Category Archives: Writing

Art and Culture, Weather +Climate, Writing

Life-Long Learning

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7oaks250Imbolc    Waning Wild Moon

My weatherblog has been up for almost a month now at the Star-Tribune Weatherwatchers site.  The weather has not been interesting.  It has been either really cold or not so cold.  Little snow.  No storms.  Some days gloomy, some days not.  It taxes me metaphorically to comment.  I never appreciated how difficult attending to relatively stable conditions could be.  It makes the whole concept of news make a lot more sense.

I began yesterday a protracted period of study.  I need to get up to speed on the Sierra Club’s issues for the blog.  I have a special tour for Annie to put together, a piece on textiles and crafts.  In order to learn more about the weather I’ve decided to devote the next two or three weeks to cloud research since the type of cloud helps make the blog more weather savvy.

After my wondrous sheepshead night last week, I’ve also decided to read my two sheepshead books and see if I can pick up some tips for my play.  A big one:  14 trump, not 13.

On March 15th I have a presentation I’ve titled American Identity in the Time of Obama.  Work to do on that one, too.

Faith and Spirituality, Letters, Writing

A Bit More on the Humanities. OK, Maybe a Lot More

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 Winter    Waxing Wild Moon

I reproduce part of a David Brooks column here because it relates to the humanities thread I began a few posts ago.  He seems to counterpoise the liberal education as defined by Harvard against the institutional life devoted to what I would call a vocation.  This seems wrong-headed to me on a number of fronts, not least that the liberal arts education received its birth within the church and there is not much more institutional a creature than the church.

Vocation and its fit within an institution has been part of my life.  Ministry qualifies as one of the oldest professions, vocations, that exists.  Ordination confers upon you a responsibility to a particular institution, a responsibility defined by my Presbyterian vows to uphold the peace, unity and purity of the church.  The role of clergy specifically demands nurture of the institution and the tradition which it serves.  While in the Presbyterian church, I followed that vow with energy.

Brooks does not speak of the demand within any vocation and the institution they support:  law, medicine, education, even journalism for the prophetic voice.  This voice recognizes that traditions, in order to survive, must live and in living they must be constantly weighed in the crucible of every day practice.  Sometimes they fall short; the rote learning of the nineteenth century has given way to  learner centered education.  The church’s ministry, previously open only to men now has women in equal to greater numbers.  Continue reading A Bit More on the Humanities. OK, Maybe a Lot More →

Myth and Story, Weather +Climate, Writing

Brooding Over the Landscape

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Winter

Waning Wolf Moon

(note:  Weather reporting has moved to the Star-Tribune WeatherBlogs and my two weather websites, all of these have links under Andover Weather + on the right hand side bar.)

Last night I watched a bit of the Ravens and the Steelers.  As a Midwesterner my sympathies were with the rust bucket team from the Steel City.  They won. Now I have a half-hearted dog in the superbowl.  No, wait.  That was Michael Vick.  Anyhow.

Weather has become unremarkable.  Ordinary, garden variety winter in gray clothes, brooding over the landscape.  Though the temperature is more bearable, 10 degrees feels quite nice, the weather itself has taken on a dull tone.  We like variety here in the Upper Midwest and  our position in the center of North America gives it to us.  There are no mountains or oceans here to mediate or moderate; we get what rolls down from the north or blows up from the Gulf or over from the west.

We thrive on change.  When the weather becomes dull, it throws us back on other projects like work or chores.  Come on sky!

I wrote four pages yesterday on Red Earth, my first person account of what it was like to become Adam.  More today.

Of late, I’ve begun waking up at 6:00 AM.  I do not want to get up until 7:00 AM, that’s the whole point of my new routine.  At least for now I’ve chosen to lie there and think.   It’s quiet, I’m fully rested and an hours worth of thought seems a useful way to occupy myself until 7:00 AM.

Now onto the mind of Adam.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Myth and Story, Writing

American Identity: What Is It?

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2  steep rise 30.30 WNW9  wchill -5  Winter

Full Wolf Moon

Got my copy of the Mahabarata today, four doorstopper sized books.  You read a long book the same way you read a short one, one page at a time.

The seed database has most of the seeds entered with planting dates, inside and/or outside.  It will make the process of following the garden this year much easier.  It will also make evaluating the varieties and their production much simpler.  The garden has a straightforward demeanor this time of year.  It resides in the realm of fantasy, hard to even imagine with several inches of snowcover and windchills really cold.   The windchill just changed to -9.

Tomorrow I’m going to cover a meeting of the MN Senate Energy, Utilities, Technology and Communications Committee. The Sierra Club’s Government Relations person, Michelle Rosier, has a meeting in New Orleans until late in the week.  (Windchill now -10. )  This meeting has an interesting focus: Discussion of anticipated federal stimulus package.  In a state with 5B+ deficit, the conservation should reveal some lines of attack.

Emerson’s American Scholar contains his usual wise bits and some extraneous thoughts, but I’m half-way through it and he has not gotten to the American scholar yet.  I’m starting here on American identity piece:   American Identity in the Time of Obama.   Emerson’s time set about with clear intention to create an American character, an American identity.  If they could, we can, too.  But first I want to know what they did.

