Hotels 10. More beer and Manassas (5/26/2022)

What was going to be an uneventful or even a somewhat boring training trip to Manassas turned out to be another trip where the news and therefor the television was dominated by a horrendous news story. Not long ago it was the Russian invasion of Ukraine; however, that was completely pushed out of the headlines and the news was dominated by the massacre in Uvalde, Texas and the stupid Republicans who immediately tried to close ranks and started politicizing it and calling for more guns on the street and turning schools into fortresses instead of places of learning. While at night in my room I usually watch HGTV or the Food Channel, or maybe one of my bonsai YouTubes, this time I could not switch away from the news about the carnage, really not learning much more, but just getting everything repeated over and over and over.

Enough! On a more pleasant note, it had been approximately two and a half year since I visited Manassas. Since the training venue was in Gainesville, I should have probably stayed there; however, that area is ultramodern with mostly chain restaurants stuck in strip malls and an ultra-modern town center where I was already getting lunch these two days. So why stay there? But instead of staying at the Holiday Inn Express, where by the way, I did some of my more creative thinking and writing <here> (I actually wrote that post while staying at the Holiday Inn Express), I opted for the Hilton Garden Inn. Honestly, the hotel was great. I had absolutely no complaints about it. It had the regular post-COVID things like the restaurant was closed on Monday evening, but I generally do not eat in the hotels I stay in, so that was not a big thing; no bed making and waste basket emptying between days; and the worse no coffee pod refurbishing. So I went down to the reception desk to ask more coffee pods and they did not have any! I am an addict, I need my coffee at night, otherwise I wake up with a headache. Finally, the breakfast was buffet style and fairly mediocre. I would still rate it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

A different hotel view this time, but still inspired by the Hopper exhibit.

The part of Manassas I stayed in had changed a bit. It appeared that some restaurants had permanently closed. The Giant Supermarket seemed to have closed its doors as well. It also looked like the Mexican (or Latin American) restaurants had proliferated. While during past visits I frequented these establishments <here>, I somehow avoided them this trip. I wanted something different.

Being somewhat of a microbrewery connoisseur or reviewer lately (see my Wytheville posting), I wanted to go that route. My usual issue is that most of my visits fall on Monday and Tuesday evening and a lot of microbreweries are not open on those days. Googling microbreweries I came up with a few in the area and man, was I happy that 2Silos was closed on Mondays. I just went to look for kicks, but this place is a miniature Disney land or something and absolutely not my style. It is commercial, has not funky vibe and if you are really into the microbrew scene I recommend that you avoid this place like the plague (or is it COVID). I ended up at Heritage Brewing Co. just outside downtown Manassas, and it was love at first sight. Then I tasted the beer and I was hooked. They make some good hooch. Good enough for me to return the second day. Tell you the truth, the staff was nice and personable too, and that helps. Definitely a 4.8 out of 5 stars from me here. I am not sure why I am holding back the 0.2, but as they say, only Allah is perfect, and that dude doesn’t even drink alcohol, I am told.

Heritage Brewing Co. is a must visit when you are into microbrews and in Manassas.  Absolutely worth a visit!

Dinner both evenings was an experience. The first evening I ate at a fish place. Here I was hoping for a nice healthy fish meal at “Long time no Sea” which appeared to be a chain specializing in some kind of seafood bake. It wasn’t bad, but not what I expected, 2.5 stars out of 5. The second evening; however, dinner was at Vera, an Ethiopian restaurant. I was in heaven, lamb stew, injira, and eating with your hands. Great flavors; 4.3 out of 5.

My injira with lamb stew.  I had already taken my first few bites, hence the nibbled appearance of the injira.

Concluding, except for all the news, not a bad visit, I enjoyed myself. Teaching was good, great students, good beer, decent food, and a very nice hotel room.

Why do I write? (11/23/2021)

Why do I write, or more specifically, why do I write my blog? I am not sure where I heard something similar asked the other day, either on the radio from someone on why they make music or maybe it was on XM. I know this is a subject I have visited before <here>, and it is the number one post on my site. I am still not completely sure; so I question why do we do what we are doing for a hobby or work? Do I want the attention, “preach” my (liberal or environmental) believes (now that is different from my previous blog post)? It sometimes seems that I act too much like a fool, make fun of situations, don’t take things seriously. Whenever a serious situation presents itself, I may even have a difficult time being serious or handling it in a serious matter.

Wow, this first paragraph was not where I wanted to go at all with this post today. So back up.

My posts are mostly serious, I hope. But who do I write them for? Myself, or who do I phantom my audience to be, you, who reads my ramblings? I started out my public persona behind a microphone on a radio station: KGLP FM, Gallup Public Radio. I remember it like yesterday. We built the radio station and the first minute it went on the air (I think it was 1992), Frank, who was hired as station manager by the Community College signed in and stuck the microphone in front of my face and said: “say something Jan.” The rest was history, I was hooked. Soon I had three daily radio programs for at least a year (a classical afternoon show, the Frank and Jan “All things reconsidered” show, and an evening jazz show). When Frank left, I temporarily took over as station manager for a half year or so before we left Gallup for a “real” job in Cincinnati. I missed being on the radio ever since.

Talking into a microphone to an anonymous audience was comforting. Friends listened of course, but others did not know me, and I did not know them. I could be whatever and whomever I wanted to be. Sometimes I feel this blog is the natural continuation of my short radio career, which I absolutely enjoyed so much. Very few friends know that I blog, and I really do not advertise my writing. You are one of the lucky ones if you happen to find it, read it, or even follow me. Lucky maybe exaggerated, but you get the drift. I am the lucky one if you read it!

This graph shows you where my readers came from over the years.  I started my blog on June 23, 2013.  Just over 67% of my readers were from the US.  The Indonesian readership was 0.9%.  After that, the numbers were too small to show on the graph.  I always seemed to get a lot of Russian hits whenever I mentioned tRump. 

At the time KGLP was a volunteer radio station and I did not earn a dime being assistant and later as temporary fill-in, full-time manager. It was a labor of love. I raced to the station when the station went down to fix things. In a way that is how I run this blog; I don’t make a damn penny on this blog. Yes, I know, I have complained about it at times and threatened that I will start putting adds on my blog in the hope to make a few pennies with my rambling. And there comes the point, I sometimes question who the heck do I write this thing for?

Was the radio thing and now this blog just one big ego thing, one big form of self-gratification? Am I just doing this for me? Am I just a big, fucking egocentric dick and should I just stop all this nonsense? What am I contributing to society? Am I wasting my valuable time sitting with my laptop on my lap hammering these worthless letters on the keyboard? I really don’t know.

