Must I? (2011/07/13)

Must I write today? I had to work late today, and am finally on my way home at 19:45. When I get home it will be time for me to go to bed. It's too bad I didn't get to eat my dinner. It's too bad I am such a whiner.

I had plans yesterday to 'make' time for gardening. That didn't happen because I had forgotten about the All-Star game, which I got to watch on TV with J. It isn't going to happen today because of my late day at work. It isn't going to happen tomorrow, either, because I have another long day at work. My priorities are still towards my employer. I am grateful to them for helping me support my family, and I take my responsibilities to them seriously. And I am incredibly lucky to live during a time where I can get paid to play around with computers.

Look, even when I'm not working I love to play around with computers! I've been thinking about moving this writing over to Google Plus, but I really enjoy using the software that runs this blog. The software is pretty geeky, and user friendly in the way I mean it: friendly in such a way that I can look under the hood and understand how it works.

It is not working (2011/07/12)

I wrote yesterday's post during my bus ride home. When I got home I saw the weeds were back in force, and my front lawn looked as poor as ever. This doesn't really mean that these writing exercises aren't making me a better person, just that being the good person I want to be is harder than I want it to be. That is probably universally true. These writing exercises do help my garden, however. Instead of being overwhelmed by the large task, I know exactly what I need to do next: pull the new weeds. Of course there were so many before I didn't get them all out by their roots.

I was surprised to find I didn't have time to work in the garden yesterday because of J. Yet I know that Rachel spends much of the evening with J., so there is time, but not when I'm thinking about the garden. I don't know where the time all goes. Today's goal is to catch the time!

There's another, more important way in which I'm not improving as much from these exercises as I should be, and that has to do with my quality of Christianity. I wrote on Sunday about one of Jesus' parables about the Kingdom of HaShem, but the actions that are required are too enormous for me. I am not scattering any 'seeds' with reckless abandon, and I'm trying to ignore my duty to do so. It is scary. Do I not trust my Savior? Looking at my faith makes me uncomfortable. I'm not a great Christian, but I hope to improve.

I also wanted to say that I see my interpretation of Jesus as being mine mostly because of its nuance. In whole, it is very similar to the interpretation offered by Father Robert on Sunday, and even pretty similar to Matthew's Gospel interpretation (although the nuance is much closer to Robert's). My particular shading is in emphasizing the haphazard farming technique as notable, and taking that beyond-reasonable behavior as my guide-post towards Christ.

I Think This Is Working (2011/07/11)

This weekend I spent some time in th garden. I mowed the lawn(s) and pulled weeds. During the time I thought about what I would like my front yard to look like, but I also realized that getting rid of these weeds should be my first step in yard-rehabilitation. I checked out some books on gardening from the library, but reading just seemed like a waste of time: I had weeds to pull. I thought about gardening, and about the possible pleasures of gardening.

None of these pleasures is a reality for me yet, but I can imagine them 'growing' on me.

1. Here I am, becoming better acquainted with HaShem's creation. This idea came from a book that I skimmed at the library but did not check out. The book quoted from Walden,, and Emerson wrote about "walking around" his country (I should have checked out the book to get this quotation right)w and that part of maturing into an adult involves this discovery that 'the world' isn't only something you find in books, but something that is immediate. I suppose the religious shadings are my own. I suspect that gardening might be a good time for prayer.

2. A garden is like an empire building game. I have briefly enjoyed these sorts of computer games in the past, but I would grow bored of them after a week or two. Gardening is an empire-building game that play publicly, and I get to share my creation with my neighbors and family. It has endless variety, unlike the artificial computer versions, and must be more fulfilling.

3. Gardening could be a creative outlet if I ever become skilled.

I don't know that I would really have applied myself this weekend if it weren't for writing here. The yard, and my responsibility there have been on my mind much more, I think, because of this writing. I wrote a little idea about reading a book about gardening, and this fleeting idea became an action in which J. made his first trip to the library.

Parable of the Sower (2011/07/10)

Today we took J. to his third church service. It was the first time I had to take him out of the service for fussiness. It was also the first time I had to take him out of the service for a diaper change. I took J. up to the front of the chapel during Communion, but I misjudged his mood and he started crying between when I had my bread and when I got my wine (our St. John the Baptist procedure makes this take a small amount of time as the chalice bearer comes to you). Things weren't a complete disaster: I did get to take Communion with the St. John (and wider!) community, and I did get to hear Father Robert's sermon.

Today's Gospel reading featured Jesus' parable of the sower.

Matthew 13 1-9

The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

When I hear this, there are a couple of thoughts that immediately spring to my mind:

1. What a sloppy farmer! Who would sow indiscriminately? I don't know much about farming, but I know that a farmer would certainly remove the weeds from his fields!

2. I don't know what this parable really means. Like most of Jesus' parables, I find it pregnant with meaning, but I'm one of the people who lack the right "ears to hear". I can't imagine anybody thinking "I've got it!" after hearing one of Jesus' parables, unless they were either much much smarter than me, or a little stupider than me.

