Butterflies, Budgies and facts ...


Friday morning.  

Late.  

I seem to be back in truck driver mode where I go until I am sleepy, and sleep ‘til I am ready to go.  It messes up my schedule, though.  I would have preferred to rise much earlier than the crack of 9 o’clock.  I blame it on daylight savings.  When we return to God’s time this year, I’ll be back to my normal 8am  rising.

It is not a full day today, but there are some things to get off the punch list.  Turn on the hose for a while to water the posies, and after lunch, go prepare the synagogue for Shabbat services.  I just cannot belong to a congregation and not contribute to it in some small way.  The cleaning isn’t onerous, though.  It is merely a small storefront with a foyer, main room and single toilet.  We are up to 15 regular congregants now, and I am expecting it to grow to around 30 or so … about five or six families.

It takes me about an hour to clean, and it is sort of my busy-quiet time to use an oxymoron.  It prepares my mind for Shabbat as well.  When I return home, it is jump into the shower, don the special clothes for this day, and sit down at the table to begin the ancient liturgy.  Now it is just the two of us and I do not feel the necessity to do the entire liturgy in both Hebrew and English, and zip thru the rite at warp speed.
Political silly season is upon us, the first dog and pony show we call a debate has come and gone.  I will not be watching them this year simply because I have already decided who I am voting against.  I think this is true for most of the electorate.  Nevertheless, we go on with the fiction that the true independents are being swayed by points and counterpoints made by the candidates.

A new phenomenon has grown the last decade.  Fact checkers. For some reason, many accept the fact checkers as evenhanded purveyors of truth, which is hardly the case.  A curious thing happens in the right/left pull of American politics.  Both sides believe they are “centrist” or “moderates” and the other side is extreme.  For the leftists, they accept the idea that all wisdom lies in Washington DC and they view States Rights with suspicion, therefore things like health care are naturally the purview of the Federal Government.  To oppose that view is “extreme” and you will be accused of hating the “very poor among us” …

The right, on the other hand, feel that the several States are the one correctly charged with the welfare of its populations, and that a Central government is abhorrent. To oppose that view you become a “nanny state” extremist.
A current example is that the fact checkers naturally will omit commenting on such “obvious” facts such as the need for Federal Healthcare.  And the real question of how do we provide health care for the masses within the framework of the Constitution and becomes one of “He is against healthcare” and here are the facts to prove it.

My own view never truly appears on the political landscape, anyway.  I am a Constitutionalist who believes that the proper place to provide for the welfare of the people is the jurisdiction of the several States.  If the Federal government makes a repressive law, I have nowhere to flee.  If a State makes a repressive law, I can flee to another State.

Anyway … enough political ranting.

We are overrun with monarch butterflies migrating south this year.  They are very tiny, so I suspect that it has been a tough year for them. The first spring we were here they were migrating north, and were huge.  That had been a particularly wet winter in Texas and Mexico.  But the persistent droughts and wildfires in their summer quarters in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois has made it a lean year for them

And the yard has sprung to life with the later rains, plants and grasses that have been dormant for almost four years are everywhere.  It is more like spring than fall.

Kippur (say Kipper) the budgie is finally adjusting to his new home, and the mornings ring with his happy chirps and trills.

So now sated with pecan waffles and strong coffee, I give this a once over, and prepare it for posting, lean back in my chair, and watch autumn unfold out my window.

Good morning!

~r 

2 comments:

  1. Good morning! What exactly is Shabbat?

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  2. Shabbat is ordained in the Torah as a day of rest, in remembrance of God's resting after creating the world. It begins at sundown Friday evening and runs though Saturday until sundown. Shabbat, or sabbath as it is said among the Christians, is celebrated by abstaining from labor. The amount of abstaining varies from one faction to another.
    Friday afternoons is a time of working meditation for me. It takes me about an hour or so to prepare the building for services Saturday morning.

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