Two things

There are two things I wish all Americans would do. The world's cost of food has been rising because North Americans have been using corn for non-food purposes. If I could broadcast myself in the national media, I would ask folks to:

1. Stop using corn-based ethanol to fuel your cars. Sure, it may be a tiny bit more environmentally sound, but it still pollutes and it's wasting food that could be used to feed hungry kids in Africa/Asia/South America. Carpool. Ride a bike. Take a hike.

2. Eat less meat. It takes 5 months of feeding a pig 8 pounds of feed per day to get it to full size - 265 pounds. (http://www.pork4kids.com). 1200 pounds of food (say, corn) create only 265 pounds of meat (less the inedible parts of the animal). Those 1200 pounds of corn can feed a LOT more people than ~265 pounds of pork. Additionally, more energy and vitamins & nutrients are absorbed through eating corn - because the pig has already digested & used much of that energy by the time you get to eating the pork. Seriously, beans & rice will save the world. If we allow it.

Every day, I'm more and more appalled by the wasteful gluttony I see here in this country. I may just learn Spanish and move to a monastery in Peru.

On a more fun note, my friend Matthew has made a fun video to share:

A bad potluck dish

Hello! I know that everyone loves potlucks/pot blessings/covered dish/bring-food-to-share dinners, so of course everyone must be familiar with the one dish on the table that looks a little funky and slightly untouched for that reason. Before you take another sympathy scoop from that particular dish at your next potluck, read the story of the original icky potluck entree:

Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was a famine in that region. While the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to his servant, "Put on the large pot and cook some stew for these men."

One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine. He gathered some of its gourds and filled the fold of his cloak. When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were. The stew was poured out for the men, but as they began to eat it, they cried out, "O man of God, there is death in the pot!" And they could not eat it.

Elisha said, "Get some flour." He put it into the pot and said, "Serve it to the people to eat." and there was noting harmful in the pot."

(2 Kings 4:38-41)

Jell-O/marshmallow salad, anyone?

Mating Season

Typing seems to be faster than handwriting, so this place on the internet seems to be the best place to journal my weird thoughts. Here is another:

It is spring. I ran this morning and enjoyed the cool air, wet pavement, green grass and bright daffodils. All signs of April in Pennsylvania.

Going past one well-manicured lawn, I saw a pair of cardinals zipping around: a red one chasing a brown one. The male has bright, crimson feathers & a fancy hat; the female is a modest, soft brown hue.

I've noticed that this is often the case in birds: the male is more visually attractive than the female. Girlie birdies are beautiful in their own ways, but the colorations on the males are specifically designed to attract the eye.

Consider: a red cardinal; a green-faced mallard; a blue-green peacock with magnificent tailfeathers. On the other hand, the female cardinal, the female duck, and the peahen are each a duller brown color.

This is less often true in mammals. Buck & doe rabbits look the same, dogs of the same breed look the same; porcupines, raccoons, coyotes have the same appearance between genders (except size, sometimes). Deer have the functional difference in that the bucks have antlers they use for fighting over the females. One case I can think of is that lions have great big manes, and lionesses do not.

So anyways, I was looking at these cardinals today and thinking about how (most often in birds, I guess) the male is the "pretty" one, using his physical appearance to attract a female mate. With people, it's quite the opposite: women are the beautiful ones. In societies where courtship is practiced, the men each seek out a beautiful woman and woo her.

Boy-birds woo their lady-birds with their looks, while men woo women because of their looks. I don't know if there's any theology/philosophy/biological reasoning behind that, but I've observed this a few times before, and I wonder why our Creator chose to give women beauty rather than men, while the reverse is true in the animal kingdom. (I'm open to anyone's thoughts or answers in this)

Easter? Not really...

Regretfully, I had never been exposed to multiple forms of Christian spirituality as a child. Occasionally I got to go to mass with my dad, which I found more interesting, but 95% of the time was Sunday mornings at Presbyterian church. Mainline, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant church. "Middle class" to rich white folks.

And we followed the church calendar all year. Advent (waiting for Christmas), Christmas, Epiphany (arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem), Lent (waiting for Easter), Easter, Ascencion, and Pentecost (arrival of the Holy Spirit). This religious calendar was simply a part of the life I
lived on Sundays before lunchtime. It was all a given. A part of time.

(I do often wish I lived in innocence/ignorance of the church calendar.
Last year I spoke with Greg about whatever church
services were going on, and I mentioned "Maundy Thursday."
He said, "What's that?"
I said, "It's the remembrance of the Thursday
when Jesus had His final Passover meal with His disciples,
and then prayed in the garden and was arrested."
Greg replied, "What is a maundy?"
I had no answer for him - I had simply called it that
my whole life without asking what the word
meant - how ignorant a follower I am! I discovered
maundatum - "command," as in , "A new command I give you: love
one another as I have loved you." - Jesus' final command to His disciples)

When I got involved at a non-denominational church in college, though, all that day-by-day religiosity simply wasn't present. They did Christmas and Easter, sure. But the difference was that Pastor Nate always called Easter "Resurrection Sunday." And that is what it is. It made much more sense than calling it some sort of made-up word that doesn't appear in the Bible. Of course, I decided to go on an internet quest to find out why we call Jesus' resurrection "Easter."

