Monthly Archives: January 2008

Family

RIP Aunt Dorothy

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Aunt Dorothy was a bright, vital, strong presence in our family and remained so until her death.  A loss for us all. 

The last of my aunts and uncles (with the exception of a divorced uncle by marriage).   My cousins and I are now the older generation, that body of relatives standing between the young ones and death.  A sobering, bracing position.  I like it.

Dorothy Louise McGregor Brown, 100, passed away January 16, 2008.  She was born October 26, 1907, in “Wheatland Territory,” Indian Territory, to Charles and Jenny Ellis.  She was the oldest of two brothers and three sisters.  Growing up, she worked hard on her grandparent’s farm, milking, harvesting wheat, corn, hay, and apples, and canning vegetables and fruits.  She loved music and played the piano for her church and funerals, played basketball, and was on the debate team.  She was the high school class president at Union City.  Dorothy watched her mother teach and chose teaching as her career too.  She attended both Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma to receive her teaching certificate.  She began teaching in a one-room school house in Lone Star, OK, then taught in Mustang.  She received her lifetime teaching certificate from Edmond’s State Teacher’s College, before taking a teaching position in Bartlesville.  In Bartlesville, she met and married James Wilson McGregor and they had four children, three sons and a daughter.  She was active in the church, teaching Sunday School and attending Women’s Guild, in the lives of her children, serving as scout leader and helping at school, and in the community, volunteering for the Mutual Girls Club board.  In the 1964, she received her bachelor’s degree from Tulsa University in History.  She resumed her teaching career in Bartlesville and taught a total of 14 year there.  After 37 years of marriage, she was widowed in 1972.  Always adventurous, she began attending church camps, traveling abroad extensively, and participating in Elderhostels, with her sisters and friends.  In 1980, she moved to Norman to help with her grandchildren.  She joined the First Presbyterian Church where she soon was recognized as an Outstanding Presbyterian Woman.  She continued her travels and learning adventures.  She audited carefully selected (choosing only the best professors, she shared) University of Oklahoma college classes.  She wrote a book about her life and dedicated it to her children.  She met Dr. Harley Proctor Brown at First Presbyterian Church and they were married on October 26, 1997, her ninetieth birthday.  They continued to travel, learn, and enjoy plays and concerts together, then moved to Rivermont Retirement Community in 2005, and to the Gardens at Rivermont in 2007.  She celebrated her centennial birthday and tenth wedding anniversary in October, 2007. 

General

Clear, Bright and Cold

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7  53%  22%  0mph WNW  bar29.81 steep fall  windchill3  Winter

            Waxing Gibbous Crescent Moon

Busy day so far.  Rechecking and reading questions for the highlights tour and the Asia tour tomorrow.  Editing and revising a very short article for the Muse on poetry and touring.  Beginning to tease out some graphics for my discussion session on whatever happened to religion’s influence in art?

Got a note today from Headwaters Parish, reminding me of my April 13th date with them and requesting more info.  Have to get a topic to them soon.  I’ll probably go with either some version of  the Transcendentalist presentation I plan to give at Groveland in March or a version of the religious influence in contemporary art.  I might, however, choose something completely different.

The day is clear, bright and cold.  Saturday looks like it will be quite chilly, at least -14, probably colder up here in the northern suburbs. 

General, News of the Strange, Politics

Which is More of A Health Threat: Al-Qaeda or Homeland Security?

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1  64%  25%  1mph WNW  bar29.97  windchill-1  Winter

            Waxing Gibbous Crescent Moon

OK.  This is interesting.

 Which is more of a threat to your health: Al Qaeda or the Department of Homeland Security?

“An intriguing new study suggests the answer is not so clear-cut. Although it’s impossible to calculate the pain that terrorist attacks inflict on victims and society, when statisticians look at cold numbers, they have variously estimated the chances of the average person dying in America at the hands of international terrorists to be comparable to the risk of dying from eating peanuts, being struck by an asteroid or drowning in a toilet.

