Thank you, lilacs, for a beautiful few weeks. See you next year.
My Political Action Plan
I came across this in my notes from two years ago. I don’t recall if I planned to do more with this or not, but it seems okay to me in its current form. My political action plan: Our political and economic system is a world eating monster with an unalterable hostility to life. Until the powers that be get serious about killing that monster, I’ll continue assuming they are emissaries of the monster and accord them all the respect that position is due.
The line from Lord Summerisle, which I’ve used of myself before, applies again today: “A heathen, conceivably, but not, I hope, an unenlightened one.”
French chicory as a decaf coffee substitute
I love coffee. I could easily be one of those people drinking pot after pot, but I limit myself to one or two (large) mugs per day. On the two-mug days, I can tell that it makes me a little buzzy; probably not good for me. I started buying decaf but heard that there may be health concerns with the chemical used in decaffeination. Recently I bought a bag of French chicory, which is often touted as a naturally caffeine free coffee alternative.
Happy Wicker Man Day!
A new Port William novel by Wendell Berry is coming this year! If you do order it, consider ordering it through the Berry Center and support the good work they’re doing there. Also, I’ve just realized I didn’t write about my visit there last week. I’ll fix that soon. 📚
A footnote in the book I’m reading led me to The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences, an academic work currently on sale in Kindle format for $3.99. I hate reading on Kindle but if the subject matter interests you, it’s hard to pass up that deal.
Lord knows I tried long and hard to make the case for peace, going back a decade. … But now we are at a point where those who call for peace are branded by each side as an agent of the other.
That also is the point where miracles are necessary. What is a miracle? It is a happening that is impossible from within a current story, but possible from a new one. Therefore, not only does it seem impossible, but by happening anyway it invites us to question what else we have assumed that may not be true. That is the state of unknowing, the release of old beliefs and what we thought we knew, that prepares the soil for the miraculous in the first place.
April vacation
I’m back to work after taking last week off–and I’m delaying dealing with all of these messages by writing this post. So what did I do? I made good progress on the chair I’m refinishing. I used a couple of rounds of citristrip, which worked well on the old paint. That was followed by hours of scraping, basically. It’s not done, but it’s in pretty good shape at this point.
This is a wonderful Webb Pierce song about a man addressing his lover as he considers leaving his family for her. In the end he decides against it because “tell me, dear, could you love that kind of man?” 🎵