random ranting

Why is it that people write out checks when you are standing there hoping the line will quickly progress? Those people laboriously write out the check, and then they write the amount in the log. What is the deal with these people? Couldn't they at least have the courtesy to write out the rest of the check so that all they have to do is write in the amount? Or couldn't they just pay with a card like everybody else? It isn't the seventies any more, and though you think you deserve a long face to face chatty interaction with the clerk, the rest of us might just want to buy our stuff and get out of there without listening to a long discussion about the church social or whatever it is you are talking about.

I find that I go around getting irritated about quite small things, and I have to admit that I need to find something else to think about. You don't think St. Francis was going around fuming about the guy that just passed him on the right, do you? There is only a finite amount of time in this life, and there are always positive things to think about, like the flowers in the grass or the blue sky, or whatever the heck you can think about that is positive. I often forget this. This is a great town, a very beautiful town, and yet it is so easy to get caught up in negativity. I'm only starting to learn this.

I had been hungry, all the Years-
My Noon had Come-to dine-
I trembling drew the Table near-
And touched the curious Wine-

'Twas this on Tables I had seen-
When turning, hungry, Home
I looked in Windows, for the Wealth
I could not hope-for Mine-

I did not know the ample Bread-
'Twas so unlike the Crumb
The Birds and I, had often shared
In nature's-Dining Room-

The Plenty hurt me-'twas so new-
Myself felt ill-and odd--
As Berry-of a mountain Bush-
Transplanted-to the Road-

Nor was I hungry-so I found
That Hunger-was a way
Of Persons outside Windows-
The Entering-takes away-

-e. dickinson

George Bush is evil. There, I've said it, and the world if full of confusion. People are out there on the street waving flags and exhorting us to support the troops, like it is all that simple. Sure we can support the troops, but Iraq is falling apart in a civil war that doesn't have much to do with our troops, other than we created the whole situation. What a mess. People need to take a chill pill and live and let live, relax a little, and live in harmony.
It was a mistake for Israel to even have been created at all. However, it is there now. They aren't all going to say, "ok, we'll go back to Europe or Russia" or wherever, so it would be nice if the radical Islamic element would recognize Israel's right to exist. Without recognizing that, it's like trying to negotiate with someone that's trying to kill you: kind of hard to do.
The government seems to be completely broken down and dysfunctional. The number one most important domestic issue is health care, and they aren't even talking about it.

Johannes Agricola in Meditation

There's heaven above, and night by night
I look right through its gorgeous roof;
No suns and moons though e'er so bright
Avail to stop me; splendour-proof
I keep the broods of stars aloof:
For I intend to get to God,
For 't is to God I speed so fast,
For in God's breast, my own abode,
Those shoals of dazzling glory, passed
I lay my spirit down at last.
I lie where I have always lain,
God smiles as he has always smiled;
Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,
Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled
The heavens, God though on me his child
Ordained a life for me, arrayed
Its circumstances every one
To the minutest; ay, God said
This head this had should rest upon
Thus, ere he fashioned star or sun.
And having thus created me,
Thus rooted me, he bade me grow,
Guiltless for ever, like a tree
That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know
The law by which it prospers so:
But sure that thought and word and deed
All go to swell his love for me,
Me, made because that love had need
Of something irreversibly
Pleadged soley its content to be.
Yes, yes, a tree which much ascend,
No poison-gourd foredoomed to stoop!
I have God's warrant, could I blend
All hideous sins, as in a cup,
To drink the mingled venoms up;
Secure my nature will convert
The draught to blossoming gladness fast:
While sweet dews turn to the gourd's hurt,
And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast,
As from the first its lot was cast.
For as I lie, smiled on, full-fed
By unexhausted power to bless,
I gaze below on hell's fiercest bed,
And those its waves of flame oppress,
Swarming in ghastly wretchedness;
Whose life on earth aspired to be
One altar-smoke, so pure!-to win
If not love like God's love for me,
At least to keep his anger in;
And all their striving turned to sin.
Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white
With prayer, the broken-hearted nun,
The martyr, the wan acolyte,
The incense-swinging child,-undone
Before God fashion star or sun!
God, whom I praise; how could I praise,
If such as I might understand,
Make out and reckon on his ways,
And bargain for his love, and stand,
Paying a price at his right hand?
-Robert Browning