Perspective

Satisfaction of something whether material or otherwise is entirely dependent on one's perception and expectation. Someone can have something that is less than stellar in performance, but if they decide that they are satisfied with that performance they will be content. They can simultaneously have something that is perfect but choose to not be satisfied because of preconceived ideas of how it should be. Case in point: I met with a customer yesterday for whom we installed a door several months ago. He refused payment on the grounds that the door was not installed properly because the panels were not aligned the way he thought they should be. So, I agreed to meet him at the job site and adjust things as needed until he was satisfied enough to make the payment. I stood there with him looking at his list of complaints, and agreed to deal with every single one and proceeded to do so. The major issue was that the sections go in and out about a quarter of an inch over the height of the door; this is necessary for the rollers to be free in the track and roll easily. His perspective was that the panels were not aligned properly because they go in and out; his statement was "It is common sense that things work better when they are straight and aligned with each other." He failed to realize why it would work better as installed. But I adjusted it to his liking and the door works horribly. The performance of the door is greatly diminished because of his idea of how it should be installed. But, he decided that he liked it and handed me a check for his past due balance. Then he started telling me all the trouble he has been having building his new house. He's been at it two years and so far has a foundation, walls, roof, windows and doors-- just the shell of a house. He can't get anyone to come work for him because they will not meet his expectations. He told me how every single contractor he has hired has done a horrible job and he has to show them how it is done. I know at least three of the contractors he has fired, and they are three of the best in their respective fields in our county. This from a guy who has zero experience in construction. He can't get the electric company to bring power to the house because they will not do it his way (obviously they have specs to follow and a grid to worry about; I'm sure their engineers know more about sending electricity through long wires than he does). He is proverbially shooting himself in the foot by demanding things that are not practical, reasonable, feasible, or necessary. His house would have been done 18 months ago if he would just let the professionals do their job. An illustration: if a jug of milk in your fridge at home is not sitting square with the refrigerator shelf, is it true that the jug is crooked? Yes. Does the truth of that fact mean that something is wrong? No! Is it ok to be satisfied with a crooked milk jug in the fridge? With out hesitation... YES! It is most often easiest to not worry about small things, and trust the judgement of the people around you.

Random thoughts

We have had what I hope is the last snow of the year; it came yesterday and again this morning. I usually enjoy winter, or at least don't mind the cold and inclement weather. Since I do the scheduling at work, and a snow day means that everything will need to be rescheduled, those days are usually not fun but other than that inconvenience I enjoy the winter season for the most part. This year, however, I am ready for warmer air. We've had an unusually long snowy and cold winter for PA and I am a creature of change-- I don't like things staying the same for very long; the warmth of spring will be most welcome.

One thing I have accomplished this winter is converting the Monte to stick shift. The automatic trans has been in the car since 1999 and was needing some attention. Rather than spend the money of rebuilding that I decided to convert it to stick shift. What tends to happen with an automatic when a car sits a lot is that the valves and things will get sticky and hang up, and the trans will not work properly; my theory is that with a stick shift it can sit for any amount of time and work just fine. (That, and stick shift is more fun. In the words of my good friend Doug, it is a good thing to get rid of the girl-o-matic and put a man-pedal in the car.) As a side note, in the process what I have enjoyed almost more than actually working on the car is the way I funded the project. Instead of just outright buying something the cars needed, I set a goal and did work on the side to make it possible. The money for the new transmission and related parts was funded almost entirely from dumpster diving-- if I see something good in the dumpster at work, I will drag it home, post an ad on Craigslist, and wait for the phone to ring. It has worked out quite well and not just financially-- instead of just deciding I want something and buying it using our regular funds, it is very rewarding to set a goal, start at zero, and over time work my way up to that goal. Knowing that I'm doing my part to keep the landfill smaller and reduce my carbon footprint is rewarding as well. The accomplishment is now more fun than using the finished product.

Everyone says the older they get, the more they see themselves doing things just like their dad. I've said that in the past too, but now it's to the point that I find myself trying to see how much I can be like Pop. Hey, it worked for him. Some afternoon stop by the shop-- you might just find two pairs of legs soles-up above the sides of the dumpsters with a Stauffer on the other end.

