From the Desk of the Farmer at Sawmyl Synders Farm 10/18/2017

I am not nice.  But I try to be.  One fine day, my wife took an order for eggs, a hen and a rooster.  Eggs and hen in inventory.  Rooster on backorder.  Chicken to customer travel clucked several miles, so parties agreed to a meetup point – inexplicably a short distance from the buyer’s house.  Such a compromise.  Anyway, after exchanging the eggs, hen, some of feed, a cute chicken feeder and some nesting hay, we were off.  Another citizen on her way to home grown farm fresh eggs.  We seemed done…not so fast.

I am not easy.  But easy I try to be.  It wasn’t but a week or so before the lady called and said she was out of feed.  I previously gave her some feed and a little feeder as a courtesy and told her of at least one place where she could buy feed.  Ok, but she needed me to bring her feed.  The hen had nothing to eat.  I bought a 50-pound bag of Layer Pellets and drove down to a different rendezvous point for the exchange – about the same distance for me to travel but quite convenient for her.  So, after the exchange of feed and money, we were off.  Another citizen on her way to having a well-fed hen and home-grown farm fresh eggs.  We thought our deed finished…easy there rider.

I’m not generous.  But I try to be.  The next time my wife talked to the hen lady, she said her hen was not laying eggs.  This was odd.  A Gold Star hen less than two-years-old had stopped laying in the prime season of spring.  With no other information I concluded that the hen needed company.  I could donate one of my older birds so that companionship and egg production would commence.  So, one day down the road we drove, old hen in cage.  Good deed on the way.  This time we drove to her house.  I’ll never forget my shock on that sweltering summer day when I saw the non-producing hen in her backyard, tabled up high in a – wait for it – parakeet cage.  My head, my heart and my hope dropped.  Here I was donating one of my beloved birds to someone who cluelessly tortured her first purchase.  I presented the free bird and left the small cage which was more than twice the size of the current housing.  Dejectedly, we drove off determined to come back with a reasonably sized chicken coop for my former fowl.  We thought we had a final solution…hold your horses Samaritan.

I’m not tolerant.  But I try to be.  Due to circumstances beyond our mutual control – her husband’s death, our Hurricane Harvey, the sweltering summer of 2017 – the roomy coop did not materialize until one hot Saturday this fall.  While I struggled to complete the project with materials and remnants on hand, my wife struggled to contact the bird lady of Alcatraz.  I finished the cage in the afternoon – some of my best worked.  However, my wife could not get in touch with the lady by any means.  We decided to make the drive south and check things out.  Wow. We got there – she was gone!  No furniture as observed through the bare windows.  No parakeet cage with suffering animal.  No loaned out handmade roomy cage with free bird.  In addition, cell phone – cancelled, forwarding address – nada, personal contact – nope.  Tracking this lady down to give her new free stuff (roomy coop) in exchange for old free stuff (homemade cage) loomed problematic because she was known to my wife only by her nickname -Ya Ya.  With waning hope, we talked to the neighbors – who knew nothing, checked the mailbox – with mail addressed to both the living and the dead, and knocked at the door of the leasing office – closed on Saturday at 3 pm.  Naively, we drove away towards home knowing that somehow there would be answers about the disappearance of Ya Ya, without knowing when or how or what.  We knew, assuredly, that it was only a matter of time…until what?

Pub Theology Questions 10/24/2017 – The Folly of Fanaticism of Every Kind

Ice Breaker Question:

 

Winston Churchill ~ A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.  You must be (or must have been) a fanatic about something, what is it?  Talk about the whats and whys?

 

Question of the Night:

Lee Gruenfeld ~ Religious fanaticism comes not from deep faith, but from a lack of it.
Fanatics – Beware! Being zealous for the Lord of Hosts [1 Kings 19] is not the same as being a fanatic. Fanaticism is a serious spiritual dysfunction.  What are some symptoms of religious fanaticism referred to here?  What specific examples of religious fanaticism have you witnessed?  Describe.

Other Questions:

 5 Plays by Moliere

Synopsis The Imposter ~ A pious fraud has incriminated himself beyond all help, yet his believers refuse to act to exile him.  Describe a life situation where your fanatic belief in a person or entity led to impossible choices or dreadful consequences.  How did the situation resolve?

