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.
Friday, March 20, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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