A Quote

"Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say." - Samuel Johnson

Just some thoughts

I haven't forgotten about the Matthew 18 blog I started. I'll get to it.

I swiped this from The Bolivar Commercial - one of Cleveland, Mississippi's two newspapers. For years their editorials have always been reflective of their community, and their personal views. This one was published yesterday, March 26, 2009.

Mother Nature offers inspiration for difficult times

Thursday, Mar 26, 2009 - The Bolivar Commercial (Cleveland, MS)

In these soul-trying times, we are constantly amazed at the lessons nature teaches us about faith, life in general and even patriotism.

We thought about that the other day as we walked across our backyard and were surrounded by birds welcoming the new spring day with song. Yes, we’re in the midst of a deepening recession and our country remains at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but nobody told the birds. Gloom was not to be found in the treetops; there were only birds singing in the orchestra of spring.

It is said that “faith is the bird that feels the light and sings to greet the dawn while it is still dark.” That we could—and would—do the same.

Canada geese, which flock to the Mississippi Delta in winter, teach us several lessons about life. By flocking together and flying in a V-formation, they can travel non-stop 70 percent farther than if they were flying alone, which is a good lesson in unity. They mate for life and they fiercely project their goslings. If one gets sick or is shot, two geese break ranks and fly down with it, remaining until the goose gets better or dies.

The mockingbird sings through the night in the early spring. We wondered how many of us are able to do that in the dark times we are experiencing.

In addition, Alexander Rutledge told how a mockingbird is a lover of freedom, recounting that as a young boy he was always catching and caging wild things. He particularly loved the sound of the mockingbird, so he decided to catch one and keep it so he could hear it sing any time.

He found a young mockingbird and placed it in a cage outside his home. On the second day, he saw a mother bird fly to the cage and feed the young bird through the bars. This pleased Archibald. But then the following morning he found the little bird was dead.

Later young Arch was talking to the renowned ornithologist, Arthur Wayne, who told him, “A mother mockingbird, finding her young in a cage, will sometimes take it poisonous berries. She evidently thinks it better for one she loves to die rather than live in captivity.”

It’s an example we here in America, “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” should take to heart. Our all-volunteer military is finding it so hard to recruit new members, it is having to extend the enlistment of many of our soldiers.

And, of course, this being early spring, all kinds of wildflowers are popping up, and by the little prayer chapel, thousands of tiny flowers grow, each in the shape of the Cross of Jesus. How appropriate for this Lenten season.

But there was a difference this year. In past years, the cross-shaped flowers were always white. This year, however, the little crosses were both blue and sometimes even purple.

They reminded us of a song we heard years ago that told the story of two little boys who were decorating the Cross for an Easter parade float with flowers. When their pastor saw what they were doing, he frowned, saying something to the effect, “Oh no, flowers don’t belong on the Cross. It was a cruel instrument of death. There was nothing beautiful about it.”

To which one of the little boys replied, “But Pastor, everything Jesus touches He makes more beautiful.”

Even the thousands of pinpoints of light that fill the nighttime sky declare the glory of God as it says in the 119th Psalm. We remember one moonless night looking up at the brightly shining stars and recalling the saying “that it is only when you are surrounded by darkness can you see the stars.”

Similarly it was dark last night as a thunderstorm swept through Bolivar and Sunflower counties. At one point a bolt of lightning struck near the house, rattling the windows and frightening Calie, the calico cat, so badly that she jumped off the love seat and scampered into the bedroom and hid under the bed.

Though momentarily shaken, we continued working on the editorial, remembering that God indicated in the Book of Job that “He made a law for the rain, and a path for the thunderbolt,” and that being the case, we found ourselves hoping that path wouldn’t include our house.

It turned out the storm passed causing no harm. But it did improve our prayer life.

In so many ways I easily related to the romance of the birds in this editorial. I hope you enjoy.

Work it out between you...

Not sure where this will go, and it will not be finished in this posting....but this has been on my mind lately for a whole lot of reasons. Now don't yall go trying to figure out "who is he talking about" because that's not what's important.......

The Book of Matthew, Chapter 18:

^{12 -14}"Look at it this way. If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off, doesn't he leave the ninety-nine and go after the one? And if he finds it, doesn't he make far more over it than over the ninety-nine who stay put? Your Father in heaven feels the same way. He doesn't want to lose even one of these simple believers.

