Monday, September 22, 2014

Quicksilver


Quicksilver and the Tower



Ahh, we vain writers.
We long for permanence in the written word.
We assume permanence in the written word.
Our message will last forever and be well understood!

What a joke.

Language is as fluid as the nearest river!
Word meanings are always changing.  Languages are always intermingling.

Quicksilver.

Now add the aging brain of me to the quicksilver of language and you know I'm on a slippery slope!

And that is not the half of it.

We live in a day and age that is tongue-tying and mind-boggling!  You know.

We are building the tower to heaven again that got those ancient ones so tripped up in language that they babbled!'

I was fascinated with the Tower of Babel story as a child.
It didn't make sense to me even as a child that God would abolish a skyscraper  tower because it might actually pierce heaven !

Pictures of "the tower" show our version of their  tower.

The ancient story is that "the tower" was being constructed to reach heaven!
And before they reached their goal, the language of all people was confounded.


To truly understand the scriptures we must think the unthinkable.

Yes.  Like God is going to tremble at any manmade   skyscraper  because it might ascend the stratosphere and ....what?  Bump into some hidden dimension?  Are you serious?


Image result for images for the tower of babel



Think the unthinkable starts with un-think the thinkable.

Why do we think antiquity had no nuclears, no world class CDC, no globalists running around  trying to grap all power?

Why do we think if there is  no record, it "didn't happen"?

Why do we think we are the modern advanced age, building upon the shoulders of others who came before us, those poor unfortunate darlings?

Why does it not occur to us we are merely repeating something that was even more advanced than our scene before it was wiped to the ground?

We aren't arrogant are we?  Nah.  Not us.


Piercing the heavens.  That's what those ancient arrogant brilliant rebel people were up to!

Piercing the heavens.  That's what we are up to!
The secrets of the universe.....the "god particle".....creation of life.....eternal life......power unlimited...that is the tower the ancient arrogant brilliant rebel people were constructing.

I think we have a lot in common with them.

Historians of the ancient world have tried to come up with a picture of the "tower of Babel" and they have such a low opinion of our ancestors, they think those ancients were building a skyscraper!!!


 Look how our ancient ancestors are depicted.  Lowly workers with few machines.
Image result for images for building the tower of babel
biblestudytools.com


Bricks.  They did use bricks.


We used bricks.  Lots of bricks.

Check out CERN's Hadron Collider where they search for the secrets to being all powerful.





A sideways tower built to pierce the heavens.

I cannot help but wonder if this looks anything like the ancient Tower of Babel?

I don't know how many bricks the ancients used, but some of the ancients got tired of carrying bricks!
Refused to work on the project.

Yeh.  We moderns have also experienced social opposition to the building of this brick edifice that is meant to pierce the heavens.

We moderns have already run into a few strange problems  with our collider  (sideways tower).
http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2014/06/cern-announces-lhc-restart-schedule

We explain away the unexplainable and we forge on, undaunted.

This tower is where the World Wide Web was born,


The World Wide Web which has become so important to me I think I might go insane from withdrawal should it ever be taken away!

Maybe even die from eating too many M&M's as I try to cope!


Image result for images for girl eating M&M's



But, seriously, let's think about how that World Wide Web is affecting us.
Is it possible the natural consequence of our tower is to affect our ability to speak coherently?

Think the unthinkable.

Listen to the newscasters.  Listen to the teachers.  Listen to yourself!

Are we beginning to babble?

Just yesterday during a conversation a woman said,"What bothers me is the conscientousality of it."
We all paused and looked at her.  Finally somebody said, "You mean constitutionality?"
"Yes", she said. "What did I say?"

Just recently I heard an elementary school teacher say, "Please!  Tone it down!  You are being too quiet and I won't tolerate this!"  (She was angry.)

A newscaster said the other day, "Well, that created a tempest in a tea cup!"  (errr isn't that tempest in a teapot?)

"Karen, you're on!  I mean Sharon.  Did I just call you Karen?"

We expect this from the oldies.  But from people in their prime?   I don't think this is normal.

Listen to the babble around you.  Hear the struggle to express oneself verbally.
You will hear  things like the following examples of what I have recently heard from people in their prime:
long picture ….........instead of big picture
up stairs....................instead of up front
"Thanks for your contributes...ahh, ahh, your contributings......ahh, your CONTRIBUTION!"

