David Trotwood Copperfield

I feel like I've made peace with Dickens. I only half read a Tale of Two Cities in high school and though I enjoyed Hard Times I still feel like I read it in an attempt to be like my big sister. I finished reading Copperfield last night and I cried and was sad to say good-bye to the characters just as David seemed to be a little sad the book was ending. Charles Dickens is so preachy about how the world should work, but I have to agree with him about so many things. He was even hard on his narrator. As he should have been. It does seem like Copperfield has a greater number of life lessons to teach than A Tale of Two Cities, but I guess it's shorter and so that's what the high schoolers get to read. Although I have no Trotwood in my life I do feel a kindred heart with Agnes. Or maybe I wish someone believed in my heart the way everyone believed in Agnes's. I am going to miss everyone. I love reading without a deadline.

Mickey

I just finished writing a sympathy card to a woman I used to work with. Her husband was an attorney who passed away last Friday too young. There is nothing good to say. I've been thinking about him and how nice it always was to see them together. I liked hearing him talk about her because it was so easy to see he loved her. Sorrow is the risk for all great love. After you subtract the sorrow, the net worth of love is joy.
Jesus taught us all about that.

K Demon Laughs at Time

(This is my first attempt to add a picture to the blog). I went exploring in Finney County today in search of a vague memory from junior high and a field trip where we stopped to look at a headstone with a laughing demon. This headstone appears at the head of a circle of 4 other stones. The others have names on them apparently of people who died on the Civilian Conservation Corps project which is to the southwest of this site. It's a dam with limestone rock and a "lake" which rarely, if ever, fills with water. The missing part of this stone says "to those who served camp kinney". If anyone has any alternate descriptions for the head on top of the marker I would be happy to hear about them. Although, the head seems strangely appropriate, an alternative explanation might be more comforting.

I was thinking with wonder later about the joy of discovery. Pondering how many other people had discovered this spot and how many people had known about it all along. It reminded me in a strange way of going to New York City. There are so many people who live there, and there are so many times that I've seen the places in movies and TV. Yet, the act of going there myself and riding the subway, seeing the Metropolitan Museum of Art, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, created a newness for those places that existed only for me and only in that moment. In some ways every moment is different even if you're doing the exact same thing with a 20 year span of time between the two visits.

For all of you who love hearing my name in song

I found one I had never heard! I'm so happy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRf_pl6pkB0&search=blue+hearts

Lacking the usual rah-rah

I was in Wichita Monday and Tuesday for conference. Skipping out on the Tuesday afternoon session yielded a much clearer mind and a better view about returning to work. Lunch and shoe shopping with my sister seemed far more important than the appellate court update (I received the handout and will be able to read it without the droning voices). This year's conference lacked a lot of the usual "rah-rah" of the previous conferences. Someone may have realized that no one is fooled: we are a boring lot, and that's why we are in this profession.

Driving there and back again wasn't too bad. The trip is still fairly short. The trip home began with Daniel Amos, followed by Bob Dylan. Groove Armada was playing as I turned off the highway to search out a church on the NRHP. I switched to Brennen Leigh before I stopped at the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Windthorst which is directly east of Wright, Kansas and definitely in SW Kansas. I felt like a real Kansas Explorer. I will have to go back when I have more time. We usually think of the great Catholic Churches being in NW Kansas, but I thought this one was on par with them. It was red brick, so it looked different, but the steeple could be seen for miles rising from the plain. The stained glass was amazing and came from Munich, Germany. As always, I was proud of my German Catholic heritage and a little sad to not still be a part of that church. Alas, I do not have a camera to share this site with you, but my Kansas Explorers Guide was great fun to have in my passenger seat, and I would recommend it to you on your next cross state trip or even across county.

I saw a lot of combines and too many windmills to count, but I knew I was getting close to home when I really saw the windmills turning in the wind.

Defunct truism attempts to reestablish former status

I had lived for years with the helpful truism that "whatever you think won't happen". My best friend and I in high school made a habit of thinking of the worse case scenario in order to prevent it from happening. However, a couple of years ago the truism failed me and I relegated it to superstition status. So with regard to yesterday's fight, there was none. In fact I think the whole issue is out of my hands. I'm not ready to begin using it as true, but I may try it out about some upcoming events.

Posting for posting's sake

I'm in grave danger (ok it's not grave) of being on time to work. It's Friday. Temps should be in the 100s by this afternoon. I'm letting my flowers get some water this morning before I leave and so they need me to tarry at home, right? I have a delicious 2nd cup of coffee. It's some sort of cinnamon flavor, way better than work coffee so I need to finish it before I go too. So it's important that no one see me at 8 am. They haven't all week. I'm theorizing that the long days which means short nights are making me miss sleep. We're getting about 8 hours of darkness and if I'm not asleep as soon as it's dark, I'm afraid my sleep is suffering because although I stay in bed after the sun rises, whatever sleep I get is fitful.

Thanks for letting me nervously jabber for a minute. I have a feeling that I'm going to have to fight for something today at work and I hate fighting. There are so few things which compel me to dig in my heels (I'm talking about my dress shoes. Imagine digging in brown faux alligator skin heels, just for fun), but this is going to be one of them.

I feel sorrow for Dr. Faustus

This is a very weird subject to broach, but I'm very curious. I was conversing with some people about the idea of hell. The interesting thing that came out during the conversation was how seriously both of them had thought about themselves being headed for hell. What occurred to me is that I personally have never thought of myself as going to hell. I'm not sure if that makes me less cultivated in my faith or not. There are so many Christians who believe scaring people with hell is the best way to bring people to Jesus and I've never been in that camp, but maybe that's because of me not considering it with reference to myself. The call of the question here is whether any of you really thought that way or if there are others like me that try as you might, consider the idea and dismiss it. I don't want to have a conversation about hell, just about whether you considered yourself a potential citizen and what effect that had on you. Although if no one wants to tell me that's ok... It is a strangely personal question.

FAUSTUS. How comes it then that thou art out of hell?

MEPHASTOPHILIS. Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,

And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,

Am not tormented with ten thousand hells

In being deprived of everlasting bliss!

--Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus

Happy 06/06/06

This article has several chuckling points regarding the number and this day.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/5051540.stm

I smell gas

Life has rushed through another week, though more eventful than most. I met my youngest nephew and he left as sweetly as he arrived. Visits are never long enough and there is always the impending doom of the ending. I guess I shouldn't be so melodramatic about it, but that's how I feel. I wish distance was easier, but I think of my ancestors and I shouldn't complain.

I learned an important lesson today in church. I am not able to make several batches of cookies with junior high students in the time allotted for Sunday School. In my defense, it wasn't my idea. I was the substitute and this was my simple task. Perhaps the elders walking through the kitchen slowed me down with their bits of advice. Maybe it was that the convection oven was too technologically advanced. I missed service because the cookies were finally pulled out of the oven just as I had to tell the kids to get. So I spent church time waiting for cookies to cool, doing dishes, throwing away the burned ones and cleaning up. It was completed with a long note to Megan (the usual instructor) about the sad state of the cookies I was leaving her to deliver to the transient shelter house. The best part of Sunday School was when the man tried to show me how to use the convection oven and I pointed out the overwhelming smell of gas. He reached up and turned on the fan...