I have written two sermons to share with folks in our UU congregation, hopefully partially educating, being empathetic, spiritual and a team player. The radio was a cheap thrill, but also something I did for the community. Both these things and other volunteer work I do, I do with the excuse that I want to give back to the community that is willing to put up with me. Maybe that is a good excuse: With this blog I am trying to give back to the world community that is willing to put up with me. Ha, ha, ha. I told you I can be funny, cynical at times.

So why am I really doing this? It is a form of diary, I guess. It started out as a daily photo blog and quickly turned into something more. I wanted to educate folks about what was dear to me, sailing, plants, nature, the environment. Then came my work, the teaching, my bonsai, and just simple life’s observations. Finally, this all was followed by politics; and there was the rabbit hole! Especially with the election of tRump. When writing about politics I was trying to challenge the right wing, the proud babies and alike. See if I could get their goat. But no, they are too interested in their own little dumb shortsighted chatrooms than to read the hopefully slightly more broadminded intellectual blog that I write.

So why do I put myself out there? I still don’t know. I don’t want or need the attention, but then like everyone else, I do check the number of hits I get on this blog, and the likes I get on my Instagram and Facebook posts. So maybe it is for self-gratification. However, I hope that some of my readers learn some thing and walk away from my posts having picked up something valuable or entertaining. However, probably not from anything I wrote in this particular post. I just had to do some public soul searching and reminiscing, but hopefully this post stimulated that in you as well.

On Ken Burns and Hemingway (4/24/2021)

I watched Ken Burns’ special on Ernest Hemingway. I found it interesting. But boy, being a member of Unitarian community; however, it was a different story. Unitarians are notoriously more liberated, forward thinking, more liberal thinking, feminist folks; and a lot of them saw the documentary as an acknowledgement of a man who was a drinker, womanizer, into bull fighting, and racist. In other words, he was an example of anything that was wrong with a man. However, from what I saw he was a reflection of the time he was living in.

I do not want to defend Hemingway. In fact, I have only read one of his books, his “Old Man and the Sea” which I really enjoyed. I need to read more. I found Mr. Burns' documentary eye opening. A man with his struggles. A man who was in a way tormented by his parents, a thing I can understand. Mine were not the easiest ones. Hemingway was someone who was disciplined or maybe tried to be disciplined, in his writing but had to let loose when he did not write, usually in the afternoon, evenings or when he had writer’s block of some kind.

I did not watch it thinking what a misogynistic guy Hemingway must have been, falling in love with all these younger women that he ran in to. Hell, I think I could as well, if I were someone rich, famous, and decent looking, because I think those are some the prerequisites of being attractive as an older male to younger women. But as an older male, I know, there are some young women who just walk past me to whom I feel an instant attraction. I know it is their odor. Not perfume or cologne, but as I explain to myself: the smell of a woman, of fertility, of ovulation, receptiveness. I wonder if that was the thing that handcuffed Hemingway. I just miss the swagger he must have had, the fame.

No, the documentary grabbed my attention because of a number of other things. As I mentioned before, the rise and the fall of a person. How this outwardly manly man had a feminine, maybe even subordinate side in his relationship with his wife. The development of a writer was spellbinding to me; maybe because I still aspire to become one, hence this blog. But here again, I am likely over the hill and missed the boat; no “Old man and a boat or the sea” for me, I guess. However, I was also fascinated by the places Hemingway visited and lived. This was partially because our lives, my younger one and his, overlapped at times and in certain places.

Let’s start at my beginning. Some of you may know that I was born in Eastern Congo. I have written about it a time or two. You all can search the keyword list, there are two mentions (three with this one). In her book “How Dare the Sun Rise” Sandra Uwiringiyimana describes growing up not far from where I was born, but then takes it on a very intense ride as refuge (I briefly mention it here). When I was one and a half years old, my parents and I traveled back to Holland. We did this by taking the ferry across Lake Tanzania, into Tanzania, and the train to Dodoma, and (I think) on to Arusha. From either Dodoma or Arusha, we had to take a taxi to Nairobi to catch an airplane to the Netherlands. My mother always loved to tell me that when we arrived after dark in Nairobi, no hotel was willing to take us in, and no we did not need to sleep in a stable, but we ended up sleeping that night at the YMCA on army cods. The reason was we drove that day, afternoon and evening through an area that was in the hands or infested by the Mau Mau. The Mau Mau were the freedom fighters against the British colonial rule, and at the time they were known to be as one of the most ruthless group of guerillas known to mankind. No one understood how we had come through the area in one piece, especially at night! We (my parents) were basically suspected of being Mau Mau sympathizers. Now from Ken Burns I learned that at the time of our crossing (1954/55) there was a famous American author in the area: Ernest Hemingway! He actually married a local young tribal woman, while was wife was ill and convalescing in Nairobi.

I was born in Kalemie (previously Albertville) in the Congo.  Dodoma the place we took the train to is on the far right on the map.  

After a brief period in Holland and Belgium, we moved to the Caribbean, where I spent my youth. I lived there 13 years. We did some deep-sea fishing, boating, sailing. I even visited Cuba, probably after Hemingway left. It was in 1959, a few months after Castro had taken over. I visited the far eastern coast, and we went up the tallest mountain of Cuba and we visited Havana. Being only 6 years old, I still remember being cold on top of the mountain (9000+ feet) and that Havana looked almost deserted and eerily empty.

But Mr. Burns’ stories about Havana, the sea, Kenya where I returned in the late 1970s, the tropics in general and the stories about Hemingway were fascinating and brought me back to the stories of my youth. Together with stories of Hemingway’s tormented life, I therefore had no problem looking past the not-so nice parts of his character and forgiving him for his flaws or enjoying the series.

I need to write more (12/22/2020)

Usually and the end of the year, or sometimes at the beginning of the new year I take stock of what happened during the year that has just gone by. Well’ I am not sure if this is my definitive blog for 2020, but I somehow feel like writing and excusing myself for not writing as much as a should, have been in the past, etc.

I am finding that it is more difficult to be creative after having to be creative for my job day-in, day-out and having to create on-line classes that keep people’s interest. In addition, being stuck at home and looking from my perch is somewhat boring and I do not get the inspiration that I usually get from traveling, listening to the radio and meeting people. Do I have the COVID blues? I do not know, but look at the graph below and you can see what funk I am in in my blogging (the 17 includes today’s blog). 

