fun in threes, sometimes fours
g
It's always seemed to me that shoes are especially important when you're outside and will soon be walking through wet grass. The option of taking one's shoes off and getting one's socks wet doesn't seem incredibly pleasant to me, especially when it's just the second period of the day and the socks would remain wet for hours afterward.
But spotless, white shoes are more important than comfort, I suppose.
It's a pretty impressive feat of short-sighted hypocrisy that most of the people most opposed to student debt forgiveness are practitioners of a religion that is built upon the idea of a debt being paid undeservedly...
Two images that came through my Twitter feed over the last few days. The first: a rather succinct overview of Trump supporters.
Then a graphic representation of the same idea.
Like an aspic or a bit of blood sausage, pickle soup is one of those dishes that initially makes people say, "Hold on, now -- are you sure that's a good idea?"
Pickles belong on hamburgers and other sandwiches. Some of us even like it on the once-a-year hot dog we might eat. Dill pickle is a good flavor for a chip, especially if you're already fond of sea salt and vinegar chips. You might skewer a pickle and bit of meat on a toothpick and call it an appetizer.
But in a soup?
Of course -- where else? Tangy and sour are notes that pair well with just about any other savory flavor.
The Boy's first games with his new soccer team took place today. It was a tough start to the season: 0-4 and 0-5 losses. I was expecting him to be terribly disappointed about it, but he was surprisingly stoic: "We have some things we need to fix, but we could be good."
The Girl's high school varsity team, for which L plays middle, won their first tournament today.
A day of contrasts.
It's a quote I've used twice here:
[Belief] may be the battle of your life, but emotionally and intellectually, it could also be the most exhilarating one you’ve ever engaged in. Whether you experience God’s reality or are just intellectually intrigued by the idea, God can be a very real force in peoples’ lives – spiritual, emotional, supportive – that almost no other system can offer. But you must gird yourself for a fight and know that you’re going to have to try to reconcile very difficult things. Or at least hold them in suspension and bounce them back and forth and get tired. There’s no quick fix, but we have the benefit of drawing on thousands of years of religious thinking. You can’t learn it over a weekend. It’s an engagement for the rest of your life.
Burton Visotzky
I originally included it while discussing Winifred Galligher's Working on God, in which it's originally quoted.
I also reposted the quote on its own a few years later, undoubtedly just to have an easy way out of keeping up some artificial posting streak:
In some ways, I think I admired that quote, but now, I view it so very differently.
Visotzky writes that believers are "going to have to try to reconcile very difficult things. Or at least hold them in suspension and bounce them back and forth and get tired." I originally read this very ambiguously, not really thinking about what exactly one must reconcile. As I've returned to my skeptical positions of the past after a sojourn in faith, I see it simply: you're going to have to reconcile contradictions or ignore them. Contradictions between faith claims and scientific claims. Contradictions between various faiths' claims. Contradictions between claims of omnipotence and omnibenevolence and the evil we see around us. Contradictions within traditions' holy books. You might "get tired," he suggests. I think that's what happened to me: I got tired of the continual cognitive disonance.
Far from being a wise quote, I see this now as the dysfunctional heart of faith itself: it's seeing one thing that has an abundance of evidence and believing another that has little to no real evidence.
The first week is about to enter the books -- one week down, thirty-five to go. Some might view it that way, and some years it's tempting for me: when in the first week of school students are already being disrespectful and incorrigible, it's difficult not to think wistfully about the far-in-the-future summer. "It's going to be a long year," becomes the common thought.
But this year's first week is not like that at all. The Terrences and Teresas haven't appeared, haven't even shown a glimmer of appearing.
Kids staying focused, working together effectively, showing each other respect...
I know it's still the honeymoon period, but I can't help but be hopeful about this year.