A Different Street

I don’t remember liking Roadrunner cartoons too much as a kid — they were too predictable. (As my daughter said, “Why didn’t he just order an Acme cheeseburger?”) But as I get older, the way Coyote persists in his hopeless quest has a bit more resonance. I recognize myself in the episodes where he actively colludes in his own destruction (as opposed to just getting foiled by the clever/lucky Roadrunner). This one particular schtick (having to do with a piano and some TNT — starts at 3:55) still strikes me as hilarious.

Maggie Jochild on the Group News Blog reports on Lawrence Lessig’s address at Netroots Nation. Apparently quite the barn-burner. Jochild’s first-hand observations of how pharmaceutical company swag changed things at a cancer clinic she worked for are quite apropos.

Yay! This is good news. I’ve wanted satellite radio forever but could not decide between the providers (and, to be fair, balked at the monthly subscription price … though people who have it say it is totally worth it). I wonder when the first interoperable receiver will hit the market?

From Alexandria, Virginia, comes news of a new pedicure treatment that uses garra rufa, or doctor fish, to “nibble” dead skin from feet.

As usual, entrepreneurs are a step ahead of government regulators:

State regulations make no provision for regulating fish pedicures. But the county health department — which does regulate pools — required the salon to switch from a shallow, tiled communal pool that served as many as eight people to individual tanks in which the water is changed for each customer.

The communal pool also presented its own problem: At times the fish would flock to the feet of an individual with a surplus of dead skin, leaving others with a dearth of fish.

“It would sometimes be embarrassing for them but it was also really hilarious,” [salon owner John] Ho said.

Fans of the “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” series by Alexander McCall Smith may recall the remarks of the protagonist, Precious Ramotswe, on the passing from fashion of the “traditional build” for Botswanan women. In the latest, The Miracle at Speedy Motors, she muses thus:

… fewer people wished to be considered traditionally built. Mma Ramotswe had never been able to understand that, and considered it one of the very worst features of modern society that people should be ashamed to be of traditional build, cultivating instead a look that was bony and positively uncomfortable. Everybody knows, she thought, that we have a skeleton underneath our skin; there’s no reason to show it.

There doesn’t seem to be a word in the English language for how I want to describe Emmylou Harris’ new recording.

“Mature” comes closest, but it doesn’t convey the mix of artistry, humility, and wisdom in Harris’ singing and musical choices. As the song from which the recording title is taken (”Old Five and Dimers Like Me”) suggests, there’s a … not quite satisfaction … acceptance? of the place on the journey, closer to the end than the beginning, that is uncommon and welcome to those of us in similar places. An awareness of how decisions made long ago affect us now, an emerging sense of the grace that got us here, and a loving acknowledgment of those who share or shared the path with us.

On the first couple of listens, the standout track for me is the opener, “Shores of White Sand,” whose chorus goes like this:

Some say I’m sinking
To the muddy bottom
But somehow I’m sailing
To shores of white sand

There’s something there for me to hold onto.

Some bakeries now offer frosting shots. ::: shudder :::

One of the interesting things about reading a lot of preacher blogs is that you’re usually acutely aware of the lectionary passage for the week. Yesterday’s, apparently, was the parable of the sower.

I have always found this parable uncomfortable because, even in my most ardent days, I secretly suspected myself of being stony ground. I suppose that on some level I understood that I couldn’t keep up at the pace I had set, and I was afraid that, despite a strong (if relatively late) beginning, my faith would soon wither.

As I said earlier, it is three years since I left The Church That Shall Not Be Named. I’ve attended at most a dozen church services since then (about half of which I left in tears). I know that technically it is impossible to be a Christian outside of a Christian community, and I do devoutly hope that I find a Christian community sometime soon. But at the moment it seems that all I can do is to hang on, continue to engage with the questions, and pray for healing and direction.

It may be true, as Benjamin Franklin’s famous epigram has it, that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. For me, though, it’s easier to see God in fruit.

Many years ago, I happened to visit a vineyard in late August, close to harvest time. The wide leaves and the sunlit grapes were so beautiful that I was deeply aware, perhaps for the first time, of God’s abundant love. Even now when I see a vineyard in full fruit I get a frisson of that experience.

Today the kids and I picked raspberries, which have the advantage of being a very pleasant fruit to pick (no thorns, little stooping). I love the way that the berries hide under leaves; if you lift a branch, you are almost certain to be rewarded. An agreeable hour or so of light labor yielded over 10 pounds of fruit. Again, the green leaves and the gorgeous sunlit berries put me in mind of God’s abundant grace and love — enough for me, you, the birds, the soil, and everyone who hungers to be filled to overflowing.

Well, the post title (Shelving our Scotties) grabbed me initially, but L.L. Barkat, the author of this HighCalling.org post, suggests something I don’t remember hearing before: that just because God has given me a gift, I’m not obligated to use it, now … or ever?

This has some relevance for one of the many holes I fell into during my tenure with The Church That Shall Not Be Named. They had needs, and I had skills, energy (at first, anyway), and a constitutional inability to say No. This proved, in the long run, to be a lethal combination for me.

So it’s dangerous when we speak of our jobs and talents as “gifts” from God. Indeed, in some manner they are, but who can eventually put a gift aside without at least some measure of guilt? And some people, burdened by this difficult emotion, will continue to walk out the door wearing an ill-fitting “gift.”