The buffet table that I started last winter for Amy was finished the end of January, just in time for the Super Bowl party. It is serving us well and keeps the coffee pot and desserts well above the floor. It turned out ok for a first piece but I can't say that I am proud of it; the level of craftmanship is far from where I would like it to be.

Amy started a new blog and website for her artwork. It can be found at www.amystauffer.com She is becoming more and more talented all the time, and I am quite proud of her work. She started working with a new medium and the results are very impressive. When she began creating more works with a goal of producing income in addition to her regular job, I agreed to start doing more things around the house, mainly making meals for us. I have always had a fear of what goes on in the kitchen, i.e., I perceived it as some mysterious, elusive craft which was not to be attempted by mechanical types such as myself. Thanks to Amy's patient encouragement I have discovered it is not such a difficult thing; with a little bit of know-how and some good tools, a quality meal can be put together without too much trouble. In that respect it is just like hanging a door or doing a brake job. A few weeks ago a group of my friends and I went to a cabin for the weekend; I cooked all the food and actually enjoyed myself quite a bit doing it.

Right now our small group is studying James, and they elected me as the discussion leader one Sunday when we could not be there to defend ourselves. I picked up a few commentaries and have been studying it in depth. James has got to be one of the most practical book in the NT.

To assist in Amy's artwork she decided to get a good camera. We snagged a good deal off eBay on a Canon 40D with virtually no use. I find it very complicated to use while Amy is on it like syrup on pancakes.

Lots of big things happening this year. We have several weddings of close family and friends, there is family day which looks to be a good time once again, and we are hoping to take a trip to the western US mid-August. We'll see how that works out.

Of Life & Poetry

This is a bit of a rant, bear with me if you will.



Today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. The horror of the legalized murder of defenseless human babies disgusts me, and there are other matters of life and death within our society that the evangelical church as a whole turns a blind eye towards and in some cases endorses, much like the slavery issue in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These issues tend to float to the top of my consciousness on SOHLS.



How can a person at once vehemently condemn abortion and anyone who endorses the practice or has participated in the procedure, and almost in the same breath have an enthusiastic opinion on why the death penalty is necessary, good, right, even biblical? It does not work out logically in any way. If God is responsible for life and death, who are we to decide in what cases we will take it upon ourselves to make the decision?



This brings me to another thing: How can I endorse something if I'm not willing to carry it out myself? If I am willing to endorse the death penalty, I must be willing to pull the trigger, make the lethal injection, pull the lever on the gas chamber. I could not do that, therefore I should not endorse the death penalty.



With that in mind, I feel it is imperative for God's people to become more active in providing a way of escape for pregnant women who do not want their baby. Too often we want to condemn abortion without offering alternatives. If we believe that human life is sacred, then why isn't enough done to preserve it? We simply condemn those who want to end life, at least in the cases we choose. Anyone willing to condemn abortion must be willing to adopt the baby of a woman considering having an abortion, or they have no right to condemn the woman who must choose.

I woke this morning with shards of this floating in my head; I jotted it down and filled in the blanks before breakfast.



It's presence made her laugh and cry

Although she did not try

Inside her it began to stir

Although it clearly was not part of her



She did not want to make the choice

It soon would have a voice

Of all she knew, one thing for sure

Alone, it clearly was not part of her



Needing help, needing some reason

It was just a season

She stumbled up the steps into

A church, it would know what to do



Her presence made them laugh and cry

In scorn and pity sigh

To God's bride it did not occur

She clearly was not part of her



She told them what her choices were

Then they began to stir

The child inside, though still alive,

Inside a shell would always hide



They told her, "It's your lot to bear,

Duty we will not share"

Love of life they all would claim

But greater still their love of shame



She clearly was not part of them

The church was not her friend

It made her cry, she made it die

She had her reasons why



She clearly was not part of them-

Casting stones this sure did show!

She wanted life, they gave her strife

Not help, not love, not soul, not life.

Romance, Life, and Accomplishment

He was a war veteran, and had the prosthetic to prove it. He made a donation of one leg, probably in the vicinity of Korea, in the name of preserving the American way of life. Forty years ago he and his lovely wife moved into a new house, fully intending to live out the rest of their allotted days; last week that dream was realized.

