The Happy Bride and Groom

The Ring Bearer Poses

The Real Ring Bearer!

This is proof for Ursula, Ramana and Barath that I am not the real Ring Bearer. As you can see from this past weekend during my niece's wedding ceremony at Lake of the Ozarks, the real Ring Bearer is shorter and has more hair (although our hair is about the same color).

A quote for Ramana

Sometimes, when the past harmonizes with itself, the wise man clears his throat and sings along.
-- Stephen King

Light

So incredibly fundamental.  And we ultimately don’t know what it is.

Einstein revolutionized physics with the realization that the speed of light in a vacuum was the ONLY constant available regardless of your frame of reference.  Very fundamental.

Then, we go over to the quantum mechanics boys and everything really starts to get weird.  Is it made of particles?  Is it composed of waves?  And the brutally confusing answer: yes.

It should give anyone with the ability to reflect upon reality pause.  The fish in the sea is the worst creature to ask about water, since it is all he knows and thus he tunes it out.  And here we are in our sea of light.  Oblivious.

As Yoda would say, “Humbling it is!”

Today’s topic brought to the LBC by Will Knott.

Mission Accomplished!

My niece is now wed! The above is a view out the living room window onto the patio area - where we conducted the ceremony - with the Lake of the Ozarks right below.

At the same time back home, my daughter had her bridal shower. Here she is with the ladies of the family:

Now if my phone gets everything sorted in the right order, my busy summer will make better sense!

My earliest memory ...

It took place about 25 miles from where I sit right now. I was sitting in a sandbox with a little shovel. There is a set of steps on the outside of the house across the yard and we lived upstairs. Mom has verified my description and tells me I was about two.
Oh, I'm pretty good with the old memories. It's the recent stuff that's challenging! What is the earliest thing you can remember?

I brought this topic to the Loose Blogger Consortium to preempt anyone trying to bring up recent memories, LOL. Sorry I popped it about 12 hours early, but I am working from my phone and have less timing control. Please check out the others on the right side of the page and see what they remembered.

What David Actually Said

Grannymar has been doing a series of photo essays on sculptures and simultaneously asking Ramana and me what men’s obsession is with long pointy objects.  The above sculpture may contain the answer.

Many people are unaware of what Michelangelo’s David represents.  It is the moment right before he launches his fatal attack on Goliath.  The stone is in his right hand and the sling is over his shoulder.  His pose is that of the relaxed, but intent, warrior.

What is less know is what David said right before the attack:

“One more comment about the size of my penis and you die!”

Happy Father’s Day!

The Last Three People I’ve Spoken To …

… outside family and household members.

This was the task presented the LBC by our esteemed compadre Paul, known as Blackwatertown.  You can find him among the members of the Loose Bloggers Consortium on the right.

I wanted to play it absolutely honestly and absolutely straight, so I have waited until I had the actual three.  But, the situation was just a programming situation at work, migrating a database I’ve developed for a very large property management company over the past 16 years to a SQL Server.  That isn’t very interesting even if you know technically what I’m referring to!

I spoke with a database administrator who has the same car mechanic that I do, a young woman that I work with in development of a cash management program for them and a young guy who is the head of their networking group.

I returned yesterday evening thinking this was not an interesting bunch.  Then I corrected this to the realization that they are vital young people, quite interesting in person that I just know too little about to write anything of interest.

Such is the practical world, isn’t it?  So often, we know people at a social layer that is, by proper choice, only about 3 centimeters deep.  We move much of our day through a world of shallow acquaintance.

That’s good.  Otherwise, I’m certain nothing would ever get done.  But, every so often there is a hint of the depths …

But, it is my delight to welcome a great friend I did meet through work about 30 years ago, the shackman.  We reconnected after all these years via Facebook, I believe.  What a delight, for sometimes those shallow associations turn into oh so much more!

If you can cure one leper, why not cure them all?

Mark 1:40-45

New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Heals a Man With Leprosy

⁴⁰ A man with leprosy^[a] came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

⁴¹ Jesus was filled with compassion. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” ⁴² Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

⁴³ Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: ⁴⁴ “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” ⁴⁵ Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

=====================================================

This is probably the heaviest topic ever brought to the LBC for a Friday topic and I don’t pretend to really know the answer.  I would proffer a few ideas I’ve considered.

First, if the point was to heal all lepers, you would assume it would not stop there as all illness should be healed.  That begs the question of why a Creator would create or allow the illnesses in the first place, then.

Perhaps, if you believe in God, you might believe that a life is a learning situation.  Why does a child not have the teacher solve all math problems for him?  Because it is in the effort and the solution that the child learns and develops.

There is a similar approach to the question, to consider the idea of karma, which is not simply reward and punishment as many take it.  It is a dynamic system within which consciousness develops understanding through experience.  Growth, effort, ignorance and error – all go into the generation of associated experiences on the eternal path to the light.

One challenge on that path could be leprosy.  It might be an affliction for a person of little compassion to experience what it actually feels like from the inside so that he or she might develop understanding and compassion.  For another, it might be an opportunity to serve a community of one’s fellow passengers on the journey.  Thus, leprosy would have no single meaning applicable to all.

