Personal style

It is funny to notice how fashion seemsvto seemlessly flow from one extreme to the other without unattural jumps. It is a bit like evolution, or a pregnant belly, it changes gradually almost unpercievable hour by hour.

I was in my mid thirties before I felt like styles were matching what I liked. I actually never changed much what I liked, but I noticed I became more acceptable.

But, just as culture became a closer match mow it is moving away again. I think that is why we have "looks" for people of an age.  It is not a matter of physique, but matter of being stuck forever in a style. I will now dress like my grandmother simply because I am old. I still like what I like.

I remember Brandall saying that he preferred classic looks, and so if he found an article of clothing he liked, then he got several of them and appeared to wear the same clothes everyday. I like that.

I sort of do that same thing on a scale. I like an image anf use the same rules to dress everyday. I noticed that for a while everything and everyone seemed to be using the same laws. But we changed it. :)

Nothing

RAt first, I thought I was just realizing I was an idiot, no big deal, sure it hurts but knowing I am not like everyone else is nothing new.

But, it has fallen on me and crushed me wholly. I an grasping for meaning, purpose, et cetera. I am still me and stuff, I am just sick of being what everyone else needs and alone. It is compond because I have been studying the life of Ludwig Van Beethoven and I did not want to believe it, but he was,miserable, and I think, at least I have the Gospel. Do I? It has kept me alive, when I might have been happier dying before my life degenerated so much. I am debating going to try to find a piano to play cause at least I enjoy that.

I am utterly broken. And I am trying to consider why. And am hopeful. Isn't that a pattern? We need to hit rock bottom before sonething amazing occurs...I am imaginging a catastrophy and what is valuable enough to salvage? So far, I can only think of things I have been told to find valuable, not much I actually do.

Better get back to work. Gotta get Mary from school, soon.

Just a bit more...I was reading about John Chilton for FHE, which what I learned there was depressing, but I think they sacrificed and suffered so life would be better for us. But, he had been made a freeman, as a quaker before becoming a separatist.

What really upsets me is a thing that requires my attention, now though cause it has gone too far. Mary was begging to do an activity for FHE. I used to be thankful that Nick let's me do it, but he makes it miserable, and Mary Anne was so excited to do her part, so I let her choose an activity but Nick refused to take any part, typical, I do nit mind, but she does. She said, "but playing board games with your family is fun."but he still refused and said, "It can be." Urrgh! I wanted to explode and say, "This family could have a lot of fun if we had a real father in it, too." but, I only smiled thought it and played the game.  There's a whole lot more here, but I do not intend to tattle.

Job's wife

It started with a song, I was thinking about an idea proprigated in popular culture that loves and learns through stories. The fact that the hero is the first person, the one telling the story.

Pen and teller talked a bit about how magic is possible because man actually believes he can think about more than one thing, when actually, he cannot.

So, if we are seeing things from our point of view then we are the hero.

It always bothers me in terms of news stories and deaths. For example, the movie "The Secret of Nihm". It is a tale told by a mouse, making one sick mouse and a rat or two soooo significant, meanwhile a woman is raped and killed somewhere in an alley and because she is not headlining a movie we do not really concern ourselves.

Another song that I love by Nickleback When We Stand Together suddenly draws attention to soldiers being killed as you complain about your subpar breakfast...and they sing, about how we just turn off the tv and let it happen "over there" and return to what actually matters to us.

I do not know why but the song, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" felt so self-centered. "..of your plan to make me blue." Hardly, I imagine that was not the motivation of his once was lover. I wonder what we would think if we heard her song. I imagine her singing, "You don't  own me." But, nevertheless it was not intended to cause a pain, just cause it did.

(Brief pause for Wuthering Heights, and a scene in the Ralph Finnes/Juliet Binoche version, where Heathcliff marks a calendar all of the days Cathy spends with him vs. with the Lintons. He says, "It is to show that I DO take notice." She is hurting him, but makes it clear that was never her intent. If he wanted to spend time with her he ought to make such a prospect desirable.)

Ok, on to Job. He is the dude in the Bible whom God granted Satan the power to tempt and ensnare because God  was certain allowing such would not change Job's alliegence. And I was thinking how we all "coin the phrase" that "when it rains it pours", meaning that when one thing goes wrong they all do. That always reminds me of Job. He lost his house, bad. He lost his sons, bad. He lost his health, worse. And his wife died and his closest friends said he just ought to curse God and die, worst. And to me, it has always troubled me that his wife and children are easily replaced to make the ending happy, as if her life was a mere accessory to his.