^{15 -17}"If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him—work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you've made a friend. If he won't listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again. If he still won't listen, tell the church. If he won't listen to the church, you'll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God's forgiving love.

^{18 -20}"Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this. When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there."

I'll finish it later.....

Learning new ways to think

Psychomotor - of or relating to or characterizing mental events that have motor consequences or vice versa.

As an educator in public safety, one concept we have to be cognizant of is a student's psychomotor skills - or their ability and adaptability to learn to do things almost instinctively even when their mind is telling them differently. Firefighters must learn to turn off the survival instincts that tell most people to escape a burning building. The sensory inputs you and I normally enjoy (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) aren't availabe to a firefighter who's wearing thick gloves in a hot and smoky environment. Hazardous materials technicians are isolated from their environments by wearing bukly protective suits. Not only do they have to monitor danger levels in the external environment, their minds work double-time by monitoring their own internal environment...keenly aware of their own physical condition and limitations. EMT's and medics have to learn and practice their skills until they're as familiar as riding a bicycle or tying shoes. As instructors, we have to be sure they're overcoming what is a natural and instinctive survival response so they can do the job they're called to do. Big task!

This week I've been in a rope rescue technician course with some great firefighters from Greenwood and Greenville. My little group in the state health department seeks out as much technical training as we can, as we never know what types of emergencies we may become involved in. In addition to the specialized hazardous materials training for chemical, biological, and radiological materials, we take technical rescue training so we can support local authorities in a mass casualty incident (train accident, etc)

Standing 50 feet in the air on the edge of a perfectly good building with nothing but your toes and a half-inch rope holding you in place is NOT NORMAL. Using your feet as a pivot point and rotating out past the ledge is NOT NORMAL. Your brain is literally screaming out conflicting commands: "Pull yourself up!" or "Take a step down and try to catch the wall!" Your feet want to respond to the commands, as do your hands.

They "psycho" part of learning these new skills means that the intellectual part of my 3 pounds of neurons knows that the rope has a 9,000-pound rating, as does the secondary safety rope attached to my back. I know the heavy buckles that hold me to that rope are rated at 9,000 pounds of strength, and the harness I'm wearing is rated at 5,000 pounds.

But the "motor" part means I've got to learn to overcome the instincts with the new knowledge. NOT an easy thing to do! But repetition, and more repetition, and more slides down the rope mean that new skills are being learned. And its FUN to do too!

Why write about this? I have no clue, other than several of you who've seen the pictures have emailed or texted me with "NO WAY!" as the general theme of the comments. And there's a bit of a lesson too. I've had to put absolute trust in two things during training this week: my equipment, and my crew. You can't slide off a building on your own. It takes at least three for a safe slide: the man on the rope itself, another on the ground-end of your rope, and the man on your safety rope. The guy on the ground can make one simple move and completely stop you mid-air if you have a problem. If there's a catastrophic failure of your primary system, then the guy manning your safety line quite literally has your life in his hands. Remember, there's nothing below but air and concrete. No safety net.

Sometimes there's just no safety net, and you're depending on your surroundings and great people to hold you up. LET THEM! Your senses may be telling you differently, but sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and step off the "building" and let someone else watch out for you for a little while.

(note: new pics were posted from the class. I'll have a few more this weekend, so visit the online photo album)

Diving off buildings...

I'm in a Rope Rescue Technician class this week with the Greenwood Fire Department. Diving off a 4-story building on a half-inch of rope is a BLAST! You should see a picture slideshow below, or you can go here to see the pics full size. More pictures will be posted later in the week.



Yeah, you get a really good view of my left foot in one picture. When you go over a ledge, you have to rotate out until your legs are parallel to the ground before you step down onto the wall. Your brain is screaming at you to step earlier. Well I stepped just a second too late, when my body had just gained a little downward momentum. The result? Inversion on the line. But its not big deal, just see where you are on the line, find your equipment and flip back over then continue on a nice descent.

Milestones and Travels

Jay and I spent Thursday afternoon and all day Friday on a cache run through part of the Delta, and up in the Grenada area. WOW! We learned several new things that we didn't already know, or had only heard about, and we got to see some great countryside, even though we were cold, wet, and very tired afterwards!

