Of Relative Unimportance

There are a couple of questions over which the discussion can become rather heated, and as such I generally avoid them. No, they are not religion and politics, although one should tread carefully in those areas. I am learning to address those either strictly on my own as in this blog (which you may avoid or ignore as you wish) or only when invited and confident in a serious, charitable talk. What I'm thinking about are more scientific queries: life elsewhere in the Universe, and evolution here on Earth. The fact is that I don't consider either to be particularly important questions. Oh, they may well be important from a scientific point of view. Yet philosophically and certainly theologically I can't see any reason to fret over them too much.

To the one, evolution, God creates any way He wants to create. He is God after all. If that means over a long drawn out period, that's His pleasure. It wouldn't make humanity any less special nor any less touched by the Divine. At some point consciousness was breathed into the human animal and that's that. What we do now that we're here becomes the important point.

As to sentient life, or indeed any other life at all elsewhere in the cosmos, I believe the same basic argument applies. Either there is other life or there is not; either it is self aware or it is not. In either instance that question too is up to the will of the Almighty and that also is that. If there are other such beings it doesn't make humanity any less special. It simply means that God shared Himself with someone besides us. And I don't think they would be all that different from we denizens of Earth. Seeing as the Universe is imperfect, they would be afflicted with the same needs which challenge us: their daily bread and the like. Other than as an opportunity to learn proper tolerance and charity should we each (or all) meet, (just as we ought to be kind and considerate of who we meet here at home) it isn't all that important who might be out there, and where.

That's my take on the questions anyway. I would tell you my personal beliefs, but I think it would take away from the overall point I'm trying to make. 

Just as Well

One of life's little pleasures for me is going old school and listening to baseball games on the radio in the garage of our place when in Hessel, in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula. There's something about the anticipation of waiting to be told what's happening which adds excitement to hearing my Detroit Tigers in action. In certain ways, it's better than actually seeing the game. It sparks the imagination. Radio is a book for the ear.

Imagine, then, my consternation when the power went out in the third inning of yesterday's game. Zach McKinstry had just aggressively took third on a Riley Greene single. Dan Dickerson, the play by play man describing the actions, had just called McKinstry safe when the radio clicked off. 

Hitting the on button did not turn the thing back on. I checked the power box in the garage and the breakers were on. Trying the house itself, I found the breakers all on in the electric panel in the back bedroom closet. Flipping lights throughout the house with no response told me what I had by then presumed: there was a power outage. I looked up the local power company on my phone (for of course I had no other Internet access with no power), Cloverland Electric for what that's worth, and reported the issue. Their site told me that around 1300 people in my area had no electricity but they were working on it. So, as the afternoon had bright sunshine in a cloudless sky, I settled into a lawn chair under a cedar tree and read a book.

A couple of hours later as I was in the kitchen, the light came on. Racing out to the garage, I turned the radio on just in time to hear Dickerson proclaim, "...and Texas beats Detroit in the the first game of this series, five to nothing."

I guess it wasn't the worst time for the power to go out. It saved me a bit of anguish.

Clear Skies at Night

I need to go out west and spend a night under the stars. I've been told that without the light pollution in our neck of the woods you can see hundreds more stars than you can here in the eastern US. Still, the middle of the night in Hessel, in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, offers a quietly vibrant view of the heavens.

After arriving in the late afternoon yesterday and grilling tuna steaks for dinner (I will definitely do that again: tuna steaks hot off a grill are spectacular) I found I was quite tired. I stretched out on the sofa and was asleep before 7. I woke up refreshed a little after 3 this morning. With a cup of coffee in hand I dressed, found my coat, slipped on my shoes, and walked down to the beach in the still of the morning.

The stars overhead in the darkness of the lakeside were a wonderful sight. There was even the occasional steady progression of a satellite, as though itself a slow moving star. Hessel at such times is serene and calming.

I never understood the attitude that we humans ought to feel insignificant and small in the huge and expanding Universe. The night sky I think is simply the dome of an artist, a view given us so that we might know we aren't really alone in creation. 

What has our size or spatial geography have to do with it anyway? Be glad you're here. You're supposed to be. Such starry nights prove our importance rather than negate our existence.

Forgetting Hurts

Yesterday I skinned the knuckle on my thumb while installing a part on a drain snake. I skinned it pretty good, too. It hurt like heck and bled like crazy; I'm thorough like that. No reason to injure yourself unless you can do it spectacularly.

I cleaned and bandaged it and went on about my day.

When back at home after work, I removed the bandages prior to cleaning up, then was promptly distracted by something, likely something very shiny. I forgot about my thumb, which hadn't really scabbed over and was seeping a little blood.

Soon returning to my clean up, I turned on the hot water, grabbed a bar of soap, and stuck my hands under the stream coming from tap. Then I nearly jumped through the ceiling when that scalding water and soap hit the skinned thumb. I yelled so loud I can't believe the neighbors didn't call the cops, assuming someone had been attacked. I shook the water and soap off my hand like I was trying to dislodge a tarantula. I swear my thumb was throbbing like a cartoon character's after slamming himself with a hammer.

It's funny now, but it wasn't then.

Seeing the Silver Lining

I don't know how it came up, but yesterday me brother Phil and I were talking about the often horrible diseases which afflict the human race. "Did you know that if you contract the Ebola virus or the bubonic plague but survive, you're immune to them afterwards?" he was telling me.

"Really?" I responded. "They'd be terrible to suffer through. But good, though, that if you get them you can't get them again."

Phil replied, wit just rolling off his tongue, "Well, you don't get them again if you die either."

He's always looking for the bright side.

Angelic David

Shawn on Amazon says this about my novel David Gideon:

The book is a fun romp where the politics are much more civil than reality. This would be a fun world to live in and if there could be an angelic being like David with a great wife like Diane life would be good for everyone.
Enjoy the story and forget about the reality of our politics and you’ll get a double win.

I must admit that I'm not completely sure how to take this assessment. It almost sounds tongue in cheek. But as he did also give the book four stars out of five, I think it was well meant. 

The fact is that I purposely downplayed the politics in David Gideon. I did this for several reasons. One is that politics as politics is either boring or maddening, and typically both. Another is that, while I do not back away from David's core beliefs, if you get too political you automatically turn off half of your potential audience. As such, I feared that if I became too in depth on the politics it would distract from the real story, which is ultimately about a man and a woman's life together. Diane Gideon is the real hero, you know, and political nonsense, except where it would enhance the story, would take away from that.

When our friend Shawn advises to forget political reality and enjoy the story you get a double win, it's precisely what I wanted as an author. If you've been kind enough to read it, I hope you agree.

Driving old school

I drove my new old van on her first sales trip yesterday, delivering repaired cables to a little town called Chester, West Virginia. She did fine. Everything went well and according to plan. There was only one problem: I had to apply the gas pedal to accelerate.

It's true, I tell ya. If I wanted to move at all I had to give it gas myself. A couple of times I took my foot off the pedal and was shocked to find I was slowing down. Something must be wrong!

But, of course, no. There was simply no cruise control. First world problem, yes. Still, I was disappointed. I had no right to be, but you get used to things, you know?