Thirty-six years after he and his wife moved into their new house, they got some new neighbors who were and still are filled with a romantic fervor regarding life and accomplishment. We didn't get to know him as well as we should have, or as much as he deserved. Our first interaction with him occurred on the road, actually; he was on I-78 in the slow lane, holding it at a steady 50 mph. We of course with our youthful enthusiasm blew past him in the left lane well over the speed limit, commenting how dangerous it was for someone to be driving that slow on a busy 4-lane highway. Irony is lost on an enthusiastic youth. Minutes after pulling into our driveway, he pulled into his. We hid behind our doors, hoping he had not recognized us. We certainly had not recognized him as our neighbor until then; we sure are the friendly sort. Several weeks later I meekly followed him at a safe distance along our little back road at a steady fifteen miles per hour. For miles. And more miles.

One day lost in thought and mowing the lawn, he startled me quite a bit when I chugged around the corner of the house and there he was, leaning on his geriatric cane and smiling. He introduced himself to me, and asked for a bit of help with something at his house. We talked for a bit, and he struck me as a very polite elderly gentleman. It was the day before Mother's Day, and he was the first person in my whole life to wish me, a childless male, a happy mother's day. I protested that wish with "But, I'm not a mother!" He adjusted my thinking a bit by responding "Does that mean you can't have a good day on mother's day?" We shared a good laugh, and then he told me how he lost his wife just months earlier. They had been married for many decades, and I could tell he missed her dearly.

They had a son who struck out on his own; the last contact they had with him was 20 years ago. At that time he was living in California. He never visited, even when his mother passed. This man was very alone. Our local police sergeant told me that his cell phone rang at least once a month with a report of suspicious activity in the neighborhood; none was ever found. The policeman believed he was called out simply so there was someone to talk to.

We invited him to our house for Thanksgiving dinner the other year; he politely declined, stating he had a prior engagement at the Heidelburg Restaurant. I saw his car parked there many evenings. I knocked on his door several times just to say hello, and he was always very friendly and loved to talk. His door didn't meet my knuckles nearly often enough. Once when discussing some of the latest happenings he told us of a local, extremely colorful weekly newspaper which he deemed as the best source of news and events. He tucked a copy of that newspaper in our door every week for some time. I'm going to miss that little reminder that he thought of us.

Another neighbor mowed this man's lawn every two weeks, necessary or not. On schedule for this past Saturday, he showed up to do just that. The doors to the house were locked and no one answered repeated knocks. The fire department came out and broke down the door for the medics who found his body in his forty year old house, where he had lived out the rest of his days according to plan. The authorities are searching for next of kin.

The winter woodworking experiment is working out nicely. Every Monday night I run from my desk, jump in my truck, and eat a Lebanon bologna sandwich and an apple on the road in order to make it to Reading at the appointed time. Old men talk about how fun a good busy retirement is, middle-aged men bend wood with steam and muscle and imagination, and strong-willed women overachieve with warped cedar and a patient instructor. It is a fine thing to inhale the scent of freshly milled lumber and the sound of a spinning lathe.

These are to be the end panels. There will be pieces very similar to this which will serve as the doors.





Camera-phone pix of the wood shop at Goggleworks and assorted personalities.

There have been a lot of changes since I updated last, namely the completion of the grisaille. I made a significant adjustment to the curvature on the right side of the pitcher after another artist pointed out the lack of symmetry. I'm somewhat embarrassed that I hadn't noticed the error myself; now that it's been pointed out to me it seems extremely obvious. Working from life is far more challenging than working from a photo for reference; translating the 3-D environment before me onto a 2-D surface while trying to produce the illusion of 3-D is far more harrowing that I previously assumed. That process is entirely new to me since with the photographic references I'm accusted to most of that work has already been done by the camera lens. At this point, I'm fairly comfortable with form with the exception of a few folds of fabric and the pitcher's spout, with which I'm not yet quite satisfied. I've started layering in color, thinly at first such that the grey actually shows through in some areas, and I'll continue this step until the entire canvas has at least one layer of color.

