Yesterday, I titled my post "Flowers and Sweat," but never mentioned flowers.
Spring has hit New Mexico. Just outside the door of the RV stands a 5-foot tree covered in white and pink blossoms, and vibrating with bee-song. It's obviously a grafted specimen with several fruits possible at the same time. I'm told it's quite a few years old and would grow much faster if watered, but that that's a bad idea since the bigger it is, the more water it would need and it would literally grow itself to death. Things are different here in the desert.
Around town, the mock crabapples are in full bloom. Sparse grass is sprouting in shady areas, under our RV, for instance. I told my adult Sunday School class this morning that I've noticed a few differences between NM and Saskatchewan. One is that the coming of spring is not nearly as dramatic here since the only differences observable are that temperatures are about 10-15 degrees warmer than they were in January and February, and trees are slowly greening and a few are blooming.
Another difference between the two places has to do with dusk and dawn. The sun goes down at 6:05 (sorry, 7:05; we changed to daylight saving time last night) and by 6:30 (7:30), it's dark! The lighting of the day also happens much more quickly here than in SK. Nights are very dark in Carlsbad and the stars and moon are clearer and brighter than I remember them back home. A part of this may have to do with the fact that Carlsbad - at 3,400 ft. elevation - is over half a mile higher than Rosthern and therefore has a thinner atmosphere.
The Sunday School lesson this morning was based on 1 John 3: 11-24. Every Christian should read this regularly. John emphasizes here that Christians' test of authenticity is in the love they share for each other, and that love is not communicated through talk, but through action. Starting a discussion here in Carlsbad Mennonite is not hard. All you have to do as discussion leader is to hesitate; someone is bound to leap into the silence. It's great.
Tomorrow, a few of us SOOPers are driving the 40 minutes north to Artesia to clean up a backyard for an old man who can't do it for himself. Apparently we'll be picking up pecans at the same time; they'll have been lying there since late last fall, I imagine. On Tuesday and Thursday, we'll be doing some more renovation work and Friday, I'm working at the Bargain Store. Agnes will spend her time at the Bargain Store, the library and the hospice, I expect.
Next week, we'll have to start getting ready to head home. The owner of the RV we borrowed died just a few days after he and I brought it over here and his widow would like it brought back to her place for cleaning; she doesn't know yet what she wants to do with it. Our car was packed on the way down and we've gradually been picking up other "stuff," so I'm curious to see what our back seat will look like on the way home. We may have to donate most of our clothes to the thrift store!
We hear from Rosthern and Edmonton that temperatures are warmer and that it's beginning to feel like spring. Agnes said to the Sunday School group that we were going to enjoy a bonus this year, namely two springs. I imagine that we could live with an absence of snow when we get back h0me, but I very much doubt that that's going to happen.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Flowers and Sweat
This will be short. I'm scheduled to get a haircut in 20 minutes. Ernie at Ernie's Barber Shop and Self-storage place has become a good friend and he does it for half price for SOOPers. I said to Agnes that I'm missing the most homey of things, for instance, getting a haircut in Sharryl's kitchen on a Saturday morning. I also miss morning coffee at the Hotel. Well, in two weeks we should be in Northern Arizona on our way home, scheduled to arrive on or about April 1.
I did 18 holes with D. and E. yesterday and given the hilly nature of the course, the temperature (+25C) and the extremely dry air, I was exhausted after we were done. E. and I are both 65 and he and his wife have bicycled across the USA and are preparing to bicycle the entire freedom trail from Mobile, Alabama to Owen Sound, Ontario in a few months. D. is ten years older than I and he carries his clubs! All of this to tell myself and others that although I thought I was in pretty good shape, it all depends on whom you compare yourself to. (Pardon the sentence-ending preposition.) At any rate, we have plenty of incentive to walk here in the desert, and we've been doing as much of it as we can.
In the NM news, an 11 year-old boy appeared in an Albuquerque school a few days ago with a motorcycle gang symbol cut into his hair at the back. Big news. The principal said he would have to study in a room by himself - until he had removed the offending symbol- for his own safety. The principal thought someone less tolerant than he might take exception and do the boy some harm. The boy's mother was not impressed with the principal and said her son would probably remove the symbol, but she had no idea what he would substitute for it. Can child rearing and educating get any wimpier than that? I thought. It was, however, a break from the usual news here in the deep south. Murders, kidnappings and abuse seem to be regular lead items, and one gets tired of that.
An update on something I wrote about earlier: The legislature in NM has approved the bill to ban cock fighting and it only remains for Governor Bill Richardson to sign it. All indications are that he will do this. That leaves only Mississippi as a state that seems happily to remain esconced in the dark ages as regards this despicable "sport."
We're well and enjoying a weekend off. Hope you're all doing likewise, and God bless you all.
I did 18 holes with D. and E. yesterday and given the hilly nature of the course, the temperature (+25C) and the extremely dry air, I was exhausted after we were done. E. and I are both 65 and he and his wife have bicycled across the USA and are preparing to bicycle the entire freedom trail from Mobile, Alabama to Owen Sound, Ontario in a few months. D. is ten years older than I and he carries his clubs! All of this to tell myself and others that although I thought I was in pretty good shape, it all depends on whom you compare yourself to. (Pardon the sentence-ending preposition.) At any rate, we have plenty of incentive to walk here in the desert, and we've been doing as much of it as we can.
In the NM news, an 11 year-old boy appeared in an Albuquerque school a few days ago with a motorcycle gang symbol cut into his hair at the back. Big news. The principal said he would have to study in a room by himself - until he had removed the offending symbol- for his own safety. The principal thought someone less tolerant than he might take exception and do the boy some harm. The boy's mother was not impressed with the principal and said her son would probably remove the symbol, but she had no idea what he would substitute for it. Can child rearing and educating get any wimpier than that? I thought. It was, however, a break from the usual news here in the deep south. Murders, kidnappings and abuse seem to be regular lead items, and one gets tired of that.
An update on something I wrote about earlier: The legislature in NM has approved the bill to ban cock fighting and it only remains for Governor Bill Richardson to sign it. All indications are that he will do this. That leaves only Mississippi as a state that seems happily to remain esconced in the dark ages as regards this despicable "sport."
We're well and enjoying a weekend off. Hope you're all doing likewise, and God bless you all.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
America, America
I just started a new project today. It's going to be called "America's Good Side, America's Bad Side." I want to summarize my impressions in ten points on each side. On the good side, America (USA) has a constitution that protects freedom of religion, conscience, association, etc. On the bad side, America pays so little attention to the rest of the world that there's a vast ignorance here about the rest of the world and its people. The only bit of information I've heard about Canada since we've been here is that an American company was bought out by a company from Canada. And one day as we were going home from church, public radio was playing Gordon Lightfoot.
If you have anything to contribute to my project, I'd be glad to hear from you.
Yesterday, a bunch of us worked on that old house I've mentioned a few times. The owner fancies himself a bit of a writer and intellect, and as we shared the lunch his wife had made, he began to educate us on the ways of the world. Within a few minutes, we learned that a program called HAARP run by the USA is altering weather world-wide and using a new technology in the upper atmosphere in a sinister design to control the world. We also learned that Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, the last three US presidents and the president of France have met and divided the world up for future domination. And now I know that Great Britain is sinking at a rate of at least 1 foot per year, and some years as many as 20 feet. He said that the huge concrete barriers surrounding Great Britain had been abandoned because it has become impossible to control the sea's encroachment. I said I'd been to GB numerous times and had never noticed that. He asked me if I'd seen the barriers and I said that there was nothing like that on the coastlines I had seen. Then he asked me if I believed that mankind was contributing to global warming and I said, "Yes, I do," and at his request, explained why I believed this to be the case. He said that there were natural factors and I agreed and said that things don't always result from one cause alone, but that I believed that human activity was joining with other factors to cause the greenhouse effect. "Are you a scientist?" he asked. "No," I said, "but I have taught high school Science and I know a few basics.
That ended our discussion. I think another negative thing about America is that the lack of discusion about all but American affairs has made masses of its people extremely vulnerable to hoax, conspiracy theories and general gullibility. The same could be said of Canada to a lesser degree, but since we are a small fish in the big pond, we are not nearly as inward looking as I find many people here to be. To me, it's still amazing that the US got itself embroiled in a war in Iraq on the basis of such deplorable ignorance in the White House that the current debacle was not even considered a possiblity. I wrote at the beginning of this war that the aftermath of Saddam's overthrow would precipitate a civil war among the Sunnis, the Shia and possibly the Kurds, depending on the course of the war itself. If I could have sensed it at the time, how is it that this came as a surprise to the US president? I think it's all a package; if you are deprived of news from abroad and your education system virtually ignores world history, the nuances of life in other countries is bound to escape you.
And yet - on America's good side - there is a growing awareness of this weakness , and a resolve on the part of many to steer America back onto a right course. This can happen in a democracy like the US or Canada; if one regime does badly, the people can throw it out. And the development of the American system was won through great hardship and stress, in wars with England and Spain (even Canada) and civil conflict. Maybe with the history of this place, the nature of its democratic system was predetermined to be the only one that the diversity of its people could accept. In any case, Americans now know that Iraq was a colossal mistake, and they are saying so openly. An interviewer on TV the other day referred to the "Iraq fiasco," and the interviewee didn't challenge him.
It's a construction week for me. For the last two days, I've been working with others on the repair of old houses and tomorrow will be Habitat for Humanity day again. Patching gyproc into an old house is quite a challenge, especially when studs and ceiling joists are uneven and the corners far from square. But we soldier on. The pleasure we see in the eyes of the people who benefit from our volunteer work speaks volumes; the owning of a safe, comfortable house can only be taken for granted by the middle and upper classes. Most of the world, seems to me, subscribes to Better Shacks and Hovels. Fact is, the amount of one's possessions doesn't determine one's outlook on life. We all know this, but this experience is making it more clear to me how that works.
It's time for a constitutional walk along the river.
If you have anything to contribute to my project, I'd be glad to hear from you.
Yesterday, a bunch of us worked on that old house I've mentioned a few times. The owner fancies himself a bit of a writer and intellect, and as we shared the lunch his wife had made, he began to educate us on the ways of the world. Within a few minutes, we learned that a program called HAARP run by the USA is altering weather world-wide and using a new technology in the upper atmosphere in a sinister design to control the world. We also learned that Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, the last three US presidents and the president of France have met and divided the world up for future domination. And now I know that Great Britain is sinking at a rate of at least 1 foot per year, and some years as many as 20 feet. He said that the huge concrete barriers surrounding Great Britain had been abandoned because it has become impossible to control the sea's encroachment. I said I'd been to GB numerous times and had never noticed that. He asked me if I'd seen the barriers and I said that there was nothing like that on the coastlines I had seen. Then he asked me if I believed that mankind was contributing to global warming and I said, "Yes, I do," and at his request, explained why I believed this to be the case. He said that there were natural factors and I agreed and said that things don't always result from one cause alone, but that I believed that human activity was joining with other factors to cause the greenhouse effect. "Are you a scientist?" he asked. "No," I said, "but I have taught high school Science and I know a few basics.
That ended our discussion. I think another negative thing about America is that the lack of discusion about all but American affairs has made masses of its people extremely vulnerable to hoax, conspiracy theories and general gullibility. The same could be said of Canada to a lesser degree, but since we are a small fish in the big pond, we are not nearly as inward looking as I find many people here to be. To me, it's still amazing that the US got itself embroiled in a war in Iraq on the basis of such deplorable ignorance in the White House that the current debacle was not even considered a possiblity. I wrote at the beginning of this war that the aftermath of Saddam's overthrow would precipitate a civil war among the Sunnis, the Shia and possibly the Kurds, depending on the course of the war itself. If I could have sensed it at the time, how is it that this came as a surprise to the US president? I think it's all a package; if you are deprived of news from abroad and your education system virtually ignores world history, the nuances of life in other countries is bound to escape you.
And yet - on America's good side - there is a growing awareness of this weakness , and a resolve on the part of many to steer America back onto a right course. This can happen in a democracy like the US or Canada; if one regime does badly, the people can throw it out. And the development of the American system was won through great hardship and stress, in wars with England and Spain (even Canada) and civil conflict. Maybe with the history of this place, the nature of its democratic system was predetermined to be the only one that the diversity of its people could accept. In any case, Americans now know that Iraq was a colossal mistake, and they are saying so openly. An interviewer on TV the other day referred to the "Iraq fiasco," and the interviewee didn't challenge him.
It's a construction week for me. For the last two days, I've been working with others on the repair of old houses and tomorrow will be Habitat for Humanity day again. Patching gyproc into an old house is quite a challenge, especially when studs and ceiling joists are uneven and the corners far from square. But we soldier on. The pleasure we see in the eyes of the people who benefit from our volunteer work speaks volumes; the owning of a safe, comfortable house can only be taken for granted by the middle and upper classes. Most of the world, seems to me, subscribes to Better Shacks and Hovels. Fact is, the amount of one's possessions doesn't determine one's outlook on life. We all know this, but this experience is making it more clear to me how that works.
It's time for a constitutional walk along the river.
Friday, March 02, 2007
On Cacti
As we drove across NM and AZ, we tried to school ourselves on - and solidify what we already knew about - cacti. (Cactuses is also an accepted pluralization.) They are amazing plants. The prickly pear group has many varieties but I see the flat, oval, or cows' tongue shaped "leaves" for sale in the produce section of the supermarket. A Mexican Mennonite family in Manitoba Colony uses the juice of this cactus - along with cabbage juice and garlic - to make the tonic they call Jugo Mennonita. Cactus jelly made from the prickly pear is for sale in stores.
There are others, and I would send photos if it wasn't so much trouble. You can google the following names if you, like me, have to know what thing it is that I'm looking at or that's being talked about: Ocotillo, Saguaro, Cholla. Two things desert plants have in common: an amazing ability to extract and conserve water from their environment and an armour of sharp barbs to discourages assault. Looking for lost golf balls on a desert course is not that inviting an endeavour.
I think people - like plants - reflect the environment to which they've had to adapt. The poverty we saw in the hills above Nogales, Mexico has forced people to improvise, and the home-made-of-found-material "residences" are tributes to people's ability to adapt against all odds, like the lowly prickly pear. In many parts of the world, agriculture is under siege, and people who have always made their way by growing crops and raising animals are faced with the necessity of adaptation. What will food production look like in Canada in 50 years? In Guatemala? In Europe? Will it take a generation or two to adapt to the consequences of globalization and corporate agriculture - or more?
Humans can't survive without water either. The cacti's method includes ingenious collection methods and conservative use of this precious resource. The world has plenty of fresh water for every plant, animal and human that will ever inhabit it; somehow we will need to reeducate ourselves to a far more conservational use of water in the future if we're to survive. This is an adaptation our future will require of us.