Well, the Gospel of Matthew actually includes a explanation of the parable, but it has never satisfied me. It didn't satisfy Father Robert, either. It sounds like an interpretation given by the early first century church, created generations after Jesus' death, and Father Robert says that most scholars consider this text to be exactly that. Well, I'm no biblical scholar, but if these texts are going to speak to me, then we need to look at Jesus' awesome parable afresh. Why would Jesus speak in parables if not to make his followers think, and come up with an interpretation that belongs to them? That's all well and good, but I'm not a farmer and I don't really know how to interpret this: my forefront thought is "what a sloppy farmer".

Father Robert gave a nice little note in his sermon that I found very interesting. He suggested that the key phrase of Jesus' parable was "some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold": these numbers are outrageous. The expected amount of return would be something more like a sixfold return, and a tenfold return would be a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. This insight gave me my own interpretation of the parable: be a sloppy farmer for HaShem, and the spiritual crop you reap will be outrageous. Maybe the sower is HaShem, maybe it is Jesus, maybe a Christian follower; I don't know, but the sloppy farming yields supernatural returns.

So, I will continue to take J. to church. Some days he might fuss, he might make me miss Communion, he might make me miss the sermon, and the seeds might fall on rocky ground. But I am hoping the world might get a crop that yields a hundredfold, or sixfold, or thirtyfold.

Happy Birthday, Sheena (2011/07/08)

I want to wish Sheena a happy birthday.

I confused some people today by spreading the news that it's Sheena's birthday today: no Sheena is not my wife. Nor is she my daughter. Sheena is a cousin to me, but I can't remember if she is a second cousin or once removed, but I can remember that her dad is my first cousin. She's just ... Sheena.

Gardening is so utterly boring (2011/07/07)

I didn't want to write about writing here, but it sure was an easy way to get started, so today I'll change the subject, and talk about the catastrophe of home ownership: the garden.

When I was a young man, I rented places, and my landlords paid gardeners to come and care for their gardens. I was oblivious. Eventually, we wanted to have a home where I could raise my family, so we bought our house in the suburbs. Rachel enjoyed gardening, and took care of the garden. I remained oblivious.

Now Rachel is busy with J., and gardening is suddenly my job. Mine alone. And I'm terrible at this job. Gardening is so utterly boring.

It's more boring than raising elephants.

I remember being bored by gardening as a teenager. I remember resenting doing any work in my parents garden, and I remember finding working in gardens for neighbors to be a very hard way to get some pocket money. Unfortunately, gardening doesn't seem to be something I've matured into.

My neighbors are paying the price, and it's not just. I am more interested in justice than in gardening, and so I need to fix the garden eyesore that is our front yard. I wonder what to even do with my garden, but at least I know where to start: the major problem now is the weeds. The weeds are out of control, and everywhere. At least I assume these plants are weeds, because I don't remember them being here before. I've never been able to tell the difference between plants and weeds. I've been told that weeds are any plants you don't want. A consequence of being completely bored by gardening is: everything is a weed because I don't want any plants. Plants just make a garden.

One thing I tried doing to make things better was spray my weeds with herbicide. Well, in one way it worked, and in another it didn't. All the weeds died, but my front yard looks worse because it's just a wasteland of dead plants. I guess I was hoping that dead weeds were like dead vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer — they just 'poof'ed away.

The only thing I actually know how to do is mow the lawn, (although I don't even do that very well — I leave the edges unkempt). I have tried mowing the weeds, too, but that's pretty difficult, and it seems pretty ridiculous, actually. I think maybe I'll just get a shovel and turn everything over. But that's boring.

I guess boredom will be my punishment for the pain my yard inflicts on my neighbors. I do wish that I could avoid this punishment. What book should I read to become interested in gardening?

Please Excuse Me, I Plan To Write (2011/07/06)

In the month of June I drove to work. Now that we're in July, I'm back on the bus. The bus means I get some time to listen to my net-casts and maybe do some reading & writing.

Of greatest relevance here is my hope to increase the amount of writing I do. I've been a lurker. I have been online for a long time, but I primarily read what others are writing. When I was a young adolescent I participated in some pre-Internet online forums and when I think back on it I just cringe with embarrassment. I was particularly guilty of feeding trolls. When I understood what I was doing I got self conscious. I stopped writing.

Why write? I am afraid that not having practice writing equates to not having much practice thinking. Writing forces one to fully formulate thoughts and arguments. Embarrassment has had too much of a hold over me. I haven't wanted to speak for fear that I will show how foolish I really am. If I start to write here regularly I will write some foolish things, just because I don't have very much practice writing. Am I too old to grow up?

I want to improve my thinking. I will try to do that through improving my writing. Hopefully I will improve, but first I must stumble; I am just out of practice. The best I can hope for is that I continue stumbling, and the worst that can happen is I will retreat back into the ease of non-thinking, non-writing.

So here's hoping that I continue writing, at least for a little while.

I have started to notice one issue: I am getting motion sick writing here on the bus.