Pitcher with Grapes - Still Life

I thought I'd share a WIP here rather than Facebook. I'll probably only post completed images to Facebook from now on and share works in progress here. Some of you may notice that my technique, subject, style, or all of the above may change from one piece to the next. The source for behavior is not undiagnosed bi-polar but rather my utter lack of professional training. There about as many varied techniques for producing a peice of art as there are artists doing the painting and I'm trying to explore the vast range of options to find what works best for my temperment and hand. I have an appreciation for multiple styles from painterly alla prima, to classical realism, and even photorealism. And within those styles, I'm attracted to many subjects, from wildlife, to portraiture, and my newfound appreciation for still life. It may all seem vastly schizophrenic for me to be rendering each hair on a tiger one moment and then producing a painterly still life the next, but I assure you there is a method to this madness. Eventually I hope to settle upon a technique which works best for me and begin focusing on that.

For this piece I am loosely following what is known as the Flemish Technique, an Old Master style that employed multiple layers which helped those artists achieve such masterful control of light and color. This is the first time I'm actually painting from life and I've already grown to appreciate why so many "purists" advocate working only from life. Modeling form and value is so much easier when I'm viewing the subject through my own eyes rather than the mechanical lens of a camera. What you see here encompasses three steps. The first step was a fairly detailed pencil drawing of my composition on the canvas which has now been fully covered. Second was the imprematura which is the brown tone that you see. The canvas is covered with thinned paint and the lights are wiped out with a rag and the darks are accentuated with more paint. Once the imprematura is dry the third step is the grisaille and is basically a value study of the completed piece. In this step form is modeled and is most important for creating the illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface. Some artists will complete a grisaille in multiple layers; here I will use only one. Once completed it will resemble a completed painting in monochrome. After I am finished with the grisaille, I'll start layering on thin glazes of color to start giving life to the piece. The technique also traditionally includes a "dead layer" which I still have not yet managed to fully understand, and depending upon who you talk to, rubbing a dried onion accross the surface between each stage, but for the sake of retaining my sanity, I will not be completing those steps.

It's fairly small, only 9X12 so the tiny grapes were giving me a headache by the time I set down my brushes. This represents probably about three hours of work not including the thumbnail sketches I did before working on the canvas. That is far more time than an experienced artist would have invested in this already. I'm still not very efficient so the actual process takes painfully long for me.

The latest

The lack of updates has not been due to a lack of activity... but perhaps a combination of Facebook updates and lack of blogtastic inspiration. We've been busy with a number of things, most notably getting more involved with our church. In addition to being asked to lead worship Sunday mornings every four weeks (three other men and I share the responsibility), Amy and I were asked to teach an equipping class. Our church has a concept of "Win, Build, Equip, Send" for growing the body; the goal of Sunday school (aka Equipping Classes) is to build and equip so that we become missionaries not in the classical sense but in the workplace and neighborhood. For a time last fall enthusiasm was at a bit of a low for us; one Sunday we attended Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan to experience worship with intelligence before going to see The Milkmaid. What we heard from the mouth of Tim Keller was "we need to as a church win people to Christ, build them as believers, and equip them with the tools they need to be sent into New York to repeat the cycle." We came away from the service with an appreciation for our country bumpkin Evangelical Free church and our pastor who is evidently 5 years ahead of the leader of the most intelligent church on the east coast. We don't have small groups for post-docs and artists and executives, and that's ok. We do have classes for engaged couples and on world religions and in Galatians and that's ok too. Our goal for the class we are teaching is to explain how that just as a successful marriage is so much more than just sticking it out until death because that is the vow, a successful life in Christ is so much more than just forgiveness of indiscretion because that is the Promise. It is a beautiful thing.

This past fall the Piker within roamed freely and with little hesitation decided that bookcases are too expensive. Instead the #2 pine from and Amish-made shipping crate transformed itself into a proper bookcase and surprised us both. Now I've received requests from a particularly enthusiastic fan who would like a few more things of that nature. An end-grain cutting board made an appearance in the kitchen, and a maple buffet table is on the way and set to debut in the late spring.






This is about the way it should look. Very likely in the spring I'll be more humble about it...



But for the winter we are holed up reading marriage philosophy and freeing ourselves from the bondage of chasing fulfillment and learning the freedom of servanthood, and while she paints an accurate sand piper beach scene with her hands upstairs I smash and cut mine in the basement with power saws and spinning knives. The general appreciation for hand tools and the safety and lack of dust that comes with them is growing within our household.

Woolly Bear Afternoon

I made a new friend today...

