As we walked down the Burke-Gilman Trail we saw Lake Washington freezing from the shore out to 100' or more. I only had my cell phone, so the photos are fairly lame.
If you look closely you can see a bird standing on the ice. I also got a picture of the dog standing on the ice, Dana posted it on her Vox blog.
We get some nice skies and pretty sunlight, although it feels all too brief and not very intense this time of year, and when we get extended freezing stretches it feels very weak. Properly dressed it's not that big a deal, but you have to be a little more aware of it this time of year. Only a little, this is the maritime Pacific Northwest, after all.
Between going to the bus stop and back, walking the dog, and taking the kids on walks I've been walking more recently and it has helped keep me more fit and a little lighter.
Now if I'd just remember to bring the digital camera a little more often I could get some good pictures.
I've always been curious why 12 step programs include #2: "recognizing a greater power that can give strength."
Today I read a blog on slate titled "Buy Local, Act Evil" by that got me thinking.
A study showed that those who felt they had acted virtuously were less generous and more likely to cheat.
So if you have achieved 30 days of something you're trying to achieve - fitness, sobriety, whatever, the automatic human response is a desire to celebrate that, to cut yourself some slack. In the case of sobriety, if you're still around the people you used with before, you'll most likely use again.
If instead a higher power such as God is able to get you through, but it's out of your hands (steps 2 & 1) then you've no longer accomplished anything, so there's no moral or spiritual currency to spend, so to speak. If I didn't earn the sobriety then I haven't earned any slack.
Perhaps step 2 is included because it makes success more likely due to human psychology. Of course, theists have an additional reason.
I'm employed full time and a little more, I'm a husband and a father with two kids still living at home, and I'm a man of faith required to attend Mass weekly (and a bit more) and volunteer in service to others.
It's easy to over commit.
I volunteer as the 6th grade religious education teacher at the church. I also volunteer at the Vera Project.
I'm re-joining the choir now for Advent and Christmas. Practice is Thursday night, and I have to get to Mass 15-30 minutes early to warm-up and rehearse. We'll need some extra practices for Christmas Mass in December.
I need to make sure I'm able to spend quality time with the wife and kids, and somewhere I need to squeeze in exercise. I like to read, and some time for at least a little social life would be nice.
This leads to a busy week:
work, then water aerobics Monday night, work then Vera committee Tuesday night, work then Religious Ed
Wednesday night, work then Choir practice Thursday night, work then Dana & I go out on
Friday, Saturday catch up on housework and help a friend move. Sunday go early to practice then sing in Mass, then handle anything that needs to be done before Monday that you were unable to do earlier in the week, then get part of Sunday as a "day of rest" spent playing with the wife and kids, maybe playing some music, taking walks, watching "America's Funniest Home Videos" and getting ready to do it all again. Oh wait a minute, I forgot to do my laundry and there's no clean clothes, so much for getting to bed early...
Combining things helps. Carina is joining the choir with me, so the Thursday night activity also counts as quality time with the kids - we'll talk on the way to and from church, and performing an art together is always a quality experience. Water aerobics with my wife helps us keep connected to each other and healthier, and Ben joins us when he's caught up on homework. Shooting baskets with Ben and taking walks with Ben, Carina, Dana and the dog in various subsets is fun. I bus to work, requiring a 3/4 mile walk to the bus stop and another 1/2 mile walking downtown, each way. I also use the time on the bus to read, or to write in my journal.
Sometimes it feels very busy, and sometimes I get pretty tired out, but that tired glow at the end of a long day spent taking care of business, being with my family and friends, being active and being of service to others can be a very satisfying thing. In any event, I rarely have any trouble getting to sleep.
Summer is way over and Fall is here, and boy has it been raining. Every season has it's good and bad points, and I miss the warm weather and bright days, but I like the misty views and the colorful trees with the limited sunlight being very oblique and golden. There isn't that much of it, but you can still get some cool views and pictures.
More late fall vegetables in our diets - lots of squash, time for a box or two of satsuma oranges, and more comfort food to help keep us warm. Exercising and keeping in shape gets harder, but we still have the Y and my DDR workouts to keep us busy.
Halloween is up shortly, and then Thanksgiving - a good excuse to have a big dinner with lots of family and friends, this is always one of my favorite holidays. Maybe this year we won't set the fire alarm off (although I hate to end a multi-year tradition).
