I once posted one of those step-by-step discussions of how we build a piece of furniture; the more interesting discussions from our In The Shop blog become permanent articles in the library section of our custom furniture web site. In this episode I discovered a mistake had been made in the piece of furniture and discussed my remedy for the error. Shortly after having posted the chapter I was hailed by a constant reader and frequent critic to ask, “Why in the world did you admit to having made a mistake? Doesn’t that undermine peoples’ confidence in your work?”
The Rise of Urban Farms
To most of my readers a farm is not a strange or unusual sight. Many readers live on farms. But to most city dwellers, a farm is as mysterious and distant as a tropical rain forest is to us. Many city kids have never seen how food is grown; they know only that it comes from a supermarket wrapped in plastic. Some cities have started busing school kids out on field trips (literally) to nearby farms so they can get a look at what a field of produce looks like. Many cities have parks, and maybe a horticultural garden, but not farm land. I bet the last place you’d think to look for farm land would be inside a major industrial city, such as… oh, say… Detroit. The Motor City. And you’d be wrong!
The city of Detroit has for years been the poster child for urban blight: having lost 25 percent of its population over the last decade and with roughly 40 of the city’s 139 square miles vacant, according to The Detroit Free Press. But the actions of some residents and organizations may be about to change all that.
In the wake of the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, Detroit is rebranding itself as The D.I.Y. City, with projects such as urban farms, encouraging small businesses selling locally made products, and residents pitching in to handle municipal upkeep.
Bands of citizen volunteers have been swarming into vacant properties, abandoned and neglected by their owners, to cut grass, clear brush and pick up litter and debris. Many of the derelict homes are being razed by the city, but some feel there is a better way to go.
My Goodness the Gnats Are Big This Year!
It seems the world is a-buzz (sorry) with the news that Jeff Bezos, head honcho at Amazon.com, spilled on 60 Minutes last Sunday (Dec 1, 2013) about Amazon moving into the use of flying drones to deliver packages. The resulting social media chatter is not decisively for or against this move. Some just make fun of the idea: asking when drone hunting season opens or speculating about getting dinner by knocking down a pizza drone. But then some of the jokes may not be without some truth.
Good Mountain Morning
The fragrance of wood smoke scents the crisp December air. The rosy glow of dawn creeps across clouds over the mountain top, raked by the bare branches of winterized hardwood trees. I grab another armload of firewood to carry it inside the workshop and lay it on the warming rack above the woodstove that heats the workshop. A bright fire is blazing inside the stove. It’s a good start; that will soon take the edge off the chill in the shop.
I pause to look out across my “front yard” which slopes down the face of Piney Mountain. The town of Newport TN, a collection of specks of light from here, occupies the valley floor. On the other side, English Mountain looms; shaped like a great sperm whale swimming lazily through the grey morning mists.
A PRAYER OF UNITY
Its a prayer of unity
that I lift to You this day, O Lord.
I pray for unity in our world
where conflicting nations have chosen war
as a means of settling their differences.
Give those who participate in such strife
a reasonable spirit
so that hostile guns may once again be silent.
I pray for unity in our country
as opposing politicians seek to blame one another
for our economic and social ailments.
Give those in authority a responsible disposition
toward the issues of our time.
May they turn their mental energies
toward solutions instead of accusations.
I pray for unity within our church,
as the lust for power is no respecter of institutions.
Give those who have a following
a sense of stewardship about their popularity.
May they humbly and responsibly
represent the cause of Christ.
Help us all to be cooperating Christians
in a body of believers who understand
that love will keep us strong.
I pray for a kind of unity where good people
have a right to disagree agreeably.
Help us to monitor our own feelings
in keeping with the spirit of Jesus.
Show us again and again
that publicans, fishermen, zealots,
and a variety of folk
can still function as disciples
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
AMEN
Silly Sun Puppies
The sun is shining again today, as it did yesterday, but not for a long time before that. Blondie and Cochise are making the most of it: or trying to.
The sun has not yet swung around far enough to admit much of the sunbeam through the window, just a strip in front of the sofa. They’re not allowed ON the sofa and they know it. So I put the snuggle-bed over in the sunshine for Cochise when they came in from their last exercise time and he was shivering. It’s cold out. The cold doesn’t bother Blondie, she has a heavier coat.
Cochise curled into the bed, felt the warmth of the sunshine and moaned with pleasure. Blondie stood nearby and looked at him enviously. She poked at him with her nose. He yawned at her (which in dog-speak does not mean he’s tired – in this case it was “go away you’re bothering me”).
Write Faster, Earn More
This article is not intended for novelists. While novelists are certainly welcome to read it, I doubt you’ll find anything useful to your calling here. This article is intended for those who write magazine articles, blog post/web content, and perhaps short stories or brief memoir pieces.