Here are a few good questions: How much water does a person need in order to have an effective wash? Well, if you have a jacuzzi and you need to soak (for your mental well-being), the answer might be 150 litres. If you shower like I have to because I live in an RV, the answer is 15 litres. Truth is that you can wet yourself, soap up and rinse with a few litres. Baths and showers will look different in the future. How much water does it take to grow a lawn? It's pretty easy to sprinkle on 5000 litres in a few hours. But if you creatively cover your front yard with gravel, cacti and other succulent plants, zero water is plenty.
Cacti also carry armour. Their conservational way of living requires it. Like them, we need to be as prickly as necessary to prevent the consumerism of our time from doing what's environmentally right. In Carlsbad last week, a public meeting was held to hear the citizens' views on the establishment of a factory in the area to produce triggers for nuclear weapons. Only one person spoke up against the plan. The rest were enthusiastic about the economic spinoffs. Those of us who have been given the ability by our Christ to sense the evil inherent in commercialism and consumerism need to develop and project spines that defend the creation from the destroyers.
Well, I've worked the cactus metaphor to death, and my time's up. Have a nice day.
There are others, and I would send photos if it wasn't so much trouble. You can google the following names if you, like me, have to know what thing it is that I'm looking at or that's being talked about: Ocotillo, Saguaro, Cholla. Two things desert plants have in common: an amazing ability to extract and conserve water from their environment and an armour of sharp barbs to discourages assault. Looking for lost golf balls on a desert course is not that inviting an endeavour.
I think people - like plants - reflect the environment to which they've had to adapt. The poverty we saw in the hills above Nogales, Mexico has forced people to improvise, and the home-made-of-found-material "residences" are tributes to people's ability to adapt against all odds, like the lowly prickly pear. In many parts of the world, agriculture is under siege, and people who have always made their way by growing crops and raising animals are faced with the necessity of adaptation. What will food production look like in Canada in 50 years? In Guatemala? In Europe? Will it take a generation or two to adapt to the consequences of globalization and corporate agriculture - or more?
Humans can't survive without water either. The cacti's method includes ingenious collection methods and conservative use of this precious resource. The world has plenty of fresh water for every plant, animal and human that will ever inhabit it; somehow we will need to reeducate ourselves to a far more conservational use of water in the future if we're to survive. This is an adaptation our future will require of us.
Here are a few good questions: How much water does a person need in order to have an effective wash? Well, if you have a jacuzzi and you need to soak (for your mental well-being), the answer might be 150 litres. If you shower like I have to because I live in an RV, the answer is 15 litres. Truth is that you can wet yourself, soap up and rinse with a few litres. Baths and showers will look different in the future. How much water does it take to grow a lawn? It's pretty easy to sprinkle on 5000 litres in a few hours. But if you creatively cover your front yard with gravel, cacti and other succulent plants, zero water is plenty.
Cacti also carry armour. Their conservational way of living requires it. Like them, we need to be as prickly as necessary to prevent the consumerism of our time from doing what's environmentally right. In Carlsbad last week, a public meeting was held to hear the citizens' views on the establishment of a factory in the area to produce triggers for nuclear weapons. Only one person spoke up against the plan. The rest were enthusiastic about the economic spinoffs. Those of us who have been given the ability by our Christ to sense the evil inherent in commercialism and consumerism need to develop and project spines that defend the creation from the destroyers.
Well, I've worked the cactus metaphor to death, and my time's up. Have a nice day.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Arizona and back
Green Valley, Arizona, is probably the ultimate retirement town. Great climate, a clean and impeccably managed town - to all appearances - and easy access to the history of Arizona, Tuscon and Mexico. We spent a few days there with good friends, enjoyed their hospitality and some cut-throat scrabble as well as a great deal of travelling around the area.
Most memorable for me will be the side trip into Nogales, Mexico. We drove into Nogales, AZ, where W. parked the car and we walked across the border into Nogales, Mexico. We were greeted by shops selling jewellery, money exchange kiosks and pharmacies selling prescription drugs, apparently, at cut-rate prices. One hawker at a pharmacy offered loudly, "Viagra, we got viagra. Cheap. Have really good time tonight!" R. asked at a jewellery shop where she'd done some browsing if there was any way we could see the city, and he suggested the transit bus terminal nearby. Another gentleman flagged down a bus for us and for a dollar each, we commenced a two-hour voyage through the city of Nogales. The downtown doesn't surprise with businesses like any other city. It's when you get up into the high hills around town that you see Nogales other side. Here narrow gravel trails wind in and out, up and down among shacks of concrete block and unpainted plywood. Homes are packed together and children play among wrecked cars, dust and debris. Also up in these hills are the Multinational factories that exploit cheap labour as they do in Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso. Master Lock, for instance, has a factory there that probably covers 5 acres. The employment opportunity doesn't seem to hold a lot of benefits for the community, however.
We also stopped in on friends from Eigenheim spending a few months in Mesa in a fifth-wheel they bring up with them from home in winter. With them, we saw a good bit of the beauty of Arizona, including the desert hills with the Siguaro cacti standing like prickly sentinels in their thousands. We played a game of "desert curling" with some friends of A. and V.; it's like ice curling except that it's played on a waxed floor with "rocks" made of wood. Both mine and Agnes's teams lost badly and I hope they're not still muttering about those inept curlers from Saskatchewan.
We got back to Carlsbad on Tuesday night. We took a cross-country route via state highways 60 and 70 to Lordsburg where we drove the I10 through El Paso and then on to Carlsbad through the Texas panhandle. We passed through the most magnificent mountain scenery so far between Phoenix and the NM border, and I'd highly recommend this route for anyone travelling in the area. Just east of the Guadalupe mountains, we spotted 5 - 6 Javelinas (Ha va LI nas), small, black, wild pigs, rooting for food in the ditch.
Back to work. We nailed siding at the Habitat for Humanity house until strong winds started blowing over our ladders and making the handling of siding boards hazardous. Our crew went over to a local house where we were nailing up gyproc and nearly finished one room. The house in question is in pretty bad shape, and when I was going to mark the stud locations for nailing the plasterboard and I asked for the level, the owner of the house laughed. There's no point in using things like levels and squares in this house, he said. He was right. I remarked to our fearless leader that when we got done nailing up the gyproc, we would need to do some very creative mudding.
Spring is windy in NM. We want to golf this afternoon, but it's almost too breezy for that, so we'll play it by ear. The temperature is around 70F.
Most memorable for me will be the side trip into Nogales, Mexico. We drove into Nogales, AZ, where W. parked the car and we walked across the border into Nogales, Mexico. We were greeted by shops selling jewellery, money exchange kiosks and pharmacies selling prescription drugs, apparently, at cut-rate prices. One hawker at a pharmacy offered loudly, "Viagra, we got viagra. Cheap. Have really good time tonight!" R. asked at a jewellery shop where she'd done some browsing if there was any way we could see the city, and he suggested the transit bus terminal nearby. Another gentleman flagged down a bus for us and for a dollar each, we commenced a two-hour voyage through the city of Nogales. The downtown doesn't surprise with businesses like any other city. It's when you get up into the high hills around town that you see Nogales other side. Here narrow gravel trails wind in and out, up and down among shacks of concrete block and unpainted plywood. Homes are packed together and children play among wrecked cars, dust and debris. Also up in these hills are the Multinational factories that exploit cheap labour as they do in Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso. Master Lock, for instance, has a factory there that probably covers 5 acres. The employment opportunity doesn't seem to hold a lot of benefits for the community, however.
We also stopped in on friends from Eigenheim spending a few months in Mesa in a fifth-wheel they bring up with them from home in winter. With them, we saw a good bit of the beauty of Arizona, including the desert hills with the Siguaro cacti standing like prickly sentinels in their thousands. We played a game of "desert curling" with some friends of A. and V.; it's like ice curling except that it's played on a waxed floor with "rocks" made of wood. Both mine and Agnes's teams lost badly and I hope they're not still muttering about those inept curlers from Saskatchewan.
We got back to Carlsbad on Tuesday night. We took a cross-country route via state highways 60 and 70 to Lordsburg where we drove the I10 through El Paso and then on to Carlsbad through the Texas panhandle. We passed through the most magnificent mountain scenery so far between Phoenix and the NM border, and I'd highly recommend this route for anyone travelling in the area. Just east of the Guadalupe mountains, we spotted 5 - 6 Javelinas (Ha va LI nas), small, black, wild pigs, rooting for food in the ditch.
Back to work. We nailed siding at the Habitat for Humanity house until strong winds started blowing over our ladders and making the handling of siding boards hazardous. Our crew went over to a local house where we were nailing up gyproc and nearly finished one room. The house in question is in pretty bad shape, and when I was going to mark the stud locations for nailing the plasterboard and I asked for the level, the owner of the house laughed. There's no point in using things like levels and squares in this house, he said. He was right. I remarked to our fearless leader that when we got done nailing up the gyproc, we would need to do some very creative mudding.
Spring is windy in NM. We want to golf this afternoon, but it's almost too breezy for that, so we'll play it by ear. The temperature is around 70F.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Hello Arizona
The White Sands Desert National Monument sits in the White Sands Missile Range and we experienced both on our way from Alamogordo to Garden Valley (just south of Tucson). We stopped at this amazing desert and could have stayed there all day. It was a totally new world with huge sand dunes made of sand as white as new snow. Just west of White Sands, we were pulled over by the police. They were closing the highway because the military was test firing a missle across the highway up ahead. That one hour wait was fun, especially considering that it was a small price to pay for the security of knowing that our southern neighbours are all boned up on their missile technology. I'm amazed at the sizes and ubiquity of military installations in the area. But then, the NM, AZ desert has always been a vast, "empty" place suited to the testing and deployment of firepower, and it was at Los Alamos (just north of Santa Fe) that Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues designed the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tomorrow, our friends will introduce us to Tucson and its environs. We won't go to Tombstone to witness a reenactment of the Shootout at the OK Corral; W. says he saw it and it's not worth the money. He did, however, tell me the story as he learned it, including the trial that followed in which Wyatt Earp and his two brothers along with Doc Holliday were charged with murdering the three men they were attempting to disarm. Quite a story. As W. said, the story after Hollywood is bigger than life. |
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Some photos
| I'm in Room 212 at the Super 8 Motel in Alamogordo, NM. For the moment, I'm online so I'm experimenting with uploading photos. The first photo below is of the trailer in which we settled when we arrived, on January 23rd! The second shows the fifth wheel we're living in now. The third was taken near Cuauhtemoc, Mexico at a cheese plant where employees are unloading milk on the Menno Colony. We're on the way to Tucson to see friends from our Thompson days, after which we expect to drop in on Eigenheim friends in Mesa, near Phoenix. We decided to shorten the trip by doing the drive through the Sacramento Mountains today. It was a wonderfully scenic trip taking us to about 6500 feet above sea level. There are still mountains of snow up there, and the skiiers are having a great year. From the Sacramentos, we descended rapidly into the flat plain in which Alamogordo sits. In the distance the next range of mountains is beckoning to us for tomorrow. We plan to make a stop in the White Sands desert where, we're told, the sand is white as snow and is made up of granulated gypsum. It's on our way, so we should make Tucson before dark. Have a great day! |
Monday, February 19, 2007
Presidents' Day - Prime Ministers' Day?
As I drove through Carlsbad to the thrift store this morning, I noticed the Stars and Stripes flapping in the stiff breeze in front of numerous homes and businesses. It's Presidents' Day, a statutory holiday that very few seem to observe. The library is obviously open and many business - particularly the big box and chain businesses - are also passing up on the holiday. I think we should have a Prime Ministers' Day in Canada when we could fly flags all over the place, post pictures of Pierre, Brian, Joe, Kim, John A., Sir Wilfred, etc., and do obeisance to their memory . . . and get another day off work!
J. passed away on Friday and Sunday morning service at Carlsbad Mennonite was a bit of a mournful affair. Unfortunately, a visiting speaker had been invited and most of us were not in the spirit for hearing a lengthy report on the Gideon's work, honourable and necessary as it may be. I had consented to teach the adult Sunday School class and there were probably about 40 people present. The lesson surrounded "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you so that where I am, you may be also." John 14. Once I had opened the discussion, there was no need to worry about the lesson; it carried itself and proved to be just the right one for a grieving community. I admit that I'm often skeptical about people's claims that God intervenes to smooth their paths, but I felt yesterday that I should probably rethink this.
It's a beautiful day in Carlsbad. About +22C with a little breeze from the southwest. Unfortunately Agnes is down with a bit of stomach 'flu - which has been circulating here for a bout two weeks - and can't enjoy it, and faithful husband that I am, I feel guilty if I enjoy it without her so I will wash and vacuum the car and not go golfing. A friend told me the other day that year-round, you can expect the day and night time temperatures to vary by at least 40F degrees, so it'll still freeze tonight.
J. passed away on Friday and Sunday morning service at Carlsbad Mennonite was a bit of a mournful affair. Unfortunately, a visiting speaker had been invited and most of us were not in the spirit for hearing a lengthy report on the Gideon's work, honourable and necessary as it may be. I had consented to teach the adult Sunday School class and there were probably about 40 people present. The lesson surrounded "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you so that where I am, you may be also." John 14. Once I had opened the discussion, there was no need to worry about the lesson; it carried itself and proved to be just the right one for a grieving community. I admit that I'm often skeptical about people's claims that God intervenes to smooth their paths, but I felt yesterday that I should probably rethink this.
It's a beautiful day in Carlsbad. About +22C with a little breeze from the southwest. Unfortunately Agnes is down with a bit of stomach 'flu - which has been circulating here for a bout two weeks - and can't enjoy it, and faithful husband that I am, I feel guilty if I enjoy it without her so I will wash and vacuum the car and not go golfing. A friend told me the other day that year-round, you can expect the day and night time temperatures to vary by at least 40F degrees, so it'll still freeze tonight.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Those friends thou hast . . .
In Hamlet, Polonius gives advice to his two children, Laertes and Ophelia. One bit directed toward his son goes: Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.
When we got to Carlsbad, one of the first couples we got to know were J and M. In their mid seventies, they were nevertheless young thinkers and actors and although J was having some serious problems with a chronic health condition, it was he who accompanied us as we worked on the Habitat house where we sensed some of the chagrin he was feeling as his physical condition made the work he loved difficult. We spent several evenings at their house with the other SOOPers, Agnes spent a number of Wednesdays helping M to sort and bag pecans for MCC, and this Monday, I helped J mark off the lines for nailing siding on the storage shed for the last of the Habitat houses. The same evening, J and M came to our place (which is their fifth wheel provided us after out problems with the RV we had rented) and we fed them salmon and baked potato, etc., and played Mexican Train - a dominoes game that J loved - until 10:00 p.m. Both of them have a great sense of humour and we laughed plenty. They told us about their good times when they'd travel with their RV and boat to Florida (for instance) and J would spend the mornings on Habitat construction and the afternoons on the boat. Their love for each other and for life was obvious.
On Wednesday, the two of them went for their regular swim in the recreation centre near their home and J - as usual - spent some time in the hot tub and then dived into the cool pool. When M looked around for him, he was nowhere and she was in a panic. She finally spotted him floating in the pool below the water level and yelled for help to remove him an call the ambulance.