Previously, I wrote about inspiration in which I debunked this idea of not being inspired or not having a creative mind (somehow, the illustration was lost). Therefore, I cannot blame it on that. Am I depressed? Not really, in the sense of the word. Maybe slightly depressed, but I think we all are in a bit of a funk having that Sword of Damocles (the sword of COVID) hanging above our head on that tenuous string. When will I get it or a loved one, like my almost 94-year-old father-in-law get it? And how will I or they react to getting it? Yes, I can finally say that people in my direct orbit have gotten COVID. One survived; she reported that when her husband brought home her favorite ice-cream, it just tasted wet and cold. Esther, the 90 year-old (ex?) girlfriend of my father-in-law who has Alzheimer is currently in the hospital with COVID. We fear the worst. But by now, we are all waiting until it is our turn to get the vaccine, at least when you are not an anti-vaxxer.

What is my daily routine like? I usually wake up around 6:20. After getting dressed, I put on the coffee and get the newspaper with the dogs. They get their morning snack when we come back in, and we read the paper. Then it is breakfast and a dog walk, followed by “hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to the office we go” and that is just one flight of stairs away. Coffee around 10:30 and lunch at 12. We walk the dogs again, and I may spend a few minutes out back with my trees (bonsais). Back to work, which is interrupted by coffee around 3. I usually quit around 4:30 and take a shower. The shower is a great ritual for me to end the work day. Then it is time to make dinner and settle down for the evening. Boring isn’t it? Thank goodness, I still enjoy cooking, and at least once a week, the monotony is broken up by the need to bake bread. Baking bread requires more frequent trips down the stairs to fold the dough and to do something to it (“hey Google, set the timer for a half hour”).

COVID weekends are not any more exciting. One of the days is a dog park visit (Waller Mill in Williamsburg) and a walk in the woods (one of three trails). If the weather is good, we may stop for a brief visit for a beer at one of the microbreweries (usually the Brass Cannon, we sit outside of course). The other day is spent around the home. It is all very inspirational and I am sure, something many of you also spend your COVID year. Listening to my colleagues during our staff meetings that is about right.

So how should I get my writing mojo back and again write at least 30 posts per year? Maybe for next year I just need to take a word out of the dictionary and write a blog post around it. Just what comes to mind, but that would be crazy, wouldn’t it? At least now, I still have room to write my review of 2020.

Self Isolation sucks (4/27/2020)

I am an introvert. At least that is what all the tests tell me. By now in my sixth week of self-isolation I am starting to wonder if I am a charlatan, a master in fooling all these tests and if I am really an extrovert. I am sick and tired of being stuck at home. Yes, I go on daily walks around the neighborhood with my dogs and say hello the regular folks: dog walkers, exercisers and alike, social distancing of course. However, I can still count on both hands how many times I actually left home in my car and mingled among others.

Except for two restaurants take outs and three visits to the hardware store, it seems that the other visits I make are to my local Kroger store (the supermarket). I put on a mask get my Purell and go get bananas for my father-in-law, and while I am there, I might as well do some shopping for our own pantry. In all these stores you get to see people, but even there is no real interaction with these folks. You do not know if they laugh, smile frown, at least if they wear a mask. You avoid everyone like the plague; like ships passing in the dark. With the exception of the one lady who ran a shopping cart into my back and this young kid who could not help all the sudden stop in from of me and then when I passed him he stated coughing and he did not have a mask on. The other day I was struck by the idea, that finally an enterprising sixteen-year-old with a grey wig, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and a bandanna can finally buy beer at a grocery store with a self-checkout line.

I would say that 50 to 60% of the people at a grocery store or hardware store wear masks, and what amazes me is that most folks that wear masks are either older, which is good, or appear in good physical shape. Walking around these stores I look over the ones that do not wear a mask and many appear to be in their 40s and 50s and heavily overweight; struggling to walk. I cannot help thinking: “another dead man or woman walking.” If they do not have diabetes or heart trouble, they will soon have it and that is the population most affected by Covid-19.

But back to the extrovert introvert controversy. I like my solitude, being alone strolling along in nature in the woods; but I do miss that human interaction, the human touch, the exploring of new things. That is what I am missing after 6 weeks. Yes, I have my wife at home, but that is not enough. Introverts do like to be among humans, but it tires them out after a while, after which they need to recharge somehow by solitude. But solitude is different than being alone. Solitude is good, alone is not (I wrote about that in this post). I am wondering how many people are alone, these days; even when they are living with others.

Solitude is where you find solace. I find my solace from being with my bonsais, from walking in the woods, being out in nature, sailing, blogging, or even .just driving the backroads, all activities I do in solitude or that I can do with my wife. The problem is I have not been sailing much, for my blogging I need to get out and experience life, and self-isolation is not conducive to that or to aimlessly driving the back roads. While I can still enjoy retreating in the woods, I usually do not seek solace there. I do it because I am an introvert, a naturalist, a lover of nature and because of my nature deficit disorder. However, at times, I definitely have retreated into the solitude of the woods when I was sad and worried, in search of solace. But of late it is my little trees where I get lost in and dream about how to develop them, watching them as every leaf come out.

This is an azalea that I dug up from our yard last year.  It was planted by the previous owner more than 20 years ago.  It never bloomed, was abused by deer and was less than 5 inches tall.  This is the second spring in this pot and it is awarding me with this blossom.  After flowering it is training time for this plant.   

My Sermon (2): Liberation (4/5/2020)

As part of a group that takes a sermon writing class at our Unitarian Church, I am asked occasionally if I present a sermon on the days that our minister is either off or has a commitment elsewhere.  I relented and said I would do one.  Originally I was thinking of presenting a sermon on growing bonsai and spiritual growth and church growth; however, when the request came out, they asked me if I could do something on liberation.

So here it is:

It started with a low rumble in the distance which progressively grew louder. Of late this had been an ominous sign of another impending raid by marauding soldiers trying to escape north to the Sudan in advance of the liberators who were in the process of overthrowing the current government of the country. I remember it like yesterday, being liberated. 

Let me set the stage, it was May 1979 and my wife Donna, and I were living and working at a Leprosy Center in the eastern part of Uganda, a country that had been ruled by the ruthless dictator Idi Amin. We had been in the country for over a year, and I had been working at the Leprosy Center as a Farm Manager, managing a 2500-acre dairy farm, with close to a 1000 head of cattle, that was part of the Center. In January of that year, rebels with the assistance of Tanzania to the south had invaded the country in an effort to overthrow the government. In April, I think it was actually on Donna’s birthday or just before that, did Uganda’s capital Kampala fall. The Amin army fell apart, deserted and tried to flee to the Sudan to the north. The problem was our Leprosy Center was located just off the major highway to Sudan. We had been unable to evacuate in time and we were stuck at the center. During the past weeks we had been subject to the looting and harassment sprees of these fleeing soldiers. Moreover, while under siege for the past month to a month and a half we were running out of all things essential (sounds familiar?) and had to live on one candle a night; two or three matches a day; we only ate sweet potatoes and eggs three times a day; drank rainwater and locally distilled moonshine. I’m amazed that I still have a liver and my eyesight. 