I wonder what sort of story would be told if Job's wife was the central character. I get this idea not entirely originally either. One of my all-time favorite books was Jane Eyre and so, I had to know the story from the view point of Bertha Mason. That is what makes up the comoanion novel of Wide Sargasso Sea. I only actually read the sunopsis and watched a movie, cause none of it is true, ha ha ha as if Jane Eyre is.

My kids are always asking me if this or that Bible stories are true, too. The answer I give is,very important. And the answer I always give is "We believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly." That actually bothers me, too, but I will save that for another time. I go on to say that regardless if it is factual, the ideas a pure and help us be better people and that matters, and then tell a story I feel confident telling them is 100% true.

I'm a Savior

After helping Mary Anne's class, I had a beautiful experience that I want to write about.

"Weee! It's a miracle!" I imagined as I picked up a squiggley worm that was destined to die unless I intervened.

I was minding my own matters when I saw a sad little worm on the side walk trying to burrow into the cement. I thought briefly of it's struggle and how it was like my own, but I passed and that was that. A few paces away my guilt grabbed a hold of me. " That was a life." But, I saw several dead worms on the sidewalk. This one was alive and struggling. I stopped and turned back. I rescued that worm and resumed my journey then I giggled as I imagined it's suprise, and I realized that no matter how tiny or insignificant that act was it was a carachter builder. It was an indication to me of what I thought people ought to do. They ought to help one another as they can regardless if they ever feel any reward or thanks, but I did imagine a worm family saying thank you because they couldn't find something they needed and harrold worm had set out to find and in the process might have died, but I saved him! I felt good. It was magic to the worm, it could not probably explain how it ended up there. Um, maybe it could, cause it was a busy sidewalk and huge people are fairly common, but being rescued by one is not expected, I bet.

This lead me to consider again, the anonymity of giving and why it is done. I have several answers, but the one I wanted to record was that when the receiver doesn't know who to thank they treat everyone kinder. The anonymous gift increases the net kindness of a society. Hence in "Zion" more gifts are given with no thought for reward.

I had been given great gifts that I purposely did not thank, though. It was because my thanks would be a lesser gift than the one God would give. ..."they have their reward." So, my honest thought was if I do not thank them, they will get a greater blessing in heaven, "God who seeth in private shall reward openly", right?

Time to pick her up.

While walking

I was considering the differences between Joseph and Mary Anne. Both are very intelligent and gregarious, yet Mary is, with all of her boldness, far more reserved than Joseph. When in class, she always is in the middle somewhere or the end, whereas Joe was always in the front. And when exiting the building he ALWAYS held the door.

As I considered this, I fell into deep thought. The cumulation was that with more intelligence first comes what looks like humility, but ultimately, it is just waiting to see what others do because in that wisdom comes the notion that even the smartest thing is not the best thing, and by waiting one sees the consequences of others choices before making their own.

Law of conservation of Love

Love neither is created nor is it destroyed, but is merely transferred. :)

I'll say more later.

And such I would say...

I thought, "hey suppose the world really cared to listen to anything you had to say? Would you really say anything, then?" You bet I would, most of what I say is to the wind, which is to say it us said with no particular destination or audience in mind. But, what would I say if it was intended to be heard/understood?

I would want a conversation, in order to align my comments to what was understood as I am accustomed to, else it would be very cryptic and if understood, likely wrong. That is exactly what I would discuss.

It troubles me how we develop a structure to ideas and thoughts and then fit them to it to determine truth. I do it too, calling it my wall,each brick is well examined before it is allowed to become part of my building. But, hustory is built upon. The best example of what I mean is demonstrated by the work of a people called the Hoffa from the tv show Stargate Atlantis. The people do not start over to solve their problem each time their culture is dessimated by the wraith, they work hard to create the proverbial wheel so that future generations will not have to waste their time doing that. Each generation is able to probe farther than their predecessors to reach a goal. Make sense?

Ok, well, the trouble is that there is no one alive to validate, so a sort of multigenerational faith needs to be. Another way to think of it would be maybe gravity. No one spends time arguing with a physics professor about an equation that includes gravity as a constant, but I doubt he has any personal knowledge of how he knows it is correct. For instance, I was always given a constant number to include for the acceleration of gravity and I never questioned it out loud.

