So Many Things, So Little Time

Oh, but life is good! Even with all the trouble in this world, there is a great deal to be glad about, as Pollyanna would say.

Some of my favorite things in this world are great music (of course), great musicians, and great conductors. I like good music, good musicians and good conductors as well, but truly great ones are rare and therefore more precious, like gold. The great music is the music that finds you wherever you are and transports you at the speed of light to unknown worlds, undreamed of by mortals. Great musicians are the magicians that work such magic and great conductors are the tour guides. Yes, great music is one of my favorite things.

I absolutely love a good party. It can be a plain old birthday party in someone's back yard or a fancy dress-up affair with all the right people. I just love being around people who are talking, laughing, having a good time and in general have forgotten that the bills have to be paid and the car needs to be fixed. Some of the best moments in life come when people are just people and they talk. I love it.

Aren't trees amazing? They are always beautiful. Whether it's the South American Ombu tree or just an ordinary Oak tree in your front yard, trees are a wonder. Some trees bear fruit like the Peach tree, and just keep giving, year after year when all you do is water them. Some trees have edible seeds like the Walnut.. Some trees like the Maple tree, have sap that flows yearly, making yummy syrup. Some trees are just plain beautiful, like the Mimosa tree with it's whispy flowers. I am in awe at the power trees have to not only produce oxygen, but to clean the air as well. That and a thousand other things make trees one of my favorite things.

Children are the supreme creation, in my opinion. I like people, but little people can be so charming, so innocent, so likable, so forgiving, so, well... just superb. I love how they can do something really dreadful like smear cooking oil all over your kitchen floor and five minutes later greet you with greasy hands and a kiss saying, “I didn't mean to!” I also love how with one smile from a three-year-old, suddenly the world just got a whole lot better. I love how they can say things that come right to the heart of the matter like when they give you that 'over the glasses' look and say, “You said you would help me yesterday and you didn't.” Children have a way of seeing through hypocrisy that sometimes makes parents uncomfortable. But if we didn't have those little people going around checking up on us once in a while, what would we end up like, I wonder?

Of all the things I love, the world itself would have to be the biggest. There are so many wonderful things to see and experience in this world. Everyone's neighborhood seems to have some great thing waiting to be explored. In fact, the place is just full of things to see and do. I love mountains, waterfalls, forests, plains, rivers, springs, canyons, oceans, cliffs, and every little detail about them. There seems to be an endless variety of landscapes in this world, and as if that weren't enough, there are people to match every one of them. I would like to take a trip around the world, and not just to travel from point A around and back to point A again but I would like to visit every place in the world and see every people, National Geographic-style. What I have seen so far has been great, and I can't wait to see the rest of this wonderful world. I feel like Robert Lewis Stevenson who wrote:

The world is so full of a number of things
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings!

So, what are we waiting for?

Suggestion of the Harvest?

I have a garden. I know that if I plant pumpkin seeds, I will reap pumpkins. The idea is so simple, even a child can understand. I want to eat pumpkins, so I plant, water, weed, harvest, store and finally eat them. But suppose I took my child into my garden in the spring and asked him to plant pumpkins but did not know or believe or teach the child about the rest of the process. Suppose I asked the child to plant pumpkins because I told him so, or because someone else said it was a good idea. Again, suppose I ask the child to trust me, that planting pumpkin seeds is a good thing, though I do not tell him why. And suppose there are other people around the child trying to convince him to plant whatever he wants, because it doesn't matter anyway. What would that garden look like at the end of the season, given these assumptions?

In the world of nature, the law of the harvest is just that, a law. If you plant pumpkins, you will reap pumpkins and nothing else. If you wish for watermelon with all your might, though you cry, scream, pass laws, threaten or cajole, if you do not plant them, they will not grow. Also, once you have planted those seeds, if they are not cared for properly, according to natural laws, those seeds will not mature. They must have water, proper nourishment, sunlight, proper temperatures and weeding. All of that must be done at correct intervals within the growing season, or the plant fails and there is no harvest.

Of course, all of this might be obvious to even the least educated among us. No one in their right mind would think of planting a garden without first looking at what they are planting, what the growing seasons is, what kind of fertilizer might be needed, etc. It is laughable to imagine anyone who would give a child a bunch of seeds, and say that they are good seeds, but would do and say nothing else. The child would fail, the garden would fail and there would be no harvest, except perhaps a harvest of weeds.