But worrying about terrorism could be taking a toll on the hearts of millions of Americans. The evidence, published last week in the Archives of General Psychiatry, comes from researchers who began tracking the health of a representative sample of more than 2,700 Americans before September 2001. After the attacks of Sept. 11, the scientists monitored people’s fears of terrorism over the next several years and found that the most fearful people were three to five times more likely than the rest to receive diagnoses of new cardiovascular ailments.”

The article goes to identify roughly 10 million people affected by the, what else to call it, fear-mongering of the Department of Homeland Security.  Can anyone say Committee of Public Safety?  I agree with the article and the physicians that the health consequences to individuals are significant and in themselves alarming; but, I believe the larger health problem is that of the body politic.  10 million voters with a fear of terrorism so significant that it affects their personal health represent a voting bloc, a demagogues paradise.  Now let me see, have we had anyone playing the terrorism card in recent elections?

Going to the Walker Art Center tonight to see the TEAM, a group of performance artists who have a work called, Heartland.  I’ll let you know how it was. 

Faith and Spirituality, Family, General

I’m Feeling Born Again!

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20  65%  23%  1mph WNW bar30.04 steep rise  windchill 19  Winter

                    Waxing Gibbous Winter Moon

The truck had to go in today for repairs to its CV boots.  Which were leaking.  And its sway bar linkage.  And some plug somewhere on the differential. But it’s all better now.  Carlson Toyota has some more cash.

Kate and I went to the grocery store together for the second time in a month or so.  I do the grocery shopping, almost always alone, so it feels strange when we’re there together.  OK, but strange.  She likes to drive the grocery cart, so my role changes.  I know the store better than she does so I go find things while she forages among the vegetables and fruits.

Back home I worked on an article for the Docent Muse, trying with some frustration to find objects with poems translated.  I didn’t write down the label copy on Monday when I did my research since I thought I could find it online.  Not so easy.  There’s plenty of material for another article on poetry.

If we accept prevailing health notions as a secular form of salvation (Latin root word, salve, to heal or make whole), then I’m feeling born again.  My weight is down.  My exercise schedule continues to work.  My eating patterns have become downright healthy.  I have interesting intellectual work and creative work.  The relationships in my life are at an all time calm.  Hallelujah, brothers and sisters!

Faith and Spirituality

Religion Is the Least Interesting and Most Common Expression of Spirituality

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21  59%  23%  1mph E  bar29.99  steep fall windchill20  Winter

              First Quarter of the Cold Moon

A friend from California called me to ask, “What is the difference between religion and spirituality?”  This is an often asked question.  In part its puzzle represents what I believe is a category mistake.  There’s an assumption implicit in the question that religion and spirituality represent aspects or spheres of the same thing.  They don’t, at least as I understand the terms. 

Religion, for me, identifies the institutional, external vehicle necessary for the transmission of religious beliefs, teachings, history and insititutional form.  In the instance of the Roman Catholic Church, a familiar example, then, religion is everything from the institutional forms like the parish, the episcopacy, the Vatican, monasteries and convents to the magesterium (teachings) to statues and artworks and liturgy.  It may also include the inner life of an individual when that inner life attempts to conform itself to those forms and teachings.

Spirituality, on the other hand, is always an inner journey, but never one in which the goal is forcing that journey down a certain path.  Spirituality is about the freedom of the human spirit to search where it will for nourishment.  It may be that some of that path will include methods conceived by others:  contemplative prayer, zazein meditation, dream work,  psychoactive drugs or ecstatic dancing for example.  The end, though, cannot be forseen for the spirit is the essence, the heart, the soul of freedom and its seeking can never be constrained.  This is why spirituality is often seen as inimical to religion; it refuses boundaries and escapes from dogma like air leaving a punctured tire or a deflating balloon. 

In this understanding it is possible that religion and spirituality have nothing to do with each other, though I think the reality is otherwise, but the reverse of what most people imagine.  Spirituality, as I said, is often seen as an aspect or sphere of religion, when, in fact, religion is the least interesting and most common expression of a vital spirituality.  In this I follow Max Weber who referred to religion as institutionalized charisma.  The Christian church in all its expressions, according to Weber, represents the institutional accretions that grew up around the extraordinary work and teaching of the man Jesus.  According to Weber, the further and further we get from the original charismatic individual or group, the less and less vital and more and more bureaucratic a religion becomes.

