Several years ago, the pastors at our church experimented with putting printed copies of their sermons in the narthex each Sunday-if you were so inclined you could pick up a copy and take it home. My kids were young then so I had an easy excuse for my short attention span--I loved having the option of the printed sermon to take home and read later in the day or week--especially if it sounded like a "good" one.

This is probably the only reason I specifically remember one particular sermon, given by Eric Burtness-at least 12-14 years ago. He said that God gives us "credit" for the things we don't say, the sins we consider but don't commit--in essence, God appreciates when He sees us trying to do the right thing.

This has given me a lot of comfort because my mind is an appalling place a lot of the time. I am stunned at how unrelentingly petty I can be--out loud but even more so, in my mind. Though I have no reason to be, it seems I'm stuck on hyper-critical most of the time. Fortunately, I'm usually able to hold my tongue--well... more than half the time anyway.

I have opinions on just about everything, even if I know nothing about the subject--for example women's fashions, dairy farming, how you're raising your children, foreign policy, the kind of car you should or shouldn't buy, shoes, health care decisions, religion, etc. The list is endless.

So--I'm glad to know that God recognizes that I am trying when I just think things but don't say them because I know they'll be hurtful, unnecessary or just plain stupid. Call me shallow or call me immature, but I'm glad I'm earning that gold star. Or better yet, don't call me anything, keep it to yourself and earn a gold star for yourself too.

the best Fourth of July

In Central Park, Red Wing MN, on the Fourth of July the new band shell was dedicated and used for the first time. The cast from the local production of "Fiddler on the Roof " sang several songs; Rosanne Cash performed with her husband, Jon Leventhal; A Roomful of Blues, from Providence Rhode Island got everyone on their feet and then the Sheldon Brass Band finished the night's musical entertainment with some fantastic music that included ringing church bells and canons firing.

The music was great but even better was being in the park with everyone else, enjoying the day with other people. We saw a lot of friends and acquaintances, people came and went throughout the day, people brought picnic food or bought food from the vendors, and visited. The off and on drizzle of rain did little to scare people away.

Easy conversation, lots of smiles, relaxation, great music and beautiful surroundings. I don't believe I've ever had a better Fourth of July.

One of these days

Over and over, I am amazed with the abundance of fine people in my life. This week has been full of reminders that these connections with people are what save this crabby middle aged "antisocial misanthrope" (see last post) from an empty, sad and misspent life. It would be wonderful to be eloquent enough to tell people what their presence in my life has meant--but it seems that the words often fail or sound cliche.

I'm not a hugger, I'm not good at remembering birthdays or other special days, I'm not good at thoughtful gestures or gifts but:

"One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down
and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
And I'm gonna try
and thank them
for all the good times together
One of these days"
Neil Young

Am I a "Antisocial Misanthrope"?

In the April 20 issue of Newsweek there was an article, by Jennie Yabroff, about reading. Apparently, fiction reading is on the rise but there are some people, labelled in the article as the "self-appointed literary police" who are concerned that the fiction that people are reading is too easy, not good enough (in a literary sense) or too commercial. The article talks about the "gateway drug" theory of literature--"that once introduced to the pleasures of reading, a child (and maybe an adult) will work her way through increasingly difficult and, presumably, increasingly more edifying texts....implicit in this theory is the idea that at some point reading should stop being a pleasurable diversion and start being work."

I have to confess that I've been guilty of that kind of thinking. I have a good friend who reads nothing but romance novels. She reads one to two of them a week and I tease her mercilessly about it. Let me try to lay out the plot for you girl meets boy, they run into a bit of trouble but fall in love and live happily ever after--EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!! My sister and I love mysteries. And just like romance books, the plot is always the same. Someone gets killed, someone else figures out who did the killing and why.

My kids don't read as much as I always dreamed they would (this would be the same pre-natal dreams where they never talked back, kept their rooms clean, dressed in clothes I approved etc...). But when they do read I have to hold myself back from suggesting or being too opinionated about what they "should" read. Maybe they subscribe to Mikita Brottman's theory she put forward in "The Solitary Vice: Against Reading" "Brottman challenges the accepted wisdom that reading is inherently uplifting, arguing that it turns us into antisocial misanthropes who would do better to be out in the world than home with a book."