There was no reviving him, and as I sit here, J is slipping away from all of us at the Carlsbad Medical Centre, his family around him.
J isin charge of the pecan harvest and shelling for MCC fundraising at Carlsbad Mennonite. he is a long-time, founding member of CMC and deeply loved by all who know him around town. If he should miraculously recover - please God - or if he should be taken home, he will always be associated in my mind with pecans and building houses for less fortunate folk. Of all his passions, these were the ones that it was my privilege to witness and share with him.
Is six weeks long enough for a friendship to sprout and grow? With a man like J, I think that 6 days are plenty. Some people are so gifted that way, and we are all much better for having known them.
When we got to Carlsbad, one of the first couples we got to know were J and M. In their mid seventies, they were nevertheless young thinkers and actors and although J was having some serious problems with a chronic health condition, it was he who accompanied us as we worked on the Habitat house where we sensed some of the chagrin he was feeling as his physical condition made the work he loved difficult. We spent several evenings at their house with the other SOOPers, Agnes spent a number of Wednesdays helping M to sort and bag pecans for MCC, and this Monday, I helped J mark off the lines for nailing siding on the storage shed for the last of the Habitat houses. The same evening, J and M came to our place (which is their fifth wheel provided us after out problems with the RV we had rented) and we fed them salmon and baked potato, etc., and played Mexican Train - a dominoes game that J loved - until 10:00 p.m. Both of them have a great sense of humour and we laughed plenty. They told us about their good times when they'd travel with their RV and boat to Florida (for instance) and J would spend the mornings on Habitat construction and the afternoons on the boat. Their love for each other and for life was obvious.
On Wednesday, the two of them went for their regular swim in the recreation centre near their home and J - as usual - spent some time in the hot tub and then dived into the cool pool. When M looked around for him, he was nowhere and she was in a panic. She finally spotted him floating in the pool below the water level and yelled for help to remove him an call the ambulance.
There was no reviving him, and as I sit here, J is slipping away from all of us at the Carlsbad Medical Centre, his family around him.
J isin charge of the pecan harvest and shelling for MCC fundraising at Carlsbad Mennonite. he is a long-time, founding member of CMC and deeply loved by all who know him around town. If he should miraculously recover - please God - or if he should be taken home, he will always be associated in my mind with pecans and building houses for less fortunate folk. Of all his passions, these were the ones that it was my privilege to witness and share with him.
Is six weeks long enough for a friendship to sprout and grow? With a man like J, I think that 6 days are plenty. Some people are so gifted that way, and we are all much better for having known them.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Snow, again!
Many of you like to see pictures more than you like to read. That's me too. I had hoped to use my laptop at the library so I could upload some of our many photographs, and so I had a new wireless card installed this morning. The library wireless service is not working, wouldn't you know, but someone has suggested that if we have an adaptor to run the laptop off the cigarette lighter (which we do), I could probably access the web from the Methodist Church parking lot. It seems that's a hotspot. Maybe I'll try that. Meanwhile, just words.
On Monday, we had a short-sleeve-shirt day (+20C) and today, it's +2C and two inches of snow. I guess it's some kind of justice when it snows on the snowbirds. We plan to make a trip into Arizona in a week to visit friends the Janzens near Tucson and the Friesens near Phoenix. It'll be nice to see another place and to converse with people from "back home." Speaking of names, which nobody was, our SOOP experience has been heavy with Friesens: Two Friesen couples arrived when we did (both acquaintances from childhood days) and another Friesen couple from Kelowna just arrived. We actually knew the latter from Germany where we worked the office of MCC and they did refugee work in Munich. When we crossed the border from Mexico into the US a month ago, The lady who looked at the Friesen's passport called a colleague over and said something like, "Look, more Friesens!" Somebody in church said that all the Friesens were coming to Carlsbad because it was so cold in Canada, everybody was 'friezen.' I imagine that the "frozes" are too stiff too move. We haven't seen any here.
I cooked an authentic Mexican-American meal for supper last night. I have a cookbook on the subject from the local library and decided to try cooking something from scratch. I made a chili sauce instead of buying it prepared and made enchilda. These are sharp cheddar, boiled egg, olives and sauteed onion wrapped in a tortilla and smothered in chili sauce, then baked at 300F for 25 minutes. They were good. I also made a side dish of Mexican beans and rice starting with small red beans soaked overnight, then boiled. You add the rice after 30 minutes, along with coconut milk and a few spices and 1 habanero pepper, the hottest pepper in the entire world. (Never cut these up without rubber gloves.) It was a good supper and our guests, the Friesens, enjoyed it. I think it may have thawed them out.
We keep a close watch on the weather in Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg and realize that most of you who are reading this are experiencing a cold snap. I know, for instance, that it's -21C in Rosthern today, and that Horatio, our cat, is probably mad as a hornet. I also know that it's only -8C in Edmonton and that warmer air is on the way. What a bizarre place the earth under global warming has become. The midwest USA is practically buried under snow today. At least it has served to provide variety to our lives and to give us grist for the coffee row conversation mill.
New Mexico has a bone to pick with Saskatchewan, I found out recently. It appears that the postash industry was really strong here until the stuff was found in plentitude in Saskatchewan, after which the Carlsbad economy took a real dip. There's still a potash industry here, but it's not what it once was. Agnes met a lady at a friend's house the other day who will be moving to Saskatoon from Carlsbad. Her husband has been transferred from a potash mine here to work at one near Saskatoon. Don't know which one.
Time's up. Got to go. God bless you all and keep you warm. Especially you Friesens and Froeses.
On Monday, we had a short-sleeve-shirt day (+20C) and today, it's +2C and two inches of snow. I guess it's some kind of justice when it snows on the snowbirds. We plan to make a trip into Arizona in a week to visit friends the Janzens near Tucson and the Friesens near Phoenix. It'll be nice to see another place and to converse with people from "back home." Speaking of names, which nobody was, our SOOP experience has been heavy with Friesens: Two Friesen couples arrived when we did (both acquaintances from childhood days) and another Friesen couple from Kelowna just arrived. We actually knew the latter from Germany where we worked the office of MCC and they did refugee work in Munich. When we crossed the border from Mexico into the US a month ago, The lady who looked at the Friesen's passport called a colleague over and said something like, "Look, more Friesens!" Somebody in church said that all the Friesens were coming to Carlsbad because it was so cold in Canada, everybody was 'friezen.' I imagine that the "frozes" are too stiff too move. We haven't seen any here.
I cooked an authentic Mexican-American meal for supper last night. I have a cookbook on the subject from the local library and decided to try cooking something from scratch. I made a chili sauce instead of buying it prepared and made enchilda. These are sharp cheddar, boiled egg, olives and sauteed onion wrapped in a tortilla and smothered in chili sauce, then baked at 300F for 25 minutes. They were good. I also made a side dish of Mexican beans and rice starting with small red beans soaked overnight, then boiled. You add the rice after 30 minutes, along with coconut milk and a few spices and 1 habanero pepper, the hottest pepper in the entire world. (Never cut these up without rubber gloves.) It was a good supper and our guests, the Friesens, enjoyed it. I think it may have thawed them out.
We keep a close watch on the weather in Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg and realize that most of you who are reading this are experiencing a cold snap. I know, for instance, that it's -21C in Rosthern today, and that Horatio, our cat, is probably mad as a hornet. I also know that it's only -8C in Edmonton and that warmer air is on the way. What a bizarre place the earth under global warming has become. The midwest USA is practically buried under snow today. At least it has served to provide variety to our lives and to give us grist for the coffee row conversation mill.
New Mexico has a bone to pick with Saskatchewan, I found out recently. It appears that the postash industry was really strong here until the stuff was found in plentitude in Saskatchewan, after which the Carlsbad economy took a real dip. There's still a potash industry here, but it's not what it once was. Agnes met a lady at a friend's house the other day who will be moving to Saskatoon from Carlsbad. Her husband has been transferred from a potash mine here to work at one near Saskatoon. Don't know which one.
Time's up. Got to go. God bless you all and keep you warm. Especially you Friesens and Froeses.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Different, but the same . . .
I'm sitting in the Carlsbad library and aware that except for a few subtleties, this could be the library in Saskatoon or Prince Albert. That's true of life here generally; American and Canadian cultures overlap considerably. I would say that Canadians on average are more knowledgeable about world affairs than New Mexicans, but I haven't been impressed with my fellow Canadians on this subject either. We place different values on certain things; for instance, New Mexicans generally seem to put their discretionary money into their vehicles as opposed to their homes. Games of chance are attractive to New Mexicans as they are to Canadians, but I haven't seen a single casino here: I'm told that Aboriginal tribes in other NM cities have gone heavily into the gambling business, however.
Every day, we pass through the vast Carlsbad cemetery on our way downtown. Stones are large and the entire cemetery is very well kept. In some areas, the stones all seem to be decorated with bouquets of bright red, plastic flowers, and it looks kind of nice. I've a feeling the resting place of parents and grandparents is treated with more reverence and solicitation than we're used to at EMC. I think it may be a Spanish tradition. Some days, we'll see a mother and children kneeling at a stone, placing some flowers, spending some time with a loved one.
Not surprisingly, food is spicier here than it tends to be in Saskatchewan. Spanish influence, probably, although we've been told that Mexican food is generally bland. I've got to figure this out yet, but since Agnes and I both like a bit of kick to our chili, we're enjoying the food. Tonight, the church ladies are putting on a Valentine's Day banquet, and we'll no doubt be treated yet again to their amazing cuisine - TexMexMenno. Agnes is making cheesecakes for the event.
Carlsbad has a large number of churches, some pretty large. Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopalian seem to be the largest church presences here, and on some ventures, the Baptists, Presbyterians and Mennonites have cooperated. They have, for instance, purchased and are running several transition houses where victims of abuse, abandonment, etc, can live until they get back on their feet. They also figure in the running of the Community Kitchen, Carlsbad Association for Retarded Citizens, etc. I don't expect to get to know enough about non-Mennonite denominations as represented in Carlsbad in the short time we're here. CMC stated some 40 years ago as a combination of the presence of a voluntary service unit and a few Mennonite families that had come here with their work. At present, their average age must be well over fifty although there are a few young families and probably about 10 children. Their future is uncertain.
In a recent post, I said that I could now identify numerous desert plants, including Otillo. Hold the phone. Agnes read that and informed me gently that it was "Ocotillo" about which I was purporting to be the expert. Birds here also represent a challenge and I presume my sometime birdwatching friend Wally, who's in Arizona right now, is revelling in novel bird sounds. Where we are, there appears to be an epidemic of Grackles and Mourning Doves/White-winged Doves. The Grackles group together in large trees and scold, sing, banter - whatever their peculiar conversation is called - endlessly. the Mourning Doves coo "mournfully" day in and out, and leave their deposits on your car if you happen to park under a tree. Our favourite birds so far are the Roadrunners. They're shy, but occasionally we see one - surprise, surprise - running across the road. They fly about as much as barnyard chickens, that is to say, enough to get over a fence or ditch. Their preferred locomotion is on foot. I haven't heard them go,"Meep, meep" as they did on the Roadrunner Hour, and I don't know if they're particularly threatened by coyotes.
Seventeen of the eighteen Whooping Cranes in the Eastern flock died in the tornados in Florida on February 2. I felt like taking my hat off and observing a moment of silence when I heard that this morning. There's another larger flock wintering in Southern Texas right now, but this is a real blow to this endangered species.
I'm out of time. Greetings to all our many friends, and don't hesitate to reply. You'll need to register with blogspot first, but it's easy and we love to hear from you. Begin by clicking on the comment tab at the bottom of this post.
Every day, we pass through the vast Carlsbad cemetery on our way downtown. Stones are large and the entire cemetery is very well kept. In some areas, the stones all seem to be decorated with bouquets of bright red, plastic flowers, and it looks kind of nice. I've a feeling the resting place of parents and grandparents is treated with more reverence and solicitation than we're used to at EMC. I think it may be a Spanish tradition. Some days, we'll see a mother and children kneeling at a stone, placing some flowers, spending some time with a loved one.
Not surprisingly, food is spicier here than it tends to be in Saskatchewan. Spanish influence, probably, although we've been told that Mexican food is generally bland. I've got to figure this out yet, but since Agnes and I both like a bit of kick to our chili, we're enjoying the food. Tonight, the church ladies are putting on a Valentine's Day banquet, and we'll no doubt be treated yet again to their amazing cuisine - TexMexMenno. Agnes is making cheesecakes for the event.
Carlsbad has a large number of churches, some pretty large. Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopalian seem to be the largest church presences here, and on some ventures, the Baptists, Presbyterians and Mennonites have cooperated. They have, for instance, purchased and are running several transition houses where victims of abuse, abandonment, etc, can live until they get back on their feet. They also figure in the running of the Community Kitchen, Carlsbad Association for Retarded Citizens, etc. I don't expect to get to know enough about non-Mennonite denominations as represented in Carlsbad in the short time we're here. CMC stated some 40 years ago as a combination of the presence of a voluntary service unit and a few Mennonite families that had come here with their work. At present, their average age must be well over fifty although there are a few young families and probably about 10 children. Their future is uncertain.
In a recent post, I said that I could now identify numerous desert plants, including Otillo. Hold the phone. Agnes read that and informed me gently that it was "Ocotillo" about which I was purporting to be the expert. Birds here also represent a challenge and I presume my sometime birdwatching friend Wally, who's in Arizona right now, is revelling in novel bird sounds. Where we are, there appears to be an epidemic of Grackles and Mourning Doves/White-winged Doves. The Grackles group together in large trees and scold, sing, banter - whatever their peculiar conversation is called - endlessly. the Mourning Doves coo "mournfully" day in and out, and leave their deposits on your car if you happen to park under a tree. Our favourite birds so far are the Roadrunners. They're shy, but occasionally we see one - surprise, surprise - running across the road. They fly about as much as barnyard chickens, that is to say, enough to get over a fence or ditch. Their preferred locomotion is on foot. I haven't heard them go,"Meep, meep" as they did on the Roadrunner Hour, and I don't know if they're particularly threatened by coyotes.
Seventeen of the eighteen Whooping Cranes in the Eastern flock died in the tornados in Florida on February 2. I felt like taking my hat off and observing a moment of silence when I heard that this morning. There's another larger flock wintering in Southern Texas right now, but this is a real blow to this endangered species.
I'm out of time. Greetings to all our many friends, and don't hesitate to reply. You'll need to register with blogspot first, but it's easy and we love to hear from you. Begin by clicking on the comment tab at the bottom of this post.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Influenza, moral dilemmas, etc.
I'm recovering from a bout of what I called "Montezuma's Revenge" to a church member yesterday, and he protested that hear in NM, Montezuma is not a character demanding revenge on unwelcome visitors. In any case, it wasn't pretty, but I'm feeling better and know that there are lots of others around me who have suffered with the stomach 'flu lately.
