I Am Not Hamlet

Today was Creation Sunday at our humble church in sunny, suburban Livonia. What is that? Simply, a day of worship focusing our gratitude for God's great gift of creation that enables us to breathe, drink, eat, and do many other things that corporeal beings do so well. It is a day of deliberation to think about sharing these gifts and stewarding them for generations to come. This is no reaction to the times--this is the Gospel--part of it, anyway, that far too many evangelicals have ignored. Anyway, BK liked my invocational prayer I composed so I post it here (my blog which links to FaceBook) for your kindly critiques. I'm still not happy with it, but I'm just so frickin' picky when I write. Can you find where I stole from Ray Bradbury and Gerard Manley Hopkins? Father, Maker of the Universe, What can we offer that compares with the extravagant gifts of air, soil, and water You so graciously bestowed upon your creatures? What picture can we paint that rivals your s...

Published in 1930 by a group of 12 Southern writers based in Vanderbilt College, I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition is a collection of essays issued as a stay against further industrialization of the South. Obviously they failed. In many respects the South is no different from any other region in the US. Regionalism has given way to a corporatized banality. The last bastion of yeoman farmers lost out to Detroit and other industrial powerhouses in the late 30s and 40s. At times racist and patronizing, bitter and nostalgic, prophetic and prescient, I'll Take My Stand desperately tries to convince the South to keep her identity, but to no avail. The essays offer no practical advice, merely polemic, but some of them...whew. What would the world be like if their ideas had prevailed? There is no way of knowing...at least not until the oil runs out. And that shouldn't happen for another 250 years--right?

Just because Labor Day is nearly finished does not mean that summer ends. The seasons follow no governmental dictate--summer has yet two weeks of life. Work begins again for me tomorrow and strangely I feel neither dread nor excitement; I'm not sure if that is a good thing or ill. The family biked half of the Paint Creek trail today and yesterday visited what may turn out to be the last Michigan State Fair. Overall, this was a wonderful summer for the Martins. Hikes in Washtenaw and Oakland counties, the children mastered bike riding, rock climbing in New Hampshire, touring Massachusetts, Virginia, and Fort Necessity in PA, camping at Wilderness State Park all added up to a full, fun vacation. Unfortunately, I didn't finish painting the exterior of the house (something I'm going to have to do this month). I also finished my classes for my Master Naturalist certification and am looking forward to a good honey harvest. If I can fit a fishing trip and weekend of camping ...

Here's a minor rewrite of a descriptive exercise. Thank you, Stacey. Cai He just as easily smiles as pouts when he doesn’t get his own way. Cai is a speedy ghost—his pale form and blond hair streak past you jumping, running, or clambering on his way to some activity be it riding his bike, practicing his fishing casts, or throwing rocks. The freckles smeared across his nose and under his grey eyes lead you to think he’s all summer’s child, yet he was born early in the morn of Christmas Eve. The clouds do roll in when he is frustrated or when he commiserates in empathy with your pain or misery. Then, like the blink of a firefly, as if the painful incident never happened, he’s off to growl with his dinosaurs or storm his castle. Like most boys he’s full of contrasts: his appetite balances swinging from glutton to a faster nearly everyday. Tears drop easily, too easily at times, but a few moments later the emotion disappears like a stone flung into a lake. He doesn’t like the s...

So long as the industrialist remains in the saddle there must be a money crop to pay him taxes, but let it occupy second place. Any man who grows his own food, kills his own meat, takes wool from his lambs and cotton from his stalks and makes them into clothes, plants corn and hay for his stock, shoes them at the crossroads blacksmith shop, draws milk and butter from his cows, eggs from his pullets, water from the ground, and fuel from the woodlot, can live in an industrial world without a great deal of cash. Let him diversify, but diversify so that he may live rather than that he may grow rich [my emphasis]. In this way he will escape by far the heaviest form of taxation, and if the direct levies grow too exorbitant, refuse to pay them. Make those who rule the country bear the burdens of government. --Andrew Nelson Lytle, "The Hind Tit" The heaviest form of taxation that Lytle is talking about (he's writing in the 1930s about Southern farmers) is all the "p...

The second honeymoon (10 years later)was sort of a revisit of the first honeymoon. We spent the first one in Maine and Nova Scotia and ended the experience angry at each other (who angrily mumbles "Fuck off" to his new bride? Unfortunately, I did.) This time around we stayed in the states--Massachusetts and New Hampshire--and we didn't end the trip safe in the rough arms of wrath. One of the highlights of the trip was our climbing Rumney Rocks in NH, an internationally recognized sport climbing spot--truly! We heard some variation of German, some east Asian language, French, and a few others spoken while there. Of course physical effort is required, but just as importantly, or perhaps more so is the mental aspect of climbing. Each step and handhold must be thought out and care must be taken to not accept defeat. After several hours of climbing, the physical can trump the mental and one can surrender to the mountain. The reverse is true too; it can appear that there...

Wear contacts. Oh, I can't express the ease that wearing contacts brings. Instead of having glasses slip off my sweat-slicked face and causing me to clumsily put them back on while keeping my veil on, I now have no such problem. Thanks Mr. (or is it Ms./Mrs.?) contact lens inventor. The bees? Oh, one hive is exploding and I should easily harvest 30+ pounds of honey next month. The other hive? Not so good. But batting .500 is fantastic.