Driving in the Snow...an Adventure

We had about 6 inches of snow in the past 24 hours, and as I did a bit of slipping around on the roads, I was thinking about an experience I had in the late 70s.

My brother was in college and was in a musical group that was going to perform at a small church in East Pitcairn, New York, which is right at the edge of the Adirondack Park…very rural and isolated…the middle of nowhere.  My mother wanted to go to the concert, and for reasons I don’t remember now, I was the only person available to take her.

It was January or February, and we had had considerable snow that year.  I had been in the area during the summer a couple of years earlier when I had been the nurse for a Girl Scout Camp, so I was fairly confident I would recognize the turn-off to East Pitcairn.  However, having a mental picture of the location in the summer and in the winter are two decidedly different things.  The mountains of snow had covered some of the signs and landmarks I had in mind.

We drove back and forth on the main highway multiple times unable to find the road.  Finally, my mother exclaimed, “There it is!”  She pointed to a pole which had a typical street sign reading East Pitcairn.  This was not the big green road sign and arrow I had pictured.  But, it did say “East Pitcairn,” and the road was plowed, and there were houses visible at the beginning of the road, so off we went.

We were not very far along, when we came over the crest of a hill and the plowing stopped.  I tried to back up, but the hill was so slippery that I couldn’t manage it.  I noticed that although the road wasn’t plowed, there were visible tracks, so I told my mother, “Well, someone else has been through here so let’s give it a try.”

I had driven with my husband enough to know that you cannot slow down in deep snow.  You just have to blast through and attempt to control the fishtailing of the car.  My mother was gripping the sides of her seat and had stiffened her body out like a board.  I said to her, “You better be praying.”  She replied, “I am!  I am!”

I don’t know how far we traveled when I said, “We have come quite a way and haven’t seen a single house.  If there is nothing over the next hill, I will have to stop and walk back to one of the houses we saw at the beginning of the road.”

Thankfully, as we came over the next hill, we could see the church.  It was at the other side of a T-shaped intersection.  I blasted out of the next snowdrift onto ice and couldn’t stop the car.  I said, “There’s the church and we are going to drive right in!”  I shot through the intersection…fortunately nothing was coming….and skidded to a stop in the church parking lot.

A bit shaken, we entered the church and found the concert already in progress.  Our late arrival was obvious to the attendees. 

After the program, a local lady came up and inquired whether we had had difficulty finding it.  We said that we had.  She asked which way we had come.  When we explained our route, her jaw dropped.  “Oh, my dear,” she gasped, “that isn’t a road in the winter.  It’s a snow mobile trail.”

Mike Pence is No Dummy

Tonight, I listened to the evening news, and story after story was about men being accused of and fired for inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature.  This is just crazy!  Matt Lauer could lock his office door from the inside with a button on his desk?  Why did they allow him to have that installed?  Katie Couric commented years ago that he frequently “pinched her ass” but no one saw this as a problem?  They just paid him $25 million a year and looked the other way?

Lauer is just the latest in a lengthy list.  Something has caused the dam to break and release all the dirt collected and stored over years of indiscretion.  In the past, women have been coerced into silence by powerful men.  They have been unwilling to risk their careers to hold men accountable, and men have behaved like animals.  Women who have come forward have been disbelieved and/or labeled as sluts.

There is lots of blame to go around here.  The notion that we evolved from lower life forms, rather than being created by a God to whom we are responsible, is a factor.  We have abandoned the notion of moral absolutes.  Women being desperate to advance their careers and willing to do anything is a problem.  Unequal treatment of women so that they are placed in such a horrible spot is an issue.  Women not understanding that men are turned on visually, and that the way they dress contributes is a factor.  Women are not turned on visually the same way men are and pretty much ignore this difference.  Someone will read this and be furious with me for “blaming the victim.”  But, as I said, there is plenty of blame to go around.  Everything in society is oversexualized.  Sex is used to sell and promote an unbelievable array of products.  Our children are exposed to blatant sexuality during prime-time television and through the lyrics in music blaring in public places. 

We are living in a cesspool!  It takes superhuman strength and vigilance on the part of both men and women to maintain any semblance of sexual purity and propriety while swimming in filth.

A few months back Mike Pence was criticized for saying he would not have dinner alone with a woman.  He takes his wife along.  I believe I read that he also leaves the office door open when meeting with a woman.  Liberal women were howling that this would create a situation where women could not advance in their professions.  Baloney!  It creates a safe environment in which women can advance without having to pass out sexual favors.  If every man was careful not to allow himself to be in a compromising situation, and every woman was careful not to allow herself to be drawn into one, the possibility of these incidents would dramatically lessen.  Nor could false accusations be made, if there was always a witness.  Exercising such precautions protects both the man and the woman.

