red astonishment by ssilence

maybe I should get dreads like these.

Anyhow, there is a new segment for Port Caron
Christian Society Soap Opera fans eat your heart out!!

about life and freedom by tyoib

Pleasant Hum Drum

I've finished my exams as of yesterday morning. I have free time now, and I'm really not sure what in the world to do with myself. OK, I do have a few ideas, and it is still busy around here as I cover shifts for other people at the caf and try see everyone before they leave.

After more than 7 months our house, which we lovingly call Ipanema, is beginning to look more like a home. Sarah bought a love seat and a coffee table which makes the living room more full, more like a living room. Nolan helped me put up one of my broken mirror art peices on the wall in the living room(and when I say helped I mean he did it, infact I wasn't even there). And on Sat Dez and I put up a few of her puzzles; one of the Notre Dame in Montreal (which I absolutely love) and another of Van Gough's starry night (which is also fabulous). So the living room is looking fuller, more like a home, on the walls and floor alike.

There are ways that the house is starting to look like a home outside of the living room; in fact it will eventually be outside of the house. I started planting last week, started growing plants inside so they will be well grown and strong by planting weekend (generally the first weekend in June... i think... is the proper planting time, it is a safe distance after the last frost, and that weekend is when the home based greenhouses, and the horticultural society, sell their excess plants). Anyhow, the prospect of having a garden is exciting, and will definately make this place seem more like a home, and I think my old plot of dirt in Ontario should be given as an inheiritance to my neice. She seems to share the love of getting things to grow, so I think she would be a most appropriate person to hand the responsibility over to. She would take care of the plants that still remain there, and add some new ones of her own.

I cooked a whole chicken for the first time on Sunday, which I am pleased to say turned out quite well. It was one of our communal dinners, where the boys next door and Sarah and I get together to have a nice dinner. Adam made the potatoes and brought a pie and we all conveined in our (full and homey) living room for what will be possibly be the second last time we have a big meal together (Our last meal will be when we get together for Adam's wedding).

So that is the pleasant hum drum, throughout these simple pleasures and finishing up classes God continues to teach me and stretch me, and my mind continues to turn on many things. At many points I've been quiet and distant, though sometimes I think I talk too much and should just stop speaking, and I've got that end of the year worn-outness that college students get. But all is well here, Ipanema is beginning to see sunnier days and will soon see the fruits (and veggies and flowers) of a properous garden.

far away by ssilence

Of Judging Wisdom and Humility

Lately I've been feeling judged, or misjudged. I guess both apply, I have to be
judged to be misjudged, but I waiver on the edge of digressing. Lately I've been
feeling judged. It could just be me, maybe I'm over sensitive, or dillusioned, but I
did say it was a feeling,and not a fact. The latest of which a friend quite flippantly
told me in the midst of a conversation that I had a huge chip on my shoulder
about guys. It hit me hard that someone who has known me for as long as he has
could know me so little. And that he handled it with such little care to cast it on me
while working at Joe's and then leave me with nothing but a smirk. Like a friend
punching you in the stomach while you're at work and then just walking away
expecting you to be able continue what you're doing like he's only just saidhello.
I will admit that there can be an impression of this about me that I didn't realize
before and that I would like to shed that. But to have a friend judge me for
appearance, to not try to understand my circumstance, just really hurts. There have
been a few incidents where I feel like others are grossly misjudging me on
appearance. Granted that will always happen, but lately it just seems a little more
often, and by people you'd hope would attempt to understand, you'd hope they'd be
forgiving.

Anyhow like any little thing in life it got me to thinking, with the aid of some readings
I have been doing. Before this had afflicted my brain, my mind had been turning on
wisdom and humility, two very general aspects of life and humanity. I've been
studying James 3 for hermeneutics, as well as reading Hobbes for philosophy,
and C.S. Lewis just because; where wisdom and humility has been popping up.It
has occurred to me, throughout enduring life's lessons, that humility is at the heart of
every lesson and wisdom the goal of it. For we are humbled when we are shown that
there is something we need to be taught, we must admit in humility that we need to be
taught (or in other words we were not so wise as we thought), and are wiser for doing
so. But the beginning problem is the diffculty in realizing that maybe we are not so
wise as we thought. Hobbes touched on wisdom in speaking of the degree in which
mankind is equal,

      That which may perhaps make such equality incredible is but a vain conceit
      of one's own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in greater degree                                   
      than the vulgar; that is, than all men but themselves, and a few others, whom  
      by fame, or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For such is the 
      nature of men that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more 
      witty, or more eloquent, or more learned, yet they will hardly believe that 
      there there be many so wise as themselves; for they see their own wit at hand, 
      and other men's at a distance. But this proveth rather that men are in that 
      point equal, than unequal.

Hobbes is perhaps exaggerating, but he has the clear point that we often like to think
ourselves wiser than maybe we really are. What does this have to do with judging
others? Well, when we think ourselves wise, we also think ourselves fit to adequately
judge others. It makes me wonder how often I have judged others and not even
realized that I am basing opinion on outward appearance. It makes me hate the
whole concept of first impressions, and trying to know a person and their character
without patience and forgiveness. There is more to think about, such as what is
wisdom, or who is wise, if all of us who think we are, maybe aren't? And of course
humility is showing up here to. What is it to be humble? But that's a discussion for
another post, or maybe for the comment section....