Category: Church

Off to church

The Masticating Ungulates are playing at church today, so I am going along.  Nobody will hear the mando over the bass and the banjo anyway (YYYYYYAAAAYYYY Lady Miss  Banjola is well enough to perform in public did I say Yay?).  Dr. Filk etcet. will be singing Jack Frost (swoon, it’s a favourite) and we’re going to sing “Absolutely Bonkers”

Rehearsal yesterday was fun and it sure was good to sing with Dr. Filk again.  I gave him a tip about writing Buffy filk (go to the canon and search on your character, and let the dialogue from the show write the lyrics!!) so I imagine his Anya tune will now come together much faster.  Although I didn’t apologize for the shit I’ve written about him on my blog, (Allegra sample lyric – I never say I’m sorry, I can’t make it convincing enough) I did take the worst of it down so anybody wandering across it for the first time won’t see it.  Lieber Gott…. look at the time, I’ve got a bus to catch.

Grrrr

It seems like every time I come back with the CAN car I have to deal with a never ending parade of people who can’t read the sign (Dear Blithering Eejit, don’t stop, park, unload or stick any kind of vehicle here!)  So I sit in the car and curse until people move, and then move the car, or park it down below, since I have access to the visitor parking.  I bailed on church (mostly because I was too angry to sit through another minute, and unfortunately “If you can’t say something nice, keep cakehole in down and locked position” applies in  this case).  And I made biscotti for afters too… Grr.  But then I had all this time with the car and Paul called and we went through what appears to be the last draft of the separation agreement although I am NOT Alicia (that was a funny typo!).  I got to see Keith, briefly.  I learned what happened to my recipe book, copied or took what I needed, and had a good visit with Paul after we got the paperwork squared away.  I’ve been thinking a lot over the last week about “what went wrong” so a lot of our conversation consisted of him listening to me say what I thought I’d screwed up; because, you know, he’s a really great guy and he deserves as much as anyone else to be happy, and there was no way, considering how perma-cheesed I was for the last year, that he could have been happy living with me.  He was very kindly about the whole conversation and we got in a good walk and I finally have decent rice, I can’t believe how much I missed having proper Indian basmati, which I am to the point of thinking is the only rice.
Grr.  Grr.  Then my mood lifts abruptly when I find out that Katie K is going to take me to either Dosza Garden or Simba’s – two of my fave eating places….  So this afternoon I have one last crack at various projects before work commences, and then food, and then hopefully home early, to bed early, and with any luck my migraine will be gone.  It’s not a big one, but it’s dreadful not to be enjoying sunshine…. it’s really another glorious day.

It’s a beautiful day

It is so gorgeous outside that I feel like I’m having an Out of Weather experience.  This summer sucked, but today is nice.

Anyway – I’m dealing with my internet addiction (wot? Allegra has an inertnests addiccion?) by writing – away from the computer – and practicing mando.  So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to start a biscotti batch (about time, eh folks?) and then cheese off my neighbours and practice on my balcony.  Okay, just inside the balcony door.
I get to do the Thanksgiving service at church.  That’s less than a month away so more than enough time to get it together.
I still can’t believe how happy I am.   The goofy pic is me and Tam…photo-88.jpg

Communicative evening.

Briefest, Keith. I was watching a parkour video at the same time and didn’t tell him.

Next, me auld mither. Much earflapping commiserating plotting etc.

Next, the dear lass Peggy, returned with smiles from visiting NFLD. And and and – sailing! Tom in a sailboat for the first time in 40 years. Experiencing vicarious happiness!!! I’ll see them at church on Sunday with Tammy, if everything goes as skedded.

Then, Brother Jerome, to toast in words his anticipated and upcoming nuptials with the stunning and practical (ah, such a wonderful combination in a life partner) Shannon.

Briefly, Mike, “I have gift for you = and Tammy is coming so don’t be a stranger!”

Then Elly, who is going to Toronto to visit her boys next month! And fine, strapping lads they are, too, full of creative vim and energy.

Then, daughter Katie. I owe her money, how did that happen?

Now the smell of the chicken wings I cooked is getting quite assertive, so I’m gonna have sweet potato and chicken wings.

MMMMM.

Rocked out article on skepticism

Thank you thank you Skeptical Inquirer

Instant corollary – no Bible believing Christian actually can believe everything in the Bible because of the internal inconsistences.  We are all on the same side of that divide, folks.  Whether we’re skeptics or not, knowing is imperfect.