It's not particularly easy to convince a caterpillar to pose to have his portrait taken. My subject spent about five minutes in defense posture before concluding I wasn't planning to eat him, and then another five minutes warming up enough to move. I then took this photo of a woolly bear's eye view of the world; thorax raised in defiance of the vast distances between he and...I don't know what. He's currently inspecting the area around my trashcan quite thoroughly, perhaps in search of a place to over winter.




For those of you who may be wondering, the woolly bear is actually the larval stage of the Isabella Tiger Moth. They over-winter by producing a biological antifreeze in their tissue. So when you find one in your garden mid-December, don't throw the carcass away assuming the sorry thing couldn't cocoon in time for frost, he's just cryogenically frozen. In summer, he will look like this, provided my blue birds don't get to him first.



Sorry for a post of such utter nonsense.

Wow

I'm not sure what to make of this... thoughts, anyone? Shoot me an email.
a-gbody@hotmail.com

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20091019/opledereligion194.art.htm

Exploring

We rode along Front Street in Harrisburg yesterday afternoon. Perfect weather.


The gravestone of Mr. Harris, the founder of Harrisburg.



This waterflow looked a lot like the underside of a blue whale.


This very to-the-point sentence was at the Holocaust Memorial along Front Street.


Amy exploring her talent.

White & Black

A Zebra's Stripes





I'm gonna keep this pretty quick because it's far too late for me to be doing this, but this is my most recent creation. White Charcoal on black Mi-Tientes. I wanted the effect of the black stripes blending seemlessly with the black of the paper and I think it works well. The zebra is such an enigma to me; that such an outrageous outfit could serve it well.

The Splendor of the King

Source: Hubblesite.org



This is an optical image of the Eagle Nebula, located in the constellation Serpens, photo courtesy of NASA taken by the Hubble space telescope. Pictured here is a region of the nebula where gases coalesce into greater masses until the increasing force of their mutual gravitation cause them to ignite in sustained nuclear fusion, a.k.a. a nursery for stars. The light being emitted from the gases is the result of ionization (the process of electrons being separated from their respective nulcei thus producing light) caused by the energy released from nearby stars. Off the picture to the upper right is a bank of young stars whose activity is slowing eroding away the pillar in the photo.

According to NASA, this particular nebula is 6500 light years distant or just over 38 quadrillion miles away from Earth. The section pictured here does not even compromise the entirety of the Eagle Nebula, yet this small piece is nearly 57 trillion miles from top to bottom.

Current estimates place our galaxy as one among 10 billion others, each containing at least as many as 10 billion stars, making our sun one of possibly over 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe.


"When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?"

Oh, how little that the psalmist actually knew. Now that we have the technology allowing us the capability to see this far into the depths of space at greater wonders than that ancient writer could have possibly dreamed, do we still allow ourselves the same awe, or have we grown up too much? I personally think I use that simple word too easily in my daily vernacular. To study its meaning shows me how easily I fail to practice it. Let us stop for a moment in the midst of our otherwise tremendously important activities and remember that as only one among billions on a world that could be one among quintillions, the Lord your God is mindful of you. As Christians blessed with the personal experience of the sacrifice and grace of Christ, I think we tend to view the Creation as a direct benefit to ourselves and fail to recognize how truly insignificant we are. It is by the grace of Elohim, Creator God alone that we have breath, and it is this same Creator who is this very moment directing the birth of stars in the deep fields of space far beyond our wildest imaginations.


For more info about the nebula in the picture above and other awesome photos taken by Hubble check out these links.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2005/12/image/b/

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/wallpaper/

La clase espanol

Yes, it is true. We have begun classes every Wednesday night with the end goal of speaking and writing spanish fluently. Tonight was our third class. Our profesor assures us that within six months we will be capable of communicating effectively. He is a recent Venezualian immigrant who was a college professor in his home country. He now lives here in Pennsylvania with his children and studies and tutors privately. So far, so good: we have learned a number of words and phrases, and this week our assignment is to learn to count from 0-100. Es muy bien.

Violation

Our house was broken into Friday while we were both at work. I came home to find the back door unlocked but kicked in anyway, and all the drawers and doors inside the house wide open and everything rifled through. Not much was missing, just a few hundred dollars worth of stuff and my sense of security.

