snippets from a sunday afternoon

i saved the link to this guardian piece, nothing prepares you for being the daughter of ageing parents a few weeks ago. but it took me awhile to bring myself to read it. there are surely a multitude of reasons why i would avoid reading it. guilt over not talking to my mom often enough. guilt that i'm so far away and all of the burden falls on my sister. sorrow over my dad's death. dread that the article would hit a little too close to home. the realization that my one remaining parent's ageing is matched by my own. the inevitability of it all. and reading it at last this morning was all of that and more, what with it being a tale of the horrors of modern hospital care as well. thankfully, we didn't experience that with dad's short hospitalization, the room was private, the personnel quiet and kind and very responsive to our needs. but it is a question for all of us...what kind of life do we want to live, all the way to the end of it? and will the world we've created for ourselves allow it?

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there's a teeny tiny little frog on the floor. he's admiring the chickens and fox on the kitchen island. we're so glad we did this. a friend of ours is an artist and we asked her to paint chickens on our kitchen island as a feature. when she was almost finished, we asked if it wouldn't be fun to include a fox as well. and it made all of the difference! all of the chickens are done from photos of our own that we've had over the years. well, until the fox took them all.  and the fox, it's ours too, from one of my photos of it a couple of summers ago when it was hanging around. we haven't seen it at close range this year, tho' i did see it at the end of the pasture the other day. i'm not sure it's that same one or if it's a different one. but i'm so pleased with the version christina painted - it has precisely the right amount of mischief.

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facebook is once again bringing out the worst passive aggressive tendencies in me. or at least thoughts of them. it's apparently a thing at the moment, among the more religious set, to have one line posts extolling the virtues of god. things like, "god is good." "god is real." and other fantasies. and it's making me want to post things like, "god is fiction." "god was made up by a bunch of old white guys who wanted to secure their power." or maybe something like, "odin rocks." "thor is the man." but to be honest, i don't want to be involved at all. i don't want to be subjected to such nonsense and i don't really want to participate in it. i don't want to feel passive aggressive. i don't mind what others believe, i just think that belief is something private that shouldn't be shoved in everyone else's face on facebook or billboards or anywhere else. can't we all just quietly believe what we believe?

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what are you binge watching these days? me, i'm watching masters of sex, the drama based on the lives of masters and johnson and their pioneering study of sexuality. i'm well into season 2 and already dreading when i run out of episodes. husband and i also rewatching battlestar galactica. speaking of religion, husband would join a church of battlestar galactica if it existed. he's convinced that adama is god. to the point where i could imagine him saying "adama dammit" under his breath if he hits his thumb with a hammer. it is a well-written and rather deep series and it does hold up to a second, in-depth watching.

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we made it through our first childless week. the child loves her new school, but all that she was apparently missing was snacks, so we delivered some on friday evening and husband did a quick fix of her bicycle. it is quieter around here, but i can't say that we're in mourning over it. it just continues to feel right that she's taken the next step on her journey to growing up. and us? despite many people asking about it, we haven't been running around the house naked. there were a few sunny days this week, but frankly it's never really warm enough for that. 

modern mosaics

generations (slægter følger) by carl-henning pedersen, 1987

after the flood (efter syndfloden) by carl-henning pedersen, 1985

the cup of life (livets kalk) by carl-henning pedersen, 1986

the acension of elijah (elias' himmelfart) by carl-henning pedersen, 1985

jacob's dream (jakobs drøm) by carl-henning pedersen, 1987

mosaics by danish artist carl-henning pedersen adorn the cathedral in ribe, one of the oldest towns in the country. it's a very pretty place, idyllic little winding cobblestone streets and the cathedral in the center. i love the atmosphere of churches - the hush, the way people whisper, how often they are over-dimensioned, especially if they're called a cathedral. it is a bit surprising to me that carl-henning pedersen was contracted to do such mosaics for the church, and i don't know if there was controversy at the time. i see it as only being able to happen in more open, less correct times (were the mid 80s really like that?). i love the irreverence of the mosaics and the way that i can't really see much religious imagery in them at all. i think it fits perfectly with the danish lack of religiosity  despite their love of spring holidays and having a state church. these mosaics provoke me to think far more than some fresco of an overly-adult-looking baby jesus on mary's lap. i say bring on modernity. especially in religion.

the road ahead

i don't know if today's election results will enable anyone to bridge the gaps, but anyway i am breathing a sigh of relief today. i got up at 4:15 to watch the coverage. at 5:17 a.m. my time, CBS called the race for obama. CNN quickly followed. BBC seemed like they snapped out of a coma and called it a few minutes later. the new york times took nearly an hour. and despite the florida vote still not being in as i write this, obama was re-elected by a comfortable margin.

this whole race was ugly. and the aftermath, as it's played out on facebook at least, is even uglier. i saw some things written there today by bitter republicans that simply scare the hell out of me. the blatant racism and hatred in evidence is frightening. and the things with which they credit the president (the demise of their businesses, their cancer, their dog being hit by a car) are simply astonishing. i've been gone too long. i knew bush had destroyed my country and gave voice to all those extreme lunatics, but but i don't think i fully appreciated exactly how bad it was.

so despite being relieved that obama won, i wonder at what price?

it is a strange and wonderful universe

i read this op-ed piece in the LATimes the other day. it's written by a professor from arizona state (one of my many alma maters or is it almas mater?).  it's an editorial piece about science and the universe and particle physics and quantum mechanics and a little bit about religion - so light reading. it's not too long, so it's worth popping over and reading it.

as i am wont to do, i've been thinking a lot about it and i even shared it on facebook. as much as i loathe facebook (way more than google, but slightly less than flickr), it is a good place for discussion of such things. one of my friends said this: "Very interesting. We come from nothing... and return to nothing. Confirmation of such will only strengthen blind belief in God - simply because the idea of nothingness is just too enormous and unbearable. IMHO." my initial response to that was, "sad, but undoubtedly true." but it haunted me a little bit.

why is the idea of nothingness too enormous and unbearable? because we have constructed it as such, not because it actually IS too enormous and unbearable. doesn't the notion that we are hurling through a universe of ever-receding and ever-expanding, intangible nothingness actually match very nicely a feeling that occasionally nags us from somewhere deep inside anyway?  to try to explain it through some divine creator lets us off the hook in a way that i don't think is proving to be good for us or for the planet.

i am actually comforted by the notion that the universe could have spontaneously been created out of nothing due to some uncertainty principle. this, for me, fits with life in general - everything is uncertain, as much as we try our best to control it. to know that there is an actual uncertainty principle at work explains a lot.  and i don't find at all that it makes life meaningless or purposeless - on the contrary, it seems that more than ever, life is precisely what we make of it.