I am in a seventh-grade English class assigned to write about a funny misunderstanding. I don't know what I wrote; it was probably pretty dull. But one of the other boys in the class wrote about what happened when he got home from church that day years ago. He told his mom that the teacher said Jesus was a Martian. He was quite insistent about it. (Do you know where this is going yet?) His mom called the teacher and asked what was going on. They could not figure it out at first. Finally the mom asked her son why he thought the teacher said that Jesus was a Martian. To which Mike replied, "She did, mom. She told us he had green skin." His mom called the teacher back with this new information and they finally figured out that 'olive complexion' got rewired into 'green skin.' Apparently his family had many chuckles over that.

My stories are not as humorous. My book, if it ever gets written, will be mostly about immature interpretations; a fistful of examples of where scripture was "dumbed down" for kids, with results that slid woefully off-course; and a few things that were outright lies.

At least one chapter will be based on Matthew 24:12 – Because lawlessness is increased, the love of many will grow cold.

My Sunday school teachers never passed up a chance to practice behavior modification by an appeal to conscience. According to them, this verse meant that being naughty causes you to lose your love for Jesus. That may be, but it is not the context of this verse. This verse actually merges the verboten mixing of religion and politics. It is speaking of the lawlessness of people who hold authority over others. When anyone in authority, from the beat cop to the President, acts in a lawless manner, most people start wondering, 'If God is so all-fired good, the why does He let them get away with it?" (And if I ever write my book, I'll answer that, but in the meantime I'll stick with the effect of the lawlessness.) The love of most people will grow cold as a result of the unchecked lawlessness they see around them daily.

My Sunday school teachers taught it the opposite way around. Granted, there's a vicious circle of cause and effect that hardens people once the spiral has begun; but this verse justly puts the blame on the lawlessness of corrupt authority. The next verse implies that their victims end up in hell; only those who stand firm to the end will be saved.

So, given crooked leadership, what is your responsibility?

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Brightening Up a Little


"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.

"So it is."

"And freezing."

"Is it?"

"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."

Monday, October 12, 2009

Shipwrecking Columbus



I was going to write about Columbus Day. I had a cute little graphic picked out and everything, see? But this blog is about life along the rabbit trail and exploring where it may lead. This week it led to Obama getting the Ignoble Peace Affirmation.


A contributor identified as mtlmnr49 had this to say on Yahoo!Answers:
The Nobel Prize committee clearly supports and endorses an agenda that reduces the role of the United States in the world, promotes global governance over national sovereignty, and brings about equality among nations by reducing the standard of living of prosperous nations rather than promoting economic freedom in the developing world.

When examining the records of the last three US politicians to win the Peace prize, the agenda of the committee is easily seen. Woodrow Wilson's work in subjugating national sovereignty to the League of Nations won him the prize in 1919, Jimmy Carter's 2002 Peace prize was given in support of his opposition to the US's right to defend itself without authorization from an international authority, and Al Gore won the prize for endorsing a policy that requires the Western World to lower its standard of living by up to 30% in the hopes that it will lower global temperatures by less than 1 degree over 100 years.

It was upon reading this that the rabbit trail forked away from my intended comments on Christopher Columbus's family life and toward the award.

I think that it is important for those folks who do not wish to sound foolish when commenting on this event to realize that nominations for this prize closed eleven days after Obama's inauguration. Eleven days, or twelve if you count parts of days, because the nominations closed February 1, 2009, but I can be generous—call it less than two weeks, then.

Clearly this prize was awarded, not based on verifiable actions and accomplishments, but upon what a small group of people with the power to make this decision alleged to be true.

Now I ask you, are you going to live your life and make choices that affect others as if Obama is bringing peace on earth?

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Lapbooker Freebie


Download N Go
Spice up your homeschool with sweet apple cider, pop some corn, and decorate with colorful autumn finds! Embark on a wonderful learning adventure about this season and all that it holds. Examine how seasons change, find out what autumn is all about, discover the life cycle of pumpkins and apples, see how candy corn is made, and much more.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Pious mercy is a symptom of sin.

My great thesis for this week is:
Pious mercy is a symptom of sin.

I know, it sounds a bit off, right? Pious is good. Mercy is good. Since when do two positives make a negative?

Not in the math books, perhaps. But in real life it does in the case of pious mercy.


I posit that celerity in granting pious mercy is frequently indicative of hidden sin in the life of the grantor.

They "forgive" quickly because they do not wish to be too closely scrutinized themselves. Swept neatly under the rug. Or so they wish. It is the old 'judge not, that you be not judged' crowd.