It's becoming a struggle folks!  This struggle is new.   It is worsening.

Have fun listening.
Or be alarmed.

Quicksilver.

Language is quicksilver and fragile.


Your visits mean a lot.  Thanks.
Grateful for language,
Riverwatch














Friday, September 19, 2014

Earth Angel Day




Earth Angel Day

Yesterday was sort of a hellish day. 
 If you live in the Middle East, you will be appalled hearing me whine about hellish days in America!
Hey, cut me some slack!
Earth has more than one hot spot! And when your car breaks down, nay, when the engine burns up, you are possibly on a hot spot.

It was such a bad day it threw me right into the present. Completely.
No past. No future worth thinking about.
Completely in the present I was........and that is exactly where earth angels pop up.

Being stuck in the present, I became inadvertently somebody's earth angel.
I almost didn't talk to her. 
I thought about walking over to another area to sit alone, unbothered, and brood and wait.

But some power greater than I took over and I stayed and was nice.

"Helwo", she had said.

"Hi", I had responded flatly as I contemplated how to ignore her.

I notice right off something is not normal about her. Obviously she could drive, or she wouldn't be sitting in a car repair shop. But ….she seemed.............
ok, I will say it: “over-friendly”. A touch of desperation.
Being a nurse, I am not unaware of what social desperation means. People who others reject as someone to socialize with for whatever reason become desperately needy. Often that desperation means something is not-quite-normal.

Sharon is such a person.

She is alone. Well, heck, I am alone also. That doesn't mean anything.  Does it?

Like I said, a power geater than I took over and I became nice.

She gazes at me, sitting there looking well and healthy (I am a good actress) and she says, “I wused to have a wot of money. Mmmmusch wot of money! Can wu beweive I wused to own....buswess...my own bus .. bus..buswess?”


And so I begin to listen to and decipher a tale of woe that rivals the Middle East.

That is what brain aneurysms can do for you. When one ruptures. She was 42 and at a peak of success with a business she loved and a husband she adored when tragedy suddenly struck her.


Eight years. It took her eight years to get back to where she could talk well enough to converse and “be me again”.


Eight years during which she lost her business .
Eight years during which she lost her husband to another woman.
She is no longer a woman with money.
She now hates the man she once adored.

As we talk about that she comes to see that yes, she has changed, but in some good ways.
“You could not have survived all that illness, Sharon, without becoming stronger . Your husband found he was married to a stronger and different woman! That is hard on a marriage.”
She fingers the cross on a necklace and smiles.
“Yes”, she says. “I became rewigious.”

“He loved you, Sharon. But your life took a different path and now you are stronger.”


When I had to leave, Sharon tried to follow me.
That's how I know I was an angel for somebody who needed and deserved one.




Living in the present is the best way to live. 
 I should try it more often.


Thanks for your visit,
Riverwatch













Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Trending on Equality for Women


I love turning to the younger generation to see what their perspective is.


Young Person:    Polygamy now legal?   So what?  The Mormon Church won't even speak to that.  Remember, it was done to "raise up a royal people"......it served its purpose.  End of story.

Me:       But the theology says you MUST have celestial marriage to reach exaltation, and that is to include multiple wives.  Like they do out in Colorado City.

Young Person:      Well, this is not a trending issue and won't become one.  Who cares?  No man wants more that one wife, not even Mormon men.  One is more than enough.
The big issue on social media trending now is Ordain Women....actually Ordain Women is bogged down into how women are treated in the Mormon Church.  Period.  "Ordain" is the lynchpin for huge conversations but the real trending issue is the lower status of females in the Mormon Church.  Not allowing equality in multiple ways. Real issues on old men criticizing young women and telling women how to behave and still trying to make women responsible for the sexual behavior of men.
These are trending issues for women and their daughters.




Me:   In other words, Ordain is light years further up the ladder from the rung of women's place being set forth and maintained by men?

Young Person:       Well, I can just tell you what Mormon women are posting about on social media.  Most are quite unhappy and they are also unhappy with the Mormon women who support the church position like female robots.   Here, read these comments.



These are progressive issues that are not going to go away.


Me:  Well, sounds like the women don't want to be ordained to a priesthood that puts them down.


Young Person:  Women expect to be invited to the table, every table.



 










Loving you for dropping by,
Riverwatch