The Meaning of Life...

    Someone asked us recently. What is the meaning of life? The person asking was religious. What denomination is unimportant. They had tied the meaning of their life to their religion.And felt that without religion life had no meaning. And it's true that being religious can impart meaning to someones life. But the point is of course that the person who has the belief is imparting the meaning. And that's true of all of us. The meaning of life is different for each individual. Some of us may never find the meaning to our lives. Some find it quickly and easily. But it's not the same for everybody. We suspect it's not going to be the same for anybody. Although we all have the same needs, wants and desires. (with some variation, but they are almost universal.) How we define those wants and desires make us all different. Just a short note to point out that if you have found the meaning of your life, good for you. But you can't impart that meaning onto someone else. It wouldn't have the same meaning for them as it does for you. Personally this writer believes the meaning of life is to live it. To keep learning. To find as many answers to as many questions as is possible. It keeps us busy anyway. Ciao for now.

Granite monuments and religious fervor.

Doing some research recently on the Ten Commandments. And found a few interesting facts I thought I would share. First of course we have to define what the Ten Commandments are. The most common belief is that they are the commandments brought down from the mountain by Moses in the old testament. Of course there are different versions of what he brought down. The Catholics remove the graven images one. (Clearly as they have all those statues of Mary) The King James version differs from the Torah version. Mostly in small detail. But it's clear they are different. There are 613 laws in the Bible, the Ten Commandments are taken from these. In one version of the story Moses brings down 40 commandments, not just the 10 that most rabbinical or christian religions believe in. But what I wanted to know was where did all those granite monuments standing in front of public buildings in the United States come from? I discovered we have Cecil B. Demille to blame for that. Apparently as a publicity stunt for the release of his movie The Ten Commandments, he had a few built. And had the Fraternal Order of Eagles work to place them near government buildings. Yul Brynner attended one of the ceremonies. The F.O.E. continued to place another 2000 of them after Hollywood lost interest over the years. The Supreme Court was in two cases asked to reach a decision on whether they violated the constitution. In one case they said the monument was a violation of the constitution. (In Kentucky Mcreary vs ACLU of Kentucky) and had to be removed. (Which it was.) In another case they said that the monument could stay. (Van Orden vs Perry in Texas) But voiced some doubt in the statement by Justice Breyer that it served a "mixed but primarily non-reglious purpose." which he described as "borderline." So it behooves us to remember that when we see a Ten Commandment Monument in front of a public building. It was part of an advertising campaign in the late 50's for a hollywood movie.

And this is one of them. What a strange mixed up world we live in. Ciao for now.

The Winter of Eternal Suffering.

In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan it has snowed almost every day since April 1st. Nature has given us a clear April fools joke. We had a few weeks of good weather in March, the snow had almost all melted lulling us into believing spring had arrived. And then BAM! We are currently past record snowfall for April and it's only the 8th of the month. And we are expecting another 9 inches of snow by Monday. This writer loves the winter, and I find shoveling snow a peaceful and rewarding enterprise. But I have to say, enough with the snow already! I am looking out the front window and watching what would be light fluffy flakes floating down, turned into eye stinging chill producing arrows of crystal ice by the north wind. We live high up on a hill here in Ishpeming. And I swear nature says, "well they are closer to clouds, let's give them an extra deep dose of snow."   Still, it can be pretty. As this picture of our backyard shows.

During the month of March we watched the snow melt and thought, "hey lets use the nice weather to put that ramp on our front porch." Only to have a wet weekend of snow and rain mix. Looking at the snow now, I suspect we won't be doing that until May. Complaining about it is a pretty common thing to hear. Neighbors and strangers alike all talk about how they wish it would just end. All of my family and friends who are in the business of snow removal are simply overwhelmed. You can see them trudging to their trucks with scowls on their faces. Mumbling about "when is it ever going to" and "hell has got to be white." Don't get me wrong, I still like shoveling snow. I love the fact that you can see the results of your work instantly. And up here on the hill we get little traffic, so it's almost always a quiet job, filled with the "shush" sound of shovel and snow. But there are times.... after shoveling snow for 23 days straight for example. When the thought of a snowblower comes to mind. But then I just have to remind myself of how much time I spend sweating and swearing over a lawn mower that won't start and I think. "Hmmmnn... you know, shoveling isn't so bad." Anyway, my first full post to the blog since time, tide, and laziness has kept me from posting. Ciao for now.

We have been having a lot of discussion of religion on facebook recently. And thought that perhaps the blog would be a better place to discuss these ideas. As much as we love the public discourse it appears some of the things we say are found to be offensive. So perhaps here would be a better place to write such things. So I have reopened the crazy. And will begin posting at least weekly. If people are bored enough perhaps they will read it. Otherwise I'll just continue to post simply because of the cathartic effect. So coming soon. No... really this time. Ciao.