Royal Lazy Cats

These are our cats, Princess and Pinto (I think you can tell which is which). Since adopting these two poor homeless animals and getting them all fixed up for cushy indoor living, we've noticed that they have assumed a very unproductive lifestyle. It's disgraceful how lazy and fat Pinto is getting -- not to mention mean. You'd never know it from this picture, but he torments little Princess something awful. We all hope she gets him back someday, but she doesn't seem to mind the abuse and keeps coming back for more. See what a life of leisure does to cats' characters?

In any case, my friend Emily, who has helped many other families and cats find each other, is having a little party this week. We're all bringing pictures of our cats, and I'm certain mine will win for most drastic change of lifestyle.

Last week's AFA Meeting

Top pic: Guest speaker Cheryl Elms's braided and woven garments enthralled us in their intricacy and general fabulousness!

Bottom pic: Susan Storey is a new and talented member. She used digital images in her art quilts.

Burial of Grandma McGahan

Can you imagine the stout heart of the pioneers who made homes in a place as desolate as this? The picture above is the cemetery outside of Elsie, NE in the Nebraska panhandle. And this is 160 years after this place was settled! What a different world it was when bravery and toil were the qualities which rewarded men and women with a small amount of success.

Grandma McGahan, Bill's father's mother, was laid to rest here last Saturday Nov. 22. In some respects, no one knows of her successes, for they were probably the inner personal achievements of a strong farm wife and mother of 5, who lived a life of sacrifiece and hard work, taking joy in the simplest of things. Her second boy was born severely autistic, though that word was unknown back then. Refusing to put him in an institution, as recommended by the doctors, she and the family cared for Uncle John, who remained a grown-up toddler his whole life. I guess I mention that first because that was what struck me the most about her simply faithful life...just her unwavering care for her son in spite of his great disability. She seemed always to be the most patient person.

But she was also one of those people who asked a lot of questions, always listening carefully for your answer and coming forth with a most sensible response, always. She was an avid gardner, who could keep alive even plants which were even unsuited for her garden zone, if she had a mind to help them survive and appreciated their beauty enough. She once brought a tender agapanthas plant from California where she visited us once, and transplanted it next to her house, in a garden blooming with rosebushes and irises, and it was thriving ever after. Who knows how she did that?

Bill also tells how she killed a badger with a fencepost. And he saw her kill a rattle snake with a shovel one summer when he and his siblings were staying out there at the farm. One tough cookie, Grandma Mildred.

A good woman through and through, she ended up with 20 great grandchildren (I think that's right), 10 grandchildren and always had a story to tell them about life on the farm in western NE. She's lived through epic blizzards in a house with no heat or indoor plumbing, in fact she raised her kids there. She taught grade school in town (North Platte) so that her kids could attend Catholic School there. Education was always important to her and her husband Bill, who passed before her in 1997. He was a good man, too. salt of the earth, with a story for everyone, and a sureshot with a shotgun. He was called Pop, after his favorite drink, farmed the homestead as his father before him out in Elsie, where the dirt isn't much better than sand (this was dustbowl territory in the 30s). What a matriarch! Mildred McGahan was buried in the cemetary pictured above, next to her husband William, and son John.

May she enjoy the face of God!

Israel

Folks, I have no idea how I found this. I know this hasn't much to do with art and the usual things I blog about, but hey, it's my blog and I just feel like posting this passage I found tonight. I was looking up words for a small fire engine business my dad is thinking of starting, and I came across this post. In fact the year it is written, 1991, shows that it has been transcribed to the internet, since the first blogs didn't even show up until 1994 or so. But I have been thinking a lot from a Christian American point of view about God's chosen people and somehow found this diary passage on the web ( you know how it goes). It is amazing to read this passage written by an Israeli American in Jerusalem almost 20 years ago, when we were engaged in the war with Iraq (the first time) and I am reminded of the fascinating and disturbing parallels that nature thrusts into our lives through political force: See what you think of this, in light of the short history written since 1991:

"...by writing the previous paragraph of my daughter-
in-law's anger at me; she had looked at some of my reports and, when
she came with her family to dinner on Friday night, she told me that
I was picturing our situation as if we were misfortunates and objects
of pity. She resented that, was convinced it was not true; but she
had been born here in Israel, had only spent a few years in the
States. This was normal for her; not the actual SCUD attacks and
the procedures we follow with each attack - they were new. But
the idea of being under attack, of having to defend herself - that
was part of the turf for her.

Of course she is right. It is just that my background is so
very different; I have spent more than half my life abroad, in the
bosom of decency and democracy. [Not that I do not feel that I now
live in a decent society where democracy prevails; indeed they do,
but their geographic limits are so very narrow. Size really makes
a difference, not only from the point of view of security, but also
psychologically.]

I even left the States before the cities became dangerous at
night. [Other than SCUDDs, which I hope are temporary, the cities
are still quite safe at night here.] I don't feel that I am one of
the downtrodden of the world and I do not want to give that impres-
sion. It is just that as an American [originally, and it seems ir-
revocably] I am always surprised by evil. My initial response is
to deny it; to say it is just not there. I need time to regain my
equilibrium in the face of Evil. I lived through 2 1/2 wars as an
American and this is my fifth here in Israel. I have had enough
experience of the world to ought to have learned; but as an American,
I fear, there are some things I can never really learn.

For Americans the distinction between degrees of bad is a very
difficult one to make. One bad is perceived as just as bad as any
another bad. That appears to be a consequence of the ultimate
optimism of the American. The American can and does still believe
in a perfect or perfectable world. [To that extent, I am no longer
an American.] It was to the Americans that Santayana spoke when he
said that one who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat
the same mistakes.

When I speak to Americans about Evil they do not understand;
they think that bad is the same as Evil. Until they learn - Will
they ever? Can they ever? - they will be trapped by this confusion.
Bush, some of them tell me [I really do not know], is bad. I say to
them, "Maybe or even Yes. But Saddam Hussein is Evil." And they do
not understand me.

There is a world out here that has different guiding principles.
You have to listen; some people are not sportsman and do not play by
the rules.

__Bob Werman
rwerman@hujivms
Jerusalem

Prayers for my country

Freedom, the most precious gift I ever received from my country; and I never had to do anything special to acquire it! I pray that my children will not have tasted freedom just to lose it. I would almost rather they had never known it than to have to answer to them someday why we let it slip away from us.

Regardless of how this election day ends, I can't help feeling deeply sad that the next generation will have to fight (like I never had to) for their liberty.

God has His arms around us, though. I am certain that He only wants us to come to know Him and His creation. From the beginning, God gave us freedom...and we don't need anyone else to either prove or disprove this fact. In the end, politics are not important, except in the way they reveal our character and our choices. No matter who we vote for, we are all on the hook for the outcome.

God Bless the USA.