2012, Day by Day

Meaning of …

Among some books being donated to the annual book sale are a few dream dictionaries.  My wife explained, “I don’t need them. My dreams need to be interpreted from within. You can’t just go get the answer from a book.”

It reminded me of some friends who had a book entitled Animal Speak by Ted Andrews, which seems to be a dictionary of animal meanings.  Like a dream dictionary, but with animals instead.  These particular friends would sometimes say things like, “We saw way more deer than usual, so we looked them up in Animal Speak …”  On the other hand, they seemed to enjoy Animal Speak and found the meanings in it to be helpful and accurate to their lives, which is the opposite of my wife’s experience in dreams.

Is Animal Speak a better book than dream dictionaries? Are animal meanings somehow more universal than dream symbols? Or is it possible that god could guess these particular friends would look up animal meanings in Animal Speak, and chose the matching creature based on the message he wanted to send?

Butterflies

Butterflies know the speed limits.  If I’m driving too fast, they hit the windshield or the front of the car.  Whether it’s 65mph on the interstate or 35mph through town, going the speed limit means they lift up and over the car without trouble; a few miles an hour faster, and thwack.

I slowed down a bit.

After our silent prayers of grace…

Julie: “Did the god say something funny?  I heard you laughing over there.”

Me: “Oh, I was just saying thanks for the exercise.  And thinking about that Sinfest strip.”

Maybe I am empty

Lately, nothing comes to mind when I sit to write; there is just stillness.  Perhaps it’s time to give the postings a rest for a while.

Self/other

I have noticed within myself a tendency to avoid eye contact in public. It seems to be a way to look and judge while avoiding the judgements of others, by separating myself from that reminder of their humanity. I see that my fear of being seen and judged only comes from my own judging, and Jesus’ advice to judge not, lest ye be judged becomes much more real and immediate.

A Cycle

Today, I volunteered at the local wildlife sanctuary, specifically on farm site cleanup. It seems that when the land was in use as a farm throughout most of the 20th century, they used to dump their trash into the swamp, where it would sink out of sight. Now, every year, the spring floods bring fresh trash to the surface at the dump site, as if the Earth is returning what we put into it.

Our group carried out nearly 1500 lbs. of trash today, half of it glass, dating back to the 1930s and 40s (as judged by a collector of old bottles, who was disappointed that there wasn’t anything older.) Next year, there will be more…

Don’t Touch

One of the implicit rules of teaching that I wish I would have learned earlier:

Show. Tell. Answer questions. But don’t touch the student’s work.

I learned this specifically about programming, but then I got to thinking about it: does the art teacher take the student’s brush and throw a few strokes on the “tricky part” of the painting?  No, because nobody learns how to paint by watching someone else do it.  Even simplified cartoons demonstrate the problem: there’s an enormous gap between following how-to-draw-Garfield directions and having a result someone would mistake for Jim Davis’ art.

So I have to remind myself not to touch.  The experience, frustrating as it may be for the student, is critical to their journey.

Support/Respect

It’s not easy to change my diet.  It’s especially not easy without support of everyone else in the house and perhaps at work, depending on the culture there.  Everyone has to know, and know that I’m likely to turn down temptation.  Low carb has been something I’ve wanted to try for a while, but could never quite get started on, and it has only possible to stay on thanks to the efforts of my wife.

‘Dieting’ together is the best thing we’ve ever done.  Doing it myself is an ever-present reminder not to tempt her with things off her diet, because I’d want that same consideration.  (It also makes her low-calorie dieting seem all the more heroic; resisting temptation while being forever hungry.)