Leslie Zimmerman told me at church that I need to go through a "grieving" process: shock, anger, guilt, sorrow, then finally peace. I'm definitely still in the anger stage; I want to hurt the person who did it. But deep inside logic says that wouldn't help myself or the bum who done it. Amy reprimanded me for my lust for revenge, and I feel like a little boy who just got picked on and wants to kick the bully in the shin but the teacher wipes my tears and makes me stay in my chair until I get over it. And I remember Darrin's black shirt that says in bold white letters "An eye for an eye leaves both blind."

Pop

It is rather fortunate that I am one of a small number of American sons who gets to work with his father. Not that it’s a rare thing, but uncommon enough. The days of growing up on the family farm and gradually growing into a role of running a farm with/for Dad are long gone for the vast majority of Americans thanks to advancements in technology and general hugeness of farm equipment; many kids simply know what their dad does at his job, but not how he does it. They see Dad in the morning and evening perhaps, but don't interact with him through the frustrations and joys, problems and accomplishments of the day's general tasks. But lamenting the fact of time lost with Dad would not make any family unit stronger.

Going along with Pop to work as a kid exposed me in a small way to the business. I wasn't much help except for background noise, and my short skinny 11 year old body couldn't do much more than sort the hardware, put the tracks together, run the drillers in with the impact, then clean up the trash and pack my pouch, impact, and extension cord into my toolbox- a WD cardboard box. At the time I hated it: I had glamorous dreams of being a brain surgeon thanks to a Reader's Digest article that I read and re-read. Working with Pop was more than a few notches beneath my level of dignity and high volume of peach fuzz. My hopes of being a surgeon were dashed when my hands proved unsteady in an 8th grade motor skills test. I did however learn how to wrap an extension cord quicker than anyone's business; it’s a talent I'm quite proud of to this day.

High school and jobs came and went. Frustrated at the lack of doing something I liked, Mom convinced me to go work with Pop. Originally the plan was to work there temporarily until I found something I liked; I soon found that I liked working there. This fall will be 9 years.

I like my job overall; I get to interact closely with dozens of people daily and thousands annually. My favorite person to interact with at work by any measure is Pop. I have to confess that in the early years of working there it wasn't something I saw as special; it was just something that was. I would see Pop in the morning at home, maybe on the dock for a few minutes at the shop, but then not until evening at home again. Now that I spend my days at the shop all day, I get to see Pop most of every day. The more time that we are blessed with together helps me realize how much I love the man, and how much he has taught me seldom with words or even discipline, but with his often quiet example. He has set me straight in some pretty big choices in life just with a half dozen carefully placed words and a look or two. Working by the piece taught me to work, but watching Pop taught me to live.

Pedaling

We are happy to report that we have faithfully been getting our share of exercise on our bikes. We drive our bikes in the trunk of our car to Blue Marsh and ride into Reading. Round trip is about 14 miles. Hardcore bikers we are not; there is no spandex involved, and if there are any creatures along the trail we stop to inspect them and offer any assistance. Today we helped a toad with an injury to a rear leg and a bat which seemed to be lost. It was struggling on the floor of a covered bridge making pathetic little squeaks, so it was helped onto a beam of the bridge where it could groggily crawl back to its place with its buddies making sqeaks that I suspect were bat snores and sleep until dusk. People sometimes fall out of bed in their sleep; perhaps this bat fell off its beam while having a bad dream.

The Spider's Cosmos

I was stopped this morning by the sight of a funnel spider's web. I thought "isn't it neat how the web resembles depictions I've seen of the theory of general relativity" Is it merely a great way for the spider to catch itself a meal, or the fabric of space-time on a tiny scale? Who is to say? But I digress. I was struck by the simple beauty intrinsic in the spider's web and so I spent the next hour wandering around our property in the mist taking pictures of other examples of arachnid architecture. And struggling to make our point and shoot camera focus where I wanted it to.