I’ve had a quiet time to myself to actually think about my belief systems, and how it relates to what I want.  Wouldn’t it make sense for me to invent a belief system whereby I get to believe the things I want to believe?

I believe that God was invented because humans do bad (reproductively competitive) things to each other. Those on the  receiving end of the bad behaviour wanted a fix where there wasn’t one.   In ape troupes there’s always the threat of the restoration of order by the meanest, strongest or closest ape up the chain o’ being…. when we got sophisticated in our use of language, the concept of the ‘ever present boss ape’ stepped out of our heads and became God.  God will punish you for the bad things you’ve done!!  There now, don’t you feel less helpless?  Your big invisible friend will help.

But somethin’ fckd up majorly along the way.  Cosmology and physics are conspiring to drive us through God’s gate, little skeptical sheep who do not believe the gate is there and are convinced it’s a cliff.  Run away, run away little sheep!  God will get you.

I don’t believe in a personal God… I find the idea ludicrous. I do believe in the essential unity of all things, a unity in matter, which needs affect consciousness.  (Matter wants to be conscious… consciousness requires matter).  I don’t believe anything I currently enjoy about my body will survive my death; I do believe that what I’ve DONE will survive, to the extent anything can survive on this fragile ball of mud.  To restate, some poor bastard will be wishing they never heard the tapioca song a hundred years from now, and curse the anonymous female who wrote it.  And there may be little hazel eyed three year old girls who can’t keep their clothes on  stalking critters at the beach, who have a  big  chunk of my DNA.  But that’s it for my survival.   Peggy has said, about  the existence of God, that she’s not sure it’s a meaningful question.  I’m standing over there, with her.

Keith’s B-day tomorrow – Robert Anson Heinlein’s today

The four of us are planning to get together for his birthday. I already bought his present but it will probably arrive next week.

Had the folks over for beers last night; in attendance, Melissa, Ryan, Brian C, Jarmo and Rob of Nine, who was, unfortunately, not able to massage my printer into compliance as there is no driver for it. Drat.

After they all left, Swampy came over for a beer and told me that things are going much more smoothly than he anticipated and it was just really pleasant to have him here – and we discussed a couple of books, including Focusing and The Dosadi Experiment (which is basically a fast forward through Dune without the religion and with a kickass courtroom scene at the end). Then at nine my date came over. We sat outside next to the fountain until about the fourth time he slapped a mosquito (imagine that… a guy who gets bit by mosquitoes more than I do!?) at which point I said that I found it unconscionably inhospitable to contribute to his discomfort so, and besides, there was beer and a bathroom back at my place…

So I guess I’ve had a very sociable weekend already and it ain’t even noon on Saturday yet.

Today is the 100th centenary of Heinlein’s birth. How I wished he could have become a blogger. Okay, I don’t but it makes me laugh to think about how he would have talked about the last three or four sets of American governments.

I talked to Kira on the phone today.  She was purring.  Zeek!, thank heaven, is back to his old self and the bloody spot under his chin has cleared up.  His bloodwork came back okay so the 1200 vet bill Paul and I were looking at turned out not to be necessary.

Keith will come by today before work with more Aubrey/Maturin for me.  (more, more more!) and some other media for me to peruse (hopefully Fables III and IV).

I watched Denis Leary’s music video of Asshole last night.  I always liked the song, but the video was brilliant, IMO.

Facebook is extremely amusing, and I’m having loads o’ fun with it.  Mostly poking people.  I’ve gotten into a poking contest with two people; I know that sounds rude, but it’s harmless virtual primate fun.

Here’s a cool “matrix style” domestic argument, from Japanese TV.

Meditation instructions

These are not exactly meditation instructions, per se.  They are instructions about etiquette in a neo-Buddhist hall in England.  I was charmed by them, and I offer them to Sandra, further to our discussions about “How DO you get people to do what you tell them is the expected behaviour in a written communique?” (Subtext… when you own the land, and you have the right to stren-you-usly guide them towards appropriate behaviour as a result.)  Without violence or name calling or the unwelcome attentions of the local police.  Yes, it’s a poser.  I enjoyed the placid language; it’s in a voice that is rarely troubled and never upset.

