Happy Halloween

Another little trip coming up. David's Mom and Dad will be staying at the house.

For Halloween, some professional-level pumpkin carvings. And a Catholic priest talks about the current vampire craze. Whoa. An artist carves Tigerhawk's face. Scared the kids, he says.

Update: We didn't get any trick-or-treaters. Too far from other (inhabited) houses, I guess. Tonight we "fall back" to standard time. An extra hour of sleep, which we will lose in spring.

Back to Nature

Victor Davis Hanson has thought, taught and written a lot about big issues like war and peace and the rise and fall of civilizations. He believes that when a culture loses its connection to the land - when not many people know what it is like to grow food, etc., that culture starts to lose touch with reality. He sometimes writes about the unreality of the academic world in comparison to the world of farming, for example. He works in both.

Similarly, Stephen R. Covey writes about working in "natural systems" - working a farm or caring for infants, for example, where people must pay attention to the cycles of nature and/or the needs of babies who cannot speak in order to be successful. He contrasts this with working in "artificial systems" such as academia or politics. People who understand "natural systems" have an edge in understanding how the universe works. Bluffing works better in artificial than in natural systems. Attractive, but erroneous, ideas are quickly exposed in natural systems but may retain respect in an artificial system for a long time. This can allow problems to build up longer than they would in a natural system. Reality can be displaced by wishful thinking without too much difficulty in an artificial system.

Most people in our culture spend a lot of time in "artifical systems" - especially those who spend a lot of time watching TV or playing video games, for example. People substitute short, on-line contacts for time with people, or post messages "to the world". There are some real advantages to "being connected" in the digital world. But balance is in order. Lack of focus on the non-digital world may reduce our ability to understand what is "real".

I like this post concerning Amish proverbs. If there's any group of people in America who still live in a mostly-natural system, it's the Amish. Proverbs mean something to them. Most of the rest of us don't spend a lot of time thinking about proverbs nowadays. We're too busy. Maybe we need a few Amish proverbs to bring us back to earth once in a while. Think about some of those proverbs and how they might apply to your life.

Jumping for joy is good exercise.

Beware the man who knows the answer before he understands the question.

A task takes as long as it takes.

At Stake Conference yesterday, one of the speakers recited her mother's favorite saying (or proverb, if you will):

Knowing is not doing.

This seems to me to be a proverb well-suited to the modern world. We know a lot of important things. But we are distracted by even more things. We distract ourselves from doing what we know is important. I have a suspicion that the Amish don't have as much need for this proverb as some of the rest of us do. Some people in the modern world have learned how to lessen the distractions in their lives. I'm still working on this.

In personal news, we learned Saturday that David's early retirement papers have been processed. A little less worry for us. We've been too distracted by the drama of David's whole irrational work situation. Time to get back to some activities which are a little more grounded in reality. Keira suggested pouring a small commemorative slab of concrete somewhere in the yard to mark the occasion.

For people who are newly unemployed or who are still really worried about future income, one of my favorite thinkers, Richard Fernandez, has some practical, low-cost tips for staying connected and approaching job-seeking on the web. Because it's hard for people who have had "real" jobs to get a new job without entering the digital world nowadays. Unless maybe they're Amish.

I went to Jathisa's wedding yesterday afternoon. She looked as pretty as I've ever seen her. Families were happy. Friends were happy. That's the way we like weddings.

We heard that little Julia is out of the hospital following possible H1N1 flu, which was a big relief. Still praying for friends and family struggling with illness.

My connection with "natural systems": Our late plums and early pomegranates. Also some remarkable bug photos.

Filling in a Picture of Life

On Sunday, we had two interesting messages at church. The first was about learning to take "Joy in the Journey". Something I need to think about more deeply and plan for more carefully.

The second speaker used a story about his neighbor who likes to work on jigsaw puzzles as part of her quiet, meditative times. He noted that when working on a puzzle, she first put together the framework. I think of "frameworks" in life as principles and related rules for behavior. Without a framework, we are likely to get chaos. It is almost impossible to reach for the higher aspirations in life while mired in chaos. We really do need a place of at least minimal order in our lives if we want to make much progress.

On a more secular level, I thought of the famous "no guardrails" essay from the WSJ.

Back to our Picture of Life: As the speaker's neighbor worked on the puzzle, she placed odd-looking, sometimes ugly, pieces together to form something beautiful. In our own lives, working within a proper framework, we can fit difficult events, circumstances and often even difficult people into a beautiful picture if we work mindfully.

More bureaucracy this week. David seems to have caught whatever I had a couple of weeks ago (or something similar). He has been quite sick for a couple of days, but is starting to feel a little better, with an antibiotic, etc.

As a diversion, I've posted cookie recipes - traditional chocolate chip cookie bars with notes on getting the best texture, chewier big chocolate chip cookies or coconut bars and Oatmeal/Coconut cookies - for making ahead of your event. I wrote about Jujubes, too.

Over on the "Perplextities" blog, there's a post about blogging and a balanced life, featuring a link concerning Kristi Yamaguchi and one on how good men and good women can minimize the hurt they cause each other. My first attempt at "liveblogging". I am not particularly fond of "liveblogging", as a rule.