The Habitat for Humanity house is coming along. We've just about completed the siding and soffits, at which point the outside work will be done. The floors, walls and insulation will be done by people who know what they're doing. I took the day off today, supposing that going to the Community Kitchen was not a good idea until I was fully recovered. It gave us a chance to do some necessary things like laundry, getting oil and filter change on the car, flushing out the sewage holding tank on the RV, cleaning the carpets in the car on which we spilled a bunch of borscht when we hauled it to church on Monday, etc. Fun stuff. Such are the ingredients of adventure, it appears.
One of my goals here was to gain some understanding into the situation Mennonites face in Bush's USA in 2007. I learned in conversation yesterday that 2/3 of American Mennonites vote Republican. Take that to mean whatever you like, but it helps me to understand the schizophrenia that MC USA is suffering under. What I fail to understand is how Mennonites can see Christ in the politics of force and war, in the policies of domination to which the current regime seems to have married itself.
Here in Carlsbad, liberal theology seems to be right at home, at least among the members we've gotten to know. The other day we had a discussion around the table at A. + E.'s about a lot of things, including D's recent participation in the mass demonstration in Washington against the "surge" in troops to Iraq. One subject of our conversation was the lobby Carlsbad area politicians are putting on the federal government to locate a plant in the area for the manufacture of the detonating devices for nuclear weapons. The area needs jobs and economic development, and this is seen as a great economic opportunity. Church members here, of course, are dead against it. I made the point that although Canada is a nuclear weapons-free zone, Saskatchewan produces a lot of the world's raw resource for nuclear programs. One gentleman at the dinner table works for the University of New Mexico on the project that buries military nuclear waste in a salt bed thousands of feet below the surface just east of Carlsbad.
I delivered a meditation to a men's breakfast last Saturday. My topics was "witnessing," and my central theme was the need to identify the issues on which we need to witness for Christ in our age, and the finding of the effective means to do this. That's nothing radical, but in the light of the moral dilemmas faced by Christians and their temptations to support the status quo - either actively or passively - we face a real test, as Mennonites in the USA as well as in Canada.
The Habitat for Humanity house is coming along. We've just about completed the siding and soffits, at which point the outside work will be done. The floors, walls and insulation will be done by people who know what they're doing. I took the day off today, supposing that going to the Community Kitchen was not a good idea until I was fully recovered. It gave us a chance to do some necessary things like laundry, getting oil and filter change on the car, flushing out the sewage holding tank on the RV, cleaning the carpets in the car on which we spilled a bunch of borscht when we hauled it to church on Monday, etc. Fun stuff. Such are the ingredients of adventure, it appears.
One of my goals here was to gain some understanding into the situation Mennonites face in Bush's USA in 2007. I learned in conversation yesterday that 2/3 of American Mennonites vote Republican. Take that to mean whatever you like, but it helps me to understand the schizophrenia that MC USA is suffering under. What I fail to understand is how Mennonites can see Christ in the politics of force and war, in the policies of domination to which the current regime seems to have married itself.
Here in Carlsbad, liberal theology seems to be right at home, at least among the members we've gotten to know. The other day we had a discussion around the table at A. + E.'s about a lot of things, including D's recent participation in the mass demonstration in Washington against the "surge" in troops to Iraq. One subject of our conversation was the lobby Carlsbad area politicians are putting on the federal government to locate a plant in the area for the manufacture of the detonating devices for nuclear weapons. The area needs jobs and economic development, and this is seen as a great economic opportunity. Church members here, of course, are dead against it. I made the point that although Canada is a nuclear weapons-free zone, Saskatchewan produces a lot of the world's raw resource for nuclear programs. One gentleman at the dinner table works for the University of New Mexico on the project that buries military nuclear waste in a salt bed thousands of feet below the surface just east of Carlsbad.
I delivered a meditation to a men's breakfast last Saturday. My topics was "witnessing," and my central theme was the need to identify the issues on which we need to witness for Christ in our age, and the finding of the effective means to do this. That's nothing radical, but in the light of the moral dilemmas faced by Christians and their temptations to support the status quo - either actively or passively - we face a real test, as Mennonites in the USA as well as in Canada.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Sunday School
Dick Rhodes led us in an interesting discussion regarding Gospel of John's version of the "I am the Good Shepherd" passage. (I don't have the reference with me here in the library.) Not only did we have considerable discussion about the character - or lack of it - of sheep, but we spent quite a bit of time working at the teaching inherent in the following points:
1) What does it mean to be "sheep" to Christ's "shepherd," and at what point does the analogy break down?
2) to whom was Christ referring when he talked about the hired shepherd who runs when he sees a wolf because he has no real love for the sheep? and
3) to whom was Jesus referring when he said, "I have other sheep that are not of this pen."
I know the simple answers to these questions (except for 2, possibly) but the concept of Jesus being God while still calling him "the Father" I find to be theologically difficult in this chapter of John. "I know my sheep and my sheep know me" is vital to the Christian's concept of the relationship between God and his followers, seems to me.
Dick asked if I would be willing to teach the class on February 18th, and I consented.
Tomorrow, Amzie and Jason from the church and SOOPers LaVerne and Maurice and I will work again on siding the Habitat house . Building is somewhat different here from what I'm used to. For one, there are no basements; the city sits on a shale bed and digging basements simply doesn't work. Laundry facilities and water heater are in a small room on the main floor and, generally, a heat pump on the roof provides both heat and air conditioning. Construction consists of 2X6 walls with blown insulation, no vapour barrier and gyproc (they call it "sheet rock" here). Siding is 12 inch composition board with artificial grain running either horizontally or vertically. The house rests on a concrete slab.
Just outside Carlsbad is the Living Desert State Park. Agnes and I spent yesterday afternoon there walking around in a combination zoo and botanical garden learning as much as we could about native plants and animals. We now know the difference between Yucca, Prickly Pear and Otillo, as well as the fact that tarantulas are harmless while scorpions bites are similar to a wasp bite, at least the scorpions found here in the Chihuahuan desert. You don't want to stick your hand in among branches if you can't see for fear of the adult female black widow who could be hiding under the leaves. A bite from her could ruin your whole day. I also know the difference between a Western Rattlesnake and a harmless King Snake, but I'm assuming that that knowledge won't benefit me much since I will probably take off at the sight of ANY snake. The chances, by the way, of us coming across a Rattler are miniscule. Our landlord has lived here most of his life and he has yet to see a Rattlesnake in the wild. Our chances of coming across a two-legged snake are much greater.
I can't get over my revulsion for the caging of wild animals. To me, all their body language speaks rage. The eagles in a 20' by 20' by 20' cage for instance. They screech as if they were being tortured. And the turkey vulture eying us as if we were carrion (which to him, we might well be) should be soaring over the desert and mountains, and here he sits - grounded and miserable. Zoos should be abolished.
1) What does it mean to be "sheep" to Christ's "shepherd," and at what point does the analogy break down?
2) to whom was Christ referring when he talked about the hired shepherd who runs when he sees a wolf because he has no real love for the sheep? and
3) to whom was Jesus referring when he said, "I have other sheep that are not of this pen."
I know the simple answers to these questions (except for 2, possibly) but the concept of Jesus being God while still calling him "the Father" I find to be theologically difficult in this chapter of John. "I know my sheep and my sheep know me" is vital to the Christian's concept of the relationship between God and his followers, seems to me.
Dick asked if I would be willing to teach the class on February 18th, and I consented.
Tomorrow, Amzie and Jason from the church and SOOPers LaVerne and Maurice and I will work again on siding the Habitat house . Building is somewhat different here from what I'm used to. For one, there are no basements; the city sits on a shale bed and digging basements simply doesn't work. Laundry facilities and water heater are in a small room on the main floor and, generally, a heat pump on the roof provides both heat and air conditioning. Construction consists of 2X6 walls with blown insulation, no vapour barrier and gyproc (they call it "sheet rock" here). Siding is 12 inch composition board with artificial grain running either horizontally or vertically. The house rests on a concrete slab.
Just outside Carlsbad is the Living Desert State Park. Agnes and I spent yesterday afternoon there walking around in a combination zoo and botanical garden learning as much as we could about native plants and animals. We now know the difference between Yucca, Prickly Pear and Otillo, as well as the fact that tarantulas are harmless while scorpions bites are similar to a wasp bite, at least the scorpions found here in the Chihuahuan desert. You don't want to stick your hand in among branches if you can't see for fear of the adult female black widow who could be hiding under the leaves. A bite from her could ruin your whole day. I also know the difference between a Western Rattlesnake and a harmless King Snake, but I'm assuming that that knowledge won't benefit me much since I will probably take off at the sight of ANY snake. The chances, by the way, of us coming across a Rattler are miniscule. Our landlord has lived here most of his life and he has yet to see a Rattlesnake in the wild. Our chances of coming across a two-legged snake are much greater.
I can't get over my revulsion for the caging of wild animals. To me, all their body language speaks rage. The eagles in a 20' by 20' by 20' cage for instance. They screech as if they were being tortured. And the turkey vulture eying us as if we were carrion (which to him, we might well be) should be soaring over the desert and mountains, and here he sits - grounded and miserable. Zoos should be abolished.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Golf
After working at the Community Kitchen yesterday morning, I accepted an invitation to go golfing on the Carlsbad Lake Course in the afternoon. It's a desert course, and although the temperature was close to 50 F., we'd been promised a brisk wind. At about the second hole, the wind indeed went from about 5 MPH to 50 MPH and the flags pointed northeasterly as if they were boards. Curiously, several fairways - including the first - have new homes alongside, located in such a way that anything off to the right can easily end up in a living room. Friend LaVerne hit his first one that way. "That sounded like breaking glass," I said as we'd watched it arc and slice to the right, coming down among the houses. "Do you think it was glass?" he asked and I admitted that it could have been metal. Later, I landed one between two houses on the fourth hole. Houses and hazards suck. No. I mean literally. If there is a lake off to the side, I'll hit the ball into it no matter how much room there is beside it.
One green was humpbacked with the cup placed right on the hump. LaVerne was on the fringe upwind from the cup. He missed by inches, but the wind caught his ball and carried it right across the green to the opposite fringe. He hit it back upwind, but missed the cup again and it had enough momentum and, with gravity helping it along, it ended up about where he'd started. He tried it again, missed the cup by just a bit and again, the wind carried it right across the green. Ernie and I sensed a pattern developing, and it was about then we decided not to play the back nine.
I'm reading an "Interpretive History of New Mexico" right now, and finding it fascinating. So far, I've learned that the Pueblo (village) Indians of the Santa Fe and Taos areas had a well developed culture in the 1500s. They lived in adobe apartment buildings piled one on top of the other, with as many as 50 apartments. They irrigated and grew corn and beans in the desert and dried and stored it on the roofs of their dwellings. Their religion was similar to that of other Indian tribes with which we're more familiar in Canada, i.e., their focus was on gaining harmony with the environment around them. They did masked dances in order to induce rainfall, a practice the Spanish colonizers found so reprehensible and "pagan" that they raided the sanctuaries where they were kept and burned all their paraphernalia of worship. I've also learned that the Spanish king effected laws that were designed to prevent the slaughter, enslavement and general mistreatment of natives by colonizers, but that the individual viceroys assigned to New Mexico found ways to bypass these laws and as a result, Pueblo Indians were subjected to horrifying abuse, not the least of these being forced labour without reimbursement by the Spanish conquerors, who by and large were part of a class that simply did not do menial work and found it quite appropriate to require the people they were "evangelizing" to do the irrigation, planting and harvesting work for them as well as for themselves.
The missionary arm of Spanish colonization of New Mexico was very strong, so much so that it competed for power with the political administration. Early in the 1600s, the friars and the governor's militia actually carried on a bloody war; none of this benefited the aboriginal population, of course, many of whom were victims of these antics.
I'm looking forward to this well-written account of the history of the area in which we are now beginning to feel quite at home. English predominates here, but it's obvious that a large proportion of the population has Spanish and/or aboriginal genes. Commerce in Carlsbad is effectively bilingual, even though the concept of multilingualism is not recognized in this country.
Several conversations I've had with Americans have been enlightening on the health care front. There's a tremendous lobby against universal health care here, despite the fact that many want some sort of plan to be implemented. According to the critics of the Canadian system, in Canada:
1) People are not allowed to choose their doctor; the state determines this,
2) Doctors are salaried,
3) You can't get even emergency health service because the system is so backed up by flagrant overuse,
4) The Canadian health care system is on the road to collapse because it simply doesn't work.
I do what I can to correct these misconceptions, but I feel I need to warn readers back home that we ought not be blase about the drive to allow for corporate health care. It's a real and present danger in Canada and it's high time Canadians assessed what values are driving the pressure to compromise the Canada Health Act.
One green was humpbacked with the cup placed right on the hump. LaVerne was on the fringe upwind from the cup. He missed by inches, but the wind caught his ball and carried it right across the green to the opposite fringe. He hit it back upwind, but missed the cup again and it had enough momentum and, with gravity helping it along, it ended up about where he'd started. He tried it again, missed the cup by just a bit and again, the wind carried it right across the green. Ernie and I sensed a pattern developing, and it was about then we decided not to play the back nine.
I'm reading an "Interpretive History of New Mexico" right now, and finding it fascinating. So far, I've learned that the Pueblo (village) Indians of the Santa Fe and Taos areas had a well developed culture in the 1500s. They lived in adobe apartment buildings piled one on top of the other, with as many as 50 apartments. They irrigated and grew corn and beans in the desert and dried and stored it on the roofs of their dwellings. Their religion was similar to that of other Indian tribes with which we're more familiar in Canada, i.e., their focus was on gaining harmony with the environment around them. They did masked dances in order to induce rainfall, a practice the Spanish colonizers found so reprehensible and "pagan" that they raided the sanctuaries where they were kept and burned all their paraphernalia of worship. I've also learned that the Spanish king effected laws that were designed to prevent the slaughter, enslavement and general mistreatment of natives by colonizers, but that the individual viceroys assigned to New Mexico found ways to bypass these laws and as a result, Pueblo Indians were subjected to horrifying abuse, not the least of these being forced labour without reimbursement by the Spanish conquerors, who by and large were part of a class that simply did not do menial work and found it quite appropriate to require the people they were "evangelizing" to do the irrigation, planting and harvesting work for them as well as for themselves.
The missionary arm of Spanish colonization of New Mexico was very strong, so much so that it competed for power with the political administration. Early in the 1600s, the friars and the governor's militia actually carried on a bloody war; none of this benefited the aboriginal population, of course, many of whom were victims of these antics.
I'm looking forward to this well-written account of the history of the area in which we are now beginning to feel quite at home. English predominates here, but it's obvious that a large proportion of the population has Spanish and/or aboriginal genes. Commerce in Carlsbad is effectively bilingual, even though the concept of multilingualism is not recognized in this country.
Several conversations I've had with Americans have been enlightening on the health care front. There's a tremendous lobby against universal health care here, despite the fact that many want some sort of plan to be implemented. According to the critics of the Canadian system, in Canada:
1) People are not allowed to choose their doctor; the state determines this,
2) Doctors are salaried,
3) You can't get even emergency health service because the system is so backed up by flagrant overuse,
4) The Canadian health care system is on the road to collapse because it simply doesn't work.