While the admonition of “write faster” may seem self-explanatory on the surface, it goes way beyond just hitting the keys at a higher rate of speed. Although that too can help. Isaac Asimov was once being interviewed by Barbara Walters. In between two of the segments she asked him, ”But what would you do if the doctor gave you only six months to live?” He said, “Type faster.”1
One of the things I like best about being a freelance writer over being a cubicle dweller or factory worker is the aspect that it’s up to me to decide how much I work and how much I earn. As a corporate employee I worked so many hours a week and got a paycheck for a certain amount every two weeks. Other than the rare opportunity for overtime, I had little to do with how much time I put in or the pay I took away.
As a freelancer, it is entirely — well, mostly — up to me to decide when I work and how much I get paid. No work: no pay, work hard: get paid well, simple as that. Mostly. But it’s more than just keeping my nose to the grindstone longer. I can eek out more profit by making that time count for more by working smarter, not just longer. Here’s how that works.
Yahoo Mountain Dew!
I felt like doing a “Way Back Whensday” post here at Random Thoughts today and I’ve elected to poke into the history of something that is near and dear to my heart on a couple of fronts. The soda pop marketed as Mountain Dew is one of my favorite ”treat” beverages (I prefer the diet version) and the term “mountain dew” has been slang for moonshine for hundreds of years. The Tennessee county I live in has a well deserved reputation for having been the moonshine capital of the world during the heyday of that illegally produced corn whiskey. There is even a moonshine museum down the road in Cosby! Sorry, they do not give out samples.
Mountain Dew was born here in the hills of Tennessee in the 1940s. Barney and Ally Hartman, who ran a bottling plant in Knoxville, coined the name of their product from the colloquial term for moonshine whiskey. The Hartman’s Mountain Dew, however, was a lemon-lime flavored mixer for whiskey, not originally intended to be drunk alone. But that changed quickly enough.
GETTER OR GIVER
Have you ever considered what kind of world this would be if God were a “getter” instead of a “giver?” What if God had made getting the chief goal of His creation so that everyone created in His image would have His encouragement toward a selfish life? There would be no such thing as sacrifice because the idea of a Savior-God would not exist. Forgiveness would be a relative matter depending on its ability to manipulate others. Love would only exist in the form of affection toward oneself. Faith would only express the confidence in one’s ability to succeed through accumulation. There would be no such thing as sharing with the less fortunate and the thought of dying for another would be repulsive to say the least. The concepts of church and ministry and caring for the hurts of humanity would be ideas foreign to the thoughts of a self-centered god.
How horrible we say, if God had been oriented around getting instead of giving. How thankful we are that His word is a loving testimony of His sacrificial commitment to all humankind. With gratitude and praise we celebrate His divine compassion. We experience hope and peace as we trust His eternal kindness.
We are so impressed by His unselfish love that it becomes the theme for our songs and the inspiration for our sermons. We join Paul in giving thanks for His unspeakable Gift and all the gifts that are products of His selfless nature. Although we are grateful for a “giver” God we must take care not to let getting become the goal of our lives. Let us be done with our “getter” gods lest we lose the precious commodity of grace.
THE ENERGY OF ANGER
The energy of anger is a force to be reckoned with in our world. It can cause nation to rise against nation. It can cause neighbor to mistreat neighbor and families to crumble in pain. It can cause normally decent people to harbor hatred. It can cause all of us to lose our composure and make fools our of ourselves.
What is there about this mysterious power which causes us so much inner pain and frustration? Sometimes anger gains its strength from our exaggerated selfishness. It receives momentum from the “mighty me” complex. Anger preys on our weaknesses to make us feel strong. It makes us defensive and resentful toward those who detect the flaws in our armor. When we allow the sun to go down upon our wrath it complicates tomorrow’s relationships.
Misdirected anger can be one of our most harmful emotions. Yet it does not always need to be bad. Paul said, “Be angry and sin not.” Perhaps this is Paul’s way of acknowledging a proper anger. It is a proper anger that runs money changers from the temple when it is obvious they are keeping others from worship. It is right to be angry about the hurts of life when they rise out of mistreatment and evil. Paul is telling us to channel the energy of our wrath into constructive purposes.
As the Holy Spirit controls our lives, even the emotion of anger becomes a redemptive tool in the hands of God. As our anger is kindled against sin, we are energized to oppose it. There are things God does not want us to tolerate. He wants us to despise the sin that separates us from one another. He wants us to denounce the evils which destroy human personality.
Therefore, let us seek Him who can inspire us to be angry about sin and yet have love for the sinner. Let us be angry enough at sin to confess, repent, and turn from the awkward attitudes and actions which have stunted our spiritual growth. Let us be angry enough at hate to let love prevail, at fear to let courage inspire, at doubt to let faith direct, and at all uncleanliness so that righteousness might stand. Then and only then can we “be angry and sin not.”