A person does not need to know me for long before they learn that I have an unusual appreciation for the insect world. I usually attribute this to the fact that I am equally fascinated by all life, but insects are far more accessible than a bird or a leopard. However I think that might be incorrect. I've concluded the real source of the appeal for me is that life should exist on such a tiny scale. This is a world where skyscrapers are built from shafts of wheat, the leaves of trees are separated by an unfathomable distance, and a human is a frighteningly large ogre. Lit only by moonlight, the world's spiders methodically create spinning wonders of gossamer stronger than steel. Taking literal leaps of faith on the end of their lifeline of silk, the very smallest throw themselves to the wind seeking an anchor for their webs. They can neither see where they will land nor comprehend the geometric beauty of their final creations; they do this simply because instinct dictates they must. I suppose a wonderful allegory for life could be drawn from that statement, but I will leave that for another time.




The affairs of men are of little import to the spider as it waits patiently for a meal, yet we squash them at every opportunity and create a toxic soup of chemicals to rid them from our homes. Little do we consider how intimately we depend upon even the smallest of creatures. If mankind were to obliterate itself tomorrow the world would gradually revert to the state it enjoyed ten thousand years ago. If spiders and the rest of the phylum of animals they represent vanished the damage to the balance of our planet's delicate ecology would be irreparable. So maybe the next time you raise your hand to squash a spider or another of the one million members of its kin, you'll wonder that we should owe a debt of gratitude to something so small and allow it to continue its work in peace.

And then we came home

Last Saturday afternoon (June 6) we flew south to the DR. A group of locals who go by This Little Light Mininstries organizes two trips a year to support a school for poor kids in a town by the name of Punta de Garza. In a nutshell the school is run tuition-free by a local medical doctor and his wife. They have preschool up to 8th grade. They also have a recently installed water system which provides safe drinking water at a low cost. The good doctor provides a bit medical care for the kids and the adults in the community as possible. Most if not all of the support comes from various organizations in the States; feel free to get involved, as the last few months' support has not been sufficient due to the alleged difficult financial times in the US.

During our time at the school, we did a few odd maintenance jobs, spent a large amount of time with the kids playing games and doing crafts and skits, hauled a bunch of food and a morsel of spiritual nourishment to a Haitian migrant worker camp, and took the director shopping for some school supplies.

On Friday we had the fortunate experience to witness a group of fantastically wealthy businessmen from the US and Japan stop by the school. If my facts are correct, they are from a world-wide multi-level marketing outfit and have made truckloads of money selling some manner of nutritional drink, and now use their time and resources spreading their wealth around the world a bit. One of the men in the group asked where we are from; when told "Pennsylvania" he responded, "Oh, that's where my golf course is. Uhhh... can't remember the name of the town right now." We were all very impressed by his obvious wealth. Later on, when shown the benefits a vo-tech center would provide to the community, he committed to providing the funds necessary to build such a center. The group as a whole provided the school with backpacks and the funds necessary to fill those backpacks with the textbooks for the upcoming school year.

The doctor told us of much witchcraft and demon posession which the center is battling with a measure of sucess thanks to a certain teacher who is able to by the power of Jesus release kids from the control of those voodoo spirits and free them to turn their souls over to the powers of the Gospel. He told us of a pair of 14 year old girls who decided their way out of poverty was to run away from home and live with their adult boyfriends. Amy became attached to some sisters whose father was murdered a year ago; they wanted to know if they could call me Padre and if we would be willing to stay. The doctor's son informed me that in the entire school of 150 kids, there are only three families with both the father and mother intact. Many kids live with an aunt or older sibling, and many more kids only have their mother. Please pray for these families in this community.

This blog post could go on for some length, but suffice it to say that the school/center is a place of much potential. The grade school is only a part of what could be accomplished, if only enough people could come along side with the resources necessary to make it happen. It looks like the Vo-Tech center to teach trades varying from plumbing and electrical and welding to sewing and cooking will happen, but there is more that the doctor dreams of. He would like to expand the school to all twelve grades, and on a vacant lot across the muddy pot-holed street the goal is a small hospital where teams could come for a week or two and perform light medical care for the entire community. My only concern is that the buildings will get built with no monthly support for the expenses necessary to sustain such a complex. We had originally planned to pour concrete this week, but the doctor made it known that he was running low on funds, so we poured the money into his hands instead. He will put it to better use than a fresh section of concrete would ever do. Its easy to say, "Oh, we'll come down and build this building or paint that one for you" and enjoy the experience and fulfillment of doing something; the need I sense in this ministry is simply pure cashola. There's no lack of labor or knowledge of what the needs are; the place is run by the guys in the middle of all of it.