 Let me know what you think.

Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate

Put on the Mad Bomber, Baby. It’s Cold Outside.

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-3  78%  27%  0mph WNW bar30.16  steady  windchill-3  Winter

            First Quarter of the Winter Moon

“Explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatize, or accept another’s dogmatism.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

La Ñina, el ñino’s cooler sister, has forced the jet stream to the south, leaving us without atomspheric protection from the frigid arctic air.  There is nothing but water and tundra between us and the North Pole, so when this happens our temperature plummets.  It was -9 at 7:00 AM this morning.  Though no one who doesn’t share our winter understands it, this is the weather that defines us as Minnesotans and most of us look forward to it.  It requires coping skills passed on from generation to generation and from natives to newcomers.  In the old days we brought our car batteries inside, bought engine block heaters.  Now we buy wicking thermal underwear, Mad Bomber hats, Sorel boots and put our cars in garages if we can.  When I moved to Minnesota in 1970, the seminary housing had electrical outlets in front of each parking spot in the student residence parking lot.  I thought, oh, my.

The snow cover has faded, though it’s still there. If we don’t get more snow, I’m going to have to lay down straw in a few spots, though the areas I had concerns about, mostly the newly planted garlic bed, already have their mulch.

Art and Culture

Warning! Radiation Hazard.

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10 59% 24% 3mph W bar30.28 steady  windchill6  Winter

            Waxing Crescent of the Winter Moon

Doing research for an article on touring and poetry, I wandered through the galleries this morning seeking out objects with poetry written on them, objects inspired by particular pieces of poetry and objects with poets.   The list is long and varied, much longer than you would think at first blush.  This suggests an intimate connection between literature and art in our collection.  The linkage goes deeper when we move beyond poetry and look at objects with, say, a biblical theme or a sutra or a story from any of the rich mythological traditions.  This area turns my crank.

The galleries have a wonderful emptiness on Mondays though there is activity.  In the Ukiyo-e gallery the scissor platform supported a cleaner taking care of a case.  In the Minnesota artists gallery crews from the registry officer had Ta-Coumba Aiken’s work down and had begun to prep the galleries for a new exhibit. The medieval gallery had lights and cameras as the staff photographer shot a madonna and child.  Most interesting, and a first time for me, was the sight of radiation hazard cones in the third floor gallery that connects the wings of the old McKim-White building with the newer building.

What were they up to?  We have a statue on a pedestal someone thinks may have an incorrect orientation.  This guy usually sits next to the elevator on the third floor, though after a long search I could find no description or name for him.  Does he really look toward the sky, rather than the northern wall?  Inquiring minds want to know so x-rays are the order.

With these exceptions, the galleries are empty and provide a kind of sanctuary filled with wonderful objects.  Sometimes I like to just browse, wait for an object to catch my eye or tickle some inner fancy, then spend time with it. 

After this, over to Common Roots for a gathering of a group interested in literature and the arts.  Sounds good to me, though the meeting reminded me of the  many I sat through with community and church groups when I used to participate in such groups for pay.  It was fun nonetheless.

Great Work, Our Land and Home

A Root Cellar in Andover

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19  65%  26%  1mph W  bar30.10 rises  windchill19  Winter

                Waxing Crescent of the Winter Moon

I like Sundays.  My workout schedule is 6 days a week and Sunday is a day off.   Much of my life Sunday, especially Sunday morning  was a work day, so to have the day off is a special treat in my world. 

Of course, like most Sundays, I will write today and spend some more time on the garden plan.  Might even watch a play-off game.  How ’bout them Packers?  Winning in the snow.  Northern football.  Brett Favre comes from Mississippi; must have been a shock when he first started in Green Bay.