Life of every kind, including human life, is subject to the law of the harvest. Try as we might, we cannot escape the reality of that law. We all know people who have tried. They say things like, “It's my life and I'll live it the way I want.” And what they are really saying is, “I'm going to plant these weed seeds because I really believe, because my friends told me so, that I am going to get pumpkins, but even if I don't it's OK because weed seeds are easier to plant and don't take any kind of work to grow and I don't like work.” This world if full of people who try to live life avoiding the hard work of planting, watering, weeding, watching, fertilizing, and harvesting a garden. They think that it doesn't matter; that the law of the harvest does not apply to them. So, if at the end of their lives they are hungry, what is to be done?

In the same way, it is less than pointless to try to teach children values without connecting them to the source of those values and the law of the harvest. Just as you cannot plant pumpkins and expect them to magically grow, without nurturing and understanding, so you cannot plant values in children without connecting it to who they are and why they should do such a thing. To be more blunt: If we are only here by accident and if when we die that's the end of everything and their will be no accounting for our lives or no 'harvest' as it were, then what is the point of teaching anything? If there is no accountability then there is no purpose and we should just take what we can get until we die.

Why should we think that the law of the harvest ends with the end of our lives? Why should we think that we will not be accountable, when for as long as anyone has ever lived no one has ever been able to plant weeds and reap pumpkins? By the same token, why do people persist in trying to teach children moral values without any moral accountability? I know that I am accountable to only One. That is why I do what I do. Without the why, I'm just planting because someone said it's a good idea and as a result I won't take care to keep the weeds out, water it or anything. It's just a seed with no purpose, no connection. This law does not go away because we are ignorant of it. And children do not grow beautiful gardens or beautiful lives without understanding the law and the One who gave it.

Save Our Food!

I'm a fan of good food. I like broccoli, lightly steamed with a little butter, real butter, and some real salt, not the processed stuff. I like real bread too, made from freshly ground wheat, golden brown, right out of the oven with butter (again), and a dribble of honey (also fresh and uncooked). What I don't get is why, when I buy groceries, I have to pay more for those things that are less processed, less handled with less ingredients.

I have long been disgusted with the marketing techniques that take a simple thing like bread and ruin it. I mean, can they just take plain wheat, salt, yeast, oil and honey and make bread? No, they have to take perfectly good wheat flour and take out the essential oil, (because leaving it in would mean that it couldn't sit on a shelf for six months) and they take out the bran, (because it makes the bread an unsightly tan color, but it also happens to be essential to the human body for at least a dozen reasons) they take out ALL the vital nutrients that occur naturally in the wheat kernel (because they hate us?, I don't know) they put back into the flour 13 or so artificially produced vitamins (which happen to be petroleum based. Hmm, I wonder who's making money on that one). Oh, and while they are at it, they add some aluminum. Yes, you heard right. They put aluminum into the flour as it goes into the machinery that processes the flour, why?, so that the flour won't stick to the machinery! (Unfortunately it doesn't prevent the bread from sticking to you.) After this they add gobs of gluten, (that's another word for glue) , BHT, high fructose corn syrup, mono and diglycerides, exthoxylated mono and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide, datem, calcium sulfate, vinegar, ammonium sulfate, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate, and formeldehyde to name a few.


So, they've essentially ruined bread for me. Occasionally, when we are out of town and need something to eat, we will stop at a grocery store. There on the shelves is the bread. The whole isle has a sort of dead smell to it, but we press on because we are hungry. There in the back we might find a loaf of bread that has less than twenty five ingredients that looks almost real and we pick it up in hopes of making a sandwich. Then we look at the price. Wow! We nearly faint. They want twice as much money for this bread than for any other loaf on the shelf! Why? Because they left out all those extra ingredients? Because they didn't use as many pesticides on the wheat? Because they didn't take out all the good nutrients before they made the bread? Yea, I guess that sounds like a lot of extra work, so they have to charge all that extra money. Hey, what's wrong with this picture?

