i'm stuck. completely stuck. i've been trying to develop the cultureVision site for most of the summer and i've had something akin to writer's block, only much worse. i haven't gotten nearly as far as i should have in that amount of time and now i have very little time to complete the first version of this project.
all of which is weighing heavily on me, which, of course, doesn't help matters.
my sister, having already been blessed with five girls, gave birth to her first boy two weeks ago today. after much deliberation, he was named after his two grandfathers: john robert.
this picture was taken when john was five days old; look at all of that hair ...
i was running late this morning, so rob drove to open the store on time and i walked the two miles a little later. it's amazing how quiet everything is at 10 a.m. on a cool Saturday morning, so different from a weekday. i didn't see or hear a person until i was halfway to the store, though i did encounter a strange looking squirrel, two suspicious kittens and a dog that hid in silence, barking like a big "BOO!" only when i was right next to him across the opaque fence. i think i heard him chuckling behind my back. tricky varmint.
perhaps the strange mid-August 60-degree weather has put everyone into hibernation early. even some of the trees are starting to go to sleep, dropping big orange leaves across the sidewalks that still aren't recovered from summer construction. it's a strange in between time, but breathing it in first hand refreshes me and i know i need to walk to work more often.
i read this story and at first i couldn't believe grunts would accuse g.i. joe of forging his military record, but leave it to the rest of the g.i. joe team to clear things up. go joe!
we recently received a copy of thINK, the newsletter of the Work Research Foundation, and in it, Gideon Strauss has an article about the need for renewed participation in public life. discussing the "naked public square" (public life stripped of religion, leaving only the government and the individual), he quotes John Neuhaus:
The alternative to the naked public square is not the sacred public square, but the civil public square. We should not want a confessional state. The state should not confess a faith. It does that, however, when, in hostility to the faith confessed by its people, it confesses the ersatz religion of militant secularism. The great antidemocratic danger, contrary to much popular punditry, comes not from the free exercise of religion but from the secularist creeds imposed by governments that recognize no higher sovereignty. That was the reality of Nazism and communism. That danger is also present in our democracies when "the separation of church and state" is taken to mean the separation of religion from public life. The public square, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If it is not filled with the lively expression of the most deeply held convictions of the people, including their convictions grounded in religion, it will be filled by the quasi-religious beliefs of secularism.
after leaving our temporary home in british columbia last wednesday, we travelled across the states in three days so we could spend the weekend with friends and family in the chicago area before finishing our vacation. we arrived home in michigan this afternoon.
while in chicagoland, we were finally able to see my new niece, chloe, and had the somewhat unexpected pleasure of meeting my first nephew (after 8 nieces), john robert. pictures forthcoming ...
today is officially the last day of our vacation. we had planned to go on a hike up chief, a mountain near lions bay, bc, but, interestingly, it's raining today (interesting because it hasn't rained since we got here).
instead, we'll spend a little time cleaning the house, a little time playing games with friends and a little time reading.
if i don't write you before then, i'll write from michigan soon.
