Economics 101, Reagan's Address to Joint Session of Congress, 4/28/1981

I miss the humor, the clarity and the truth...

1984 - Optimism, Patriotism - turning points in the face of difficulty...

I miss him more than ever every time I think of his words...  ...first a classy one, then a charming one...

Details...

I've heard it said, "The Devil's in the details..."  Sometimes it seems that way - particularly when you find out about the fine print regarding the use of your rewards miles.  You THINK you have those miles at your disposal, but you find out that you have to use them on the fifth Tuesday of every other odd year in a month that ends in "A".  "Perhaps," I have thought, "it would be easier to forget the way I thought I had 'earned' them and just think of them as rewards for the efforts needed to cash in on them."  I found an old rewards card in one of my many junk bins the other day...  ...I am tempted to call it in... ...then again...

I've heard it said that some people are detail oriented, a statement left to itself that implies that there are people who are not.  (Detail people are re-reading that and are now laughing.  Quietly.  Because their spouse can read minds, and they can't afford alert them - again.  Well, at least this spouse would be...)

Here are a few details that I found around the yard...  ...due to the web sizing thing, though, the details are a bit reduced.  I had more detail in my mind when I took them.  The camera is fabulous, but the combination of "flighty" bees (get it? Flighty!?) and nicely breezy afternoon breezes, and now the web re-sizes (not to mention a rookie photo editor) have taken their toll on the detail that I got vs. the detail that I had in mind.

The Raspberries are looking better than ever, but they aren't very showy flowers.  Swarms of bees on them during this "shoot" and I still struggled to get a good, clear picture.  Now I know why the fancy pics that you see in the glossy coffee table books are often done in the studio.  With a motion-sensitive sensor that activates the shutter and a flash...

Strawberries are more showy, but certainly didn't have the bees' attention that day.  I shot all of these with my wife's 50D and 28-70 lens.  Macro it is not, but then the bees didn't seem to like having me around, and I respected their wishes so the telephoto was useful here.  I have a nasty habit of focusing in the middle - another discussion - and framing my shots the way I want them in the prints; so this was an attempt to make use of a low ISO (100) and tight grain to crop them in closely.  I think it worked out OK, but Crystal would have gotten the exposure correct and not had any of that blotchy stuff...

Wild roses are a favorite of mine.  I like the smell.  I used to draw these - sometimes I would paint them.  I found that the domestic varieties are much easier to represent than these for some reason. Details are all over the place in these, and they are obvious, but understated.  The petals are sort of a fat heart shape, simple, yet intricate little vein structures weave through them from base to tip. Terms that come to mind - delicate and brilliant.  Centers are stashed full of stamens and offer a challenge to any artist's hand at mimicking their short-lived array.

This is a wild lupine - they are thick all over the county right now.  I always liked them, but it wasn't unitl I shot this that I realized how the flower structures resemble the Lady's Slipper or the Indian Mocassins - much rarer flowers.

Finally, your "average" columbine.  Our weed-infested flower bed has this huge variety of colors of them that just sort of re-seed themselves.  Every spring has a large contingent of blues, yellows and whites and, more recently, the ones shown here which are the result of some cross-pollination to be sure. 

This is likely one of my best pics of this flower.  The challenges are first locating a flower that hasn't had the uppermost nodules chewed ragged by bumblebees who, apparently, cannot or will not sqeeze into the openings on the bottom-side.  Focus and angle are made difficult by the shape of the petals and the flower's depth in top-to-bottom as well as front-to-back.  I like this pic because it turned out OK (I think?) and there is a lot of subject matter to consider - not only the one flower, but also the others in various stages of blossoming.

I would guess that I might have taken 200 pics on this one outing.  Of those, you see here the few decent ones that I liked.  None of them is perfect - pics I mean. 

The flowers are as close to perfect as I could hope to find.  They remind me of Matthew 6, in which Jesus tells us to consider the lillies of the field, which is here today and burned up tomorrow, yet not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.  Some details!

In fact, the beauty is exasperating to reproduce whether "on film" or with paint. 