It quite has nothing to do with Him or His resurrection day. Easter comes from Ēostre-monath, a month of the Germanic calendar named after Ēostre, the Anglo-Saxon pagan goddess of spring/fertility/dawn/the dawn star(Venus).

"Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility, to whom was dedicated a month corresponding to April. Her festival was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox; traditions associated with the festival survive in the Easter rabbit, a symbol of fertility, and in colored easter eggs, originally painted with bright colors to represent the sunlight of spring." - history.com

In America, people who call themselves followers of Christ - the risen One - choose to celebrate His resurrection day by repeating pagan traditions formerly used to celebrate this goddess Ēostre. And only in the English-speaking world do we continue to honor this goddess by name on the resurrection day of Jesus...


From religioustolerance.org:

"Based on Pagan name: In English, "Easter" is derived from the name of an ancient pagan goddess Eostre.

Based on "Pesach:" In most of the remaining languages in countries with a Christian heritage, the name is derived from "Pesach" (פסח in Hebrew) the name for Passover. These include...

Afrikaans: Paasfees
Arabic: عيد الفصح (Aīd ul-Figh)
Finnish: Pääsiäinen
French: Pâques
Greek: Πάσχα (Pascha)
Hebrew: פסחא (Pascha)
Irish: Cáisc
Malayalam: പെശഹ (Pæsacha/Pæsaha)
Spanish: Pascua
Tagalog: Pasko ng Muling Pagkabuhay, "the Pasch of the Resurrection"

Other bases:
Armenian: Զատիկ (Zadik) "separation" or Սուրբ Հարություն (Sourb Haroutiwn) "holy resurrection"
Chinese: Fùhuó Jié, "Resurrection Festival"
Georgian: აღდგომა (Aĝdgoma), "rising"
Japanese: katakana or Fukkatsusai, "Resurrection Festival"
Tongan (South-pacific): Pekia, "death (of a Lord)"

April 1st

April 1st is the best day of the year to use Gmail/Google. Those guys are great.

So now that it's April, it seems summer approaches more quickly. Currently I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself... advice, please?

Option A :: continue working at Dick Blick
+ relaxed schedule
+ teach classes at Carlisle Arts Learning Center
- Blick doesn't pay a lot (7.50/hr)
+ could earn money teaching at CALC

Option B :: work at Krislund, again
+ being outside for the summer (this is necessary)
+ not living at home
+ hanging out with kids & great people
+ help the new camp director as an alum staff member
- very low pay (0.22/hr)
- quitting Blick, or returning to work in August?

Option C :: potential employment at local state park
+ pays a freakin' lot more (12.75/hr)
+ would involve playing outside for the summer
+ could perhaps continue part time at Blick?
- 1 hour commute (2 hrs daily!)
+ continue involvement at CALC

Option D :: day camp for "at risk" jr. high kids
+ decent wages (8.50/hr) and hours (10-3)
+ fun activities (hiking trips, amusement parks...)
+ loving on kids who need it
+ could work afternoons & weekends at Blick
+ continue involvement at CALC

So that all has been on my mind lately.

Also this summer, if I'm around Camp Hill, I'll be able to continue hanging out with the youth group, which would be sweet. I am definitely going on the summer mission trip, July 18-26 - and hopefully Wallace will be coming as well! Plans may work out that I simply stick around in Maine after that and head east to Petit Manan to spend a few weeks with Greg's family on the coast. Wallace and I area also thinking about doing some sort of white-water rafting trip around here (PA, MD, VA). A summer of adventure!

This morning I made an attempt at vacuuming, but it broke, smoked and made a seriously awful smell. I turned on the bathroom and kitchen vent fans, opened windows, went upstairs for an hour - it still smelled, so I used a name-brand air spray and 2 hours later the scent still lingers lightly. Ew.

Yesterday I went shopping for my good friend Megan, whose bridal shower will take place on Saturday. The proprietor of the lingerie store was very kind and helpful; a lovely woman. Kept telling me how glad she was that I stopped in. Made me wish I had a reason to visit there more often, just to say hello.

I'm quite glad to be able to use the studio space at CALC. Last night I helped Thom with wedging some reclaimed clay and he told me all about teaching opportunities for the center. I can basically just make up a class curriculum, put together a materials list and then they'll make up advertisements for the thing. I got to see the creepy, creepy basement that extends under the entire building and has a cast-iron boiler the size of a steam engine in it, as well as some art materials. Apparently, the back room of the building had been used as a beauty school to get women off the streets in the 1970s - so they took beautician classes upstairs and lived in the basement. I can't imagine how anyone would want to live down there - I'd rather sleep on the sidewalk!!

Anyways, it's wet out, and spring is settling in, soon to dry out (I hope). Looking forward to sunny days, hiking, kayaking, and maybe some bouldering down at White Rocks. I think if I get that state park job I'd get a chance to do some paddling on their lakes. Maybe I'll look into pricing for kayaks...