Why Can't It Be This Simple?
This is the last thing I want to contribute to the ongoing blogversations about religion and spirituality.
It seems to me that religion has two purposes: 1. to provide avenues for individuals to connect with what what they perceive as divine in the universe and 2. to provide a code of conduct so that we weak-willed humans have support in maintaining some sort of semblance of morality, honor, and ethics in lives constantly assaulted by all kinds of temptation to do harmful things to others and to ourselves.
I still don't understand
1. why all religions don't have just one commandment -- do under others as you would have them do unto you (because the old Golden Rule pretty much covers it all) and
2. why all of the diversities of connections to the divine aren't honored and respected as efforts in the right direction.
As it is, the way it is, we continue to have centuries of conflicting destructive Crusades; increasing violence and oppression against the weak and unprotected; hypocrisy and manipulation infusing the minds and hearts of leaders of all kinds etc. etc. What we have isn't working. Maybe it's just too complicated and we need to simplify. Simplicity of heart.
Saturday, March 09, 2002
March winds doth blow. We shall have snow.
After 60+ degrees today, we’ll have snow and freezing temperatures tomorrow, so the weather report says.
Today they were all out walking – some with their four-footed canes or high tech walkers; some with only their Rockports and slow, careful steps. I didn’t see the woman with the three-legged dog and realized that I hadn’t seen her in a couple of weeks. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but then, again……..
I took my mother outside this afternoon, and we walked around the building. The sun drenched warm, the breeze sighed mellow. Six geese and a pair of ducks descended on the defrosted pond. There are good days, and there are bad days. My mom was asleep by 7.
My daughter tells me that I can go and live with them at some point, after my mom is gone, after I decide that I don’t want to live alone any more, or after I realize that I can’t live alone any more. I wonder what the next phase of my life will become, when I don’t have the responsibilities that I now have.
My “fear of blogging” friend says that after she retires next year she’s going to travel – go wherever she wants when she wants. She’d like to have someone to travel with, and she’d prefer a male life (what’s left of it) partner, even though she’d also be happy traveling with me. We’ve always had a blast when we’ve gone away on vacations together. Only I don’t really like to travel, at least not often. I don’t think travelling is how I want to spend my time after…..
Sometimes I think I’d really like living with my son-in-law and daughter and their little boy (who will be born in July). I’ll help them buy a big house near the ocean where I’ll have a separate space all to myself where I can ruminate and write. I’ll take my grandson on long walks on the beach and teach him to cook all of my specialties. I’ll look like Judy Dench and age with grace and wisdom. And I will have one more great love affair before it’s not worth the trouble.
Then, again, I think – Tina Turner is the same age as I am. Conceivably, I can go on ballroom dancing as long as I can find someone to dance with and my feet hold out. I can keep my hair blonde and make maximum use of all the funky dance clothes and dance shoes that I have cramming my closets. I’ll keep Tina as my role model and age with presence, spunk, and mild irreverence. And I will have one more great love affair before it’s not worth the trouble.
Or maybe fate has something else in store for me. No matter what, though, there’s always the blog.
After 60+ degrees today, we’ll have snow and freezing temperatures tomorrow, so the weather report says.
Today they were all out walking – some with their four-footed canes or high tech walkers; some with only their Rockports and slow, careful steps. I didn’t see the woman with the three-legged dog and realized that I hadn’t seen her in a couple of weeks. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but then, again……..
I took my mother outside this afternoon, and we walked around the building. The sun drenched warm, the breeze sighed mellow. Six geese and a pair of ducks descended on the defrosted pond. There are good days, and there are bad days. My mom was asleep by 7.
My daughter tells me that I can go and live with them at some point, after my mom is gone, after I decide that I don’t want to live alone any more, or after I realize that I can’t live alone any more. I wonder what the next phase of my life will become, when I don’t have the responsibilities that I now have.
My “fear of blogging” friend says that after she retires next year she’s going to travel – go wherever she wants when she wants. She’d like to have someone to travel with, and she’d prefer a male life (what’s left of it) partner, even though she’d also be happy traveling with me. We’ve always had a blast when we’ve gone away on vacations together. Only I don’t really like to travel, at least not often. I don’t think travelling is how I want to spend my time after…..