Hearing the vehicles approaching in the distance meant that we needed to get ready to deal with another wave of obnoxious soldiers (corner me over a beer one of these days and I can tell you some stories, but this is not the place today) when all the sudden tanks and jeeps rolled in, very unlike the deserters who came in with stolen ramshackle cars. Here they announced that they were the liberators, the Tanzanians! It was unbelievable feeling of relief that moment, being liberated, we laughed, we cried, we knew we had made it. Let me tell you, there had been moments the past month that we thought we were not going to survive it. Really, being liberated never felt so good. On top of that, the evening of our liberation Radio Netherlands read an announcement over the shortwave radio in which it told the listeners that we were missing in Uganda and asked anyone who had heard of us or seen us to call the Netherlands foreign office, but that they feared the worst. 

But, we were liberated and we were alive, we could live again without fear! Almost everybody was rejoicing and celebrating; and that night we burned two candles and had a small get-together, followed by a center-wide party the weekend following. 

During that party, the flood gates opened, the people were finally able to express what they thought of Idi Amin’s reign and the past 10 years they had lived through. We heard more horror stories about the oppression, the difference between the haves and the have nots, how you could not even trust your closest relative, because they could rat you out and that could cost you your life. 

Living in Uganda and working with lepers, we were working with a part of society that were outcasts and heavily discriminated against. Nowadays we would call this social justice. Social justice is not a new thing, but unbeknownst to us we were practicing it. We were not using those words; we were there to help. Some could ask me why the hell we put ourselves in such danger to serve and work with these folks. It was a combination of a lot of things including compassion, empathy, naivety, and the thirst for adventure. I have always been a teacher at heart and in my way, I also was there to observe and teach. While we had already learned a lot about the difference between the ruling class and the common folks, it was then and there that we really appreciated the importance of liberty and being liberated. 

The center where we worked was sponsored by the Church of England and the local Bishop was on our board. He was a regular visitor to the center; however, he would return to his Ivory Tower after his visits. 

Other religious folks we encountered were the Dutch catholic priest and the Italian nuns. Those Catholics were a different breed all together. One of our favorite story was about father Meindert van Acht, the brother of the Dutch prime minister at the time, who we frequently visited. One day, just after we arrived at his remote village on the slopes of Mount Elgon, a 14,000-foot-tall volcano located between Uganda and Kenya, we sat on his porch and watched him exiting his church. He had just finished mass. There he came, walking towards us with the bible under one arm and a crowbar under the other, a sight to behold, a priest, the brother of the second most important person of the Netherlands, in a tattered and torn robe with these two items under his arms. We never asked him if and if so, how, he used the crowbar in his service. 

Father Meindert had one request, which was that he did not want any visitors on Tuesdays because that was his weekly whiskey night, so he did not need an excuse to drink. All other days were great. The guest room was always open, and, in the evening, he would break out the mass wine or some additional whiskey for his visitors and himself. During visit with the Italian nuns at a Leprosy Center in Jinja in north central Uganda we always enjoyed fine Italian wines and good conversation. 

But it was not always fun and games or drinking to excess. It was a form of stress relief in a country where it was very difficult to work in. It was a country where we saw a lot of murders, assassinations, political and social injustice, and where we all tried to work with those folks who were oppressed and looked down upon. We youngsters, in our early and mid-20s, were in awe at what the missionaries were doing, how they were living, coping, and surviving. They lived alone; we were in a group of 6 Dutch folks who could give each other at least some mutual support. They were outwardly happy, content, even keeled and at peace with themselves and their god. I guess that is what their belief did to them. 

In those days we had not yet learned about those words “social justice” or another word called “liberation theology” that Father Meindert and his compatriots were practicing in the villages of Uganda or elsewhere in the developing world. 

Liberation Theology was first introduced by the Uruguayan Priest Juan Luis Segundo Gutiérrez in 1971. In his book “A Theology of Liberation” Gutiérrez proposed that the true task of theology was not to declare pristine abstract truths, rather ‘only by doing this truth will our faith be “verified.”’ At that time Gutiérrez and other liberation theologists in Africa, Central and South America were struggling to bridge the gulf between divine justice and social justice, trying to address the reality of human suffering and confront their own discipline. Some of them were trying to approach the Bible from the perspective of the powerless. 

In the opinion of the liberation theologists, the church should be a movement for those who were denied their rights and plunged into such poverty. Folk that were deprived of their full status as human beings. Liberation theologists were of the opinion that the poor should take the example of Jesus and use it to bring about a just society. 

A common way in which priests and nuns showed their solidarity with the poor was to move from religious houses into poverty-stricken areas to share the living conditions of their flock. The nuns that operated the leprosy center in Jinja and the Dutch fathers that were operating the boys orphanage in Mbale a town to the south of us or father Meindert on Mount Elgon, were working with folks that were either down on their luck, from a tribe that was on the fringes of society, the poor and the sick, or just simple outcasts. They were not the pious religious priests from my memory growing up on a Caribbean island, but real down to earth people who served the communities they were working in. They were not there to save souls; at least they never expressed that to us. 

Regretfully, we did see some missionaries from some other denominations in Kenya whose interest seemed only to be there to save souls in an effort to stroke themselves, somehow still living in their ivory tower, and seemed less interested in social justice. 

Most controversially, the Liberationists said the church should act to bring about social change and should ally itself with the working class to do so. Some radical priests became involved in politics and trade unions; others even aligned themselves with violent revolutionary movements. They were often accused of spreading or at least preaching the revolution, socialism or even worse, communism. As the Argentine theologian José Míguez Bonino said it was the revolutionary challenge of those who boldly proclaimed: “Jesus Christ is Che Guevara.” Liberation theologists were often not accepted by their regular church and told to shape up. Some tried to moderate it a bit with statements such as: “love for the poor should be preferential, not exclusive.” Things finally changed a little bit with the new Pope who led a less opulent lifestyle and paid more attention to the poor and sick. 

Although we live in a free country, even here in the US there are different levels of being free, isn’t there? If you are white, have money and often if you are male (especially a white male), you seem to be freer then others. It should therefore not be a surprise that even here in the U.S. liberation theology took root. The Protestant African-American theologian James Cone wrote in his 1970 book entitled A Black Theology of Liberation: ‘If God is not for us, if God is not against white racists, then God is a murderer and we had better kill God.’ Black religion, Cone asserted, began not with an abstraction but with the acknowledgment that ‘God is Black’ and present in the experience of black people, from the slave auction block to the urban ghetto. Others argue that that the Bible assigning a male gender to God was the original justification for the patriarchy. This was discussed by the feminist theologian Mary Daly in her book Beyond God the Father which was published in 1973. 