I do what I can to correct these misconceptions, but I feel I need to warn readers back home that we ought not be blase about the drive to allow for corporate health care. It's a real and present danger in Canada and it's high time Canadians assessed what values are driving the pressure to compromise the Canada Health Act.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
New wine, old wineskins
On Monday, I and three other SOOPers nailed siding on one of the Habitat for Humanity houses going up here in Carlsbad. On Tuesday, three of us (men) went with Amzie Yoder into the country near Loving and tore up an old wheelchair ramp and replaced it with something sturdier. The man in the wheelchair is dying and is a client of Vista-Care, a hospice organization. (Hospices provide services to the terminally ill and their families; SOOPers work for them quite a bit.) Today, we worked on the home of a couple, one of whom has MS and the other some condition that doesn't allow him to work. Both of the latter two homes were extremely derelict and we found ourselves nailing new lumber onto old. At yesterday's home, the floor of the veranda was so rotten the occupants were in danger of falling through. Amzie is very good at visualizing what repairs volunteers can do given the material available and the condition of the premises. I call it "meatball carpentry," a takeoff on Hawkeye's "meatball surgery" on M*A*S*H. I find it hard to resist tearing away whole portions of these homes and starting over. I don't like putting new wood over old. New wine in old wineskins?
Carlsbad people tend to tell us that this is not an attractive city, and they're right. Generally, the roadsides are depositories for beer bottles and cans, and the fences and mesquite bushes along the roads are replete with rags and papers waving in the breeze. Where we live, outside the city, you'll find a lot of abandoned RVs and vehicles littering the countryside, and the brittle brown undergrowth of the desert is not cut, probably because to do so would expose the area to the wind and increase the blowing dust, already a problem on dry, windy days.
But all around us there are great wonders to visit. Last Sunday after church and potluck, Rudy and Ruth Friesen and Agnes and I drove out to Sitting Bull Falls, where a spring feeds a curtain of water that glistens in the sun as it plunges a few hundred feet into the canyon below. The trip was wonderful, especially when we approached the rugged foothills and wound through the canyons until we reached the falls. I've already talked about visiting the Carlsbad Caverns, and nearby, we spent some time at Rattlesnake Springs and the Washington Ranch. A legend here has it that the original owner of Washington Ranch would hire Mexican workers, would pay them on payday but have other hands follow them as they left, kill them and retrieve their pay. The legend says that the numerous caves in the area served as the final resting places for these unfortunate people. This ranch is now owned by CARC (Carlsbad Association for Retarded Citizens) and Agnes suggested that we come back next year and volunteer exclusively at the ranch. It's a magnificent place.
So much to do, so little time. Truth is, there's never enough time to do what needs doing. Another truth is that people get hungry, need clothing and shelter, need love and communion every day, so providing some assistance in bringing these things to them is part of an ongoing challenge for Christians. This fact reminds us that it is probably more useful to help a person augment his/her income in order to escape poverty than it is to bring the same person a charity meal day after day. We need to witness more to governments, not only in chastisement for their neglect, but also in the form of ideas for improving the INCOME of those who are now dependent on charity. Meanwhile, Randy and Donna's house is a mess, a mass of renovations started and never finished, and no amount of lobbying government will finish that job. And so we reach for our hammers at the same time as we dream up alternatives. At least, that's what it looks like through my window today.
Carlsbad people tend to tell us that this is not an attractive city, and they're right. Generally, the roadsides are depositories for beer bottles and cans, and the fences and mesquite bushes along the roads are replete with rags and papers waving in the breeze. Where we live, outside the city, you'll find a lot of abandoned RVs and vehicles littering the countryside, and the brittle brown undergrowth of the desert is not cut, probably because to do so would expose the area to the wind and increase the blowing dust, already a problem on dry, windy days.
But all around us there are great wonders to visit. Last Sunday after church and potluck, Rudy and Ruth Friesen and Agnes and I drove out to Sitting Bull Falls, where a spring feeds a curtain of water that glistens in the sun as it plunges a few hundred feet into the canyon below. The trip was wonderful, especially when we approached the rugged foothills and wound through the canyons until we reached the falls. I've already talked about visiting the Carlsbad Caverns, and nearby, we spent some time at Rattlesnake Springs and the Washington Ranch. A legend here has it that the original owner of Washington Ranch would hire Mexican workers, would pay them on payday but have other hands follow them as they left, kill them and retrieve their pay. The legend says that the numerous caves in the area served as the final resting places for these unfortunate people. This ranch is now owned by CARC (Carlsbad Association for Retarded Citizens) and Agnes suggested that we come back next year and volunteer exclusively at the ranch. It's a magnificent place.
So much to do, so little time. Truth is, there's never enough time to do what needs doing. Another truth is that people get hungry, need clothing and shelter, need love and communion every day, so providing some assistance in bringing these things to them is part of an ongoing challenge for Christians. This fact reminds us that it is probably more useful to help a person augment his/her income in order to escape poverty than it is to bring the same person a charity meal day after day. We need to witness more to governments, not only in chastisement for their neglect, but also in the form of ideas for improving the INCOME of those who are now dependent on charity. Meanwhile, Randy and Donna's house is a mess, a mass of renovations started and never finished, and no amount of lobbying government will finish that job. And so we reach for our hammers at the same time as we dream up alternatives. At least, that's what it looks like through my window today.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Poultry, etc.
Another week has passed and we're spending a leisurely weekend under sunny skies (for the moment). We woke up Tuesday to about 8 inches of snow, and although it didn't hang around long, it was enough to make us wonder why we had driven all this distance for the privilege of sweeping snow off the car and scraping windows. Spring is coming, however. The locals assure us it's just around the corner.
The governor of New Mexico is Democrat Bill Richardson who just announced his intention to make a run for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election. The NM legislature is in session; the most controversial bill involves the banning of the cock fight, a hoary tradition here apparently. Lousianna also allows cock fighting and people here claim that it's simply gone underground in Texas and other states in the South. Men will be boys, I guess, and the cock fight is certainly no worse than Mexico's bull fights. There appears to be some need in some people that is satisfied by the sight of a bloody fight to the death. I was told that drug deals, gambling and other vices circulate around cock fighting, and that wouldn't be surprising.
We took a drive out to a place called Rattlesnake Springs the other day, tagging along with Rudy and Ruth Friesen and Rha Friesen. It's a place where clear water gushes from the earth - likely a sloping aquifer connected to the nearby Guadalupe Mountains - to form an oasis in the desert. Nearby, we encountered wild turkeys, the first time I've seen them even though they are apparently common in southern Alberta. What's more, we saw a flock with an albino member feeding near the road. A white turkey. We had chicken for supper last night with the Friesens, and so it appears poultry has been the theme of this week. Neighbours nearby have roosters (cock fighting roosters, I wonder?) that crow in the morning. . . and at noon and in the evening.
Volunteer work brings us into constant contact with people whose options are few and whose reasons to be hopeful are limited by poverty. What is a bit surprising is that because we are working in institutional settings, the opportunity to engage in conversation is limited. The people we serve have been attendees at these places for years - in most cases - and have seen so many different volunteers come and go that we are neither a familiar face nor a welcome diversion; we are more like furniture. A lady walks into the serving area of the Community Kitchen and I say "Good morning. How are you?" She smiles - just a little - and says, "just fine. No salad, please," and she moves on to pick up her drinks, sits down to eat at a long table with twenty or so others. Maybe she'll say, "Thanks, guys. That was good," as she leaves. Luckily, we've decided to spend more time here than most SOOPers so that has a chance of changing as we get to know some of the people in the programs by name. I hope so.
Tomorrow, I lead the singing in the Carlsbad Mennonite Church. I've decided to repeat something I did in Eigenheim some months ago, i.e. to focus on the life and hymns of one hymn writer, Robert Wadsworth Lowry in this case. He wrote one of my favourite hymns How can I keep from singing as well as some old standbys like Shall we gather at the river, a song he himself didn't like much. I'm a bit nervous about this; I'm not a song leader. The congregation, however, is so open and friendly I'm sure I won't be judged that harshly.
The governor of New Mexico is Democrat Bill Richardson who just announced his intention to make a run for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election. The NM legislature is in session; the most controversial bill involves the banning of the cock fight, a hoary tradition here apparently. Lousianna also allows cock fighting and people here claim that it's simply gone underground in Texas and other states in the South. Men will be boys, I guess, and the cock fight is certainly no worse than Mexico's bull fights. There appears to be some need in some people that is satisfied by the sight of a bloody fight to the death. I was told that drug deals, gambling and other vices circulate around cock fighting, and that wouldn't be surprising.
We took a drive out to a place called Rattlesnake Springs the other day, tagging along with Rudy and Ruth Friesen and Rha Friesen. It's a place where clear water gushes from the earth - likely a sloping aquifer connected to the nearby Guadalupe Mountains - to form an oasis in the desert. Nearby, we encountered wild turkeys, the first time I've seen them even though they are apparently common in southern Alberta. What's more, we saw a flock with an albino member feeding near the road. A white turkey. We had chicken for supper last night with the Friesens, and so it appears poultry has been the theme of this week. Neighbours nearby have roosters (cock fighting roosters, I wonder?) that crow in the morning. . . and at noon and in the evening.
Volunteer work brings us into constant contact with people whose options are few and whose reasons to be hopeful are limited by poverty. What is a bit surprising is that because we are working in institutional settings, the opportunity to engage in conversation is limited. The people we serve have been attendees at these places for years - in most cases - and have seen so many different volunteers come and go that we are neither a familiar face nor a welcome diversion; we are more like furniture. A lady walks into the serving area of the Community Kitchen and I say "Good morning. How are you?" She smiles - just a little - and says, "just fine. No salad, please," and she moves on to pick up her drinks, sits down to eat at a long table with twenty or so others. Maybe she'll say, "Thanks, guys. That was good," as she leaves. Luckily, we've decided to spend more time here than most SOOPers so that has a chance of changing as we get to know some of the people in the programs by name. I hope so.
Tomorrow, I lead the singing in the Carlsbad Mennonite Church. I've decided to repeat something I did in Eigenheim some months ago, i.e. to focus on the life and hymns of one hymn writer, Robert Wadsworth Lowry in this case. He wrote one of my favourite hymns How can I keep from singing as well as some old standbys like Shall we gather at the river, a song he himself didn't like much. I'm a bit nervous about this; I'm not a song leader. The congregation, however, is so open and friendly I'm sure I won't be judged that harshly.
Monday, January 22, 2007
To Cuauhtemoc and back
Thursday: Thirteen of us in a fifteen-passenger rental van left for the Menno colonies at Cuauhtemoc. Three hours later we were through El Paso, through Ciudad Juarez and were getting our permission slips to pass beyond the 30 km. zone in which you are allowed to visit without any more than a cursory border check. We all got our personal slips, but when it came to the van, a woman who obviously had a bone to pick with either Mennonites, Americans, Canadians or all three decided to get picky. Rudy, aka Rudolph, Friesen, had rented the van using his shortened name; his passport showed the latter name, and there was nothing we could do to convince her that Rudy and Rudolph were the same person. She turned us back and, to shorten a long story, we arrived back in Carlsbad late at night and not-a-little frustrated and tired.
Next morning, we decided that true character wouldn't allow us to be beaten by a bureaucrat; we re-rented the van (this time I did it; "George Epp" has few obvious variations) and we headed out again. This time, we hit snow and slush in the Guadalupe Mountains and I drove nervously through that stretch. Then we were slowed by fog between Juarez and Chihuahua, but we arrived at Colony Manitoba and the Mennonite "La Heurta Inn" at 11:15 p.m. The same woman at the border had to approve our passage and this time she came up with a cock and bull story about our van being too heavy, but finally she said that since she hadn't seen the registration the other day, she would let us through, but that we were never to try to cross into Mexico with a vehicle over 7,000 lbs. again.
Cuauhtemoc was an eye-opener for me. North of the city of 125,000 runs a four lane highway called "suicide way", i.e. the most dangerous bit of road in Mexico. This takes you into Mennonite territory. The highway is lined with businesses, factories and large, expensive houses, some of which are purported to be the fruits of a drug trade which is still active in the colonies. Off to either side, roads lead to villages off the beaten track; they bear official numbers like "Campo 36" and have German names, like "Blumenau." Blumenau has about 20 homes and is the site of the only "General Conference" church in the colonies. Its members are mostly people who have left the Old Colony, Swift Current (Kleingemneinde) or the Rhinelander groups.
John and Ruth Janzen, MCC workers at Cuauhtemoc, took us on an educational tour of the Manitoba Colony on Saturday. We visited a cheeze factory and discovered that Mennonite cheeze is a very popular commodity in Mexico. We toured a Mennonite apple processing plant where about 30 Spanish workers sort, box, store and ship tons of Golden Delicious apples every day. We spent time in a rehabilitation centre for alcohol and drug abuse and sat in a classroom where a senior student from the Steinreich Bibelschule (Km. 36) was helping 33 men through an assignment from the book of John. We sang along with these men from Evangelische Lieder. They sang lustily, to our surprise, considering how they got there. The centre is virtually a jail. Doors are kept locked and guarded and the exercise/crafts/recreation area has a 10 foot concrete wall around it. The last man to arrive here was picked up in a bar after a father alerted the Mennonite police, was brought in in handcuffs and is now serving a mandatory three-month "sentence" in rehabilitation. The "re-evangelization" of these men appears to be the main therapy; the rate of recidivism - John said - is far higher than they had hoped at over 50%.
We had a great supper at a home for the aged/ home for the mentally challenged facility in the heart of the Manitoba colony. Here we were able to talk to residents at leisure and discovered that the facilities echoed the Mennonite Nursing Home complex in Rosthern up to the Pineview level. After the elderly reach a point where the untrained staff cannot care for them well, they are sent home or to hospital. A nursing home like those in Canada does not exist in the colonies.
On Sunday morning, we dicided to attend the earliest church service available, and ended up in an Old Colony church at Km. 11. Those of you who have been in Canadian or US Old Colony churches will already know that they are spartan, and strict rules apply: 1) The men enter one door and women another; the minister has his own entrance, 2) women sit on the left and men on the right, 3) there are no bulletins; the program consists of a 5-10 minute hymn led by 6 Vorsaenger who sit behind a low barrier at the front, the minister (Ohm) opens his notebook at a large white pulpit in the middle of the side wall and reads from it for an hour or more, in this case stopping to cry and blow his nose periodically, several times - on some cue I didn't pick up - everyone whirls around and kneels, their heads on the benches, for about 30 seconds, the minister finally sits down, a "hymn" is chanted, people walk out, go straight to their cars without speaking and leave.
Our presence was not acknowledged and no one said a word to any of us. We hear from John and Ruth that that's normal.