Most folks won't venture to pray as David did in Psalm 59:5 when he implores God, "Do not be gracious to any who are treacherous in iniquity."

Why not? Is it mean to want the wicked to fail? Our cultural answer is yes, that is mean. The scriptural answer is no, that is righteous.

The remarkable thing is that there are scriptural promises of the righteous being able to laugh at the downfall of the wicked. That must take tremendous depth of maturity. Or else purity.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Flood of 2009

The Stats:
The numbers are in, and for the eight-day period beginning Monday, September 14 and ending Tuesday, September 22, our area recorded in excess of 18 inches of rain. Most of the week had been intermittent showers. When it did shower, the rain fell gently to moderately. The creek had been running about 4" deep before the rains began. By Saturday afternoon it had risen another 3 feet, but was still a full foot below the bank. We had very steady rains from mid-night Saturday through noon on Sunday, and when I checked on Sunday afternoon, the creek had flooded into the usual low areas that get washed out a few days every year. Sunday night was stormy and thundery all night long. By mid-morning on Monday the 21, we had over 18 feet of water in the woods.

The Story:
We have a fairly long trail through our 7-acre woods. It dips and rises and dips again before reaching the creek. After a week of rain, over three-fourths of it was under water. Not only did we have beeches in the glen, we had beaches. This, of course, is far too tempting for young men with a sense of adventure. 'Time to grab the inner tubes and go for a swim!

A flooded wood is not a pond, no matter how much it may look like one. At the bottom of a pond you might find worms, some insect larvae, maybe a mussel, and a lot of mud. The worms like to stay in the mud. At the bottom of a flooded wood, you will find flooded ant hills. The ants do not like to say in a flooded ant mound. So they don't. The ants will swim for their lives!

It turns out that if an ant finds someone swimming through the forest, their little ant brains think, "Oh whee! A resting place!" If an ant does it, I'm not sure if it is still called a beeline. I suppose it would more accurately be an antline. But anyway, that is what they make toward people who take adventuresome swims through the woods.

You may need that information someday. Now you are prepared.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Perseid Meteor Shower

`

Once again, the Perseids have proven themselves to be harbingers of inclement weather. Even during drought conditions of former years they succeeded in drawing an overcastting of diaphanous clouds—except for the year that the date coincided with a near-full moon. That year the wash-out was from light, not water. (FYI - This year's moon is a waning gibbous one.)

Perseids (sometimes Perseides) is a patronymic of Perseus, used to designate his descendants. And Perseus was the Greek champion of mythology, son of Zeus and Danaë. Not with the happiest of childhoods, young Perseus was thrown into a sea chest with his mother and drifted to the island of Seriphos where they were rescued by a fisherman—or maybe not. The old stories do not always agree. As an adult, he was the hero who bagged the head of Medusa. Killing, danger, and high adventure ensued, but eventually he saved and married Andromeda and fathered Perses. Today, the ancient heroes are remembered in the stars, when you can see them.
________________________________________
For more ~ http://www.qsl.net/w8wn/hscw/prop/perseids.html

Monday, August 3, 2009

Forum Musings

At one of the online communities I sometimes visit, the question arose, "Why aren't parents protected, or at least given the benefit of the doubt when they believe they are acting in their child's best interests?" It was rhetorical, but what do I care? I have a ready answer.

Parents are not protected because our nation, as a corporate body, has lost her knowledge of God—because many people of the past two generations never obtained such knowledge to begin with.

I have heard social workers, educated people who would be highly offended if you suggested that they were not 'good Christians,' say that the Bible is wrong, that it was written for a primitive tribal culture, and that there are things more important than parental love.

If you believe the scriptures, God is calling them fools. It's all there in Proverbs 1:22, "Scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools hate knowledge." The New Testament covers it again in Romans 1:21-32. They just do not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, (except when it builds them up, of course.)

Parents are not respected because parenthood is one of the most God-like roles a human can fulfill. People who have not grown up with knowledge of God do not trust Him. They feel safer trusting public schools and government and the courts.

I am not posting to turn this into a parental rights diatribe, (though admittedly, the previous paragraphs could be framed into a good introduction for one.) Quite the opposite; while reading about societal disrespect for parenthood, I had another revelation. After parenthood, being a judge is another God-like role a human can fulfill. If the Church ever gets her act together and starts preaching sound doctrine on the Judgment of God, then judges won't be respected anymore than parents are. There may be a silver lining to that, but it will be a filmy one.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Sawdust

My memories of sawdust are linked with summertime. My dad would borrow his brother's farm truck and pick up a load of sawdust at the local mill. Soon it mulched the roots of the sugar maple Swing Tree in our back yard.