From control-z.com

Stated bluntly, faith or belief in an after-life is the single-most cause of suffering and foolishness inflicted upon the human race, by the human race, and for several reasons:

  • It negates the immediacy and value of human life right here and right now.
  • It corrupts the collective unconscious of the species in such a way as to affect behavior. Believing in an life-after-death, making the assumption people don’t really die, subconsciously legitimizes capital punishment and the death penalty, abortion, territorial wars, religious wars, turf wars, gang wars, terrorist attacks, ethnic cleansing, murder, suicide cults, political assassination, et al, since people aren’t really dying after all–they’re just continuing on in another stage of existence.
  • It allows people to postpone action in this life (whether humane or humanitarian) in favor of the life yet to come, allowing for political and religious boundaries, derision and division, separatism and succession. Hence there remains global hunger, border skirmishes, illiteracy, disease, poverty and pestilence, all because the problems of this world are deemed ultimately not as important when measured against the life yet to come. With the idea of an after-life always simmering in the back of people’s mind, they don’t try as hard to really instigate change in this world, strive for peace, alleviate suffering, fight for global changes. After all, eternal life starts at death so why should folks get all worked up over sixty or seventy years?
  • It offers people hope for a solution to their problems at some future time and enables them to not make a conscious effort to begin making the necessary changes or do the necessary work now. It allows them to postpone taking responsibility for their own lives or education (since god will enlighten them and fix everything once they get to heaven) and permits them to sit on their hands in ignorance and inertia while life passes them by. Why make a serious search for truth if truth will be revealed on the other side?
  • It legitimizes the use of persecution and torture in the name of saving souls for the after-life.
  • It allows religious leaders to control their people by offering hope in the next life, promising rewards, threatening punishment, even sentencing eternal damnation (through papal bulls, excommunication) all by invoking interpreted church doctrine.
  • It assumes a mind-body (or soul-body) dichotomy, a disembodied spirit that is mystically and temporarily ‘housed’ in human flesh while blissfully ignoring the inescapable synthesis of each person’s material surroundings, environment, cultural prejudices, parental influences and biases, birth order, sex, physical appearance, shape, size, color, health, biochemistry, electrochemical reactions, stored memory, bones, flesh, blood, eyes, ears, mouth, and steady oxygen supply to shape personality. Everything we think we are we owe solely to the state of our flesh and empirical surroundings, a process impossible to remove from the intrinsic network of matter. With all the above in absence, what would remain exactly to “stand” in judgment before the throne of god, and what mechanisms (or lack thereof) would drive interaction with the divine inquisitor?
  • It rewards laziness, complacency, ignorance, superstition, irrationality, religious fervor, and blind faith with promises of an other-wordly victory and assurances of everlasting retribution.

wandering around town….

Poked my head into the New West library to pick up the next two books in the Aubrey/Maturin photo-15.jpgseries; purchased soy sauce (how is it I haven’t purchased it earlier???) and other comestibles including items which will make the young’uns happy, also beer, also picked up a Georgia Straight and a very satisfactory haircut both in terms of the gossip quotient and the results; also satisfactory in that the first words out of Shelene’s mouth were “Girl, you’ve lost a ton of weight,” which of course made me crack up.  I’m thinking I should cruise down to the office and weigh myself, I can’t trust the scale I’ve got here….  Now all I have to do is piles of laundry and wait for 7 o’clock to roll around so I can get dressed for a party.   Part of me wants to get entirely dolled up (plucked eyebrows….MASCARA!) but the sober portion of my personality has said, “They are engineers – if they do notice it would only be to make fun of you for taking the trouble.”  Sad, but I think true.  So I won’t wear the outfit I bought for Katie’s grad, but I will wear something comfy.  Maybe that flight suit?
I had amazing bus luck today.  I never had to wait more than 5 minutes.  On the way back I had a ‘brrrrr’ experience; the lad sitting across from me on the 145 was a DEAD RINGER FOR STEPHEN HARPER, right down to the icy blue eyes and man boobs.  The poor kid.

I can’t stop smiling.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me…. or what’s right with me.  Subjects were removed on the house; looks like the deal is a go.  Something may go wrong between now and the end of July but I’m good with everything.  I will roll with whatever comes my way.

Zeek! has been to the vet, courtesy of Paul, and he has a lesion on his chin which Paul got cream for and which seems to be working.  Zeek! and Kira appear to be otherwise happy and healthy and adjusting to the new place okay.

I light a candle for all my friends, who have stood by me in a lot of ways, not all of them readily apparent, while I’m going through the transition.  I feel so blessed, so borne up by the good wishes of those who love me, that it’s getting increasingly easy to feel positive, stay positive, and not be so easily moved to anger and irritation all the time.  My current emotional state reminds me of how I felt when I was expecting the kids; occasionally worried, but mostly, thanks to the hormones, feeling almost imperturbably happy and expectant.  The world’s an awesome place.

