daily life as life goes on . . .

Meeting the missing

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A few quotes from an obituary!

“. . . three children who may have at times taken the example of their mother’s self-assurance and impulsive contrarianism a bit too close to heart.”

“. . . dislike of plain walls – plain anything – was visceral. All of creation was filigreed and swept through with inexhaustible beauty – to respond to this universe of delights and terrors with a determined plainness was to spit in the Creator’s face.”

“. . . belief that family, with its existential lifeblood of conflict and imperfect reconciliation and yearning for better, was the nearest model we had of humanity’s relationship to its Creator.”

Now that’s a woman you want to meet! Her name was Lois Laverna Reimer (nee Peters), born May 23, 1938 – joined Jesus January 15, 2019. And yes, she was a relative!

Violence, sex and girdles

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The armour of God (Ephesians 6) strikes me as most interesting. One of the first phrases is about a girdle around the reproductive organs, composed of truth. BTW: a quick aside – with very few exceptions, the context for this description of armour deals with a male army. I would love to be inclusive, and the principles are transferable – but . . .

Now, at first glance this seems preposterous as armour. Is there an offensive tactical posture that is taken up by having a girdle (the image of violence and sex and girdles may be offensive in and of itself)? What do the organs of reproduction have to do with war?

As I cogitated on this line of inquiry, I came up with the following catch phrase: Embrace your passions with truth. The girdle covers up a vulnerable part of the body, but also keeps the activities of that area of the body within control – there is no place for rape and pillage. A soldier without self control is bound to strike out – quite literally – into a far riskier part of the war than is needed. A soldier without self-control will generate illegitimate ideas that will come back to haunt him/her. A soldier without an effective girdle leaves the sensitive area of the body open for attack

Think on this. If all the soldiers were harmed because they did not wear girdles, then there would be no future generations to fight for.

I know I tend to think outside the box, but perhaps I need to put this back in the box?

Concluding from the News

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I’m becoming more aware each day that current news reporting is disseminated with a bias. My son dropped mainstream news when he was in his teens. In my teens I was told that newspapers were prejudiced towards a particular perspective.

Still, I stood with some naivete in the hope that credibility would win out. I still hold to that desire. I desired for news outlets to give both sides (or at least more than one side) to a news event.

Perhaps that is where credibility is being lost in my view. When we carry back (report) a situation to another person, we can merely emphasize our viewpoint. Or we can graciously accept that there are other viewpoints – and include them.

This is where storytelling and reporting differ. Both are essential. A well told story, building upon accepted principles and explained actions, leads to a conclusion. A well reported event, based on a broad understanding and generous sighting of events – helps us glean a conclusion.

Perhaps we have moved from reporting news to having news stories.

Fine . . . as long as we can distinguish between them, and gain our conclusions accordingly.