I "detail" things for a living.  I take an idea drawn on a white board or a "napkin" and put it into the computer in a 3D model, then put that in a drawing with dimensions and tolerances that hopefully work together as a manufacturable part that also fits in an assembly.  (I did say "hopefully", right?)  Some of the stuff that we do is boxy and fairly easy to do.  Some of it is shaped all crazy-weird, defying your every attempt to model.  I cannot imagine designing any one of the flowers above.  Nevermind the rest of the plant, its systems or the symbiotic relationship that they have with the bees.  It is mystifying to me that Someone could see details needed for life like this AND do it with such precision and beauty!

Whether you appreciate detail the way I do or not, our Heavenly Father certainly does, doesn't He?  There is no Devil in those details...

Clucking it over...

Just a couple of biddies... ...talking about important stuff I am sure.

If I understood it...

In the last two weeks or so, I have learned of an old friend of my family's getting a fatal diagnosis of cancer, a four year old dying any day of brain tumors and today meeting yet another - 29 year-old-woman with maybe a few weeks left in this life.

Yesterday we took McKenna for a follow up exam.  We have been monitoring her healing and reasonably hoped for a good prognosis at yesterday's appointment.  I just remember the neurologist saying "...cured..." and not really knowing what to say or think for sure.  I just remember the thud of reality of what "could have been" just a few weeks ago...

Now, I wanted to rejoice, to feel wonderful - and I did.  Something inside held me back though... ...something won't quite let me be relieved in some intangible way.  In some ways, it's just another ordinary God- thing.  He does it all the time...  ...I expected nothing less.  In other ways, I look back at the whole thing and I know I had my doubts now and then, but I was truly at peace with God on this one.

This morning I took a call from my boss who had forgotten his camera and had somethings to show me at the airport.  He was taking this 29 year old lady and her husband for what he would call a "run around the patch" and wanted some pictures of the occasion as there may be only days or weeks left now. 

My morning instantly went from taking tech calls from customers, my stressing about this and that to eagerly running an errand away from my desk and meeting this couple that I had heard so much about. 

I am not new to such things.  Many of my grandparents have long since gone from my life.  Along the way a 26 year old friend who was about to marry died unexpectedly too...  I know that I will see many of them again.  But I know that grief we feel all too well, how it comes and goes perhaps for many years.  Somehow, I want it to be right for the families - "in this life" as the Psalmist would say.  I want it to be right in this life.

Here I am today, just sort of watching all of this.  I am somehow connected, feeling things in many ways, not feeling, I don't know.  My daughter is "cured".  we had good news yesterday.

No good news from the doctors for this couple though - just the time they have left to enjoy each other and the good days like today with sunshine and airplane rides; looking forward with smiles to the other side with a new body and no grief. 

Yet, here they are in front of me living today with brilliant energy and smiles.  They are certain of their trust in God and His will.  We talked about that briefly and I am convinced that they are at rest in Him.  I would not dare mention it if I had the slightest doubt.

My mind is taken to that story in which God demonstrated his sovereignty in the life of Lazurus and his two sisters.  Jesus was a relatively short distance away and could have healed him, but instead He waited and Lazurus died.  Then He went.  The sisters, understandably, asked Him "Why..." And in the midst of the story, we read "Jesus wept."

Nothing more.  No reason for Him to weep - at least that I can clearly see.  Understandable that He would have wept for Lazurus who was dead for days, but we also know that He brought Lazurus to life.  Was it for the empathy He had for the sisters?  I think it might have been. 

God's sovereignty runs counter to what I would want.  Sickness and death amongst His children just seems so harsh to me sometimes.  (I mean no sacrilige.)  I think that I run the risk of passing judgement to question it as the sisters did, but I read that Jesus wept, and I know that He is not heartless or cruel.  He has some purpose in mind that I cannot understand. 

I am rejoicing at His intervention on my daughter's behalf, yet left trying to "keep it together" in front of my brothers and sisters who, short of God's miraculous intervention, will all too soon be telling each other goodbye for now... 

This life is so fragile, so short and so hard sometimes.  I rejoice that some of the finest people I know have preceded me in glory.  I am even a bit envious of them, but I am also greived.  Not just for myself, as I hardly know some of them; but for the whole situation.  I would take all the grief if only I could for them... 