We women believe that we have made great strides toward equality of opportunity.  I wonder how much of this advancement has been purchased with silence about what powerful men have done.  It has become time to remove that factor from the equation.  It is actually way past time.  But, I don’t know how we can bring about genuine change as long as we allow ourselves to think that standing for morality means one is “intolerant” of the beliefs of others.  There are some things which should NOT BE TOLERATED.

From Sea to Shining Sea

We lift above the bay and its bridges,

Heading toward the mountains,

An irrigated valley visible

Between their north to south ridges.

Shrouded in clouds,

I doze and waken

To a gray and barren

Moonscape.

No one could live here!

Long ago volcanism made it so.

A few roads are scratched,

Into the chalkboard.

Frozen lakes lie between

Craggy peaks

With snow on the deep lines

Of their northern faces.

The rigid fierceness gives way

To hundreds of miles

Of cozy quilt, designed cooperatively

By man and nature.

At first man’s pattern

Consists of circles, semi-circles

And Pac-men gobbling tiny dots,

Buildings, I suppose.

Nature has contributed

Streams snaking along,

Drawn by a tremoring hand,

Meandering.

From 35,000 feet

Depth perception fades.

I see feathers and fronds

Scattered over the quilt.

As the quilt spreads eastward

The pattern evolves,

More and more rectangles appear

Among the circles.

Finally, the quilt is all angular.

Dots of buildings

Are placed in the corners

Of the quadrilaterals.

I ponder that real people

Live in the dots,

And work the fields

That cluster around them.

I want to see,

The mighty Mississippi,

That cuts through, providing access,

To our heartland.

I search and wonder,

Is that it?

It is wide and has

An obvious flood plain.

Maybe not wide enough,

Angled too eastward,

Then I see it heading south,

Broader than my previous guess.

The clouds cast a veil,

Over the quilt.

Buildings, towns and wind farms,

Fade into the gauzy whiteness.

The sky is darkening,

Orange, pink and yellow

Encircle us on the horizon,

As we fly into evening.

Staring through clumps of cotton,

Occasional lights appear,

Specks of brilliance

On a darkened earth.

Then we descend

Through scattered clouds

Lights outline the river bank,

Docks and boats and highways.

In a day, I have traversed west to east,

A land once traveled east to west

By souls more courageous

And adventurous than I.

They put down roots in a barren plain,

And created the quilt.

They sought out the mountain passages

And endured the wasteland.

They stumbled wearily onward,

And reached the western sea.

We enjoy the fruits of their labors.

With appreciation may we stand united.

May their sacrifice not be wasted,

On a people too self-centered,

Too greedy, too thoughtless

Unwilling to cherish and defend.

Why Something?

Why something…

Instead of nothing?

Why suspend a speck of dust

In the trackless void of space?

Uniformity…

Disrupted

By a microscopic blip

On the radar of infinity.

A whisper…

Was spoken.

A gentle breath

Became a swirling vortex.

A galaxy…

Spun into being.

Fantastic complexity exploded,

Multiplied and radiated outward.

In the beginning…

Nothing became something.

The Spirit of God hovered,

Creating light and life.

The Perils of Protest---Harming Your Own Cause

There are many perfectly legitimate criticisms of Donald Trump.  Whether or not he is currently behaving circumspectly in regard to relationships with women, he certainly seems to have been inappropriate in the past.  He expresses himself in inflammatory ways causing embarrassment to our country and creeping us closer to open conflict with North Korea.  However, everything he does and says is not wrong.

Unfortunately, there is a liberal element in our society which seems bent on making him out to be the villain and idiot in every possible situation.  Things he says which are perfectly within reason are twisted in grotesque ways to seem nasty.  The current issue of condolence calls seems to be an example of this.

I listened to what Congresswoman Frederica Wilson had to say.  I have also listened to the video/audio released by one of the widows who received a condolence call from Trump.  He was compassionate, praised the fallen soldier, asked the widow questions about her family and invited her to visit him in the oval office if she was in Washington. 

Wilson, in addition to her earlier negative comments, is now declaring that she must be a “rock star” because Trump is paying attention to what she is saying.  I think it was her purpose to put herself on the national stage right from the get-go, and that she is guilty of using a widow’s pain for her own political gain.

Liberals need to back off and recognize that when they criticize everything, they lose the validity of all of their criticisms…even the legitimate ones.  Of course, this is also true of conservatives.  Although it wasn’t as extreme with Obama as it has been with Trump, conservatives made a lot of ridiculous jabs.  One which was especially offensive to me was the citing of Psalm 109:8  May his days be few; may another take his office.  That was a disgusting misuse of God’s word.  People may think they are being clever, when they are actually repulsive and harming the cause they seek to promote.

