|
|
Musings
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
From the “you can’t make this stuff up” department!
This is taked directly from Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294032,00.html), with a special thanks to Loren for showing it to me… 
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
how do I deserve another day?
I have had many friends for more than twenty years.
I have seen poverty and wealth (realtively speaking on both).
I have seen oceans on both sides of our Continent.
I have conceived of something and made it.
I have made love to a woman whom I have no doubt loves me.
I have been well educated.
I have started a business.
I have started a non-profit group on more than one occasion.
I have been published with great success - a dozen languages, #1 in at least 1 market, in the top 100 books being sold on Amazon, etc.
I have had poetry published.
I have had 2 photographs and more than 20” of text written about me in the Washington Post, and have been in several local papers.
I have been on television.
I have glimpsed the sacrament of life, marriage, Eucharist, Chrismation, Baptism, Confession, Holy Unction, Holy Orders (though not in the Orthodox church), etc.
I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.
I have laughed.
I have enjoyed life.
I have eaten well.
I have stood for more than 12 hours on many occasions.
i have rested for more than 12 hours on many occasions.
I can converse intelligently on a number of topics.
I have seen rainbows and double rainbows on many occasions.
I have travelled by car, jeep, truck, bicycle, airplane, sail boat, motor boat, big wheel, and on foot.
I have walked for miles with only the stars for light.
I have camped under the stars, swam in lakes, rivers, and oceans.
I have seen the passing of parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins, and friends.
I have observed, participated in, and performed marriages.
I have observed and performed funerals/eulogies.
I have seen Mt Rushmore, Wall Drugs, Old Faithful, Mammoth Caves, the Great Lakes, the Appalachian Mountainss, the Rocky Mountains, and Silicon Valley.
I have been to most of the largest cities in the US - New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Dallas, St. Louis, Denver, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Boston, San Jose, Columbus, Memphis, Washigton DC, Louisville, Nashville, Portland, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Oakland, Kansas City, Detroit, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Knoxville, and Jacksonville.
I have spent the night at above 15,000 above sea level and at 0’ (well probably 2-5’ technically - but right on the water) above sea level.
I have been on foriegn land (Vancouver, BC, Canada).
Monday, April 16, 2007
global warming… its caused by us
You may have seen the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” that was put together by a politician.
In it he claims (and shows a graph to prove it) that the CO2 levels are higher than they have ever been - and not just a little, a LOT. It basically looks like an L on its side (___|).
Michael B. McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies and director of Harvard’s Center for the Environment, has a message: “This is not controversial,” he says. “It’s not just a gentle warming. And it’s caused by us.”
He goes on to say, “There is a close association between climate and the level of gases like CO2 and methane.”
We have raised the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to a point that is higher than at any time over the past 450,000 years,” McElroy says. “Arguably, it’s higher than it’s been for several million years. Concentrations of CO2 will climb to twice what they currently are by the end of the century. That’s a complete change in the atmosphere.”
People like that claim that its because of this or that - too much cars, too much asphalt, too much methane, etc. What it really is is just too much us.
Here is an estimate of how many people were on the planet earth for some different time periods…
Year Millions of people
-10000 4
-8000 5
-7000 5
-6000 5
-5000 5
-4000 7
-3000 14
-2000 27
-1000 50
-750 60
-500 100
-400 160
-200 150
0 170
200 190
400 190
500 190
600 200
700 210
800 220
900 226
1000 310
1100 301
1200 360
1250 400
1300 360
1340 443
1400 350
1500 425
1600 545
1650 470
1700 600
1750 790
1800 980
1850 1260
1900 1650
1910 1750
1920 1860
1930 2070
1940 2300
1950 2400
1960 3020
1970 3700
1974 4000
1980 4430
1987 5000
1990 5260
2000 6070.
Now, pop those numbers in your graph making program and see what kind of graph it makes.
Why, its an L on its side (___|). Why, its us. We keep exhaling that darned CO2.
I have a solution… we have a little over 6Billion people on the earth… lets whack 2/3 of them. This would take us back to the mid-1900’s in population and destroy that darned leg. Or, perhaps we whack 5/6 of them and go back to the mid 1800’s - surely that would take care of it!
I’m not being serious, of course. But, we need to keep the numbers in relation to reality. Politicians are politicians and will always be politicians, even if they can create the internet and show pretty pictures (or not so pretty pictures) and graphs of the CO2 levels - isn’t that what Ross Perot did, and we didn’t elect his big eared head in 1992.
