Cactus!

This is a sign of global warming, or the extreme drought we're having, but Youngest Kid and I found a cactus growing in the local park, along the margins of the soccer field. It looks like a prickly pear to me, though it doesn't have any fruit on it at the moment.

Drought seems to be becoming a regular event here in North Carolina. My prayers go out to the people in Greece who are having awful wildfires, because of the drought there. My wife's relatives in Australia are also facing drought.

My in-laws, traveling back to South Carolina, had to a detour around a wild fire there.

Invasive species, and losing our hemlocks

We are losing all of our hemlock trees in the Appalachians to an invasive insect. It was accidentally introduced in 1920, but the cold winters apparently kept it out of the high elevations until now.

The poster in my freshman dorm room was a wonderful Sierra Club poster of an Eliot Porter photo of hemlock trees.

I think we need to take the kids to the mountains to see them before they are gone. This is horrible and sad.

There is No "I" in "Ant"

We have been facing an invasion of our kitchen by little black ants (some people here call them "sugar ants") because of the dry weather, I think. It is interesting to see how determined they are. For some reason, we dont' seem to get the really creepy insects that our next door neighbor gets: leopard crickets (I think that's what they are called), black widow spiders, etc. Although I am certain there must be brown recluse spiders up in our attic, in all our stuff up there, I haven't actually seen one. I guess they are too reclusive. Or maybe it's just my anxiety telling me stuff.

We have had flying squirrels in the attic before, which are not as big as my childhood exposure to "Rocky and Bullwinkle" led me to expect.

Finally, a little rain

We are finally getting some rain here, though only a bit. We are in a "severe drought" according to the US Drought Monitor site.

West Virginia

We need to make a trip this summer to West Virginia, to see everybody there!

Carowinds

Band trip to Carowinds. Lots of Roller Coasters. Lots and lots of them.

Quaker Posts have moved to "Inner Lighting"

In the future, my Quaker related posts will go to my new blog Inner Lighting.

Inspiring Article on Sikh Food Kitchen and Langar

There is a wonderful article on a Sikh food kitchen in Delhi, Lunch at the Langar, over at the online magazine World Changing. They serve free food daily to 10,000 people. They serve vegetarian food so that no one is excluded.

One of the comments posted by readers cites the Sikh belief in "..the Light of one Universal God is in all hearts."

My fondest food-related memory (besides family meals) is a Baptist food kitchen that served the University of Texas area back in the early 1970's when I was an undergraduate. The food wasn't free, but it was very, very cheap, simply prepared vegetarian food, and I ate there often.

Centering Prayer

I just visited a Centering Prayer group in my town. I expected it to feel like going to Meeting, but it was different in very subtle ways. In Centering Prayer you repeat a word or phrase that helps you become receptive to God. It was harder than simply waiting at Meeting; maybe I let my mind drift too much during Meeting? I could also feel my body relax, which doesn't happen during Meeting for Worship.

The issue I'm dealing with personally, is how to deal with prayer and my children. Most people who pray talk to their children about it, and sharing it with their children, but in my own case I am reluctant. I was raised in a very rigid Catholic tradition and I'm wary about teaching my kids to pray. It's not something they will do on their own, though. We do talk about spiritual topics, philosophy, and God, a little bit, but beyond grace at mealtime, and Meeting, that's it.

The Cotton Patch Gospel

Our family, and many others from our Meeting, went to a wonderful production of the Cotton Patch Gospel last night, at Edenton Methodist Church in Raleigh. It's version of the Gospel of Matthew updated to take place in Georgia. I'll post more details soon... unfortunately the program did not give any details about the performers but I'll find out and post those soon. The band was the Shady Grove bluegrass band, and they were amazing. The single actor/narrator was also an astonishing and very physical actor with a good voice, who is a divinity student at Duke.

Membership (Gulp!)

I've taken the step of asking for membership in the Society of Friends. This is a big step for me; please hold me in the Light.

Crafts and First Day School

We are doing lots of crafts at First Day School - making candles in December, then decorating the Meeting house with origami.

What's next? Finger paints? My cousin, who is an art teacher, suggested to me that clay is always good.

What is the spiritual message with clay? One obvious angle is that God made us from clay, which the way I learned it is supposed to make us humble. But you can make great stuff from clay!

Not quite the New Year!

As a New Year's resolution, I will keep this blog up! My kids tell me I'm not supposed to do any of my resolutions before the actual new year, so I'm cheating a bit with this post.

Nonviolence and video games

A new Harper's magazine has a conversation about videogames. It's mostly about
teaching writing using videogames. Do games like Animal Crossing teach nonviolence? Do
videogames teach nonviolence by not *being* violent? The world of videogames that I see represented in the game magazines are mostly about war or crime. But then I wonder how the time kids spend on videogames compares to the time they spend on MySpace.

The game Go can be seen as a war game, or a game about negotiation.

What activities count as "adventures"?

After going to a kid birthday at "Adventure Landing", a local kid attraction, the answers would be:

1. Gambling (for little tickets, which you can redeem for tiny toys)

2. Shooting lasers at your friends

3. Playing miniature golf

4. Driving go-karts real fast

5. Hitting baseballs (this last activity was more popular with the dads than the kids).

A Bumper sticker I wish I could get

I would like a bumper sticker that read, "Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you..." If only my country had taken that road. Update: CafePress makes bumper stickers for $3; now I just have to figure out how to make a PNG or JPG of this text.

Shin Buddhism

I'm reading a lot of books on Shin (Pure Land) Buddhism right now. Shin Buddhism, named after its founder, Shinran, is a popular Japanese religion that holds that most of us are not able to become Buddhas on our own, and need to ask the help of Amida, the Buddha of Immeasurable Light.

First Day School - Keepin' it Simple

So we *did* discuss simple living. The kids already knew a whole lot about the Amish. We also talked about simple clothes, the Quaker Oats guy, and also how the Shakers lived more simply by inventing labor-saving devices. We got out a big roll of paper, and the kids drew pictures of their ideas for living simply. The Shakers would have been happy with most of the ideas; the Amish not so much. "Have Robots Do Everything"; "Electric Trees" that grow and harvest apples. And "Sleep All Day", which definitely would make life simple.

First Day School

I'm teaching First Day School (that's Sunday School, to you non-Quakers) and I'm having a hard time thinking of something that will keep the kids' interest. I started out thinking of teaching about "Leadings", we have a curriculum book with material on that, but I don't think our kids will be able to relate to it.

I may teach about Simple Living, instead. We can think of ideas to make life simpler. I could discuss the Amish, and why they don't use electricity or cars.

A Course in Nonviolence

Colman McCarthy has a great Course in Nonviolence.