And I’m practicing mando at least an hour a day.  My guitar is bitching me out from its corner…. pick me up YOU!

I’m going to see a gal from a recreational group I was a member of for a brief while a couple of years back.  She and I are on Livejournal together and her relationship of 27 years busted up under much the same circumstances as mine.  We will get together tomorrow and compare notes, hopefully with buckets of tea and much self-deprecating laughter.  I am SO looking forward to it.  One of my requirements of myself is to quit hanging around with male engineering types who are fifteen years my junior and start hanging out more with sympatico women my own age.  My  visit with Gail made me realize that I am hungering for circumstances under which my childbearing and my middleagedness and my life experiences will be grist for the mill, not something to be shrugged off.  I want to own my life, not have to make excuses for it all the f(cking time.  Although I can’t make excuses for being happy.  Because I am.  I can walk around naked in my apartment!  Who couldn’t be happy about that!?  (Okay, there are three of my regular blog readers who just threw their hands in front of their eyes, but there are also two at least who are thinking other, possibly less critical thotz…)… Oh, and I saw Anne McLeod, one of the revered church elders, in the Safeway in New West today.  It was good to see her!

How to drive your pastor wacky & get the spice back in your spouse

Fortunately, since I’m not a Bible believing Christian, I don’t have to bug MY pastor with any of these questions.  Actually today was the last day Beacon meets at Place Maillardville, so I kinda sorta had to go.  Twenty five years! 

 But what I like the most about the list shown in the previous paragraph is that it was developed by a seminary trained former pastor, which means that there are inconsistencies here I haven’t heard of before – not having spent years poring over the text.  And I don’t have a problem with Jesus.  I have a problem with there being some kind of a code that says that I have to hand my brain over to a bunch of people who don’t act as if they like me, let alone love me, to follow Jesus.  Jesus himself lived his principles, and damned few of us can say that.

And now for something completely different.  I’m reading a book called Mating in Captivity, and it is one of the best books about how domesticity and sex duke it out in married life I have ever, ever seen.  It is nuanced, humane and accessible and I highly recommend it.  You can’t miss the cover.

Erm…

Why on earth would I dream that Oprah and I would work on a cookbook?  I’ve never even watched an Oprah show all the way through.

It was wonderful seeing both of the kids yesterday.

I haven’t had tea and toast for breakfast in so long, I think that’s what I’ll do this morning.

The minister of my church sent me a Facebook invite.  I’m on livejournal – if you want my moniker I’ll forward it on upon request – but I’m sitting Facebook out.  I’ve been severely reducing the amount of time I spend on line because on line time is not an appropriate use of my lived time – at least in the amounts I was doing it before I left the Augur Inn. Also, and it’s easy to predict doom and destruction, but I don’t think Facebook is going to last.  Smart people are opining that the regulation (by which I mean self-regulation and monitoring) issues will doom it (Livejournal just went through a horrorshow/storm about ‘the incest journals’ and is a sadder but wiser internet locale since). Also, I believe that Facebook belongs to younger people.  I know that’s stupid, but I’m 48, I already have my own vanity blog and I carn’t manij the social network I have, if by that one means “taking care of the people who like you and staying in touch with them in appropriate and life enhancing ways”. Also, if the only Facebook invites I’ve received are from my daughter’s buddy and my minister, it means the collection of wise and anarchic individuals I hang with is staying away in droves.  Ya mon, I’ll sit this one out.
I know a guy who is on every social network thingee that blows through the internet.  As far as I can see, the stated reasons “staying in touch, looking for work” are bs.  He’s just pulling tail.   I am sure that my minister and my daughter’s girlfriend are doing it for legit social networking reasons but when I heard this guy was an early adopter that also encouraged me to let go of the rope.

I have one last reason to avoid Facebook, and this is even more stupid and trivial than all the foregoing reasons.  www.fark.com makes BRUTAL fun of Facebook at every oppo.  Erm….

Keith Here

Keith is here, letting me know about his recent comic acquisitions.  With the end of Strangers in Paradise, I’m casting about for a new jones, and I have decided to go for Fables, which he is currently telling me all about.  He’s a dear lad but he didn’t bring me the next Aubrey Maturin book so I growled at him.
I have to go in to New West to get my hairs cut and meet with the Number One Daughter for lunch.  Keith will join us after his workout.

I am going in to work tomorrow, but I realized I committed to going to church, too, so I’m double booking myself…. again.  I should go in around 2 pm.  I really do have to go, it’s the last time we’re in that building before we start up in the Gathering Place in the fall.