The Swing Tree was home to two homemade swings. The Little Swing hung from a low branch as was no more exciting than the swings at the park. But the Big Swing was quite another matter. It could soar. From the big swing you could see over the tops of the corn stalks and a quarter-mile down the road to the next neighbor. It could swing high enough to inspire fearless dreams and make any fantasy seem possible.

New sawdust smelled wonderful and gave the sense of a cushiony landing should the rope break. Fortunately, I don’t remember ever having to test that second attribute. What I do remember are the ants. Big, black, wood-chomping ants. They thought sawdust made a wonderful homestead. I disagreed.

Last Sunday's warm and breezy afternoon was the setting for our church picnic, held in an open air pavilion at a local park. The ground was clay, packed with remnants of gravel. It was the dearth of cushiony flooring that led to the unlikely topic: sawdust.

One woman commented that what the place needed was a good layer of sawdust. Another, agreeing, told of how she associated sawdust with old-time summer tent revivals. It occurred to me that I haven't seen sawdust used as a ground cover in years! I think it must all be glued into particleboard or pressed into fake logs now days.

When I began writing, I had a brilliant point in mind, but the sawdust has gone the way of scarecrow brains now and I don't remember what it was.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Blueberry Mornings

I like cool summer mornings. I like the clarity of the light. I like the optimism of the birdsongs. I like the settled freedom of calm air. So, other than an encounter with the occasional dew-strung spider web, what is not to like about picking blueberries?

And that is how I've been able to spend my early mornings of late, picking a cup of breakfast. Today's repast had been pre-washed by midnight thunderstorms, the berries mostly at shoulder-height, just ripe for the plucking.

The gardening of Eden must have been this easy. No sweat. No thorns. No curse.

Amid all these enjoyments, it occurred to me that blueberries are not blue; not really. The smallest ones were acid green, later adding flecks of vermillion. The maturing berries grew in successively deepening wines until they reached an indigo darkness. Then they lightened again in full ripeness. At best, a blueberry is bluish.

There ought to be a word!
And as it turns out, there is. A couple of them.

Caesious – being the color of lavender; with a slight blush of gray. This word also has the distinction of using all the vowels in order!

Glaucous – this botanical term refers to the waxy grayish-bluish-whitish coating. Grapes, plums, and blueberries are all glaucous.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Happy Birthday USA

I have been reading about our nation's founders this week. The more I read, the more I uncover the abysmal ignorance of Sheryl C., a social worker who once snottily asserted that our country was founded on violence. To the contrary, our forefathers exemplified patience and probity far beyond that which is natural to man. They also understood true peace with a depth of spirit that cannot be taught in a classroom.

The patriots of the 1770s knew that slaves under the yoke are not at peace, they are only compliant. They had seen King George III repeatedly increase the yoke.

In a different time and place, Paul wrote to the Galatians, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." 5:1

Only a fool could believe our nation was founded on violence. It was founded on standing firm. Our founders were indeed Supermen who believed in Truth, in Justice, and in the American Way being tethered to such principles.

Monday, May 25, 2009

The Importance of Remembering the Past

Memorial Day, more than any other holiday, has an aura of poetry. A day of mourning, a day to remember; like good poetry, we can derive wisdom from it.

The educator part of me is always looking for a new & improved teaching strategy. But in this no-nonsense holiday at the ending of Spring, I am finding the importance of the ancient & proven.

Memorials quite literally date back to the ending of time immemorial. For once a record, a tradition, or a monument came to be, so did a continuity of memory. Fathers could pass memories and purpose on to the next generation. Purposeful remembrance shows care and oversight; it defines value.

Memorials give us a 'bigger picture' viewpoint. It is often easier to see God in a sweep of history than it is to feel Him in the urgency of the moment.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Tuesday Afternoon in the Shire

Ready for some Moody Blues?

Tuesday, afternoon,
I'm just beginning to see, now I'm on my way.
It doesn't matter to me, chasing the clouds away.
Something, calls to me,
The trees are drawing me near, I've got to find out why?
Those gentle voices I hear, explain it all with a sigh.

I'm looking at myself reflections of my mind,
It's just the kind of day to leave myself behind.
So gently swaying through the fairyland of love,
If you'll just come with me you'll see the beauty of

Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon.