The gist of the message - delivered in alternate High and Low German - was apparently that members were in danger of hell fire if God was as sensitive as they were to the liberties in dress and behaviour in the congregation. I found it hard to follow him since he spoke in a low voice without amplification of any kind and I found his pronunciation somewhat strange. Not surprisingly, the concern generally is with remaining pure in a wicked world, and the constant reminder that all around us, we and others are making compromises with the world - sinning grievously, in other words - and there will be a reckoning coming. Forgiveness doesn't appear to be a theme here.
It's quite a picture to see, though. Sitting in the back of the church with about 150 men and boys (children aren't allowed in church until they finish school at age 13 or so), their off-white Sunday stetsons hanging from nails above them, the hard wooden seats and low backs of the pews biting into your thighs and back as the minister drones on and on. Across the aisle, the women all in black with their Krushelmetze look like a convention of subservient reverend mothers in full habit.
It's apparently not correct behaviour for a worshipper to speak anywhere on the church yard except in his car. I found this disconcerting, but in keeping with the fact that the entire worship appears to have been deliberately and completely depersonalized. I found myself wondering what would have happened if the minister had accidentally looked up and made eye contact with someone in the congregation. It was one of the saddest, least worshipful events I have ever attended. The leaving of the congregation (all except a few who stayed for a wedding to follow; the couple had sat through all this in chairs in front of the pulpit) was compared by someone in the group to having a giant vacuum cleaner sucking everyone out the doors. I could understand the need to escape. But, as I said to someone, these worshippers are in this church one hour a week; there may have been a great deal significant that goes on in their daily lives or even in this service that we have no hope of understanding in one short visit.
We left for Carlsbad right after the service, taking a more easterly route that took us through the area of Oasis, Mexico, where a number of new colonies are being established in what looks like a barren desert. We hadn't the time to stop there, unfortunately.
Next morning, we decided that true character wouldn't allow us to be beaten by a bureaucrat; we re-rented the van (this time I did it; "George Epp" has few obvious variations) and we headed out again. This time, we hit snow and slush in the Guadalupe Mountains and I drove nervously through that stretch. Then we were slowed by fog between Juarez and Chihuahua, but we arrived at Colony Manitoba and the Mennonite "La Heurta Inn" at 11:15 p.m. The same woman at the border had to approve our passage and this time she came up with a cock and bull story about our van being too heavy, but finally she said that since she hadn't seen the registration the other day, she would let us through, but that we were never to try to cross into Mexico with a vehicle over 7,000 lbs. again.
Cuauhtemoc was an eye-opener for me. North of the city of 125,000 runs a four lane highway called "suicide way", i.e. the most dangerous bit of road in Mexico. This takes you into Mennonite territory. The highway is lined with businesses, factories and large, expensive houses, some of which are purported to be the fruits of a drug trade which is still active in the colonies. Off to either side, roads lead to villages off the beaten track; they bear official numbers like "Campo 36" and have German names, like "Blumenau." Blumenau has about 20 homes and is the site of the only "General Conference" church in the colonies. Its members are mostly people who have left the Old Colony, Swift Current (Kleingemneinde) or the Rhinelander groups.
John and Ruth Janzen, MCC workers at Cuauhtemoc, took us on an educational tour of the Manitoba Colony on Saturday. We visited a cheeze factory and discovered that Mennonite cheeze is a very popular commodity in Mexico. We toured a Mennonite apple processing plant where about 30 Spanish workers sort, box, store and ship tons of Golden Delicious apples every day. We spent time in a rehabilitation centre for alcohol and drug abuse and sat in a classroom where a senior student from the Steinreich Bibelschule (Km. 36) was helping 33 men through an assignment from the book of John. We sang along with these men from Evangelische Lieder. They sang lustily, to our surprise, considering how they got there. The centre is virtually a jail. Doors are kept locked and guarded and the exercise/crafts/recreation area has a 10 foot concrete wall around it. The last man to arrive here was picked up in a bar after a father alerted the Mennonite police, was brought in in handcuffs and is now serving a mandatory three-month "sentence" in rehabilitation. The "re-evangelization" of these men appears to be the main therapy; the rate of recidivism - John said - is far higher than they had hoped at over 50%.
We had a great supper at a home for the aged/ home for the mentally challenged facility in the heart of the Manitoba colony. Here we were able to talk to residents at leisure and discovered that the facilities echoed the Mennonite Nursing Home complex in Rosthern up to the Pineview level. After the elderly reach a point where the untrained staff cannot care for them well, they are sent home or to hospital. A nursing home like those in Canada does not exist in the colonies.
On Sunday morning, we dicided to attend the earliest church service available, and ended up in an Old Colony church at Km. 11. Those of you who have been in Canadian or US Old Colony churches will already know that they are spartan, and strict rules apply: 1) The men enter one door and women another; the minister has his own entrance, 2) women sit on the left and men on the right, 3) there are no bulletins; the program consists of a 5-10 minute hymn led by 6 Vorsaenger who sit behind a low barrier at the front, the minister (Ohm) opens his notebook at a large white pulpit in the middle of the side wall and reads from it for an hour or more, in this case stopping to cry and blow his nose periodically, several times - on some cue I didn't pick up - everyone whirls around and kneels, their heads on the benches, for about 30 seconds, the minister finally sits down, a "hymn" is chanted, people walk out, go straight to their cars without speaking and leave.
Our presence was not acknowledged and no one said a word to any of us. We hear from John and Ruth that that's normal.
The gist of the message - delivered in alternate High and Low German - was apparently that members were in danger of hell fire if God was as sensitive as they were to the liberties in dress and behaviour in the congregation. I found it hard to follow him since he spoke in a low voice without amplification of any kind and I found his pronunciation somewhat strange. Not surprisingly, the concern generally is with remaining pure in a wicked world, and the constant reminder that all around us, we and others are making compromises with the world - sinning grievously, in other words - and there will be a reckoning coming. Forgiveness doesn't appear to be a theme here.
It's quite a picture to see, though. Sitting in the back of the church with about 150 men and boys (children aren't allowed in church until they finish school at age 13 or so), their off-white Sunday stetsons hanging from nails above them, the hard wooden seats and low backs of the pews biting into your thighs and back as the minister drones on and on. Across the aisle, the women all in black with their Krushelmetze look like a convention of subservient reverend mothers in full habit.
It's apparently not correct behaviour for a worshipper to speak anywhere on the church yard except in his car. I found this disconcerting, but in keeping with the fact that the entire worship appears to have been deliberately and completely depersonalized. I found myself wondering what would have happened if the minister had accidentally looked up and made eye contact with someone in the congregation. It was one of the saddest, least worshipful events I have ever attended. The leaving of the congregation (all except a few who stayed for a wedding to follow; the couple had sat through all this in chairs in front of the pulpit) was compared by someone in the group to having a giant vacuum cleaner sucking everyone out the doors. I could understand the need to escape. But, as I said to someone, these worshippers are in this church one hour a week; there may have been a great deal significant that goes on in their daily lives or even in this service that we have no hope of understanding in one short visit.
We left for Carlsbad right after the service, taking a more easterly route that took us through the area of Oasis, Mexico, where a number of new colonies are being established in what looks like a barren desert. We hadn't the time to stop there, unfortunately.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Learning patience from the caverns
Saturday is a day off for SOOPers, of course, and yesterday we took Bruno and Rha Friesen with us, determined to walk the 800 foot descent into the bowels of the earth at the Carlsbad Caverns. What an experience! Last time we were here, we took the elevator down and up. The walk takes about an hour and taxes muscles one doesn't use much, as well as being a strain on knees and hips, but we did it in fine style. Agnes and I took the King's Palace Tour thereafter, which is another 80' descent and rise, but the magnificence of this natural wonder made it worthwhile.
And heres the "learning patience" part. We went through a tunnel that was blasted about seventy years ago in order to provide person access to yet another room in this labyrinth. Water drips slowly from the roof of this man-made tunnel, and tiny stalagtites of calcium carbonate about the size of my little fingernail have formed there. Elsewhere in the cavern, these stalagtites soar to 70 to 80 feet and are massive. I thought of some of my friends who are of the conviction that the earth is 6000 + years old and wondered what they would make of this. It's obvious that dripping water would not have formed these stalagtites and stalagmites without millions of years of time to get the job done, based on the slowness at which new ones are forming. Time is of a different essence down there.
Carlsbad Mennonite - as I've mentioned before - loves potluck and games. This morning's service at 9:30 featured a men's chorus of 8 or so (SOOPers Rudy and Bruno Friesen and me included) sang 606 from the blue hymnal (Ich Weiss einen Strom) in English and German. At 11:00, adult Sunday School discussed the same lesson that Eigenheim discussed (unless they were stormed out). From John 5, it was a very difficult lesson in that it's deeply theological on the subject of Christ's sonship. Bruno said as we drove to church that he was glad not to be teaching that, a sentiment I could echo easily. Our teacher, Dick Rhodes, shared with us after his struggle to prepare for the lesson adequately. After Bible Class - as they call it here - we sat down to potluck, a tremendous variety of good foods and salads. My favourites were the stuffed mushrooms! We also got to know a new SOOP couple from Chilliwack - Henry and Evelyn Rempel whose nephew and niece are currently managing the motel in Rosthern.
A group had lunch together after church. The purpose of their gathering was to decide what actions to take regarding the "surge" of troops Bush has proposed for Iraq and the growing conviction here that it's a stepping stone into military action against Iran. People are pretty spooked at that possiblilty. Carlsbad Mennonite seems to be as much a peace church as any we've ever attended, and it was heartening to see how seriously they take their discipleship. One member asked the congregation for prayer and advice about a calling he felt to fly to Washington to attend a peace vigil there, and I think he got plenty of help and will likely go. The discussion around such topics is invigorating.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King day and a national holiday. We hear that the thrift store will be open, however, so we'll go there and sort, tag and hang out clothes for another half day. On Wednesday, "the men" will spend the day building on a Habitat for Humanity house.
Our greetings to all our friends and family who read this, and to all our brothers and sisters at Eigenheim Mennonite especially.
George
And heres the "learning patience" part. We went through a tunnel that was blasted about seventy years ago in order to provide person access to yet another room in this labyrinth. Water drips slowly from the roof of this man-made tunnel, and tiny stalagtites of calcium carbonate about the size of my little fingernail have formed there. Elsewhere in the cavern, these stalagtites soar to 70 to 80 feet and are massive. I thought of some of my friends who are of the conviction that the earth is 6000 + years old and wondered what they would make of this. It's obvious that dripping water would not have formed these stalagtites and stalagmites without millions of years of time to get the job done, based on the slowness at which new ones are forming. Time is of a different essence down there.
Carlsbad Mennonite - as I've mentioned before - loves potluck and games. This morning's service at 9:30 featured a men's chorus of 8 or so (SOOPers Rudy and Bruno Friesen and me included) sang 606 from the blue hymnal (Ich Weiss einen Strom) in English and German. At 11:00, adult Sunday School discussed the same lesson that Eigenheim discussed (unless they were stormed out). From John 5, it was a very difficult lesson in that it's deeply theological on the subject of Christ's sonship. Bruno said as we drove to church that he was glad not to be teaching that, a sentiment I could echo easily. Our teacher, Dick Rhodes, shared with us after his struggle to prepare for the lesson adequately. After Bible Class - as they call it here - we sat down to potluck, a tremendous variety of good foods and salads. My favourites were the stuffed mushrooms! We also got to know a new SOOP couple from Chilliwack - Henry and Evelyn Rempel whose nephew and niece are currently managing the motel in Rosthern.
A group had lunch together after church. The purpose of their gathering was to decide what actions to take regarding the "surge" of troops Bush has proposed for Iraq and the growing conviction here that it's a stepping stone into military action against Iran. People are pretty spooked at that possiblilty. Carlsbad Mennonite seems to be as much a peace church as any we've ever attended, and it was heartening to see how seriously they take their discipleship. One member asked the congregation for prayer and advice about a calling he felt to fly to Washington to attend a peace vigil there, and I think he got plenty of help and will likely go. The discussion around such topics is invigorating.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King day and a national holiday. We hear that the thrift store will be open, however, so we'll go there and sort, tag and hang out clothes for another half day. On Wednesday, "the men" will spend the day building on a Habitat for Humanity house.
Our greetings to all our friends and family who read this, and to all our brothers and sisters at Eigenheim Mennonite especially.
George
Friday, January 12, 2007
Cotton Peanuts
On Wednesday past, Jaso Stolzfus took us SOOPers to Seminole, Texas for some field education. We drove for an hour and a half before arriving at the Oasis Gin, and, no, this is not a brewery. Cotton is grown in large quantities in the region and this gin processes the raw cotton for 11 corporate farms. Most of it is shipped to China, made into shirts and trousers and sent back to North America for the retail clothing market. To imagine the quantity that can be ginned in this plant, think of a conveyor belt three feet wide, heaped with raw cotton, travelling by at about 15 kph for 24 hours a day. That sure ain't hay!
We stopped in Seminole and had lunch at a Mennonite restaurant. Some 35 years ago, many Mennonites from Mexico relocated to Seminole and established farms and businesses. They are of at least 7 - 8 theological persuasions including Kleingemeinde, Sommerfelder, etc. I had a wonderful Mennonite Quesidilla with refried beans and corn, salsa and sour cream. I asked for Vreneki and Schinkefleisch met Schmauntfat in Low German, and the waitress answered that that was only available on Fridays - in English. The cook wore a black head covering and a long dress, and chain-smoked cigarettes. The food was excellent.
In the afternoon we visited the Golden Peanut plant East of Seminole. Again, this was a massive operation that sorts, shells, and ships tonnes and tonnes of peanuts. they are the sole suppliers for Hersheys Payday bar as well as their Reese's peanut butter bar. Again to imagine the quantity processed here, imagine a 2 foot wide conveyer belt going by at the speed of a walk. They have the largest walk-in refrigerator I've ever seen, probably 200 feet by 100 feet in size.
Well, I'm sure I'm boring you nearly to death with this. When we get home we'll show pictures of all this and finish the job.
We've been getting news and pictures of snow storms back in Saskatchewan, and find it hard to believe. Wednesday, I golfed in s short-sleeved shirt and found it almost too hot at 22C or so. It's very dry here, and looking for your ball in among the mesquite and cactus - and the occasional rattlesnake, black widow spider or tarantula - is a new experience. Dusty at times, but oh, so balmy.
Agnes and I served in the Community Kitchen today and gathered pecans in a lady's backyard. We're continuing to get ready for our excursion into Chihuahua, Mexico next Thursday. We're really looking forward to that.
Take care everyone. If you want to comment at any time, go to the "comments" link at the bottom of this post. You will have to register in order to comment since anonymous comments are not permitted; I think you'll understand why.
We stopped in Seminole and had lunch at a Mennonite restaurant. Some 35 years ago, many Mennonites from Mexico relocated to Seminole and established farms and businesses. They are of at least 7 - 8 theological persuasions including Kleingemeinde, Sommerfelder, etc. I had a wonderful Mennonite Quesidilla with refried beans and corn, salsa and sour cream. I asked for Vreneki and Schinkefleisch met Schmauntfat in Low German, and the waitress answered that that was only available on Fridays - in English. The cook wore a black head covering and a long dress, and chain-smoked cigarettes. The food was excellent.