Shortly after that Advent starts. I've sung in the church choir the last few Advent/Christmas seasons, and I enjoy it immensely. For 4 weeks during Advent we sing without accompaniment - a Capella, just voices. Several of the songs express a desire for peace and salvation in haunting terms and when we're on - hitting the harmonies, changing chords and keeping time tightly and accurately, the result makes the hair stand on the back of my neck and arms. Creating a beautiful experience as a group is wonderful, and doing it in service to others is a peak experience. The experience fills me with grace and peace, profoundly affecting my attitude and relationship with others and with God. When Christmas gets here we do masses with trumpets and strings and organ accompaniment. The glorious noise and celebration is even more profound in contrast to the prior 4 weeks. Yet another example of the abundant grace provided for us, if we only have the wit to participate. Perhaps some are not comfortable with religious terms, in which case think of it as an opportunity to participate in creating beauty for others. Whatever your motivations, creating beauty and serving others are fundamentally good things, and the world needs as much good, beauty, and service as it can get. I hope and pray that everyone has figured this out and makes room in their lives for creativity and service.
I'm not sure we can fit the choir in the schedule this year. I'm already volunteering at the Church 1 day a week, at the Vera another, and attending Mass at least weekly. Adding Thursday night choir practice makes for an extremely busy week. Ah well, I'll probably just suck it up and go for it until the end of Christmas in January, drop out for a bit, then resume in time to prepare for Lent and Easter (an even more glorious time to sing, but that's a topic for a later post).
So guess who lives down the street that's a dead end, past the "End County Maintained Road" sign, where the "image is no longer available"- behind all those trees, what are they hiding?
I'm still planning on going to the United State of Electronica show at the Vera on Halloween, we'll see if I pull it off.
Have a happy Halloween and an awesome All Saints day.
My wife, my kids and I (and the dog) participated in the first "Run Vera Run" fundraising 5K run (or in my family's case, walk) at Seward Park on Sunday.
The weather was beautiful and the view was awesome, Seward Park and the lake and mountain views this time of year are wonderful. We helped raise over $30,000 for a good cause, and with the drop-off in corporate funding this year the Vera Project needs it pretty badly.
There were some nice people giving free massages and selling Vera and band merchandise, and they gave away fresh fruit, trail mix and water bottles. We got several Run Vera Run shirts for raising over $100 and over $150 dollars, and I managed to get buy my favorite Vera t-shirt with the silver robot on it, and we even got a free CD with local bands on it, so that was cool too.
The Maldives played in the park after the Run/Walk. The crowd was pretty quiet but the band put on a good show, very rootsy/folksy yet it rocked out as well.
We didn't take the camera so we only got a few cell phone shots. Maybe next year we'll do better at getting pictures...
I was lucky enough to see a set and a part of another by the Fabulous Hammers at the Traveler's Harvest Ball on Saturday October 3. The event was great with wonderful Indian food, spiced cider, and pleasant company. The space worked nicely with the food on one side with it quiet enough for pleasant conversations and the merchandise moved out on the other side with the band set up in the corner and a reasonable dance floor.
The Fabulous Hammers are a five man band with a keyboard, guitar, bass, saxophone and drums. They use the Hammond organ sound and were familiar in an odd way. I have a CD from the EMP that has some old Northwest bands with regional hits from the sixties - David's Mood by the Dave Lewis Trio, Granny's Pad by the Viceroys, mostly instrumental workouts with a sax, they sounded like that stuff. I realized 3 or 4 songs in that they didn't just sound like it, they were doing songs by these old iconic bands. I never thought I'd hear any of that stuff live, so that was charming and way cool and the band was good! Tight and well coordinated, well rehearsed, and into music that had the occasional odd time signature breaks, the noise level and distortion was kept low so the musicians talent shone through. This old school music has a lot of moving parts and some complexity, so seeing to played so effortlessly was impressive.
I love the classic old school songs and that sound, and I never figured I'd be lucky enough to see that old music done right. I was impressed and highly entertained, and they kept a good crowd dancing and enjoying the music and yelling for more. The infectious and vaguely familiar old style music gave the dance party a fun and instant classic feel. Highly recommended, let's hope this turns into an annual event.
I love the oblique golden light and brilliant skies and clouds we get in the Summer. Add that to water views and you can take some nice pictures.
A slightly edited version of this post was publised on the XX blog by By Emma Gilbey Keller.
I was born into a Catholic family and baptized as a baby. I attended mass on Easter, Christmas, and maybe 6 or 8 other Sundays each year.
I fell in love with rationality as a teenager, doing well academically and convincing myself that rational analysis solved the issues that needed solving. I dropped the church, seeing it as an anachronistic collection of odd practices and ideas that had no utility for me.