A couple of decades ago, I was on a three-county board for Health Systems Agency.  One evening when we were reviewing an application from Planned Parenthood, pro-lifers showed up for public comment and threw pictures of aborted fetuses on the table in front of those of us on the board.  There were others on the board beside me who were pro-life, and we were just cringing.  The person chairing the meeting actually said, “you are harming your own cause.”

When people feel so strongly about something that their emotions take over and rational thought disappears, they run the risk of torpedoing themselves and their position.  They look like madmen lashing out at every possible misstep on the enemy’s part, instead of targeting the specific problems over which they have a worthwhile complaint.

Both liberals and conservative are, and have been, guilty of this.  If this doesn’t stop, our society will dissolve into chaos as we shred one another.

A house divided against itself, cannot stand.  Abraham Lincoln

Protecting our Daughters

As parents, we have an obligation to protect our daughters from situations where unscrupulous males could prey upon them.  It isn’t just some creepy guy hanging out on the street corner who is a threat.  The creep may be a professional.

One of my daughters had lots of difficulties during her teenage years.  Our pediatrician recommended trying a psychologist who was new in town.  He told me the man had an extensive and lucrative practice in New York City, but that his wife was originally from Watertown and wanted to return to her roots.  They decided to maintain homes in both places.  She would live in the north country, and he would go back and forth working a day or two a week locally and the rest in New York City.  The pediatrician admitted that he didn’t really know anything about the psychologist, but his wife was a lovely person.

I was not going to send my vulnerable daughter to this person without checking him out myself first, so I made an appointment with him.  On the phone he told me that he did not normally counsel teenagers, but would meet with me and hear my concerns to see if he thought he could help.

His office was in the upstairs of an old Victorian house which seemed to be unoccupied except for his upstairs suite.  No one was in earshot, but that didn’t especially bother me initially.  I was seated about ten feet away from him, so I wasn’t ill at ease at first.  A rapid exit was possible if necessary.

I encountered the first problem when he was insistent that I tell him our family’s annual income.  I refused to do so, as this was none of his business.  I told him I did not see it as relevant.  He said he needed to know if part of our daughter’s problem was financial insecurity.  I told him that we were comfortable and that we had no financial worries, and in any event, we would never discuss such things with our children.  He then tried to impress me with how much he earned yearly.

After several more minutes of discussion, he asked me the bust size of all the women in the household….my daughter, her two sisters and myself.  I told him that had no relevance, at which point he stared me up and down and said that of course it did, and after all, “You are an attractive woman with no obvious physical defects.”

So clearly, I was NOT sending my daughter to this creep and the session was soon over.  I asked him how much I owed and pulled out my checkbook.  He told me that he could arrange for my insurance to pay for the session by saying I had come to him for something like “life adjustment” counseling or something similar.  I said, “No, I didn’t come for me.  I came to see if you were an appropriate person to whom I could send my daughter.”

I wrote the check and placed it on the table next to the door.  I was not about to walk up to him and hand it to him.  I was so angry that I actually considered dropping it on the floor, so he would have to stoop to pick it up.  I have sometimes wished that I had done that.

I reported all this to the pediatrician, who shook his head and said, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

A few months later, I read that the psychologist and his wife were divorced.  No surprise to me.

I was so glad that I had scoped out the situation before sending my daughter upstairs in a deserted house with an opportunistic predator.

The Validity of Scientific Inquiry

I know that it is popular to believe that religion and science are in opposition to each other, and that no thinking person would also believe the “myths” of the Bible.

My view is that God is a rational being and that he created the universe and all that is in it to function according to rational and knowable principles.  Science is an attempt to discover those principles and is in no way contradictory to a belief in a Creator and Sustainer.

A little research on the history of the laws of physics places beginning concepts as emerging about 600 years BCE.  Interestingly, this is also the era in which the book of Jeremiah was written.  A passage I read recently seems to refer to the laws of physics.

If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant....(Jeremiah 33:25-26)

The point of the passage is not the fixed laws, but the fact that the Lord will always be faithful to the people of Israel and the descendants of David.  But, his faithfulness is as firm as the laws governing day and night and heaven and earth.  In other words, He is acknowledging that he has in fact set up fixed laws…principles which govern the world we observe around us.  He is not asking us to believe in some magical or mystical elements that bring about the order we see.  He is not saying that someone pulls the sun across the sky behind his chariot.  He is saying that there are fixed laws which bring about the sunrise and sunset each day.  We know now that day and night are governed by the movement of planetary bodies.  God already knew that, of course, and knew we would one day figure it out.

He also understands the mysteries of subatomic particles and of dark matter and energy.  He doesn’t mind if we try to figure out his “fixed laws.”  Belief in him and scientific inquiry are perfectly compatible.

I believe anyone who genuinely seeks TRUTH will eventually be confronted with God himself.