Radical Civility

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been nineteen days since my last Mood Watch. Though actually, come to think of it, nineteen days isn’t all that bad.

Hard on the heels of my last trip (to the Chicago area), I took another, this time to Vermont. I went there to be a presenter at a symposium, but I arrived on Friday, March 30, a couple of days before it began. Checked into a lovely bed and breakfast — the Northfield Inn (pictured above, and which I heartily recommend) — and spent most of the weekend with a friend of mine who showed me around the central part of the state.

Aside from four quick business trips to Boston, I’d never been to New England before, much less Vermont. Everyone I met apologized for the scenery — it was “stick season”: too late for the winter snow and too early for the green of spring and summer and the beauty of the turning leaves in autum. But I thought the state was just lovely: lots of rushing streams, quaint villages and small towns nestled between the shoulders of mountains. All in all, I had a lovely time.

The symposium was fun, too. It has that reputation — the organizers brings in good speakers, install them at the Northfield Inn, and everyone gets pretty well acquainted, not just over the rich breakfasts but especially in the evenings, when everyone kicks back in the living room/dining room area, cracks open a beer (or six) and talks into the wee hours.

I boarded a flight home on Wednesday afternoon. It figured that after such an enjoyable six days I’d feel a bit of a letdown afterward, but I was surprised — even shocked — by how quickly the bottom dropped out of my mood. By the following day I felt so anxious and nearly faint that I had to cancel a class, something I hate to do. Things didn’t improve for a full week. Then, as quickly as it hit, the depression lifted. To my mind, that’s the very signature of a biochemically based depression.

(Continued)

Nature can at times be cruel, but there is also a raw beauty, and even a certain justice manifested within that cruelty.

The alligator, one of the oldest and ultimate predators, can still fall victim to a well implemented “team work” strategy made possible by the tightly knit social structure and pack mentality endemic to canines. In July 2006, three dogs living in a suburb of Naples, Florida, successfully fought off an alligator. The “alpha dog” applied a muzzle hold on the gator to clamp its jaws (which, as every human ‘gator wrestler knows, are much less powerful when opening than when snapping shut). The second dog had a hold on the tail to keep it from thrashing, while the third attacked the gator’s soft underbelly. The dogs’ owner, 48-year old Mable Thurmond, managed to capture the incident in a remarkable photograph that recently appeared in Nature magazine.

Copyright restrictions prevent me from showing the photograph myself, but follow this link.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 (coming)

This was forwarded to me as an email. Hope you don’t mind shameless stereotypes:

There are 3 good arguments that Jesus was Black:

1. He called everyone brother.
2. He liked Gospel.
3. He couldn’t get a fair trial.

But then there are 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish:

1. He went into His Father’s business.
2. He lived at home until he was 33.
3. He was sure his Mother was a virgin and his Mother was sure He was God.
(Plus, he lived in Judea and followed Judaism. Duh.)

But then there are 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian:

1. He talked with His hands.
2. He had wine with His meals.
3. He used olive oil.

But then there are 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian:

1. He never cut His hair.
2. He walked around barefoot all the time.
3. He started a new religion.

But then there are 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was an American Indian:

1. He was at peace with nature.
2. He ate a lot of fish.
3. He talked about the Great Spirit.

But then there are 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish:

1. He never got married.
2. He was always telling stories.
3. He loved green pastures.

But the most compelling evidence of all - 3 proofs that Jesus was a WOMAN:

1. He fed a crowd at a moment’s notice when there was no food.
2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn’t get it.
3. And even when He was dead, He had to get up because there was work to do.
(Okay, okay: this is gender, not ethnicity. Sue me.)