The coolest part of the trek was getting to sit on a very steep hillside near Grenada Lake with Jay and celebrate finding our 100th geocache. We'd not been "trying" to make a milestone, but as we got closer to it, we were looking forward to it. Now 100 may not sound like a whole lot, but it represents the effort of many weekend outings over a big portion of Mississippi. On those trips we've seen and learned a whole lot about our state. Our unofficial geocaching team motto is borrowed from the Blind Seer in the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou (2000): "You seek a great fortune...You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek...You shall see thangs, wonderful to tell."

Indeed we have seen many "thangs" and several are wonderful to tell. Zebras, aplacas, Vietnam-era warbirds, little-known Civil War battle areas, memorials to the men and women who have protected our country from the Civil War through today, the rich history and unique beauty of the Mississippi Delta, the urban landscape of downtown Jackson, genuine juke-joints, and the list goes on and on.

The best reward has been something that neither of us will ever be able to measure. We've shared all those experiences, and the incalculable time spent between each one. The laughter, the long drives, the frustration when we sometimes cannot find a cache, the heat, the rain, the cold...but they're all worth every minute! We're constantly planning to share more as our geocaching horizions expand to new places, and I look forward to all of them.

I updated our online geocaching photo album. That link will take you to the first picture from this weekend, but feel free to browse back and forth through the whole album. I've dated each picture and included a brief note on most of them.

There's a lot in the full quote from the Blind Seer:

You seek a great fortune, you three who are now in chains. You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first... first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall see thangs, wonderful to tell. You shall see a... a cow... on the roof of a cotton house, ha. And, oh, so many startlements. I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your reward. Though the road may wind, yea, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye follow them, even unto your salvation.

Kind of like what the blind man "sees" ahead for the trio of convicts in the movie, I don't know how long my road may be, but the obstacles in my path are not feared. Yea, my heart is growing weary, but my travel continues. I've found a fortune, though it wasn't the physical ones we sought. And along the way I have a great young man along for the ride with me. I look forward to many years of "travels" with James Alvin Whitfield, III. I love you, son.

Quote

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

Dr. Adrian Pierce Rogers (September 12, 1931 - November 15, 2005) of Love Worth Finding Ministries, Pastor Emeritus of Bellevue Baptist Church.

Do you wear your seat belt?

***WARNING*** This video illustrates a motor vehicle accident where the driver/occupant was ejected from the vehicle at highway speeds. If you are of a weak constitution, you may not wish to view this video. If, however, you need to know why it's a good idea to wear your seat belt, then learn....



I've personally seen the effects of an accident similar this, while working furiously with a paramedic to try and breathe life into the victim. You simply will not survive.

Music of life

If you saw my iTunes master list, or what's on my iPod at any given time, you'd be tickled at the huge range of genres. From A to Z, literally....Acappella to Zydeco and everything in between.

Today was limited to just two: Blues, and a single syncopated selection. I've lived in the Delta for about 1/3 of my life, and like some blues music, but for whatever reason it just "clicked" and sank in with me today. I can't say I'm experiencing the true depth of blues music, but it resonated today more than it ever has.

But then above those, there was one simple little song with a syncopated 2/4 beat. I love that backbeat type music that you'll hear in Louisiana or in the Caribbean. This little song is summer on the beach with a bonfire at sunset and a bottle of Corona or Red Stripe.

My "art" is in cooking, but I love music. I wish I could play. I've correlated so many emotions with different styles of music, and for whatever reason Blues just struck me. But the off-beat bounce of Island-style music picked my day back up. I don't know why I like that style so much, maybe I'm just a little off-beat too from the rest of the world and it suits my style.

Just another rambling....

Weekend brain bender

Just a little something a friend posted on another website. Have a great weekend!

Being A Mother

This came from a good friend, and it's just plain worth sharing... (thanks MLB)

jw

Being A Mother

After 21 years of marriage, my wife wanted me to take another woman out to dinner and a movie.

She said, 'I love you, but I know this other woman loves you and would love to spend some time with you.'