It took me decades to notice just how much being raised Catholic affected how I looked at things. We are all imperfect, do unto others, we needed to be charitable and loving to all, render unto Caesar,… I was pretty much Catholic in outlook, just not in faith practices. I also noticed an affinity for Mass. I always felt a little better during and after going to mass, but since I mostly only went on Easter and Christmas I chalked that up to the beauty of the service and the music. I didn’t think in terms of grace and exaltation at that time.
I married a Catholic woman who believed. She prayed for me to return to the church, and made sure our children got some indoctrination and took first communion. I went to church due to her influence – I wanted to keep her happy.
In 2001 I got to fly to Rome for a sales conference in February. I was able to go to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum of Religious Art (Cistine Chapel!) as well as several other amazing sites. In the basement (catacombs?) under St. Peters I saw a golden crucifix with a large multifaceted gem. It was simple and beautiful and it touched me on some level I didn’t recognize. I tracked down a description and found that a jeweler and a gem-cutter had worked together to create and donate this to the church several centuries before. I now think that it touched me spiritually, that I felt grace just looking at it. The feeling was somewhat foreign to me outside of mass, so I didn’t quite get it, but I felt it. With all the art and archeological treasures in Rome, I felt it repeatedly and powerfully.
My father suffered from scoliosis, which twisted his spine and eventually his ribs. This led to stress on his aorta, which tore and left him paralyzed below the waist. As he recovered in the hospital, his kidneys failed. We were told he had a few weeks to live. I’ve never felt so helpless. Mom insisted that the doctors had told her to expect she could bring him home after 2 weeks and she was going to do so. Being in a hospital and paralyzed was horrible for my dad.
I couldn’t sleep; rationality was a joke. Rationally, my dad would be dead in 2 weeks. He’d never meet his grandson, never be around to talk to, I just couldn’t fathom it and couldn’t bear it. I was getting exhausted, to the point that I needed to sleep or I’d be unable to do my job, and we couldn’t afford to lose my job. I was out of options, rationality went nowhere. I tried to find a way out. What would my wife do? She’d pray. I hadn’t tried that yet, so I prayed.
I felt grace and calmness as I prayed. I threw myself on God’s mercy, admitting I had no power, and prayed that Dad would live long enough to get to know his soon to be born grandson.
Two weeks to the day after Dad went in, mom and my brother went down to get him out. The nurses and doctors acted surprised and opposed the thought of dad going home.
Mom argued that Dad preferred to die at home, since nothing the hospital had done helped the kidneys at all, he was still dying. After an exhausting, trying 8 hour shift of arguing with a doctor then yet another specialist and so on, they wheeled dad out and brought him home.
Within days of coming home dad’s kidneys kicked back in. His blood recovered quickly, and he was as fine as he was going to get as a paraplegic. He recovered enough to take the dog on runs down by the beach from his wheel chair and he attended my son’s baptism, getting to know him over the first few years of my son’s life. Dad died years later after a full and happy life. His last years were progressively harder as his health issues mounted, and when he finally died I was as ready for it as I was going to get.
As a therapeutic/creative effort, I try to write songs on occasion. The words are often not put together consciously, they just sort of bubble up. I consider myself a mostly happy, well adjusted person, but the song lyrics that bubble up are almost invariably downbeat and depressing. One day a particularly powerful verse (at least to me) that included the phrase “to try to fill the aching spiritual void” bubbled up.
Wow! I thought. Do I actually have an acing spiritual void? The answer was obvious as soon as I thought about it. By purposefully blinding myself to the spiritual I ended up coming up with rational justifications to seek those moments of grace. I crave the grace to fill my spiritual void but refused to admit it to myself. Without a spiritual life and grace we are helpless in the face of the most important events in our lives. We don’t fully appreciate the mystery and majesty of our lives and God’s creation, and we don’t have the tools to understand or survive the worst that life can throw at us.
I’ve since applied my rationality to filling that aching spiritual void. Many things grant me grace. Praying, mass, confession, volunteering, being of service, helping out, experiencing art, accomplishing useful tasks, listening to a great performance, sharing and loving. There is grace all around us, and we are finely tuned – dare I say evolved – to experience it if we don’t blind ourselves by oversimplification.
Bumbershoot came and went. Weather wasn't great - Seattle set a record for rainfall on Saturday, and the cold wet weather and wind kept the crowd down a bit.
Lots of great bands, though. I recorded some songs, but my audio tools aren't great, so I haven't been able to post excerpts yet.
Plenty of good pictures, though.
The sky was interesting with all the clouds, especially near sunset.
Lots of other pictures, several videos, and some songs recorded. Saw some fun shows, bands I always knew I wanted to see, and bands I didn't realize I wanted to see. All in all another successful Bumbershoot.
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