In the afternoon we visited the Golden Peanut plant East of Seminole. Again, this was a massive operation that sorts, shells, and ships tonnes and tonnes of peanuts. they are the sole suppliers for Hersheys Payday bar as well as their Reese's peanut butter bar. Again to imagine the quantity processed here, imagine a 2 foot wide conveyer belt going by at the speed of a walk. They have the largest walk-in refrigerator I've ever seen, probably 200 feet by 100 feet in size.
Well, I'm sure I'm boring you nearly to death with this. When we get home we'll show pictures of all this and finish the job.
We've been getting news and pictures of snow storms back in Saskatchewan, and find it hard to believe. Wednesday, I golfed in s short-sleeved shirt and found it almost too hot at 22C or so. It's very dry here, and looking for your ball in among the mesquite and cactus - and the occasional rattlesnake, black widow spider or tarantula - is a new experience. Dusty at times, but oh, so balmy.
Agnes and I served in the Community Kitchen today and gathered pecans in a lady's backyard. We're continuing to get ready for our excursion into Chihuahua, Mexico next Thursday. We're really looking forward to that.
Take care everyone. If you want to comment at any time, go to the "comments" link at the bottom of this post. You will have to register in order to comment since anonymous comments are not permitted; I think you'll understand why.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Pecans and more
Yesterday, we SOOPers and the members of the Carlsbad Mennonite Church sat around tables in their fellowship hall and shelled and cleaned pecans. It's pronounced Puh-cahns here, not pea-cans as it is in the East, apparently. We worked at that for a few hours and then had a soup and relish (pickles, cheeze, crackers, etc.) supper.
We spent the morning yesterday at a thrift shop unbagging, sorting, pricing and displaying used clothing. Those of you who have worked with old clothes at the Clothes Basket, for instance, will know what that was like. There are a lot of poor people in Carlsbad, and the place is busy, even on a Monday morning.
Tomorrow, Jason Stolzfus is going to guide us through a visit to Seminole, Texas, a place where Mennonites from Mexico have settled and have quite industriously built up what was a disappearing community. Our plan is to visit a cotton gin and a peanut processing plant, both in operation and to eat in a Mennonite restaurant in the area. When we get home, we'll be participating in a pot luck meal at the church, a biweekly event for the SOOPers and the church. As you may already have guessed, this is a very sociable community.
On Thursday afternoon, Ernie Good is taking Bruno, Rudy and me golfing. I am assuming that borrowed clubs, a desert climate and the newness of everything here will work some kind of a miracle on my game, which has never been better than mediocre.
Plans continue for the weekend trip to the Mexican Mennonite colonies, and we're looking forward to that.
We spent the morning yesterday at a thrift shop unbagging, sorting, pricing and displaying used clothing. Those of you who have worked with old clothes at the Clothes Basket, for instance, will know what that was like. There are a lot of poor people in Carlsbad, and the place is busy, even on a Monday morning.
Tomorrow, Jason Stolzfus is going to guide us through a visit to Seminole, Texas, a place where Mennonites from Mexico have settled and have quite industriously built up what was a disappearing community. Our plan is to visit a cotton gin and a peanut processing plant, both in operation and to eat in a Mennonite restaurant in the area. When we get home, we'll be participating in a pot luck meal at the church, a biweekly event for the SOOPers and the church. As you may already have guessed, this is a very sociable community.
On Thursday afternoon, Ernie Good is taking Bruno, Rudy and me golfing. I am assuming that borrowed clubs, a desert climate and the newness of everything here will work some kind of a miracle on my game, which has never been better than mediocre.
Plans continue for the weekend trip to the Mexican Mennonite colonies, and we're looking forward to that.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Work, work work
Here's what we did yeaterday: Agnes spent about six hours in Elena Yoder's office reorganizing her professional library. Elena is a spiritual counsellor at the VistaCare Hospice, a place that provides services to the terminally ill and their families. I worked in a community kitchen preparing a meal (actually, I made up 90 cups of cottage cheeze and fruit), serving it to about 90 homeless and disadvantaged, swept and mopped the dining room. I helped take down Christmas tree decorations for VistaCare from a tree out on the Pecos riverbank and in the late afternoon, Rudy and Bruno Friesen and I met with people from Habitat for Humanity to plan for Wednesdays when I and they will be working on a house in progress, siding it, putting on soffits and some inside work. Agnes and I will also be working at a nursing home in the activities area and I will be visiting a retired former pastor who lives there on a weekly basis. We will also work some days in a place similar to Valley Action Abilities in Rosthern and a food bank.
We had a great time last night when we first had a group supper at the place where the Friesens are staying and then went to a church member's place to see the movie, An Inconvenient Truth, in which Al Gore makes the case for action on global warming. The conversation after - about the failures of the Bush administration, the state of the ecology of NM and so on - was exhilarating. We've met so many great people here already. It's been a treat.
The weather yesterday: Sunny and 73 degrees F (22C). Light breeze. Eat your hearts out, snow shovellers.
New Mexico is the poorest sister in the confederation of the United States . . . except for Alabama. There are important issues here not totally dissimilar from those in Saskatchewan. The population is stable - or somewhat declining - at one million; in order to generate economic activity, they have welcomed the project to bury nuclear waste in Eddy County and after huge demonstrations, the military base at Clovis was kept from closing. NM faces a constant water shortage. Our hosts last night have lived in Montana, Wyoming and now NM, and we compared notes on out repective "homelands." We concluded that the great plains are a region far more than the American midwest or the Canadian prairie provinces are. That whole region east of the rockies is facing economic challenges that are similar and we could certainly learn from one another.
I'm bound to my one-hour time on the computer here at the Carlsbad Library and I'm almost out. My cell phone seems to be working here if you need to call us on an urgent matter, and we are on line pretty much every day. Our mailing address is G. Epp, 4324 Taos, Carlsbad, NM, 88220.
We had a great time last night when we first had a group supper at the place where the Friesens are staying and then went to a church member's place to see the movie, An Inconvenient Truth, in which Al Gore makes the case for action on global warming. The conversation after - about the failures of the Bush administration, the state of the ecology of NM and so on - was exhilarating. We've met so many great people here already. It's been a treat.
The weather yesterday: Sunny and 73 degrees F (22C). Light breeze. Eat your hearts out, snow shovellers.
New Mexico is the poorest sister in the confederation of the United States . . . except for Alabama. There are important issues here not totally dissimilar from those in Saskatchewan. The population is stable - or somewhat declining - at one million; in order to generate economic activity, they have welcomed the project to bury nuclear waste in Eddy County and after huge demonstrations, the military base at Clovis was kept from closing. NM faces a constant water shortage. Our hosts last night have lived in Montana, Wyoming and now NM, and we compared notes on out repective "homelands." We concluded that the great plains are a region far more than the American midwest or the Canadian prairie provinces are. That whole region east of the rockies is facing economic challenges that are similar and we could certainly learn from one another.
I'm bound to my one-hour time on the computer here at the Carlsbad Library and I'm almost out. My cell phone seems to be working here if you need to call us on an urgent matter, and we are on line pretty much every day. Our mailing address is G. Epp, 4324 Taos, Carlsbad, NM, 88220.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Carlsbad at last
Friends: We have now been Carlsbad, NM residents for almost 24 hours. We'll send pictures when we find out how that can be done. We live in a suburb of Carlsbad in the back yard of a Carlsbad Mennonite Church member, in a 24' travel trailer owned by the family. Yesterday, we met some of the people active in the SOOP program here and had supper at the home of church members, the Yoders. Great people.
Tomorrow, we'll travel around to look at all the sites where our volunteer help is wanted. There are at least a dozen choices and we'll let you know how that turns out. Amzie Yoder proposed to us that the two Friesen couples and we take a trip into Mexico to the Cuahotemac Mennonite Colony so we're beginning to plan that for the weekend of the 21st of Jan. Apparently it's a 10 hour drive and we'd probably stay there for 2-3 days, getting to know the place. We are also planning to visit the Mennonite settlement in Texas (the name escapes me just now)sometime on a similar basis.
There's a lot to explore here. We've already found out that we're an hour from the UFO capital of the entire world at Roswell, NM, and that we're just 20 miles from a pilot project where the US government is storing military nuclear waste in a salt layer deep underground. That was a pleasant surprise. We're told it's 100% safe, but then, getting rid of Saddam was once 100% necessary. We also hope that someone will come to visit us while we're here, thereby providing us with an excuse to explore the caverns again.
Will we do any work while we're here? Of course! I'm leaning toward working with Habitat for Humanity and Agnes has a couple of things in mind. We'll let you know how that pans out. We're advised not to sign up for more than half days, and not for every day of the week. I intend to fill much of the rest of the time with writing on a number 0f projects that rest half-finished on CDs in my brief case.
Carlsbad Mennonite Church is a small congregation of about 30, and the elder, Ernie Good, told us that its future was a bit shaky in the same way and for the same reasons that rural Saskatchewan churches are apprehensive about their futures. The leadership is aging and youth is missing. We will be having dinner and games with church people in a few days, and on Monday we'll help the congregation sort and shell pecans as a fund raiser, learn how to make pecan pie and hopefully eat a great deal of it. Carlsbad is the pecan capital of the entire world, I guess.
Have a great day. I'm running out of time for completing this entry here in the public library in Carlsbad, where we have internet access for an hour at a time whenever it's open. No emails or comments on this weblog will go unnoticed or unanswered, so let us hear from you.
Tomorrow, we'll travel around to look at all the sites where our volunteer help is wanted. There are at least a dozen choices and we'll let you know how that turns out. Amzie Yoder proposed to us that the two Friesen couples and we take a trip into Mexico to the Cuahotemac Mennonite Colony so we're beginning to plan that for the weekend of the 21st of Jan. Apparently it's a 10 hour drive and we'd probably stay there for 2-3 days, getting to know the place. We are also planning to visit the Mennonite settlement in Texas (the name escapes me just now)sometime on a similar basis.
There's a lot to explore here. We've already found out that we're an hour from the UFO capital of the entire world at Roswell, NM, and that we're just 20 miles from a pilot project where the US government is storing military nuclear waste in a salt layer deep underground. That was a pleasant surprise. We're told it's 100% safe, but then, getting rid of Saddam was once 100% necessary. We also hope that someone will come to visit us while we're here, thereby providing us with an excuse to explore the caverns again.
Will we do any work while we're here? Of course! I'm leaning toward working with Habitat for Humanity and Agnes has a couple of things in mind. We'll let you know how that pans out. We're advised not to sign up for more than half days, and not for every day of the week. I intend to fill much of the rest of the time with writing on a number 0f projects that rest half-finished on CDs in my brief case.
Carlsbad Mennonite Church is a small congregation of about 30, and the elder, Ernie Good, told us that its future was a bit shaky in the same way and for the same reasons that rural Saskatchewan churches are apprehensive about their futures. The leadership is aging and youth is missing. We will be having dinner and games with church people in a few days, and on Monday we'll help the congregation sort and shell pecans as a fund raiser, learn how to make pecan pie and hopefully eat a great deal of it. Carlsbad is the pecan capital of the entire world, I guess.
Have a great day. I'm running out of time for completing this entry here in the public library in Carlsbad, where we have internet access for an hour at a time whenever it's open. No emails or comments on this weblog will go unnoticed or unanswered, so let us hear from you.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Almost "Home"
They finally let us out of Pueblo, NM yesterday and now we've got an hour or so of clear sailing into Carlsbad after driving packed snow and ice most of yesterday, average speed for a few hours around 40 kph. We're expecting +60 today for our grand entrance into Carlsbad. A great day for doing copious laundry, finding some groceries and settling into a space purported to be a little smaller than our office at home (8 X 24). We're obviously now in football (bowl) country. Even the newspaper funnies are about "bowl season." Every night there's another bowl game on. How many universities does the US have - with first class football teams, that is? Central NM is a vast uninhabited plain and we thought about people who talk about traveling through Saskatchewan as if it were a dash through nowhere. They need to drive from Santa Fe to Roswell sometime. We'll be dependent on the library net for awhile I expect, but we'll try to keep you all updated. Feel free to reply to anything you read.
George
George
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Holed up-again
We're in Fort Collins, Colorado. The I25 south of Denver is closed so we're waithing for better conditions before heading south again. Snow, snow, snow. We've driven on a lot of packed snow and ice but the storm around Colorado Springs is going to have to finish before we go on. We're safe and happy. Don't worry.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Holed Up
Today, we're holed up at the Country Inn and Suites in Billings, Montana. Very pleasant. Hot tub, exercise room, free breakfast. Boring. We got as far as Roundup, Montana last night, drove in the rain for an hour first and this morning woke up to a world covered in a sheet of ice, dusted with a powdering of snow. Have you been to Roundup? We decided to limp the 70 km. into Billings this morning because none of the highway news was good and they were predicting up to a few feet of snow for Denver anyway, and we didn't want to spend two days in a rural motel, if you know what I mean. Billings could be Saskatoon or Brandon, except that every other business here seems to be a cracker box casino. I think we've seen about 50. Right now (evening of the 28th) the weather is clear and if the road reports are good tomorrow, we'll probably drive as far as Cheyenne, Wyoming and play Colorado by ear.
Anyway, we're safe and lazy, and we did call this a "vacation with a meaning," and we are finding out what that meaning is, I guess. I can't get on line with my clunky old laptop but this hotel has a courtesy computer for the guests.
Have a nice day everyone.
Anyway, we're safe and lazy, and we did call this a "vacation with a meaning," and we are finding out what that meaning is, I guess. I can't get on line with my clunky old laptop but this hotel has a courtesy computer for the guests.
Have a nice day everyone.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Packing up
As most of you know by now, Agnes and I are in the final stages of preparing for three months in Carlsbad, New Mexico. We intend to spend a few days at the Temple Gardens Spa in Moose Jaw with Cynthia and James before driving for three days and arriving in Carlsbad on New Year’s Eve. While we’re away, a friend of friends will be sitting our house and cat.
Primarily, we’re going to New Mexico for a long vacation, although we have enrolled in the Service Opportunities for Older People program and will be doing some volunteer work while there. What that will be will be determined when we get there.
I’m also looking forward to spending three months in “AMERICA.” We talk about the USA a lot in Canada, and we have numerous stereotypical images in our minds when American subjects come up, and I’d like to dispel some of those. My suspicion is that they’re just as faulty as American assumptions about us. We’ll be worshipping with the Carlsbad Mennonite Church while there (at least that’s our intention) and so would hope also to learn something about what it means to be an Anabaptist in a nation at war in Iraq. (Come to think of it, Canada is at war in Afghanistan; what’s it like to be a Mennonite in Canada living with that fact?)