I travel a lot around the state and get to see the economically and environmentally depressed areas of the state, both black and white. The inner city and the Appalachian region. This is one of those things we have been trying to address this in our community as part of our social justice commitment. Here at the UUFP we have a social justice table that we can visit during coffee hours and find out about worthwhile causes. We go to marches; we have a black lives matter banner outside; you name it. But let’s not forget the other causes out there as well. 

We UUs have a rich history of social justice, ranging from our stand against slavery, to the voter registration in the south in 60s and 70s, to our support of the Black Lives Matter movement, to our push for gender equality, equal rights, marriage equality, and to the social justice committees that you find in almost all the UU churches and fellowships throughout the country. Social justice does not stop there, we are also concerned about environmental justice. 

After working in the 3rd world, the freedom to move around, to think what you want, to express it to friends and family, freedom of association, or even think to yourself and not be in doubt. All the things that makes me so happy to be a citizen of this country, to be a member of our UU religion, and especially of this fellowship. The UU’s 6th Principle which promotes: THE GOAL OF WORLD COMMUNITY WITH PEACE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE FOR ALL is so darn important to me after what we experienced in Uganda and the other countries, we have worked in. It also makes me scared of the things I see happening around me or what has happened, but at the same time hopeful about the countercurrent that is occurring as well. 

Remember, today social justice can mean different things for different religions and we need to watch out for false prophets. For example, some will even claim that preventing a woman’s right to choose is a form of social justice. Competing claims of being on God’s or at least the right side are testing the limits of a liberal social order straining to accommodate militant believers. Our fourth principle tells us that we: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This is something many dogmatic religions don’t allow; it is something totalitarian governments try to suppress, like the one we experienced in Uganda. Let’s use it wisely in defending it and applying to our efforts in social and environmental justice. 

That is what I try to do throughout my life, and I know many of you do. I had the privilege to get an education, but I try never to be condescending to anyone and share my knowledge with all who want to hear it. We are not rich but contribute to the church and other worthwhile causes both monetarily and by volunteering. We are socially active when we can and marched for women, for science, the environment and for gun control. All I can say is to stay true to yourself, like father Meindert, the Italian nuns, and the many liberation theologists and try to address the human suffering around us and in particular the suffering of those who are socially, economically, environmentally and racially disadvantaged. 

I believe we all can learn from the example the liberation theologists gave us and incorporate them in the way we live our UU faith.

Donna and I visiting one of the male nurses and his family at his home in the village in Uganda

Invocation:

Rev. Karen G. Johnston

Do not be alone right now...

Gathering together grows courage...

These things add up: your one thing & my one thing; his one thing & their one thing & her one thing…

Do not be alone right now. Do not let me be alone. Any liberation – all liberation — is collective liberation. My freedom is bound with yours and yours with mine. Inextricably...

Reading:
The Gift— Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
’O please, O please,
Come out and play.’

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and Light!”


Benediction:Barack Obama

Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
We are the change that we seek.

Westmoreland State Park (10/28/2019)

This weekend I spent some time in a cabin in the woods at Westmoreland State Park in the Northern Neck of Virginia. It is one of the state parks we visit fairly frequently for a weekend in the off season, to get away from it all and relax. As we sometimes do, this year we were sharing our accommodations with Betsy, a high school friend of my wife, someone we have been friends with for more than 40 years.

It is just nice to be away from home and be out in the woods, sitting on the porch of this small cabin in the woods that supposedly was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps sometime between 1933 and 1942. There are newer cabins in this row, but it is nice to be in an historic one like this. It surely is cramped and somewhat primitive (or read not well stocked), but so be it. I live in motel rooms for luxury.

This morning we had a big storm roll through and right now it is sunny and somewhat windy. The temperatures are unseasonably warm for this time of year, but so be it. We are living in the years of global warming, and we will just need to learn to live with it.

Why am I not out there, strolling through the woods? We brought Jake, our old dog with us, and probably because of all the driving and excitement his tummy is somewhat upset. Since the girls are such old friends (50 years and counting), I have no problem “dog sitting” while they have fun and are out visiting a winery or two. I have been reading my Kindle and just breathing in the nice mild air sitting on a rocking chair here on the front porch. I may go for a brief walk while Jake is sleeping. 

A great walk after the rains were done.  It was unseasonably warm of the 27th of October.  I was in shorts and t-shirt.

Westmoreland State Park is on the Potomac River. It is sandwiched between the birthplaces of George Washington and Stratford Hall, the birthplace of General Robert E. Lee. We have visited Stratford Hall; it is surprisingly non-confederate and they do not push the civil war there at all. It is really worth a visit. The park itself has some great trails and the bluffs are full of fossil shark teeth that are there for the picking. 

Fossil Beach at Westmoreland State Park.  This is a very picturesque area with a large wetland to the right.

What was the Civilian Conservation Corp that built the cabin that we stayed in this time? During the depression, President Roosevelt established the Corps to get the unemployed off the street and back to work. These young men were put to work for the good of humanity or the country by doing public works projects mostly to protect and develop natural resources including the development of state parks, building reservoirs and other public projects. Westmoreland State Park was established during that period and I am not sure if these were worker’s cabins or meant to be used for recreation. However, now they are.

As some of you know or could conclude from a recent post, I am currently reading some of Wendell Berry’s work. His latest work was a little rough, and I will get back to it, but I am reading his collection of essays “What are People for?” I hit an interesting quote that he has of Wallace Stenger, a writer, naturalist and birder who I had never hear off. Mr. Stenger was a professor at Stanford University, and wrote that thought “thrives best in solitude, in quiet, and in the company of the past, the great community of recorded human experience.” This is the reason why I do not mind sitting on this rocking chair being left alone to think, read and to record my experience. Mr. Berry goes on and writes that the recorded experience does not need the Pantheon of Great Writers, but that it includes us all rather than the “Harvard Five-Foot Shelf.”

As I mentioned in my post entitled “Remember Nature” recording my opinions, feelings and experiences as described by Mr. Berry has been the intention of my blog posts all along. In my blogs I try to record what I see, write down my feelings and opinions, part with some of my education and experiences, show some of my photographs, and maybe even have some fun as well. My writings will never win awards or be included on that shelf, and that is okay; I just hope that some folks read it and are entertained and maybe learn something from my musings.  And so, I hope that you enjoyed this post.

Remember nature? (10/8/2019)

The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus is believed to have said “It is not possible to step twice into the same river.” The reason being that even seconds later conditions in that river have changed. Different water molecules would be running by and touching your legs, aquatic organisms have moved and even particles of sand and sediment have been washed away, down stream. You yourself have aged and you are not the same as a split second ago. This may be scary when you think about it, but on the other hand it could also be comforting.