Yesterday I looked over plans for root cellars.  Kate and I plan to put one in this next growing season.  I’m not sure where quite yet.  One book recommends digging into a hill, which makes sense, and I have a hill right outside the window here.  The problem is, if I dig it by hand, there are difficulties.  First order of business is to kill and remove the poison ivy.  Then, since this hill has seven oaks trees on its crest and a few stubby ash and oak there will be woody roots to remove.  Not to mention the actual digging.  That could be a good workout, though.

None of this is impossible, of course.  The question is whether I’m willing to do all the work by hand.  If we put the root cellar in the back, we could have a backhoe come in and do the heavy lifting, then all we’d have to do is frame it out, make steps and a floor, put in a roof and call it a cellar.  To get to the hill area I’d like to use, any heavy equipment would have to come over lawn and I’m not sure I want to do that.

 Noticed in the paper today that the election has world attention.  As well it might.  Having spent the last presidential election in Singapore, however, I can report that even then taxi drivers gave a damn about whom we elect as President.  Many foreign nationals are eager to see the Bush era come to an end.  I’m with them. 

Faith and Spirituality, GeekWorld

BMI 25.1, Blood Sugar 98. Yes!

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22  82%  28%  2mph NNW bar30.06  wincdhill21  Winter

            Waxing Crescent of the Winter Moon

These next three weeks are, on average, the coldest weeks of the year.  I’m glad to see them come.  I love the snug as a bug in a rug feeling of very cold days, work I love and a home place to do it.

Weighed in this morning.  My BMI is now 25.1 and my blood sugar is 98.  I’ll continue on with the nutrisystem at least for the rest of this month, then I’ll have to have a good maintenance plan in place because I will head off for the Dwelling in the Woods, then 3 weeks in Hawai’i.  Hawai’i should be ok because the fish, fruit and vegetable type menu is common there.  It would not be the same if we were headed to, say, England or Austria.  I feel good about this effort so far.  The challenge now will be a healthy long term eating plan, one I strayed from too far for too long.

Still no joy on the sound system.  I had the DVD player sending signals through the five speaker set up, so I know I have them connected and working.  When I exchanged the Toshiba HD DVD player for a Panasonic Blu-Ray player, however, I eliminated the sound success I had made.  Since I won’t get the Blu-Ray until next week, I don’t know yet whether I can convince it to communicate with the speakers.  I know, right now, that the coaxial cable I got to connect the DVR/HD box to the receiver did not produce instant results.  Sigh.  I may have to talk with the folks at Ultimate when I go in to pick up the Blu-Ray.  This is part of the learning curve, less steep now than when I opened the first box, but steep enough to block my vision so far.

Today is more work on the Faery Tale and garden planning.  This is the work I love.t

Faith and Spirituality

Off to Dreamland

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20 88%  27%  0mph WSW bar29.87 windchill20  Winter

             Waxing Crescent of the Winter Moon

Day is done; gone the sun. 

The time before bed has a peculiar poignancy.  We lay down the work of this day, set it aside for a period of sleep.  We give up our apparent agency in the waking world for a sleeping world in which we seem to become passive participants in jagged scenes made up of pieces of daily life intermingled with invented plot lines and sometimes extreme emotion.

The dream world has always fascinated me and I’ve gone through parts of my life where I kept nightly dream journals.  Sometimes I would work with these dreams with a Jungian analyst.  Other times I worked with them on my own in a journal keeping process I learned in workshops designed by Ira Progroff, an American Jungian who believed in self-directed forms of analysis and self-care.

A couple of years ago I participated for a full year in the Jungian Seminar, an intense Saturday long class that runs during the academic year.  It is taught by Jungian analysts for the most part and can serve as part of certification for Jungian analysts in training.  A wonderful, rich time, one I gave up when I took up the docent training program as too much, for me a lot like too much chocolate cake.  We worked on dreams a lot.

In spite of my project manager I try to keep the activities of the day confined to that day.  I’m not always successful, like early this morning, but I try to resolve differences of opinion or strong feeling before bedtime if it is at all possible.  We never have more than this day, this hour, this minute, this moment. Ever.  Hard to keep that up front, but I try.

Good night, and as Edward R. Murrow used to say, good luck.

                                           -30-