Visa check card has been showing a Tuesday afternoon at the aquarium ad for a couple months now; I think it is finally starting to sink in and become an effective ad campaign because the Moody Blues background music has been flowing through the quiet moments of thought most of the afternoon—which happens to be Tuesday's.

I think the adorable little girl in the commercial must be part hobbit. Yes, there is a familial kind of resemblance to Elijah Wood, but more than that her expressions capture the delight of being in awe. I think that is the worldview Tolkien wanted to give his hobbits: a pleasure in the weekday wonders.

Friday, April 24, 2009

National Arbor Day 2009


...then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice
before the Lord" for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth.
Bible, Psalms XCVI, v. 12-13


Arbor Day doesn't seem to get as much publicity as it once did, now that it has been overshadowed by Earth Day. I think Arbor Day is a holiday the Lord would enjoy; after all, He planted trees. God planted in Eden toward the east— the direction of beginnings, the direction of His return.

Planting a tree puts one in touch with eternity. Digging in the earth’s elements is always a bit like connecting with the ancient—mankind’s primeval assignment on the earth: to cultivate it and keep it. And yet rarely do we feel such hope of reaching to the future as we do when planting trees; living monuments that endure for generations.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Tax Time and the Old Testament

The Old Testament opens the topic of taxation in Genesis 41 with the story of Joseph and Pharaoh. Joseph had interpreted the Pharaoh's dreams as omens of seven years of prosperity and seven subsequent years of famine. After a bit of consultation, Pharaoh pulled out his signet ring and put Joseph in charge of coming up with an economic plan.

The basic plan is outlined in verse 34: Let Pharaoh exact a fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt in the seven years of abundance. A fifth part is a 20% tax rate.

Rabbi Lapin comments on this: That an outsider's recommendation to tax an entire country stretches credibility. That his subjects also found the recommendation pleasing can mean only one thing— The tax rate they were anticipating, reports Talmudic tradition, was considerably higher than Joseph's 20%.

A reasonable tax plan which allowed the Egyptians to keep 80% of their labors and promised protection against the future famine actually spurred the economy on. Verse 49 reports, "Thus Joseph stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it, for it was beyond measure."


Yet another mention of taxation is found in Proverbs 12:24. "The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute." Under tribute means subject to taxation. Some translations read put to forced labor. Forced labor is work done without payment or benefit, which goes against the biblical principle that a workman is worthy of his hire.

According to the 11th century sage, Rabbi Solomon Yitzchaki, this passage warns that excessive taxation hinders productivity and comes to pass only through the laziness and indifference of citizens who decline to resist oppression. In other words, resisting a government's impulse to tax requires vigilance and energy.




Information pertaining to the rabbis was taken from an undated Wall Street Journal article.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Good Friday Recollections

My earliest memory of Easter is actually a Good Friday memory. My mother and I were outside by the backyard clothesline. She had done a wash earlier in the day and by now the bed sheets were dry and rippling rather vigorously in the wind. We were there to rescue all the clothes off the line before the raindrops would hit. My job was to hold the clothespin bag and collect all the clothespins.

Where we were standing, and all the way to the south and southeast, all was gloriously sunny. Jonquils nodded their reflections of the deepest yellows. No leaves filled out the trees yet, and the sunlight that filtered though the branches lit up the greenest grass of the year. But in the rest of the sky, the dark clouds of an impending thunderstorm were building.

I remember mom commenting that it was almost 3 o'clock in the afternoon and a storm was coming, much like the storm that came the afternoon Jesus died on the cross. That was a very poignant moment that seemed bigger than life. Looking one direction, the world seemed fully peaceful and ready to bloom into new spring life. But turn around—and it seemed all the forces of the universe were assembling in the heavens and about to release their fury.

No doubt, extra ions were in the atmosphere. I remember an electrifying clarity of life and death vying across time and space. It was profound.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

April Fools

I am happy, or perhaps more accurately relieved, that my kids have outgrown the silliess of an April Fools's day prank.

Which is not to say that I don't appreciate a good joke. I just don't appreciate being the object of the joke. Perfectly reasonable. I still like to hear about them.

Several years ago I came across a website for the Museum of Hoaxes. The brick and mortar museum is in San Diego, California—I think—if they didn't just make it up. There is a virtual museum that anyone can visit here: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/

They list 100 April Fool's Day hoaxes, but I'm going to comment only on numbers #5 and #7.

