Sunday, January 31, 2010

On Psychics and Such

I have been thinking about the whole psychic thing. There was an episode of Bones that had a psychic played rather charmingly by Cyndi Lauper. She was a sympathetic character and she truly did seem to know stuff. Now there were people on Bones who were skeptical. There are a lot of skeptics out there. There are a lot of bogus psychics. A friend had a neighbor who consulted a Pet Psychic all the way out in Arizona to find out where her lost cat was. The woman said "he went downhill". My friend's response was, "Of course he went down hill. We live on a mountain." It is a shame that there are people who prey on desperate souls by giving them this kind of "help". Certainly there are bogus psychics.

But I don't think that God wants us to avoid psychics because they are bogus. Because we might be making a bad investment of our money. I think he wants us to avoid psychics for the very reason that we would be drawn to psychics in the first place. Because we want answers that God has chosen not to give us, at least not yet.

It seems that the very essence of the fall is man wanting to be like God. The problem is that we are not God. We are the created, not the Creator. Only God, in his infinite wisdom, knows the future. Only he knows certain events of the past and present. And if he chooses to keep those things hidden from us, it is for a very good reason.

People can be desperate. They can want to make sense of life. They can want to know the future. Of course. It is natural. But God has set a boundary there. A line we are not to cross. Psychics, divination, witchcraft. These are off limits. They are not necessarily bogus. I do think that there are people who truly tap into the supernatural forces and come back with delightful tidbits of information that only whet our appetite for more. So that WE can plan our future. So that WE can know our steps. So that WE can do pretty much anything outside of the guiding hand of the God who created us. Don't go there.

Monday, January 25, 2010

On Babies and Bathwater

I am pondering why it is so hard to remove the baby before throwing out the bathwater. We lose so much when it all goes out at once. We humans are so all or nothing. So black and white in our thinking. Sure, it takes wisdom and time to do that baby removal. To separate out the dirty and expendable from that which is living, breathing, beautiful and full of life.

Matt ran across this article today about this very thing as it pertains to manliness.

This gives me a challenge. What areas have I thrown out the baby as well? What am I missing out on in life because I have something good so hogtied to something bad? Where have a taken an all-or-nothing approach when baby steps... little changes... would have sufficed and been so much less frustrating and more successful? It's something to think about.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Food Is Funny That Way

I just opened a new container of raisins. They are soft and moist and quite yummy as opposed to the container of them I just finished which were dried up and hard and a bit on the gritty side, as if they had been plucked out of the container of our bagless vacuum. Matt doesn't like juicy raisins. He especially doesn't like cooked raisins. He calls them engorged ticks. He thinks they are gross. I think some things he eats are gross. Matt likes meatball subs. I think meatball subs look like somebody barfed up a large hairball on a loaf of bread. Eewwwww.

Food is funny that way. What somebody loves, somebody else hates. Some foods are "I can take it or leave it foods." Take mashed potatoes. They are dull, blah, mushy beasts but there are few people that feel incredibly strongly about mashed potatoes. On the other hand we have sauerkraut. I posted a status update on Facebok about sauerkraut a few nights ago, noting that the serving size listed on the can is a pathetic two tablespoons. I am sure it had everything to do with the astronomical sodium content of the stuff, but being a sauerkraut lover, I was taken aback by some faceless food corporation limiting my intake to a heap the size of my thumbnail.

But sauerkraut gets people talking. Some people will eat an entire jar. Others would rather use it to line little Fluffy's litter box. I was particularly surprised when Matt's cousin had such a visceral response to the mere mention of the stuff. Her maiden name is Kern. Now doesn't that sound like such a fine, Germanic surname? It would stand to reason that anybody named Kern would like sauerkraut. But I guess that just isn't the case. Ancestry of surname does not necessarily mean that the affinity for a foodstuff was passed down to the tastebuds. I would imagine that if you went back in time and place you would find plenty of Johanns and Hildegardes, sitting quiety in their lederhosen, sobbing at the thought of choking down their daily allotment of the cruciferous crunchy.

I have not a clue on how to end this thought. It just seems funny to me.

Cheetos for Breakfast

Welcome to my world. I have not a clue if anybody will read this or find it humorous or helpful. But if you are a woman, and especially if you are a mom, you may just find that, after reading about my life, you feel oddly better about yourself. I do that to people.

A few years ago a friend called me up bemoaning the fact that she was such a horrible mother. I think she had allowed her 3 year old to have a doughnut or Pop-Tart or perhaps some Neon Honey Frosted Tidbit Wads. This poor woman had standards and had fallen short. All I had to say was (and it was true), "Well, Mary had Cheetos for breakfast." "Oh, I feel so much better. Thank you." You could practically see the guilt slide off of her like frosting off a still-too-warm cake (I can never wait long enough to frost those things).

I have always wanted to blog. I think things and want to write things. But when I think about other people reading them it kind of flips me out. I am afraid of being chastised for my honesty or chided for my self-deprecating humor. I may not spell right or use proper punctuation and that may offend the more literary and pedantic reader. I have never been able to function under pressure or perform under another's watchful eye.

But it's high time I put on my big girl panties and say what I want to say and not worry if it is proper. I just pray that it is encouraging and fun and that, whoever you are, you find yourself feeling a little better when you leave.