And, if a fully realized expression of Consciousness appears – Christ in this case - perhaps the simple, humble request for healing or the rock solid belief that one CAN be healed is an essential truth finding expression.  Christ often emphasized belief as an essential element in what we think of as miracles.  Maybe the truth fully realized really does set you free.

All that I know with certainty is that the ultimate mystery of life has brought me to this question with these perspectives (and others unspoken).  Beyond that, at least today, it is not mine to say.  I just know that the suffering of many is experienced as very real.

This topic was brought to us by the Magpie.

My Seussical Nephewsical

The Lady F and I went to the City on Sunday afternoon to see our nephew – who I’ll call Sebinator Fossil – in his performance as Thing 2 in a grand production of Seussical the Musical based upon characters and combined storylines from Dr. Seuss.  It is delightful to see 7 – 13 year olds performing in a summer camp that is outrageously expensive for parents, but priceless for those who can swing it!

There was Thing 1 and Thing 2 coming in from stage left and Thing 1 and Thing 2 coming in from stage right.  Sebinator was Thing 2 from stage left, just so you don’t get your Things confused!  You can see all of them with the other cast members in their bows above!

In one scene, stage left and right Thing 1’s appeared simultaneously.  But … only Thing 2 from stage right!  Horrors!  Lady F immediately noticed.

Well, by next scene in which the Things appeared, Sebinator had reappeared and we noticed that right before the intermission he trapsed across the stage with no other Things and was waving to the audience.  Hmmm…

Turns out that right before the scene he missed, one of is friends had turned and accidentally hit him in the mouth with his elbow, knocking out a loose front tooth!  It always takes a scene or so to recombobulate when you have just had one of your front teeth knocked out.  He was compensated for the loss with the gratuitous wave to the crowd by a very astute director!

And, here is the proud performer after the event with his proud Uncle:

Sometimes it’s not just priceless for the parents!

I Am Waxing Gibbous

The moon cycles are classified with kind of a matrix of descriptions.  If the moon face is fully illuminated, we say it is Full.  If fully dark, we say it is New.  If somewhere in between, it is either less than half illuminated, which we call Crescent or more than half illuminated, which we call Gibbous.  If it is precisely half lit, I have no idea.

So, those are the immediate, lit states that we find.  Now it also has transition states.  If it is becoming more lit as time goes on, we say it is Waxing.  If it is become less lit as time progresses, we say it is Waning.

Ramana called me yesterday morning on Skype and we had a delightful conversation.  As a good, sensitive friend, he has noticed that I have not been commenting on my own blog and that of others lately at nearly the rate one would expect from my past efforts.  He also noticed that my posting was a bit late, which is not customary for me.

But, I think he may have been surprised to find that I looked hale and hearty.  Well, I have to reconcile this for you.  I have had a period of lower energy for a few reasons:

1. I tweaked my back in January in such a way that it led to pain down my leg.  As those who have experienced this know, it does drag on you and also slows your exercise regimen itself, further lowering energy.  I am glad to note that this is almost totally taken care of as I write this.  I also note that we are talking a few months to correct it!
2. We have been exceedingly busy with one just completed wedding and two impending this summer.  I am involved in all three – only two financially, thankfully – and they have led to some weariness, even though it is good weariness.
3. My work has increased significantly.  Again, more tiring.
4. Many people around the Lady F and I have become ill or died in rapid succession and we have found ourselves in that familiar care giving mode.  And mourning those losses, too.

Mix it all together and my blogging has taken a definite hit.  This will probably be much better by the end of the summer.  I may even reacquaint myself with something called leisure time.

However, in the immediate, I am glad to say that I am Waxing Gibbous!  I am not Full of energy, but definitely doing well.  And, the trend is upward.

Ah, those cycles of life!

Dark

Darkness is simply the absence of light, just as cold is really the absence of heat.  Just as we are not designed to take continuous heat, neither are we designed to be blasted by continuous light.  One of the more interesting paths to darkness is an eclipse such as the solar eclipse that cast it’s shadow in varying degree across Northern California the afternoon of May 20th.

Of course, it is unsafe to view a solar eclipse directly, but if the opportunity ever affords itself to you, simply take a pin and punch a hole in a piece of paper.  This can then be held up allowing what light there is to pass through and be focused on a flat surface.  That is exactly what I did to get this picture of the moon eclipsing the sun as projected onto a brick on the front of our house:

An even more delightful … hmmm, is it proper to see dark as being de-light? … effect is afforded by light filtering through my neighbor’s tree leaves onto his fence, a plethora of crescents!

What would life be without its shadows?  Uninteresting at its very best;  deadly overload at its worst.

Please forgive me my tardiness in this Friday Loose Blogger Consortium posting.  Life has been busy lately to say the least.  I think you will also find that other members of the LBC suffer the same fate from time to time.  What you won’t find is uninteresting, so please check the sites linked to on the right side of the page and see what they have to say about this topic.

And please welcome back one of our returning members, Anu!