#5 is The Guardian newspaper's stunt from 1977 when they described an archipelago, The Republic of San Serriffe, with a set of two major semi-colon-shaped islands in the Indian Ocean. The two primary islands were called Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. The capital of Bodoni was on the larger upper island. The smaller island had a swampy interior as well as a forested area which was the habitat of the national bird, the Kwote.

I love the typography typology. That alone makes it fun. But the rest of the story was in its marketing success. Over half of the layout was advertising, and these were big advertisers that the average person would recognize: Texaco, Kodak, Guinness. Alas, great economic leaders are hard to find. In 1989 General Pica was deposed by a cabal of senior officers; or so they said.

#7 is a circumspect story. Here, from 1998, was an article in New Mexicans for Science and Reason claiming that "the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0."

The creation of San Serriffe had been intended as a hoax. The article about changing the value of pi was intended as a parody. It seems the original author had wanted to make a statement about teaching religion in public schools. Perhaps he ought to have done a bit more research.


The closest the Bible ever comes to giving a value for pi is in 1 Kings 7:23. In a description of a bath crafted by Hiram the bronzeworker for Solomon's Temple, you can read that "he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about." The diameter is 10. The circumference is 30. That should be close enough for government work, but…

The Hebrew alphabet is alphanumeric: each Hebrew letter also has a numerical value and can be used as a number. ... The common word for circumference is qav. Here, however, the spelling of the word for circumference, qaveh, adds a heh (h).
The q has a value of 100; the v has a value of 6; thus, the normal spelling would yield a numerical value of 106. The addition of the h, with a value of 5, increases the numerical value to 111. This indicates an adjustment of the ratio 111/106, or 31.41509433962 cubits. Assuming that a cubit was 1.5 ft., this 15-foot-wide bowl would have had a circumference of 47.12388980385 feet.
This Hebrew "code" results in 47.12264150943 feet, or an error of less than 15 thousandths of an inch!

~ The answer to this difficulty was discovered by Shlomo Edward G. Belaga and appeared in Boaz Tsaban's Rabbinical Math page and is also reported in Grant Jeffrey's The Handwriting of God, Frontier Research Publications, Toronto Ontario, 1997.


Perhaps the measurement was not quite as foolish as it first appeared.


Friday, March 20, 2009

First Day of Spring

for spring break~

sciencetoymaker.org has a very cool water rocket.
Mr. Bumbledore does too.
And the dollar store is selling two kites for $1.

I am off to play. I can always write later.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

St. Patrick's Day

As a schoolchild, I loved St Patrick's Day for several reasons. Green was my favorite color—seeing all the kids wearing green on the same day was fun. We always had a party rather than classes after the final recess, and since they had not started mandating "nutritious" snacks back in those days, the room mothers usually showed up with cupcakes with thick green frosting. Mmm… And the Celtic fairytales they read then were—let's just say that I was young enough to believe that finding crocks of gold at the end of the rainbow still seemed more hopeful than foolish; totally oblivious to the metaphorical lesson.

Now, as an adult, I have a very different appreciation for the holiday. St. Patrick was one of the most successful missionaries who ever lived—and he wasn't Catholic after all! Patric (without the k) was a preacher's kid in Britain before the Roman's brought Catholicism that far west. He was captured by pirates when he was 16 and spent the next six years enslaved as a sheep herder in Ireland before a vision showed him how to escape. Later in life he felt a call to return to the druids of Ireland and share Christ. He is credited with baptizing 120,000 persons at a time when the total population was estimated at 300,000. Do the math. That is 40% of the entire island—and these were cruel human-sacrificing druids that he dealt with!

Only three of his writings survive, and none mention using the shamrock as an object lesson to explain the Trinity, so that may be the folklore of oral tradition, but one of the scriptures that he did quote about himself was Philippians 1:21. He did say that for him, to live is Christ. Honoring God was an aspiration that Patric was intimately familiar with and acted upon faithfully. No one had ever gone to convert a nation outside the rule of Rome until Patric. Many years later when the Goths and Vandals were overrunning the European continent, Patric's legacy helped preserve Christianity in the outpost of Ireland.

Monday, March 16, 2009

'Rabbit Trail' Is A Metaphor

No one knows, when first stumbled upon, what lies at the end of a rabbit trail. In the field they may veer left—or right, wholly at the impulses of the rabbits that made them. Figuratively, rabbit trails are designed by whimsy. They surely had an intentional beginning, but then they began drifting— the end is unseen.

And so it is that I invite anyone with a sense of adventure, a quest for small everyday wisdom, and an inclination to daydream to come and follow my rabbit trail for awhile. Pehaps it will take you to a different place than you'd expected.