I was thinking about this when I finally dared to venture out into the woods behind our home again. The night-time temperatures finally dropped below 60° F (15.5° C), which means the chiggers go into hibernation and it gets less uncomfortable to venture into the woods. 

The woods have definitely changed over the past half year. For one when we last walked outback (as we call it) is was very wet and we had to dodge puddles. However, we have been in a drought, lately. I do not think it has rained for at least a month and instead of coloring, the leaves are shriveling. I am just hoping we don’t get a forest fire back there. While it would be good to have a good ground fire in the woods behind our home as I discuss in some of my posts, it is so dry that I fear for a crown fire and our homes.  It has really become a climate of extremes.

It has been so dry that the ponds have dried up, and even the puddles in the road which usually stay wet throughout the year are dried up. The largest pond behind our home has just a little pool left in the middle.  I am not sure if it has fish in it, but it usually has a healthy turtle population and I wonder how they are faring.  All ponds behind our home are ephemeral (with the possible exception of the large one) and they are fed or reflection of the groundwater levels.  This means that the levels usually fluctuate 5 to 6 feet every year; however, this year they seem to have dropped more than that.  Surprisingly, some of the grass along the trail was still green, while the grasses in the lawns in the yards of our subdivision are browning up. The entire south-eastern U.S. appears to be drought stricken this year, and the temperatures are way above average for the year. 

This is a picture that I took two weeks ago of the large pond and the water has dropped even more.

During our car ride back from our Century bike ride on the Eastern Shore of Maryland (which was fun, by the way), we were listening to NPR’s Weekend Morning Edition Sunday. They interviewed Larch Hanson, a seaweed harvester in Maine. Larch quoted Wendell Berry from one of his essays in “What are People for?” Berry wrote: “People are for preserving memory of place!” I guess that is what I have been doing with my blog posts over the years; trying to document the subtle changes in the woods behind my home. However, at times, while blogging, I can’t help myself and I also try to document the changes in my thinking and the society and of course in the politics around me.

A photo of my wife and I taken by fellow cyclists during the century ride this past weekend on the eastern shore of Maryland.  We had a lot of fun.  It was cold and very windy (first cold day, hence the packed in look).

Hanson said in his interview: “The water remembers us!” I would like to make an argument that nature remembers us, as well. Whatever we do to her will come back to haunt us, as we are currently experiencing with global warming. Yes, what we are seeing will likely accelerate, and Heraclitus’ philosophical outlook on life will become more and more apparent. Nature around us will start changing faster and faster and not for the better, and soon we can talk about the good old days. This is why, as Wendell Berry mentioned, we better preserve the memories of how nice it was back then (read now) by documenting it in our writing and photography while there is still time.  This is what I try to do in my writing and I hope you do that too in your form of communication with your friends and loved ones.

The creative mind (1/29/19)

I was sitting through an online class on creativity the other day. The instructor was trying to convince the class that there were no specially creative or non-creative people in the world (sorry Picasso), but that we all could learn to be creative. Learning to be creative that is an interesting concept, especially for someone like me who develops classes for people who need continuing education credits; writes a blog; works on bonsai; bakes bread; and actually likes to garden (although it does not show, partially thanks to the darn deer). But then, I think there is a difference between creative and artistic, so maybe Picasso still rules.

The instructor had a few interesting points. One was that when you need to come up with ideas you go through a cycle. He used an example of designing a toy to be inserted in a cereal box for a western town, in the time of cowboys and Indians (150 years ago). First, folks came up with ideas that everybody seems to come up with, then they hit a slump. At that point it seems, you can only break through the slump by coming up with some ridiculous or hilarious idea that does not make any sense at all. You dismiss it, and then all the sudden the creative juices are supposed to start to flow and novel, creative ideas pop up.

Another interesting point was not to shy away from criticism or from criticizing an idea or thought. It seems only then can you grow and come up with even better, stronger and more creative ideas. Be especially critical of yourself.

I forgot the other lessons (there were four) but these two stuck with me.

This last point in particular is very interesting since a quick search on the web gave me these four points to become more creative:

1. Give yourself permission to create junk
2. Create on a schedule
3. Finish something
4. Stop judging your own work

It is particular this last point which seems to contradict the point I learned in this online class.

I’ll throw out one more list I found:

1. Train yourself to make original associations
2. Be open to new experiences
3. Make time to go for a walk
4. Add more green to your life
5. Keep a cluttered desk
6. Don’t be afraid to stand out
7. Refine your ideas: Clarify, ideate, develop, implement
8. Know the importance of setting time to relax
9. Practice, practice, practice

I get a number of emails from “news or blog” websites that send you a summary of things in which they think you might be interested. One of them bombards me with writing tips (“things you may like”), and the number one tip is to write every day, even if you have nothing to say. Just write! This is what seems to make you a better writer. I guess that gives you permission to practice and create junk. It might even open up some pathways to new, original associations and help you refine ideas. In the sermon writing group I joined early last year, we started out with just writing something for the first 20 minutes.  It could just be words, junk or a story, you were even allowed to draw pictures; it did not matter, and you did not have to read it out loud, share it, or even talk about it.

I am not a professional writer, nor do I have the ambition of even becoming one. Would I want to make money with my writing? As some of you know, I have been and still are struggling with the idea of allowing advertising on my blog and making a few bucks. I watch a number of vlogs (also known as video blogs) and the other day I read that this 30+ year old guy can actually live comfortably in the Philippines of his vlog (I actually don’t watch his). There seem to be many more that are able to do that. I have always assumed that you cannot do that from blogs and I do not think anyone would want to see my ugly face on their computer screen or tablet.

It was just interesting to see and learn the other day that creativity is a thing that can learned and cultivated. Artistry on the other hand may be a different thing. Where does my creativity come from? Most of my blog posts come from associations. I read something, hear an item on the news and it just bounces back and forth in that big empty skull of mine. Many of my posts may be the result of something green in my life. Bullet 3 and 4 in that last list are very significant to me. A lot of my ideas come to me in nature, during my walks. The woods are my inspiration, the source of my creativity. Moreover, during those walks in the woods I also often think about what I am writing about at the time; I edit those things in my mind, I rewrite them over and over.

Walking in the woods behind our home really serves as an inspiration and meditation for me.  It gets me away from day-to-day life.  It allows me to focus on my creativity, to think up ideas, to allow my mind to work through ideas and even to write posts and parts of my classes in my head.