I just read a book to which I was prompted by the death of Augusto Pinochet. You can find a review I wrote at http://ca.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-l0ypcCo2fql7qv1hXvc-?cq=1. It was worth reading, especially if you are interested in human rights issues and/or Latin American politics.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Limericks, Haiku
Last month, the Rosthern Writiers' Group of which I am a member set themselves an assignment to write linericks and Haiku. Here is my offering in that regard. (Caution: The following material contains scenes which may be suggestive. Parental guidance is recommended. These scenes appear here bacause it is virtually mandatory that the limerick, particularly, verge on the nearly naughty.) Please request permission to reprint from geoe41@yahoo.ca
Haiku
Haiku
a misty dream of
feathery snow drifts silently
through shivering branches
Limerick #1
So where did you get the temerity
To question my right to prosperity?
I’ve worked like a horse
Since a young man, of course
(And I’ve practiced accounting dexterity.)
Limerick #2
A competitive dancer from Fripper
Was renowned for her delicate slipper
When a rival showed up
In pursuit of the cup
She said, “No sweat, I’m sure to outstripper.”
Limerick #3
A slender young woman from Rhiens
Fed only on yogourt and greens
When a friend said, “I’d beg
For so shapely a leg!”
She replied, “Well it’s all in the jeans!”
Limerick #4
It’s said when a pretty psychologist
Was harangued by a verbious morphologist
That she sneered, “All your words
Are quite ‘for the birds.’”
And now he’s a sad ornithologist.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Same Gender Marriage
I watched cpac for four hours last night to see what was being said about Stephen Harper's motion asking for MPs to decide whether or not to bring back the same-sex marriage question. What I found hard to understand was how few of the principals of any party were present for the debate. Jack Layton appeared for a few minutes while his wife was speaking against the motion, and the BLOQ had no need to be there, since they had already decided to vote against the motion, en masse. (Also true of the NDP; I'm not sure why they were there except possibly to try convincing a few more conservatives to vote against it.)
Notable was the lack of information on the part of the Conservative speakers. Backbenchers all, they gave roughly the same speech: 1. the traditional concept of marriage has served us well for millenia and should not be changed, 2. children do best in a family where they know both parents and where those parents are a man and a woman; children's rights have not been considered, 3. expanding the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples will weaken the institution of marriage and affect family life negatively over time.
On the other side, several more prominent Liberals including Hedy Fry argued most emphatically that 1. children were central to the same-sex marriage legislation in that children of same-sex couples could now hold their heads up and be proud of their parentage, 2. a reinstatement of the old marriage definition would be illegal since it would mean that those same-sex couples already married would enjoy a right future gay and lesbian couples would not have, and 3. the broadening of the marriage definition does no harm, and is therefore the right thing to do in the interest of equality.
There were other points made. Conservative members either did not understand the points being made by Liberals and New Democrats, or they had been instructed not to acknowledge the questions put to them if they fell outside pre-approved categories. For instance, various Liberals and New Democrats pressed the Conservative speakers to assert firmly that they would table new legislation if the motion being discussed were to pass. Ken Epp (Edmonton-Sherwood Park) did finally answer this in the affirmative, but it appeared the other Tories were afraid to enter into any discussion on process through which the constitution would have to be changed or on the need to invoke the notwithstanding clause.
I'm pretty sure Harper never intended this motion to pass. Having presented it, however, he can say to his electors that he kept his promise to reintroduce it. He's an intelligent person and even if his backbenchers are clueless on the constitutional implications of reversing the definition of marriage, Harper isn't. He hoped to catch Stephane Dion off guard after only a few days in office as Liberal leader, I'm sure.
I expect we will have seen the last of this issue. Harper can truthfully say that he gave the House of Commons and opportunity to make an earlier mistake right, and they turned it down. What a lot of hokey! Does he think the citizenry just fell off the turnip truck? He may be right, if he's judging by the parade of backbenchers prominent in yesterday's debate!
geoe41
Notable was the lack of information on the part of the Conservative speakers. Backbenchers all, they gave roughly the same speech: 1. the traditional concept of marriage has served us well for millenia and should not be changed, 2. children do best in a family where they know both parents and where those parents are a man and a woman; children's rights have not been considered, 3. expanding the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples will weaken the institution of marriage and affect family life negatively over time.
On the other side, several more prominent Liberals including Hedy Fry argued most emphatically that 1. children were central to the same-sex marriage legislation in that children of same-sex couples could now hold their heads up and be proud of their parentage, 2. a reinstatement of the old marriage definition would be illegal since it would mean that those same-sex couples already married would enjoy a right future gay and lesbian couples would not have, and 3. the broadening of the marriage definition does no harm, and is therefore the right thing to do in the interest of equality.
There were other points made. Conservative members either did not understand the points being made by Liberals and New Democrats, or they had been instructed not to acknowledge the questions put to them if they fell outside pre-approved categories. For instance, various Liberals and New Democrats pressed the Conservative speakers to assert firmly that they would table new legislation if the motion being discussed were to pass. Ken Epp (Edmonton-Sherwood Park) did finally answer this in the affirmative, but it appeared the other Tories were afraid to enter into any discussion on process through which the constitution would have to be changed or on the need to invoke the notwithstanding clause.
I'm pretty sure Harper never intended this motion to pass. Having presented it, however, he can say to his electors that he kept his promise to reintroduce it. He's an intelligent person and even if his backbenchers are clueless on the constitutional implications of reversing the definition of marriage, Harper isn't. He hoped to catch Stephane Dion off guard after only a few days in office as Liberal leader, I'm sure.
I expect we will have seen the last of this issue. Harper can truthfully say that he gave the House of Commons and opportunity to make an earlier mistake right, and they turned it down. What a lot of hokey! Does he think the citizenry just fell off the turnip truck? He may be right, if he's judging by the parade of backbenchers prominent in yesterday's debate!
geoe41
Monday, November 27, 2006
Bush in Babylon
Bush in Babylon – a book review
By George Epp
Packer, George, The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005
ISBN-13: 978-0-374-29963-7
452 pages
How much do you and I know about Iraq, it’s history and culture? How much did George Bush, his Vice-president Dick Cheney, his Secretary of State Colin Powell and his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld know about Iraq’s history and culture before they launched their war to unseat Saddam Hussein? Did they have sufficient grasp of the fact that Iraq was like a container of tightly coiled springs that were liable to unwind explosively if any of the balance-of-the-whole were disturbed? Did they anticipate that insurrection and terrorism would be as significant a factor in post-Saddam Iraq as it has turned out to be? Did they appreciate how extensive a post-Saddam nation building project would be required, and did they have plans in readiness to ensure security until a new and acceptable regime could be established, exercising the functions that democracies require?
According to George Packer, the planning for the invasion of Iraq went as far as the “shock and awe” of Saddam’s demise, and no further. Central to his observations are the bungled opportunities to win over a populace that could go either way after the overthrow of the Baath Party. In fact, Packer’s central thesis could be summed up in the words of Brad Swanson, whom Packer quotes:
First there was the arrogance phase, and then there was the hubris phase. The arrogance phase was going in undermanned, underplanned, underresourced, skim off the top layer of leadership, take control of a functioning state, and be out by six weeks and get the oil funds to pay for it. We all know for a variety of reasons that didn’t work. So then you switch over to the hubris phase. We’ve been slapped in the face, this is really much more serious than we thought, much more long-term, much more dangerous, much more costly. Therefore we’ll attack it with everything we have, we’ll throw the many billion dollars at it, and to make Iraq safe for the future we have to do a root-and-branch transformation of the country in our own image.” (186)
Will this be history’s assessment of the war in Iraq? No doubt, there are less ascerbic analyses, but the news these days supports Packer’s view that the war began as the culmination of a vision held for some time in a small, neocon group in the USA, and that George W. Bush was sold on this vision by people like Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others, and that the perpetrators have been in complete denial for the past three years as the project unraveled and their goals didn’t materialize.
George Packer has spent much time with the principals in the war, both American and Iraqi. He records the views, dreams and disappointments of the Kurds, the Shiia, the Sunni minority, and it soon becomes clear to the reader that there was much more to consider in democratizing Iraq than the simple overthrow of the Baath Party regime. Released suddenly from the tyrannical rule to which they had become accustomed, Iraqis seemed unable to take initiative without being told exactly what to do, and American troops had no idea what they should be telling them. L. Paul Bremer was put in charge of the Coalition Provisional Authority and appears to have done his level best to kick-start the planning of reconstruction, but by then it was a matter of too little, too late. Too much time had passed without noticeable progress in reconstruction, and disillusioned Iraqis of all stripes lost confidence in renewal and the cycle of insurgency began.
The CPA was, of course, disbanded after elections in Iraq and currently there are 1040 reconstruction projects underway and 590 planned but not started (http://www.sigir.mil/sectors/Default.aspx). Reports to congress by the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction (SIGIR) paint a picture of organized, steady progress toward the rebuilding of Iraq, but the bloodshed goes on. Does the Coalition in Iraq have the time or the fortitude to complete the job that has now, finally, been accepted as being necessary? Drawing on the testimony of Drew Erdmann – formerly working in the CPA and chief advisor to the Iraqi ministry – Packer remains mildly optimistic on this point:
I came to believe that those in positions of highest responsibility for Iraq showed a carelessness about human life that amounted to criminal negligence. Swaddled in abstract ideas, convinced of their own righteousness, incapable of self-criticism, indifferent to accountability, they turned a difficult undertaking into a needlessly deadly one. When things went wrong, they found other people to blame. The Iraq War was always winnable; it still is. Fort this very reason, the recklessness of its authors is all the harder to forgive (448).
The Assassins’ Gate takes its place among a raft of books on the subject of America’s adventure in Middle East democratization. A War Against Truth by Paul William Roberts was published in 2004 but tells a similar story. Both books are written by respected journalists who spent a great deal of time in Iraq. Both are well-written, highly readable accounts of their authors’ experiences.
Of course, we now have another year or two behind us since either of the above books were released, and we’ve witnessed an election in which the Democratic Party replaced the Republican in control of the House of Representatives as well as the Senate. Americans are increasingly realizing that the war in Iraq has long since turned into a fiasco that could have been averted. I was halfway through The Assassins’ Gate when I watched the president announce the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld seemed almost jubilant as he feigned a golf swing, and I wondered if he wasn’t enormously relieved that his complicity in creating the Iraq debacle might well be forgotten before it got any worse and others became the foci of attention.
The most wrenching chapter in The Assassins’ Gate is called “Memorial Day.” It’s the story of an American father mourning the loss of his son to a chance piece of flying shrapnel shortly after arriving for duty in Iraq. The father’s agony underlines the possibility that many deaths of brave and/or innocent people served no discernable purpose. This may end up being the most devastating aspect of this war to Americans generally, namely that a misguided leadership led them into a war that achieved nothing worthwhile. Only time will tell whether or not America will have to face up to the same realization of futility that accompanied their military’s ignominious departure from Vietnam.
A note: If you are unprepared to read Packer’s 400+ page book, I suggest you tap into http://newyorker.com/printable/?fact/031124fa_fact1. Here you’ll be able to print off and read a 29-page essay called “War After the War.”
****
© George Epp, 2006
Monday, November 06, 2006
Saddam's Punishment
We got the news yesterday. A tribunal in Baghdad has sentenced Saddam Hussein to death by hanging. If his appeal fails, as it's likely to, he will mount a gibbet sometime in the spring of 2007, a rope will be knotted around his neck with the other end tied to a beam above his head, someone will trigger the trap door on which he's standing and the fall will tear apart the vertebrae in his neck (if he's lucky) and all sense and sensation will cease. If improperly knotted, the rope and the fall will result in his strangulation and as many watch, he will choke until his oxygen-starved brain goes to sleep and his vital organs cease to function.
I oppose the death penalty, even for a barbarian like Saddam who is said to have asked one of his colleagues to leave a cabinet meeting with him for a private chat, and then to have shot him in the head. Given reports of incidents like that, many will dismiss Human Rights Watch's (http://www.hrw.org/) claim that Saddam did not have a fair trial and will say that he didn't deserve one, given the arbitrary way in which he "tried" and executed his adversaries. To me, these are irrevalancies. Hanging is easily as barbaric as a pistol execution, maybe more so, and in applying this penalty, we seem to be saying, "Since Saddam killed people in a barbaric fashion, it's right that we should kill him in the same way." Ideally, a civilized society would never carry out executions because it would be impossible to find anyone willing to trip the trapdoor. In our world though, I suspect, there'd be a line-up for the opportunity.
I think much more would be gained by the Iraqi government if Saddam were to be kept in confinement for the rest of his life. It would demonstrate an unwillingness to descend morally into the pit where Saddam lived when he was president. It would create pressure to normalize: Saddam could not be held up as a martyr, while the new government would still be shown to have had the fortitude to try him and to hold him. Being alive, he would also serve as a reminder to Iraqi's of their recent history and the terror they endured.
Most of all, I believe that the gospel of Christ includes in its message a call to deal with human evil in new ways. Although the gospels are relatively silent on the subject of crime and punishment in the secular sphere, a follower of Jesus could hardly be the instrument for ending a life given the example of his master, for whom reconciliation, forgiveness and healing were central. Christ prayed for his executioners, we recall.
I would urge people who share the view that capital punishment is barbaric to add their voice to those of the members of organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. It will be hard to raise a protest in the case of Saddam Hussein, I'm afraid, given the heinous crimes he is alleged to have committed, but in the interest of consistency, this case is as worthy of our interventions as any.
I oppose the death penalty, even for a barbarian like Saddam who is said to have asked one of his colleagues to leave a cabinet meeting with him for a private chat, and then to have shot him in the head. Given reports of incidents like that, many will dismiss Human Rights Watch's (http://www.hrw.org/) claim that Saddam did not have a fair trial and will say that he didn't deserve one, given the arbitrary way in which he "tried" and executed his adversaries. To me, these are irrevalancies. Hanging is easily as barbaric as a pistol execution, maybe more so, and in applying this penalty, we seem to be saying, "Since Saddam killed people in a barbaric fashion, it's right that we should kill him in the same way." Ideally, a civilized society would never carry out executions because it would be impossible to find anyone willing to trip the trapdoor. In our world though, I suspect, there'd be a line-up for the opportunity.
I think much more would be gained by the Iraqi government if Saddam were to be kept in confinement for the rest of his life. It would demonstrate an unwillingness to descend morally into the pit where Saddam lived when he was president. It would create pressure to normalize: Saddam could not be held up as a martyr, while the new government would still be shown to have had the fortitude to try him and to hold him. Being alive, he would also serve as a reminder to Iraqi's of their recent history and the terror they endured.
Most of all, I believe that the gospel of Christ includes in its message a call to deal with human evil in new ways. Although the gospels are relatively silent on the subject of crime and punishment in the secular sphere, a follower of Jesus could hardly be the instrument for ending a life given the example of his master, for whom reconciliation, forgiveness and healing were central. Christ prayed for his executioners, we recall.
I would urge people who share the view that capital punishment is barbaric to add their voice to those of the members of organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. It will be hard to raise a protest in the case of Saddam Hussein, I'm afraid, given the heinous crimes he is alleged to have committed, but in the interest of consistency, this case is as worthy of our interventions as any.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)