But there is Someone who can take your situation and make beauty from it.  He has the power over sin and death.  He hold the keys of eternity.  He paid the price to cover your sins and be with Him (and His saints) in glory.  In this life, we greive for a little while for those we have lost to Heaven, but how much sadder is this for someone whose eternity is not Heavenly? 

I trust that you have your eternity in His hands?  There is no other good alternative...  I pray you have, or that you will...  There is so much at stake.

After the rain... ...just thoughts...

I love a good storm... ...the thunder, the wind, and then the downpour...

...but I really love that window after the storm, especially in the evening.  I love walking outside and breathing.  I love hearing the dripping trees and the warbling songbirds.  I love to see the sun as it settles over the hilltops in the west, just beneath the retreating rain clouds.

Today's storms weren't the violent, roaring kind though.  In fact I hardly noticed the rain.  Spring rain.  Cool air.  I walked around outside the house with nothing specific in mind to do.  I think I should do that more often.  I was revelling in the grace of today...  ...It felt like I was inside the warmth and comfort of home all day right in the midst of it all.

Work has been tough.  Probably get tougher too.  When I think too much about that or try to talk about it, I get physically sick.  No, there isn't anything but my own anxieties to deal with now.  I guess my personality is set to "hyper analyze" and while that is good for designing stuff, it's sure could be bad if you miss something.  Over time the tension has gotten to me.

But today...  ...well, back to Easter Sunday, actually.  The whole church (it seemed like that) pulled off a huge week of preparation for food and the kids' Easter play... ...it was a long week of practices and late nights working on sound and stage and tables, etc.  Saturday night I was still keyed up and should have gone to bed earlier, so I was a touch on the groggy Sunday morning - not that sleep would have helped anyway.

So, I leisurely drank my coffee, responding to an email from Lyle, postponed the shower until my first cup was done.  (A mistake in hind-sight - sorry honey.)  I happened by the upstairs bath where Crystal and McKenna were getting ready - hair stuff.  Crystal stopped me and mentioned something about McKenna only seeing only one of my eyes when I poked my head in the door.  Hmmm... ...that's wierd, what did I miss on that conversation?  Well we have to get going, so off to the shower I went.

The play, the breakfast, the service, the dinner at home with family - all went really well.  At the end of it I was sorry that the day had slipped by so fast.

And then there was Monday.  Ugh.  Monday.  Crystal and I had decided to take McKenna to the eye-doctor.  They got us in today (Tuesday).  No surprises so far.  Being me, I thought out loud, "We start with the symptoms.  Her eyes are doing weird stuff, so we start with that and maybe its an eye thing."  In my head, perhaps out loud though, I thought that this was probably going to be a little more than that.

I think I called home 4 or 5 times today until I got through just to make sure that Crystal called me with any news and "what time was the appointment anyway?"  I ended up going along and I was glad to be there to hear things first hand.  They started talking (or not talking) carefully and wanted an MRI tonight, but ended up with tomorrow. 

No thunder.  No lightning.  Just a steady rain now.  McKenna, Ava and I headed home in Grandma's car.  There was sun accross the long bridge, with the rain.  I looked to the east, hoping I would see one, and there it was, a beautiful rainbow.  The girls and I talked about what it meant - a sign of God's promise, a reminder.

McKenna heard a lot of things today, is starting to ask questions, but no one knows.  We arrived home first.  I sent her to take care of the chickens and get the mail, then had Ava help me with the kindling and they both helped with the wood.  I called my boss to let him know that I planned to be at work tomorrow - the results won't be back until later anyway - but I needed to see how Crystal was first.

One of McKenna's friends had left a message that she wanted her to come over, so I sent her over for an hour.  At least Crystal and I could talk more openly.  It turns out that we are both pretty much on the same page.  Concern, but not sure how much.  Me, a little teary, but what's new with that?

I decided to take a walk around outside to look for something that needed doing, but I really didn't have anything in mind.  The rain had stopped.  The wind was still.  I could faintly hear the girls talking and laughing, but in the cool night air they were probably still all the way over at the friend's house.  I walked past the garden and started to head for the road that McKenna would ride home on, but then I saw something really beautiful...