Sometimes I think I’d really like living with my son-in-law and daughter and their little boy (who will be born in July). I’ll help them buy a big house near the ocean where I’ll have a separate space all to myself where I can ruminate and write. I’ll take my grandson on long walks on the beach and teach him to cook all of my specialties. I’ll look like Judy Dench and age with grace and wisdom. And I will have one more great love affair before it’s not worth the trouble.
Then, again, I think – Tina Turner is the same age as I am. Conceivably, I can go on ballroom dancing as long as I can find someone to dance with and my feet hold out. I can keep my hair blonde and make maximum use of all the funky dance clothes and dance shoes that I have cramming my closets. I’ll keep Tina as my role model and age with presence, spunk, and mild irreverence. And I will have one more great love affair before it’s not worth the trouble.
Or maybe fate has something else in store for me. No matter what, though, there’s always the blog.
Help!
Can someone tell me how to delete a post completely? I had somehow gotten into the "Future" editing section of BloggerPro, typed stuff in and then changed my mind and tried to delete it -- only it doesn't delete. Now there's a post date that comes up (like this one -- so I justed edited this text in) even though I want to delete the whole thing? And how do you get the topic line to come up in BloggerPro like it does for Blogsisters' posts? I need a Blogger for Dummies manual. ;-(
Can someone tell me how to delete a post completely? I had somehow gotten into the "Future" editing section of BloggerPro, typed stuff in and then changed my mind and tried to delete it -- only it doesn't delete. Now there's a post date that comes up (like this one -- so I justed edited this text in) even though I want to delete the whole thing? And how do you get the topic line to come up in BloggerPro like it does for Blogsisters' posts? I need a Blogger for Dummies manual. ;-(
When Information Really Was Free
In my local newspaper today, my favorite Oldster Curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, tells of his experience as a reporter in WWII:
Our current military leaders in the Pentagon would find the press operatoon in World War II hard to believe. In June of 1944, days after our invasion of France, I joined the first Army press camp. There were about 25 reporters there.....
Every morning, reporters from different organizatons paired up in the jeeps and sent out for the front lines..... The reporters in search of stories told no one where they were going. They didn't tell the fighting units they were coming. They asked permission of no one. They each went where they thought the story was and talked to the soldiers fighting the war. No one stopped us.
We had two censors, lieutenants, assigned to the camp. Their only job was to delete anything that might reveal troop locations. They were not charged with changing our copy to make it more favorable to Army commanders.
The American public learned first hand, in a day, more about the progress of World War II than it will learn in a year about what we're doing in Afghanistan or anywhere else our mililtary is in control of what the public is told.
That's wrong. It's un-American.
For all of the information-sharing technology that exists planet-wide, getting at the truth is harder than ever. Back in the 70s, I remember reading a book called Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered byE.F. Schumacher. I remember being impressed by his idea of "appropriate technology." Sometimes bigger is not better.
I still have the paperback version of that book, yellowed with age and underlined with yellow highlighter. I think it's time for me to re-read it. I wonder how the concepts fit it with the Cluetrain philosophies.
In my local newspaper today, my favorite Oldster Curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, tells of his experience as a reporter in WWII:
Our current military leaders in the Pentagon would find the press operatoon in World War II hard to believe. In June of 1944, days after our invasion of France, I joined the first Army press camp. There were about 25 reporters there.....
Every morning, reporters from different organizatons paired up in the jeeps and sent out for the front lines..... The reporters in search of stories told no one where they were going. They didn't tell the fighting units they were coming. They asked permission of no one. They each went where they thought the story was and talked to the soldiers fighting the war. No one stopped us.
We had two censors, lieutenants, assigned to the camp. Their only job was to delete anything that might reveal troop locations. They were not charged with changing our copy to make it more favorable to Army commanders.
The American public learned first hand, in a day, more about the progress of World War II than it will learn in a year about what we're doing in Afghanistan or anywhere else our mililtary is in control of what the public is told.
That's wrong. It's un-American.
For all of the information-sharing technology that exists planet-wide, getting at the truth is harder than ever. Back in the 70s, I remember reading a book called Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered byE.F. Schumacher. I remember being impressed by his idea of "appropriate technology." Sometimes bigger is not better.
I still have the paperback version of that book, yellowed with age and underlined with yellow highlighter. I think it's time for me to re-read it. I wonder how the concepts fit it with the Cluetrain philosophies.
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