 

Synopsis The Misanthrope ~ The cynic is tremendously unpopular, and he laments his isolation in a world he sees as superficial and base.  Talk about your experience of living by high standards in an earthly society.  When has isolation or escape worked to resolve social conflicts?

 

Synopsis The Middleclass Gentleman ~ Aspiring to something you can never be, brings mockery and exposes vanity, grifters who flatter you openly while despising you secretly and who seek to take your money.  What vulnerabilities and related calamities surfaced when you chose your path to high aspiration?

 

Synopsis The Hypochondriac ~ If you believe in a single system for a cure or a single person for all of your answers, your remedy will be the death of you not your illness. Talk about blind allegiance to the opinions of experts (Medical, Legal, Financial, Religion, Psychiatric, etc.) and actual or possible consequences.  What could be an antidote to fanatic allegiance to the vested interests of professional expertise?

 

Synopsis The Learned Ladies ~ Education and academic achievement become merely pretention and obsession when they overlook true desire and free will.  Reflect on the pursuit of education and the satisfaction or disappointment it has brought.  What learned ideal might you pursue today, given the opportunity?  Why?

 

Humor

 

Bertrand Russell ~ The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Pub Theology Questions 10/14/2017 – Disagreements, Dustups, Donnybrooks

Ice Breaker Question:   Tom Petty ~ Even the losers get lucky sometimes…

Diffusing the term loser, talk about a brief wondrous time in your life, a time that became way more than you expected and attends your memory even today.

Question of the Night:

Caleb Keeter (after the Las Vegas massacre) ~ I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd amendment my entire life, until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was.
Talk about a once held righteous belief – you know you have them – that became a wrong reality when the deity of life coldly touched you.

Other Questions:

An MGM producer exposed himself to a 12-year-old child star at her first interview with that studio.

If you are the parent, this crime exposes what primal instincts?

If you are the studio executive, this producer exposes you to what corporate liabilities?

If you are the 12-year-old female child star, what sentiments might you secrete and to which must you adapt?

 

Psychological Theory 1 ~ Genius and madness are in no way incompatible.

Psychological Theory 2 ~ The time will come when science will be capable of “correcting” the brain of a psychopath, but this is unfortunately not yet possible.

What do you think about these two statements, or are they just craziness?

How might correcting a madman corrupt a genius, or do I need to dumb this down for you?

 

American journalists in North Korea ~ We also heard some people say that while they hate the American government, they harbor no ill will toward Americans and would prefer to live in peace. One woman was nearly in tears describing her mixed feelings about the United States.

Each of us has the capacity to distinguish between a nation’s people and a nation’s government.

What thoughts, emotions, puzzlements emerge when you think of North Korea, Russia, Iran?

What realities do the citizens in these countries have of Great Satan, Duke Nukem, Uncle Scam?

What causes dovish personal beliefs to morph into weaponized political agendas?

 

Lao Tzu ~ People often spoil their work at the point of its completion.  With care at the end as well as the beginning, No work will be spoiled.

Forty years ago, this October, the revered and reviled revolutionary Che Guevara met his fate in Bolivia when his adopted guerrilla tactics failed to adapt to local peasant sentiments.

In your experience, what personal or historical events have you witnessed where People … spoil their work at the point of its completion.”

 

Democrats are concentrated in cities.  The House is controlled by the country.

If you have a home where the buffalo roam, is Rome just a big city infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?
Humor? History? Headlines?

Spain’s autonomous region of Catalonia, in a surge of nationalism, voted for secession recently.

Historically, Catalonia’s nationalism emerged haltingly when this sparsely populated domain on the Iberian Peninsula grew wildly and with difficulty.  In 878, King Louis II “The Stammerer” talked Charles “The Bald” into naming Wilfred “The Hairy” to head the nation of Catalonia.

Now, in 2017, nationalism seeks to denude Spain of its climacteric Catalans via secession.

Why do thriving states in secure nations seek secession?  If nationalism leads to autonomy, and autonomy leads to secession, what does secession lead to? Great nations rise from poverty through united progress and individual prosperity.  What naturally follows?