I often write my blogs, stories, and responses to the news in my head, edit it and rewrite it a couple of times up there. I do the same thing with the courses I develop. As I explained it to my supervisor one time: “Then, all the sudden, I barf it out onto the computer screen or on paper.”

So what is my suggestion? Cultivate your creativity. Have fun, throw enough at the wall and something will stick. I have had months of drought and then all the sudden it will come again, but it only comes when you do it even if you do not feel creative at the time.

This was one of the assignments in the creativity class I watched on LinkedIn.  The assignment was to come up with two complete sentences in 7 minutes to put in the middle of these two sentences to make a story that somehow make sense.  It is allowed to be ridiculous and there is no correct answer!  I have gotten a lot of value from LinkedIn, relationships, posts, but also these types of free classes.

Write your story (11/30/2018)

I am in the process of writing a book.  It is a professional non-fiction book, it deals with my life's experiences, my education and work.  I have used some of the materials I write about in workshops that I have given for work.  Moreover, the writing and research associated with it has made me a better teacher in my professional life.  It is a win-win situation.

The problem right now is two fold: discipline and the finale.  But let me explain. The discipline part. Having a full-time job it is difficult for me to allocate a set period each day for me to get my writing in.  Whatever or whoever I read, you always hear discipline is number one, and I agree. My writing time exists of lunch time half hours at Starbucks, afternoon and evenings when I am stuck in a motel room and not too tired from traveling or teaching, some evenings after work, and weekend afternoons when there are no “honey does.”  As you can see it has been a difficult to get a routine established.

Reading what people say about writing, it seems that having a routine is so darn important.  Some even have a ritual before they start writing. One person rights a Buddha statue every morning when he starts in the morning and lays it down when done writing that day.  It seemed that Hemingway never ended a thought at the end of the day, so that he had something he could pick up where he left off the next day and thus never have writer’s block.  Well writing for 20 miniature or so at Starbucks worked for me. I first worked for 10 minutes editing what I wrote the day or days before and than added to it for 10 more minutes.

I took this picture three years ago at my favorite Starbucks, downtown Richmond.  At least three of the gals behind the counter know me so well, that the just ask me if I want the "regular."

This picture was taken this past week.  I often enjoy sitting here, especially when the legislation is in session.   You can sit and watch Senators and Congress men  (and women) sit there and discuss things with each other and with lobbyists.  There are tourists, business folks, government employees and often medical students from VCU who are studying. 

Currently I do have writer’s block it seems. This is partially due to being close to the end and not being sure what all to include or to exclude.  I have written about the things I know most about and I am now at that point of writing about the things that I know, but I haven't dealt with for a couple of years.  It feels like pulling teeth. It is like having put off the inevitable. I had my dessert or the food I like most first and now it's time for the Brussel sprouts (I actually like them, especially with a little mustard, but you get the idea).

But enough complaining.  One thing I learned is that practice makes perfect, or at least less imperfect.  A friend of mine gave me a book (and for the heck I can't remember the name or the author) which told me that every morning when you wake up, you need to have a stream of conscious and sit down and write down words or things that come to mind, regardless whether it makes any sense.  Well, I simply don't have the time for that. During our sermon writing exercise earlier this year at our church, we actually did this at the start of each meeting. We sat down and wrote whatever came to mind for ten minutes. Some made sense, some absolutely not! However, it cleared the mind and helped with the writing process for me.

But even with this blog, I have the occasional writer’s block.  It takes a while for something to hit me. You can see that. As I write this part of my blog post on Sunday afternoon, I think back on this morning's service at our UU church, where our guest minister encouraged us to tell our story.  The more I write my blog over the years, I find that I have more personal stories waiting to be told. These stories are often pulled out of me by things that happen in real time. Like my recent post where I talk about the wildfires, and some of my albeit minor experiences.  That post had gotten long, but there was so much I left out, even my first experience as a firefighter while serving in the Dutch army and we were mobilized to fight a forest fire in Holland. Conversely, I could have told you about the time that we fought savannah fires in Uganda that threatened to burn all the forage on our farm and could starve our cattle.  I need to do that, because that was actually crazy.

You get the message.  I agree with our minister, whether it is a book, blog, or a story you tell your friends or family.  Share it! This week, I shared the "lurid" story of my family with our daughter; the ins and outs, about how screwed up they are. I hinted a bit at it in a previous post. Those stories, writing the current post, the many other posts that I write and the manuscript to my book, they are all therapeutic to me. I am sure something like that can benefit you as well when you try it.  

Law and order in the woods (4/3/2018)

I have joined a (sermon) writing class at my Unitarian Universalist Church (which is probably why I did not post anything in March). While one of my fellow writers is absolutely hilarious while at the same time being very philosophical, we are all different but good in our own way. Although I feel that they are in a different league (much higher than me), I have had a chance of surprising my fellow writers by some of my experiences and thoughts. I am of course am the naturalist of the group and have been milking experiences like being bit by a moccasin and the quote by John Muir about passing between two pines and entering into a different world that I used in my previous blog post. It will be something that I will be using in my sermon if I ever get brave enough to give one.

Brave enough may be a stretch, truth be told, as a teacher I stand in front of a class one to two days a week and often feel that I am not a teacher, but a motivational speaker. I am such a strong believer in doing right to the environments and in environmental ethics, in particular for future generations that I have no problem getting in front of people and talking about that at length. As I have often written, we as intelligent beings on this blue marble in space have the responsibility to keep it livable for our and future generations; simply said, there is no other place to go.

After my day-long solo workshops I often get an applause. It is the best feeling when one or two of my students come to me at the end of the class and shake my hand, thanking me for such a great instructive class. I honestly feel that maybe I have inspired at least those one or two errand souls to do right to the environment. However, I am told that I will need to read my sermon and as a dyslexic that can be a challenge. I am not afraid of public speaking, but I am afraid of public reading.

My fellow spiritual writing students are amazed when I tell them that I escape to nature to get some order in my life; that I do this to get away from this absolutely out of control society. The group (everyone is over 35 years old) looks at me like I am crazy. They see a jumbled mess of branches, crap on the forest floor, and more junk, while I see order, predictability, rhythm, peace and quiet. This difference in seeing and experiencing things really amazes them, as well as me.

Look at the rhythm of all those tree trunks, the repetition, yet different structure. 