There were drops of rain on every branch and twig of every bush and tree, and the sun's setting behind them was just the right angle to make them look like tiny, perfect ornaments.  I couldn't get it on the camera.  I really tried.  I couldn't get it into words - but I have tried.  ...like molten little drops of glass...

Perspective.  It seems like right now, my vision is clear, my mind at rest and my heart, is over-flowing with God's grace, affection even.

Peace.  Calm.  Rest.  Somehow, I am there, like the song ...in the palm of His hand...

Good Book...

I don't often post commentary or book reports here, but this is a good read for anyone who is going through a rough patch.  Loving God with all Your Mind is written by a woman for women and I don't know much else about the author.  I picked it up while visiting my Mother-in-Law a couple of weeks ago (I am a bookshelf scanner). 

Long story short, I picked it up and read half of it in the little amount of time that I had while there - the rest of it in the time since being home. 

It was the title that caught my attention.  Honestly, I would not have picked it up had I known the content... ...I am "mature" enough to "know" all the kinds of things that she wrote.  However, in hindsight, it was a good smack up-side the head that forced me to come to terms with God's goodness, again, and in light of "today".

If you or somone that you know is in a valley - there are a lot of versions of those - I would consider this book as a good counseling resource.  It sources a variety of Sciptures such as Philippians 4:8, Jeremiah 29: 11, Romans 8:28 and many others that we long-time christians have sent to the cliche bin.  But as with all Scripture, the meditation on them along with real testimony from another "who's been there" is not unlike a nice hot shower that washes away the grime of rough day. 

Cliche verses...  ...cliche comments... ...cliche prayers... ...these things mean very little when a cliche crises hit an individual.  Don't underestimate the power of a good word, but don't overestimate it either.  Someone who is really hurting will need strong encouragement - Scriptural washing - and most likley you can't solve all the problems in a single conversation.  So, rely on the leading of the Spirit to say the right things and consider passing this book along... ...and it may be a long road, stay with it whether you are in it or watching someone else in it.

Ten on Tuesday... ...maybe

Is it legal to start a Ten on Tuesday with One or Two on Tuesday, then add them?  I hope I'm not violating the regulations...

1) Crystal got her Blook yesterday.  It was her best family pics, most of which were posted on her blog, then printed in this book - thus the blook term that I made up.

2) For the last couple of months, I have been under a lot of anxieties - to the point that I question my ability to make good decisions and constantly suffer paralysis by analysis.  It seems like the last couple of years have taken a huge toll on me mentally and physically and I can recall no tougher times.  There were good things too though, as reminded by perusing Crystal's hard work.  I need to focus on the whatsoever things mentioned in Phillippians 4:8 - thanks to my wife, I have a whole arsenal of wonderful memories to reshape my recollections and balance out those other things.

3) I read the latter parts of Psalms 119, and some of the following Psalms too this morning.  What a comfort!  What a Father in Heaven!  Psalms 127 and 128 really mean a lot to me - His provision in spite of my efforts, or even lack of efforts (even while I sleep in 127: 2). 

I might add more later, because there is more, but I have to work now...

4) ...later...  On the way home, listened to Dr. David Jeremiah on KMBI (it was a late drive) and caught the end of a sermon about making monuments instead of being a vibrant church - it was about the church of Sardis in Revelation (2?).  He caught my attention with a question about how we ought always be able to point to a fresh example of God's working in our life - in spite of any circumstances.  That takes a will sometimes, both to fight lethargy and in other times to fight discouragement or in other times to fight over-confidence.  So, I thought that was pretty good - "How am I trusting and watching God's working NOW?"  Am I sharing that?  Or is my testimony getting dusty?

Still more to add, but more work too...

Mandolins...?

Can't get the idea out of my head that I need a constructive hobby - besides cleaning the garage someday, gardening when the weather warms, finishing the chicken coop someday, organizing my crazy stacks and piles that drives my wife nuts some weekend, etc. - I am wondering why I never kept going with the guitar like my brothers...

I have been wanting to pick up the mandolin for years...  I wonder if anyone has any recommendations to learn about and eventually purchase one... 

Neat story...

Pretty cool - had to share...  ...we don't get the cable channels - no idea where this airs normally.