Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Moon of Long Nights (New Moon tomorrow)<\/p>\n
The day before the journey.\u00a0 Not a big journey as things go, but a trip.\u00a0 Ruthie and Gabe, Jon and Jen.\u00a0 Family.\u00a0 As we grow older, family tends to take more and more of our focus.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because the work world fades away, home and its memories remain.\u00a0 This is, I imagine, much as it always has been.\u00a0 I recall a theory from evolutionary biology that says grandparents were a reason for population increases and longevity increases.\u00a0 We were around for child care.<\/p>\n
The usual before trip minutiae:\u00a0 a stuck garage door, cardboard recycling, packing, picking up a connector to make a keyboard usable on the net book.\u00a0 This and that.<\/p>\n
The death toll in Haiti adds catastrophe to the already multiple problems of a failed state, a failed state within our sphere of influence.\u00a0 See the Monroe Doctrine.\u00a0 I’ve not followed Haiti closely so I don’t know the history, how things have become the way they are, but I do know that we have a moral responsibility as a neighbor.<\/p>\n
Acts of God.\u00a0 Bah, humbug.\u00a0 These are acts of nature, just like the great Lisbon earthquake in the 18th century.\u00a0 That one caused a great deal of consternation in various Christian communities.<\/p>\n
“The 1755 Lisbon earthquake<\/a> (see engraving) created a crisis of faith in Europe and beyond. The catastrophe occurred on a holy day and destroyed many of the city’s magnificent sanctuaries. The destruction caused many to renounce religion; others interpreted the event as a sign of God’s displeasure, thus a sign of His omnipotence. Enlightened souls who considered the world innately good took a jolt. Voltaire contemplated the implications. Immanuel Kant devoted several tracts to Lisbon and its consequences.”<\/p>\n To read acts of the natural world as anything but what they are is folly.\u00a0 In Haiti’s case a strike-slip fault–the San Andreas is such a fault–stored up energy since, oddly, about the same time as the Lisbon event, and yesterday a tectonic shift sprung free.\u00a0 A great analogy in the newspaper compared a strike-slip fault to a person moving a heavy piano.\u00a0 They push and push and push, nothing happens.\u00a0 Then, suddenly, the piano moves.\u00a0 In this instance however the piano then falls on you.<\/p>\n It is peculiar that we blame God for acts of nature but won’t take responsibility for our own acts against nature, like climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Moon of Long Nights (New Moon tomorrow) The day before the journey.\u00a0 Not a big journey as things go, but a trip.\u00a0 Ruthie and Gabe, Jon and Jen.\u00a0 Family.\u00a0 As we grow older, family tends to take more and more of our focus.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because the work world fades away, home and its … Continue reading Haiti<\/span>