A Day to Remember Others

Charles Wineman
Rex Garver
Tom Derr
Daniel Kellogg
Sam Garver

Daniel Unger
Cristoval Lemus
Brian Wagner

Today I remember what you did.

These lists are men I know and knew of that served in combat. The first list are family members. Great Grandfather, great uncle , father-in-law, nephew, son. Their service stretches from the Civil War to Afghanistan and Iraq. None died in war, but two died after their service as a result of combat duty--Agent Orange and PTSD.

The second list is of students I taught. They served in Iraq and Afghanistan. One died and the others were wounded.

Thank you for your service, and I thank your families.

From Enola Gay, "The Modern Manifesto"

http://www.paratusfamilia.com/2017/02/a-modern-manifesto.html

Interesting bit of history.

The Way of Ignorance, Finished

I finally finished The Way of Ignorance by Wendell Berry. For me this was a slow read and I stopped and started a couple of times and read other books in between. But Ignorance made me think so I plodded through it at times. The last time I wrote about this book I compared it to an Yvon Chouinard book, Let My People Go Surfing. Reponsibility is important to both authors, and local responsibility especially. As I finished Berry's book, this became more evident as he shared letters to and from friends.

The title comes from a poem by T.S. Eliot called "East Coker," which is from the book Four Quartets.

                       In order to arrive at what you do not know, 

                      You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.

There is much I don't know, but the first step to understanding is to admit the lack of knowledge. This book helped me think through some ideas. A Big thought is the concept of soil health. The last story puts forth the thought that soil health is not of result of limiting or excluding human or animal access to "wilderness." A new idea is that in nature periodic disturbances help health. These disturbances can be fire, floods, or grazing. Remember the stories of bison grazing in the past? Cattle can take their place now. As a preview, there is a story of cattlemen combining their herds into one of over a thousand and letting them graze together. Destructive? No. It depends upon how long the cattle were allowed to graze in one place. And it requires us to rethink our perceptions of what land should look like. That grazed land looked very disturbed right after the cattle went through, but six months later the land was covered in grass and green.

In our local mountain area, happens to be a national park, there are many trees dying. A combination of drought and a beetle infestation. But a new theory is also too many trees. There hasn't been a fire in the area in 50 years. Hasn't been a disturbance to stimulate growth.

Admit our ignorance, rethink our ideas and build health. Good ideas to consider.

Canaan Calls

I'm reading The Daily Walk Bible now. It is designed to help you read the entire Bible in a year. 2-4 chapters a day with a commentary each day. Slogging through the early parts of the Old Testament is slow, but the commentary helps as it gives the reasons for the genealogies and ritual descriptions. The narratives give insight to our reluctance and rebellion as humans. And God's mercies as well.

Today was an example. I'm in Numbers and the Israelites are getting ready to enter Canaan. The scouts have been sent into the new land promised by God and they are back with their report. Remember, God has brought the Israelites out of slavery and across the desert to this promised land. Many times they are rebellious and resistant, but here is the land for them to settle on and prosper. What do they do? Whine, complain and say the inhabitants are too big and strong. A repeat of the last year.

We would never do that would we? It was a reminder to me that we all have our Canaans. Those promises and things in our lives that we won't accept or believe. We just have to thank God.

Blah and Not So Blah from the North State

We just returned from Northern California and a visit to relatives in the State of Jefferson. It really has a different feeling and thought process than the rest of the state, even the Central Valley. There was 3-4 feet of snow on the ground and it rained 3 of the 6 days we were there. We walked the dogs and talked and generally had a good time under the circumstances.

On the way home I was looking for boots or hiking shoes and stopped in Redding. In the course of trying on and buying a pair of shoes, I had a good conversation with the store owner. He'd moved from southern California 40 years ago and settled here. Besides selling boots and shoes he also kept the dying art of shoe repair alive. It was a nice talk about different work boots, show lasts and the shape of peoples feet. I learned why some shoes fit better because of wear in the world they were built.

We also talked about water and specifically the moving of northern California water south. The topic of representation also came up and the feeling that we in central CA are much like our northern CA brethren in the shared lack of true representation at the state political level.

Maybe a new state should happen.

Into the World

It has become more and more evident that I would prefer to stay at home. To do almost anything at home is better than moving into the world. I wonder if that is part of the reason I am constantly late to functions. Rather be at home than out in the world. We call it "Garver Standard Time" at our house. Less cautious and more honest people call it rude.

This is more curious because I spent more than 30 years in front of a class teaching. Curiouser and couriouser.

But is that what God wants us to do. It seems that some of the best time have been when I ventured into the world not for something to help me, but out to help others. I think that is the point.