To even communicate with one another we need to agree that certain sounds represent ideas, etc. But take color for instant, we know what everyone refers to as blue, but how do we know what blue really is? Communication takes faith.

I am getting to my issue. Too many people get frustrated when their ideas of truth do not agree, which means not that they are being more reasonable, but value faith in one thing over another.

Kindergarten / death

Likely, I am alone in equating Kindergarten to death, but I still have the same feeling about them, and it isn't the typical remorse.

The reason I even thought this was because I was searching myself to know if I lacked feeling or something, cause sending my kids to kindergarten was not emotional like people say it is.

It is true that I am happy, and a bit excited mixed with anxiety, but I feel the same way I do about seeing a loved one who leaves mortality and goes alone to a place I do not really want to follow yet, but am happy for them.

My children know they can depend on me 100% and the farwell is only temporary. That helps, and makes the walk home very full of conversation!

Pandora / God connection

First off, if God speaks to us through media, it makes sense that he would use music. In fact, I read a quote that says that music carries a message to our hearts.

Also, when we hear of Heaven and angels, they are always singing or in the attitude of doing so.

My thought was about what a miracle Pandora is. I mean, personal radio for each of us. It makes one understand how God could possibly answer so many prayers, like the movie Bruce Almighty poked fun at.

I mean, however they use their gleaning algorithms, I end up hearing just tge right song at just the right time, no matter what time or station. Uncanny and this is just the product of mankind's ingenuity, imagine a God!

Shakespeare and David

I actually do not know why I hadn't seen it earlier, it seems obvious that David was to the tribes of Israel, more particularly, the house of Judah, what Shakespeare represents to us. That is why I love the story told in the movie "Anonymous" so much.

Oh, really?

I was interrupted from trying to think things through by this thought:

"The more one judges, the less one loves.”

― Honore de Balzac

And I must comment before I have any good thoughts.  If this is the case, the judgement must not be a correct one, as it does not involve love. So, if you judge someone liveable then it must paradoxically not be true.

Space elevator

Today, I was thinking about the possibility of an elevator to outerspace and it is reasonably possible, and yet people assume it is impossible, regardless of the science that proves it. It harkens the memory of a tower of Babel. I am sure it was foremost in your  thoughts when you read the title of this post even. And that is what made me really think about.

It was said that the Bible was not what it is claimed to have been, and that it's stories are not first hand accounts but tales recorded much later by scholars, be they religious scholars, to help an agenda. In this vein, the religious undertone of this tale is that man must be that man never assume they can perform on an equal level as God, the omnipotent. Because men tried to assert their challenging power, their languages were confused, teaching them humility and need. It also explained how so many languages came to be, like the great Greek Epics and stories of diety explain anything that seemed magical on could not be explained by any other means yet known. Thereby, man could explain Everything, and was born the common saying, that it was the will of the gods.

But, while I was thinking about a group of relgious scribes writting stories to assert control over their anxious peoples, I thought, "well played. Centuries later, we still believe that man cannot reach God." That is when I realized that my very disbelief is a testimony that Bible stories are true, wether or not they are factual, or as we, modernly consider accurate.

Sure, there are many things that are possible, but ought not be done, and the thing that holds me in my place is not the story of a group of men who united to try to achieve a thing greater than God, it is that it is better to be humble, that is true, ragardless how it is learned and it has not become a variable in any great equation that I know of yet,  but it restrains my belief and by so doing has more power than any scientific fact.

Role playing

As I considered stories I had created in my mind to explain things like myself, I created the finest story yet. This story was how mankind was manipulated and molded by a being with comprehension beyond our own.

This thought, though so longvto write out, came in an instant,  and with it, another similar story or way to comprehend what I could not understand in it's actual form. I thought of all of the simple little games my children play and seem to have so much fun playing that I want to play, too. It has lead to playing with dolls, cars and blocks, and even plastic food. But, more interestingly pertinent is rpg on the pc.

This realization explained to me why any "god" would want to live among men.

Baptism

I want to understand baptism, no one has talked or taught me about why so many Jews saught John the baptist, andcwhy he was killed. Why are they no longer baptized?

Who has the right?

Supposedly, it is determined that God was on your side as a king if you won in battle. That makes sense, but if David is responsible for killing Bathsheba's husband, by putting him on the front line, how is that murder, unless he did not believe God was going to protect his army....something that requires thought.