The bread industry isn't the only one playing this game. You find this amazing principle at work in cosmetics, milk, fresh vegetables, shampoo, and toilet paper among others. The less they do to it, the more they charge for it. It sounds to me like we have to pay them extra to leave well enough alone. If we don't pay them extra, then they will just go ahead and process the food extra, add dangerous extra ingredients, use dangerous pesticides, take out essential nutrients and have the most fun doing it. But if we are willing to pay them double the price, they will leave it alone. Am I crazy or does this just not make sense. And if it doesn't make sense, then WHY ARE WE PUTTING UP WITH IT!

We cannot put up with this. We have to rebel. We have to eat things that no one has touched, like a home-grown tomato, potato, or zucchini. I know that sounds rash, but it's the only way. We have to teach them that they can't do this to us. We won't stand for this kind of bullying. We have rights! Right? So, grow your own, eat it, and stick your tongue out at them and say, “So there! We are not going to take this any more.” Then you can hold your head high for a while, until they outlaw growing your own food, (which, by the way, is on the political table right now). But until something crazy like that happens, I'm going to make as much bread as I can, grow and eat as many vegetables and fruit as I can and come what may, I'll be as happy and healthy as good food can make you. (I do love good food.)

Live and Let Learn

Life is amazingly complex. There is so much to know about life that we cannot even keep up with all the new information that is being discovered. Books about almost anything become obsolete before they are even printed. We have the internet where we can be the recipients of instant information on any number of topics, but the field of information is growing so wide that it would take many lifetimes to take in just some of the things that have been discovered over last hundred years. So, what do we do then? What do we spend our time learning? Are some things more important than others? Who should decide what is important for us to learn?

One of the things that I consider before making a serious study of any topic is whether or not the information might be useful to me. If I can perceive that there may be some benefit from my learning, then I am motivated to learn and I retain what I study. If however, I can perceive no use for the knowledge then I would be better off not learning it. For instance, if I were a mechanic and I picked up a book on the repair and upkeep of carburetors I might find it fascinating reading and derive great benefit to my work from reading it. But if I were a beautician and picked up the same carburetor book I would retain little of what I read and that little would probably be misunderstood. OK, now imagine that someone has decided that all beauticians should learn to be mechanics and that they should all read that book on carburetors, and that if they didn't, their licenses would be revoked. Would you think they were crazy?

I have often wondered why people want to compel others including children, to read or learn something for which they have no use, no desire and no motivation. Always, compulsory learning is done with negative reenforcement. In other words, punishment is inflicted for not learning. This causes what I call anti-learning. People not only do not learn what they are compelled to learn but they learn to hate learning altogether. Often they shun those who try to make them learn and eventually even shun all learning. It's like being force-fed a certain kind of food. Force-feeding you would probably cause you to despise the food you were forced to eat, but it also might cause you to have a phobia of eating anything.

Learning is highly personal, even sacred. Like eating, it should never be forced. If a man was starving you wouldn't try to cram food down his throat. He would just spit it back out and end up hating you for it. It would be better to find out why he is starving and try to persuade the man to eat, on his own. Or even just to make the food available so that he could eat when he chose. Just so with learning. If people are ignorant or lack learning, education, manners etc. should we put them in prison and force them to learn those things? Should I decide which of your knowledge deficiencies require imprisonment? If not me then who should decide those things?

I love the story of the little Dauphin of France, heir to the throne of his father. As a small boy he was kidnapped and taken to a prison where he was carefully indoctrinated and taught the new, revolutionary way of thinking. His kidnappers forced him to recite the new doctrine so that they could use him to gain control over the country. After many months of this forced learning, the Dauphin was rescued. His dignity and convictions were still intact and the boy seemed unshaken by the onslaught. When asked why he did not give in to his persecutors, the boy simply replied that he was the son of a King, he knew that what they were teaching him was not right and that he would not yield under any circumstances.

In the end, we only learn what we choose, want and need to learn. Forced learning is anti-learning. There is no benefit derived from it except in gaining the certain knowledge that forced learning is inherently wrong. Eating is good and I love to eat, but if I had to eat everything at the hands of someone who told me what to eat, when to eat it and how much to eat, who then forced me, with threats of punishment, to eat every bite, it wouldn't take me very long to learn to hate eating as well as the people forcing me to eat. I love to learn too, but like eating, I'll do it myself, thank you.