So let’s look at it. Trivial as it may be it starts out with the sun coming up every morning, with the days lengthening in spring and shortening in fall. Seasons are so important in nature, but so is day length or even the color of the light hitting the seed. For example, in the past two years I have complained in my blogs about the pine pollen (on the 18th and 19th of April on two consecutive years). We had such a weird spring this year, so I wonder when it will be this year; stay tuned. But even after such a cold March my recent walk in the woods show that the buds or candles in the pines are starting to grow, so pollen season cannot be far behind. The water in the ponds behind our home comes up in late fall, early winter, to peak in early March and then to recede and dry up by July. This is what makes it possible for the salamanders and frogs to breed in these pools; although this is the second year that we have not heard many of them. Hopefully some of the things described in Elizabeth Kolbert’s book entitled “The Sixth Extinction” isn’t playing itself out behind out home. In one of the chapters of the book she describes how environmental pollution is reducing the reproductive success of amphibians like frogs, toads and salamanders. The trees in the pond have a yellow pollen ring around them from the flowering maples. This ring will become more intensely yellow when the pines drop their pollen.

Spring is coming, this high bush blueberry is starting to bloom and spreading its pollen 

When looking at trees in a forest, you will see that the canopy of trees will usually barely touch and that they generally will not intertwine. Yes there are exceptions, but they will tend to give each space. As I mentioned previously, plants will wait for a hole to open up and then they will pounce. They have a chemical called phytochrome to thank for this. I have written before about self thinning in the woods. There is a very specific rule, the ⅔ rule or the self thinning rule that guides this. Foresters use this when they mechanically thin the woods. The phytochrome also helps seeds to “see” that there is an opening in the canopy. When there are leaves on the trees, the light hitting the ground is green. When a tree falls over and there is a hole, the light becomes more red (less green). The phytochrome in seeds can detect this and this can be a trigger in the seed to start germinating. Even in spring it may tell some of the seeds that it is spring and a may be a good time to try to germinate instead of summer when the leaves are on the trees.


Some trees practice mathematics in a different way. They may have a orderly distribution of branches. If you look at how a branch comes off a trunk and examine where the first branch is located on that particular branch, the next one may come of about ⅔ the original distance past that (or the first branch come off at 3 feet from the trunk, the next one will come off at 2 feet or 3 + ⅔ x3 feet, the next one would be 2/3x2 or 1.3 feet after the previous branch, etc. (yes there is lots of math in the woods, wow). In addition, branches are rarely thicker than the trunk or branch they branch come off. The only time that I have seen this happen was in New Mexico when I was studying mistletoe infections in Douglas fir and branches that were infected with mistletoe were much thicker than others, often thicker than the trunk. Mistletoe produces a hormone that tells the tree to bring all the water and food to the infected branch, which is why it grows so thick.

These are not set rules, but they do frequently apply and it is fun just to walk in the woods and see if you can discover more patterns like it. There are so many more to discover, certain habits of plants, of birds or even of certain animals. For me even all those vertical trunks, that repetition of those trunks throughout the woods as far as I can see gives me a feeling of order and comfort. They are like an an ancient European cathedral with pillars and high ceilings. The sun shining through the leaves are like the stained glass windows.

To me it is so much fun to be out there in the woods; the fresh air, the patterns to be discovered, or just to be out there, meditative, deep in your own thoughts, breathing in the forest air; you name it.

To blog or not to blog, that is the question (5/11/2016)

If you are a blogger and read my posts, I have an interesting and a somewhat important (to me that is) question for you.  Why do you blog?  I am not one hundred percent sure why I blog (or actually I have 8 reasons), and that is probably why I have not broken through as this world famous blogger that is making a lot of money with my blogs.  Actually, I don’t even advertise on my blogs, so I have yet to make a penny on them, and really that's not why I do this.  But reading the newspaper this weekend about this famous stay-at-home mom blogging about her trials and tribulations raising kids and everyone following her and making money hand-over-fist, I wonder, am I missing something?  Or should I just quit?  Maybe I miss direction?  I am a dilatant, I know a little bit about a lot of things; l write about nature, training, sailing, stormwater, the environment, human communication and now this kind of stuff.  On top of that I try to show, what I think are pretty pictures that I took during my travels.  On top of that I sometimes mix all these things together together to make my and my reader's heads spin.  Look at the labels on the side of my blog, it is absolutely crazy!  A key word for everyone.  Maybe that's why I have only 100 to 200 or so readers every month.  But who cares?  So why do I do it?  Do I do it for the readers and the followers?  Or am I just egotistical?

To tell you the truth, these are the 8 reasons why I blog:

1. I started out to share my photographs and dig a little deeper, different and more philosophical than what I can do on my Facebook site or my Instagram site,
2. The blog became somewhat of a diary, but not a superficial "what did I do on vacation type diary" like Facebook that I share with friends,
3. I tried to share my passion for sailing and share some of my experiences of fixing up my boat and sailing with the sailing community,
4. I wanted to show the beauty of some of the far out-of-the-way areas in Virginia that I visit during my extensive travels in the state,
5. I wanted to share my passion for the environment,
6. I wanted to share my passion for teaching,
7. In my first writing class I took in college learned that you need to practice writing and for me the blog hopefully is helping me with my writing skills.  I sorely need this, since I am in the process of writing a book, and 
8. Finally, this is a good distraction from all my other writing and creative efforts; it is a different way to let my creative juices flow.

So the question remains, if you are a blogger, do you have similar reasons why you blog or are they different?

But that last point, creativity, that is important isn't it?  Why is it important to be creative?  For me it is one way I can enjoy life; a way to look back on a day, on an event, and be:

1. Grateful for the experiences I have had during the day and during my life.  It is important and fun to record them in words and photographs; to be happy about them and share them,
2. These experiences, the memories and writing about them nourish the soul,
3. I’m having fun writing,
4. It just inspires me,
5. It makes me think, reason and figure out things like sentence structure and logic,
6. In some sense it gives me the feeling of human connectedness with you all out there that read my blog, although I don't known you, and 
7. While it is not part of writing, the getting outside gives me exercise, takes care of my nature deficit disorder, and when I describe it I get to relive it.

Yes,a lot of this harks back to a lot of self improvement books that I've read about purposefull living, such as Dr. Sood's book in my reading list.  But I mean it.  My blog is an expression of gratefulness for being alive (after some of my life experiences), for being in love with my wife, my daughter, and happy the majority of the time!  Yes, I have to remind myself to be grateful when I'm depressed and down.  Dr. Sood teaches us to mention 5 things we are grateful for when we wake up in the morning before we get up out of bed.  Well, I usually write about about them in my blog.
  

On the other hand, if you are a regular reader, why the heck do you come back to this blog?   Because you never know what to expect?  Because of the photography (sorry guys no pictures today)?  Because you are a friend, family or a follower?

I realize that I wrote about blogging before (click <here> to see that entry), and hopefully this is an addendum to that blog and brings it a little further (Just an update, the photography class is well received and I am still having fun).   But yes, there are times I need to soul search,  look inside and try to figure out what I'm doing and why and hope to help you on your way as well!