The other woman that my wife wanted me to visit was my Mother, who has been a widow for 19 years, but the demands of my work and my three children had made it possible to visit her only occasionally.

That night I called to invite her to go out for dinner and a movie. 'What's wrong, are you well,' she asked? My mother is the type of woman who suspects that a late night call or a surprise invitation is a sign of bad news.

'I thought that it would be pleasant to spend some time with you,' I responded 'just the two of us.' She thought about it for a moment, and then said, 'I would like that very much.'

That Friday after work, as I drove over to pick her up I was a bit nervous. When I arrived at her house, I noticed that she, too, seemed to be nervous about our date. She waited in the door with her coat on. She had curled her hair and was wearing the dress that she had worn to celebrate her last wedding anniversary.

She smiled from a face that was as radiant as an angel's. 'I told my friends that I was going to go out with my son, and they were impressed,' she said, as she got into the car. 'They can't wait to hear about our meeting.'

We went to a restaurant that, although not elegant, was very nice and cozy. My mother took my arm as if she were the First Lady.

After we sat down, I had to read the menu. Her eyes could only read large print. Half way through the entries, I lifted my eyes and saw Mother sitting there staring at me. A nostalgic smile was on her lips.

'It was I who used to have to read the menu when you were small,' she said 'Then it's time that you relax and let me return the favor,' I responded. During the dinner, we had an agreeable conversation nothing extraordinary but catching up on recent events of each other's life. We talked so much that we missed the movie. As we arrived at her house later, she said, 'I'll go out with you again, but only if you let me invite you.' I agreed.

'How was your dinner date?' asked my wife when I got home. 'Very nice, much more so than I could have imagined,' I answered.

A few days later, my mother died of a massive heart attack. It happened so suddenly that I didn't have a chance to do anything for her. Some time later, I received an envelope with a copy of a restaurant receipt from the same place Mother and I had dined. An attached note said: 'I paid this bill in advance. I wasn't sure that I could be there; but nevertheless, I paid for two plates - one for you and the other for your wife. You will never know what that night meant for me. I love you, son.'

At that moment, I understood the importance of saying in time: 'I love you.' and to give our loved ones the time that they deserve. Nothing in life is more important than our family. Give them the time they deserve, because these things cannot be put off until 'some other time.'

Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you've had a baby.... that somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, 'normal' is history.

Somebody said you can't love the second child as much as you love the first....that somebody doesn't have two or more children.

Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and delivery....that somebody never watched her 'baby' get on the bus for the first day of kindergarten...or on a plane headed for military 'boot camp.'

Somebody said a Mother can stop worrying after her child gets married....well that somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a Mother's heartstrings.

Somebody said a Mother's job is done when her last child leaves home....that somebody never had grandchildren.

Somebody said your Mother knows you love her, so you don't need to tell her... that somebody isn't a Mother.

Pass this along to all the 'Mothers' in your life and to everyone who ever had a mother.

This isn't just about being a Mother; it's about appreciating the people in your lives while you have them....no matter who that person is.

'Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

March Surprise

My hometown, after a March surprise snow.. It didn't last long, but it sure was pretty while it lasted. You can click the picture to see the full shot if you want.

Delta History & Culture...

Jay and I spent a crazy-cold day in the Delta geocaching this weekend. Between an occasional mist and blistering north winds, we found a good number of geocaches in Bolivar, Washington, and Sunflower counties.

The Delta is so full of history and culture, so much that even in my 20 years of living there, I've hardly scratched the surface.

This is the Po' Monkey Lounge, just outside Merigold, MS. Yes, there's a geocache there too, and we found it. Po' Monkey's has been around for 50-odd years, cobbled together out of a sharecropper shack. Willie "Po' Monkey" Seaberry began operating the shack as a lounge back in the 1950's sometime, and he still runs the place. Monkey only opens on Thursday normally, but occasionally by special request or reservation. Some simple rules to visiting Po' Monkey's (acording to one of many signs out front): Thursday Night only (are you book a party or something); dont bring no beer inside, but you can bring your own liquor; no loud music outside; no rap music; no dope smoking.

Wonder how nice our world would be if we just put our rules out front? Hmm....maybe that's another blog.

Come see our latest pictures in the Geocaching Photoalbum. Just click on the arrows above the pictures to move forward.