BYB:  I’m interested in the ex-pat perspective on American identity.

Weather +Climate, Writing

The Heart of Winter

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7  falls 30.13  W0 wchill 7  Winter

Full Wolf Moon

The Full Wolf Moon hangs high in the sky, hidden behind cloud cover.  It casts a ring of ice crystals, giving it a gem in a circular setting look.  The moon light suffuses the sky giving a bluish cast to the snow as it filters through the clouds.

Another busy day.  Tomorrow I preach at Groveland.  Preaching may not convey quite what I do.  If you read any of the presentations/sermons on the Liberal Religion page, you’ll get a better sense of what happens.  I love the prep and the writing, the delivery adds a feedback dimension that I find valuable.

The winter sits with its full weight upon the land here.  Snow covers the garden.  The deciduous trees have no leaves.  The air freezes in the nostrils and makes layers necessary.  Growth stopped; but the plant world has not died.  It only waits, gathering strength, making itself ready.

Winter has a somber tone, the weather serious and sometimes unrelenting.  A Minnesota winter can kill you, so you have to pay attention.  That makes it worthwhile.  Like climbing a volcano.

Faith and Spirituality, Weather +Climate, Writing

Beard Experiment Tells Tale

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-3  steep rise 29.99  W0 wchill -3  Winter

Waxing Gibbous Wolf Moon

The wind last night drove our bedroom windown open wider and the chilly night air blew on us early this morning.  We always sleep with the window at least partway open, but this larger portal made even the down comforters inadequate.  So we both woke up about 30 minutes or so earlier than usual.

Kate said last night, “You must be happy with what  you’re doing.”   I said, “Yeah, the political stuff is work I know.  I understand it in some depth.  Besides, a guy needs some validation now and then.”   Later, I asked her why she made that remark, “Oh.  You shaved your beard.  Not so much that fact, but that you were experimenting with it.” I was and I made it so peculiar that the only remaining option was to cut it all off, all the way off.  “When you’re not happy,” she went on, “You’re more controlled.  When you’re happier, you’re looser, more willing to try things.  That’s how I knew.”  Oh.  The clues we leave behind.

Homecomer is now done, but I have to edit it.  That’s today. Seed database underway, but far from done.  Business meeting today, too.

Friends, Sport, Weather +Climate, Writing

We Got Sizzle

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24  rises 29.89  NNW0 wchill 24   Winter

Waxing Crescent of the Wolf Moon

The Internet is a strange phenomenon.  It functions as a time machine, bringing the future just a bit before it arrives and churning the past as old acquaintances find you again through one of the search functions or social networking sites.

It’s a good thing for me, because I was not such a good communicator before the web arrived.  I wrote a few letters, but I’ve never liked the phone much and the only reunions I ever attend are those of my high school.  Now though with Facebook,  Myspace and e-mail those old acquaintances are not forgot and often brought to mind.

Wrote about three pages of a new Homecomer.  Much better.  I needed to make it a continuation of the first two pieces in the Heresy Moves West series.  I had conceived of them as a set from the beginning, but I hadn’t begun the other one as if it fit with them.

We have some kind of frozen precipitation coming down right now, but I don’t what to call it.  Snert.  Sleeze.  Maybe sneeze?  Frozen drizzle is so uninteresting.  Fizzle?  Hey, I got it.  Sizzle.

I bought two new snow shovels.  I have an unfortunate adventuresome spirit in the purchase of snow shovels.  This time I bought one of a kind I saw used on the U.P.  You figure they have 3 to 4 times the amount of snow we have, they must know something.  The other one has a blade made of a tough (I hope) plastic that won’t snag on the nails on our deck–at least that was my conclusion.  I may find out as soon as tomorrow morning.

Just finished a lower body work out and aerobics. Tomorrow AM all morning I’ll write, then watch the vikings.  May Johnny Unitas have mercy on my soul.

Writing

Errands Before the Storm

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18  steady 29.90  ENE7  wchill11  Winter

Waxing Crescent of the Wolf Moon

Gotta run a couple of errands before the next snow storm.  Gas for the snowblower.  A new snowshovel.  Old one delaminated at the handle insertion point.  Hit the grocery store.  Then, continue writing on Homecomer.  Started off in one direction yesterday, got about three pages in and decided I needed to start over.  It happens.

Cooking, Politics, Writing

Research, Writing, Meditation and Beef Broth

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6  bar steady 30.24  0mph  SW  windchill 6   Samhain

Waning Gibbous Moon of Long Nights

I made a beef broth today.  Took four hours to cook.  Now it’s ready but I have not tasted it yet.  I’ll probably use it as a base for soups.161_beef_stock_p928.jpg

Blew the snow from last night around 1pm after the city plows had gone by.

Did some research on the issues central to the Sierra Clubs work at the legislature this year.  Home work assigned by me since I still don’t know the terrain very well.

Got back to working out today after two days of feeling crummy after two hours on my feet at the Russian Museum and a couple of hours sitting beside the freeway.  Felt good.

Tomorrow I can begin research, writing and meditation.  About time.  I hope I can keep it up right along.