I say, maybe the world is better off without us.

What's for Supper (or should I get a Fry Daddy)

If anything ever tips me over to the point that I just get in my car and keep on driving..with never a look back--it might just be having to decide what to make for supper every day.

Now, time for a disclaimer of sorts--I love Mr. Wonderful, I really do-- but if I ask him one more time for help in deciding what to make for dinner and he says, "Whatever" or "I don't care", I might just use all my food prep skills (limited though they are) on him. Chopping, dicing, filleting, slicing, pounding, searing or any number of violent kitchen tasks may be used a on someone a little closer to the top of the food chain.

At times, I am appalled at how bad the meals I make are, not in how they're cooked but in the choices of what I've cooked. I look at them and think there's not a gram of nutrition in the whole plateful. Though I think it would be nothing but fun--we haven't let a "Fry Daddy" into the house. Undoubtedly a "Fry Daddy" would make my horrible meals taste better but its a line I dare not cross. A person's got to make a stand somewhere.

Now, back to the original point of this blog entry, I don't know what to make for supper and my car's gassed up.....

It's Almost State Fair Time

It's time to start thinking about the Minnesota State Fair. In a short six months it'll be here. I can almost feel the swaying of the shuttle bus I'll take from the free parking off of Snelling and I-94 and feel the sun on my face as I wait in line for admission ticket. There are two kinds of people in Minnesota--those that hate it and those that love it---and I love the fair.

What's not to love about it--there's great people watching, great food, tons of stuff to see, freebies, stuff to buy, more people watching and more food. I think anyone who goes regularly has a routine or set route they follow and some "gotta haves" in the food department. Our route always takes us through the animal barns, have to see the biggest pig in Minnesota and feel the sheep and marvel at how big the cows and horses are up close (not so exciting for Mr. Wonderful, the former farm boy), to the DNR building, the Fine Arts building where we always wish we had more talent or money and Heritage Square. We aren't too particular on the food other than I need about three or four pronto pups. I like to see what all the vendors are selling in the grandstand though sometimes the heat or crowds will make it too much work to go through all of it.

Every year we run into acquaintances--well, I suppose, since its the Great Minnesota Get Together, all 100,000 are our friends, but I'm talking about people we've actually met before. Some years we go to a show at the Grandstand--the past couple of years we've gone to see A Prairie Home Companion. What a great way to celebrate Minnesota at the Minnesota State Fair.

Cowboy Dreams

While flipping through channels the other day, I happened upon one of the American Film Institute shows about the movies they've rated as the best 10 of different genres. AFI has a lot of rankings of movies by different criteria--top movie in a specific genre, 100 best movie quotes, 100 best movie heroes and villains, and on and on. I really like shows like these but have to be careful watching them because my first impulse is to get out a pen and paper and start making lists of movies I HAVE to see--and then I get a bit compulsive about it. (Someday I'll talk about my other lists for my other compulsions).

But back to the small part of the show I saw--I caught the part about westerns. It brought back all my old dreams of being a cowboy.

There were a lot of obstacles between me and my cowboy dreams. First off, I was a girl but I solved that little problem by insisting that everyone call me "John". Second big problem was living in Minnesota and in a town--but I figured that was only temporary. As soon as I was old enough to leave home I could head out west and do my real cowboy stuff. In the meantime, we lived on the edge of a hill and there was plenty of room to roam. The third big obstacle was a slight fear of horses-- but I pretty much blamed that on not finding the right horse. My cousins had a horse, (a Welsh pony if I remember right) but that horse was not trained like Trigger or Champion (Gene Autry) or even Mr. Ed. When we wanted to ride it we had to trick it to catch it--it did not come when we whistled or called or when it sensed we were in danger. In fact, that horse was a great disappointment in the cowboy skills area.

I loved my holsters and pistols and the occassional plastic rifle. I even got cowboy boots once. In the movie "Stagecoach" there is a scene where the stagecoach is being pulled by a team of six horses going full speed and the cowboy jumps off the front of the stagecoach onto the backs of the rear pair of horses and then works his way up to the middle pair of horses and then to the lead pair of horses. I don't remember why he was doing such a dangerous thing--I was too busy studying his technique in case I was called upon to do the same thing in my cowboy career someday.
It could happen...