Well, it is a cloudy Saturday in lovely Northern New Mexico. A night of light snow has given way to a morning of thunder and rain threats. There are cookies cooling on my stove, filling the house with delicious smells, a cup of strong black tea beside me, Simon and Garfunkle's Greatest Hits are on the CD player, and my dh (dear husband) in the next room on his computer, sharing little laughs and interesting web sites with me over IM. And youngest ds (dear son) resides across the country, but is cyber-visiting through another IM window, preparing to send me photos of last night's race. How good God is to give me such a life! On my dresser (at right) are the current quilting projects: some of the fabric for a new quilt, two completed double-sized tops with backing waiting to be pinned (at least one should be done today), and on top of the stack in the middle is my Block of the Month for Quilter's Guild.I am personally so tired of presidential campaign analysis that it makes me feel nauseated. However, this week I ran across an interesting piece by Victor Davis Hanson that was insightful, I thought, and dead on the money.
Through my friend Renee I am now subscribing to a delightful feed from Daily Writing Tips. I think I will be using some of these with next year's composition students!
Also from Renee came this fun link to an amazing shopping excursion from Holland. Tunr on your speakers, and scroll over the page to get things started.
2 comments:
Victor Davis Hanson's piece was very interesting. Thanks for setting up a link to it, because I'm sure I would have missed it if you hadn't.
I was confused by the gloom and doom he hears in Obama and Clinton's rhetoric, however. I haven't heard that at all. What I have heard is a message of hope - a positive message about who we are as a people and how we can be.
Yes, I think we've lost our way as a people, as a nation recently. Our Bill of Rights, our constitutional guarantees, the very foundations of who we are as a nation are undermined in the name of a war against terror. Terror? A war against an emotion, an abstract noun?
We're debating whether waterboarding is or isn't torture, for goodness sake. We executed people at the end of WWII for waterboarding, but are ambivalent about it now?
As far as the role of government, I'm sure VD Hanson and I are quite far apart on this one. I do see a role for the government in providing for its people. I look at the European and Canadian systems of health care delivery, for example, and think it exceeds our own in its quality of care and equity in delivery. By any measure, infant mortality, life expectancy, early detection of disease and disease outcomes they come out ahead. A country like ours with its vast wealth should this be so?
A bridge fell in Minneaplis this summer, and our own Hastings bridge was downgraded to 38 on a 100 point scale. I want government to fix it for me because I can't do it, nor can my neighbors. Will I pay the bill? Of course I will and be happy to. Are there things I wish our taxes weren't paying for? I could make a long, long list. Tops on the list would be money that goes to the industrial military complex, as Eisenhower describe it so elequently in his farewell address.
I truly value your blog. It gives me so much to chew on each time I visit. I suspect we are far apart on the political spectrum just judging from your passion on the right to life issue, for one and for that reason I'm fine with my comments about your posting remaining between us rather than posting publicly.
If we could ever sit down for a cup of coffee - or better yet have an old fashioned slumber party - I'm sure we'd find so much to share we'd talk ourselves dry. And no doubt we'd find more areas of commonality than differences.
With much love across years and miles. Peace.
Hi Dawn!
Thanks for commenting! And I am happy to post your comments here! Though we disagree, you state your disagreement politely and non-combatively. I appreciate that! And I appreciate that you come back here to ‘visit”, and am glad you find things that cause you to “chew”.
I think we are probably far apart on the political spectrum, and I find myself agreeing quite a bit with VD Hanson: I think the job of our government is to protect its people, but not to provide for them. In addition to what the bible says about the role of government, I have very much appreciated the work of Dutch pastor and Prime Minister, Abraham Kuyper, who lectured long ago at Princeton about the spheres of sovereignty in society: the civil government, the church and the family. Each has its own sphereos sovereignty, and while each "circe" intersects the others, and overlaps in some measure (think Venn diagram here) I think, too often, our government seeks to influence other spheres rather than sticking to its own sphere. Government sometimes steps in because the church or the family are not doing the job they should be doing. But too often government becomes an almost messianic figure, striding in to parent, provide and care for its citizens. This is not its job as defined in the Bible or our constitution.
Kuyper also said, "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!” I like that quote, and try to rise to the challenge of living a life consistent with that realization.
I agree with you entirely on the water boarding issue, and am sure that over coffee we would find much we agree on. Only, may I have tea, please? I don’t care for coffee as a general rule… :-)
With love and respect,
Chris
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