Anyway, things are not as simple as “car emissions” or “power plant emissions” and people (all 6 BILLION of them) need to understand this. What if, for example, instead of whackin’ them all, we got everybody to hold their breath for one minute a day. That in and of itself would cut CO2 emissions by 1/86400 a day. That doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider that we have about 1000 tonnes of CO2 in the air, it has to help.
And that is provided to you by someone who is not a politician and has no plans of being a politician… so don’t vote for me for nothin… just hold your breath - say, from perhaps 3:05p.m. to 3:06 p.m.?
Comments:
phydeaux on 04/19 at 07:22 AM said:
I blame the cows: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2062484.ece
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
so, what’s the weather like for pascha around here
Our new Priest, God bless his soul, asked our Warden, “So, whats the weather like for Pascha around here?” To which the Warden replied, “Oh, anywhere between 80 and snowing.” Well, the poor Priest didn’t believe our good Warden as our new Priest was from Florida, and “Surely, it doesn’t snow in April!”.
Well, As you can see from the attached two pictures… yeah, it does.... Welcome to Holy Saturday!
You might not be able to see the speckles of snow which is a little more clear on the left picture (buy me a better camera, i’ll give you better pictures) ... but if you look off in the distance… that is not fog.
That is snow…
Snow! The thing about Kentucky is… if you don’t like the weather, wait around a few hours, it will change!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death (lots of pics, so expect long download)
For me, this was probably the best Pascha yet. This time I feel like I got a real sense of the timing of things. This time I got a real sense of the emotion of the event. When Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, I understood the emotional side of it (at least to some extent). Father Justin, (see pic to the left) did a good job reading the Gospel. Of course, he just read (canted) it, perhaps it would be better to say that I did a better job than in the past of understanding, listening, contemplating, and empathsizing with the Gospel readings this year.
Every year the tomb area looks fantastic, and this year was no exception. As you can see in the picture on the right and below, there were a ton of flowers that greatly accented the service and “framed” the alter area - specifically “the doors” area.
The team that purchases and arranges these do such a good job each year. I think that the added beauty that they provide adds such a fantastic setting and “ambiance” to the services. Having been to several funerals recently and seeing people laying in state, and the amount that we pay for flowers to be arranged in baskets, to be hung on metal frames, and to be “just right” to help us deal with the dieing.
This is especially interesting in the midst of reading ”For the Life of the World” 
by Alexander Schmemann - may his memory be eternal - specifically chapter six, “Trampling down Death by Death” and the comparrison of Religion, Secularism and Christianity and how Religion and Secularism both try to make death something that is either “normal” - i.e. the funeral home looks like a “normal” house, the corpse looks “good” - or is a natural condition - “death is a part of life”, “we all die, so live life to the fullest”. Christianity, on the other hand, is not here to be a help. It is here to show truth. The truth is that “death” is one of the enemies (along with sin and the devil). Life is a Sacrament - a Mystery in which we are called to experience and commune with God - and thus, death takes us away from this, and is thus an enemy.
The Ressurection Icon was framed well as well as you can see to the left. I tried to capture the scene of Christ entombed, but it is dark (gee, all the lights are low and using a flash probably wouldn’t be a good idea), but you get the picture (pun intended) from below right.
The picture is shown double the size of the other ones so that you can get a better view of the detail. It didn’t look right at 320x256 so I made it 640x512 even though the actual pic is double that.
Some of the things that stuck out to me this year are…
1) The juxtaposition of Judas counting the cost of the Harlot’s gift to Christ versus his determination of the value of the the life of Christ (which would be immeasurable).
2) The juxtaposition of the Harlot’s kiss of humility and repentance vs. Judas’ kiss of betrayal
3) The “attack of presence” that Jesus did - cf. John 18:3-6 -
Judas got a band of soldiers 3 and guards from the chief priests and the Pharisees and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?” They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.” 4 He said to them, “I AM.” Judas his betrayer was also with them. When he said to them, “I AM,” they turned away and fell to the ground.
The closest that Hollywood can do to the impact that “I AM” has here, has to be “ I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?”
Of course, Dirty Harry had fired six, and God still had all his cylinders full… cf. ”Gospel of Nichodemus, Part II”.
