Exercise "assistants"

I got some "help" this week while doing some indoor exercises, so here are a few of the shenanigans...

We're just watching, gotta make sure you know what you're doing!

Wrestling match!

I didn't need the mat at all, go ahead and stay right there Kitana.

One-sided conversations

I have a friend who has helped me through a lot of hard times and decisions in my life, someone whom I tend to go to when I'm not sure what to do and need advice. I've listened to him, sometimes agreed sometimes disagreed, but I've always respected his thoughts on the matters he's willing to speak on. His opinions come through loud and clear, and he has a brilliant sense of humor. Yet no matter what I say to him, he never listens.

It's not his fault, he isn't being rude or uncaring - he died in 1969, 20 years before I was even born. His name is C.S. Lewis, and through his books and other writings I've had countless one-sided conversations with him.

It's amazing how much someone who wrote books over 40 years ago now can still affect lives today. I was one of many whose lives C.S. Lewis touched first through the stories in Narnia. In the first book I read, of children who found themselves embroiled in a war, in a land they didn't understand, yet they find themselves assigned the task of helping to bring the war to an end, he grabbed my attention. Yet to my astonishment, the children were not going to be the ones to finish the battle, it was the Lion who would come to the rescue when victory seemed impossible. My mom saw how much I adored this schoolbook, and after the school year ended she handed me a box set with all 7. I've been besotted with this magical world he created ever since, and in particular the character of Aslan, whose personality helped my child's mind (and now, even my adult mind) see different aspects of Jesus' personality.

In college I got into some of Lewis's more grown up works, starting with a book group that read The Great Divorce. I got another 7 book set from my mom of his - The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. While I still haven't finished all 7 of these books (which I intend to do this year), the ones I have read have helped me to examine issues and questions in my own life, and the larger world,  from different angles than I had been able to on my own, or in discussions with friends. Mere Christianity and The Great Divorce in particular shaped how I view the afterlife, and living in this life to the fullest. Screwtape's letters were a mental exercise in the futility of trying to understand the perspective of pure evil, which is so amazing at being "consistently inconsistent" that my brain had to pause at various times, yet is so obvious and self-serving that you can't help but understand the viscous motives.

These are only some of his writing that has touched my own life, not even getting into the vast body of work he made that has gripped readers for decades, changing and shaping lives even after the author has left this world.

To everyone out there who's ever thought about writing but thought you had nothing worth writing, I ask you to keep this in mind - you never know who your writing may touch, nor how long after you write it someone may find it and find hope or advice in your writings. You have no idea how many one-sided conversations you will hold with people, conversations that can shed light on minds in places and times you may never reach otherwise. 

Short Caturday Blurb

This is what happens when I come home from a weekend trip:

"Nope, you can't touch this bag again. When you touch it you leave."

Sorry for the silence

I actually had to make a post with the same name a while ago, before I started using Blogger. Go figure. (Apologies ahead of time - this may get a little bit vent-y)

It's been a while since I made anything that wasn't a quick project either meant to be used right away (because I love to Macgyver everything), or just to give away quickly. Part of that was crazy busy times, especially while I was able to help out at Triple T for a while with the horses (that I miss like crazy), and part was high levels of stress from job- and roommate-related issues. I've gotten to work on and off on a few things, but mostly I'd get frustrated with them and frog them before I finished working on them.

*sigh* Such is life. I can't go back and make the time repeat itself more favorably, but I can pick up and dust myself off.

Once my roommate got herself evicted (this month) and I decided that for the time being I wasn't interested in having a new roommate, I converted the 2nd bedroom into a studio/guest room

So now I have a designated place for crafting

I needed a new dishtowel, so I went ahead and found a fun but simple pattern and made a small project that was nearly impossible to get too mad at before I finished it.

And I picked up a craft I haven't done in years for fun

Of course, I've also had some *help* remembering to have some fun once in a while too, and some help exercising.

     

I've also had to set up a schedule for working out, including running, which I've never liked before, 3x/week (Thank you Zombies, Run! I'm currently using the couch to 5k version, on week 5)

Right in my back yard, and the farthest I can be from traffic

So here's to picking up where I left off

Mere Christianity, Book 1 Part 1: C.S. Lewis, and Law of (human) Nature

"Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair'..." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

*A note on the context of this book - Mere Christianity is based on 3 radio talks C.S. Lewis gave during the years in which World War II was taking place, and there are multiple allusions to the war and the Nazis as a frame of reference to the Law of Human nature, and how if no such law existed the actions of the 3rd Reich could not be considered to be evil, which as much as we look back on now with astonishment, imagine what it was like for those who found out about it while it was happening.*

In the very beginning of this book, Lewis discusses the difference between 2 different types of natural laws - physical laws, which compel obedience (the laws of physics, chemistry, etc) and the "law" of human nature - a common standard which can be, and frequently is, dismissed by individuals who would be expected to obey its commands. To this he attributes the human tendency to quarrel, pointing out that without a common standard people could certainly fight, but could not quarrel over fairness or rightness. This last part, the law of human nature, is what he bases the arguments he puts forth in this section of the book.

Lewis seeks at this point in this search, without looking at the Bible, or any form of religion or god just yet, to find some ground in human history for a common Right and Wrong, this law that, while may be adjusted off be some degrees in some societies, is still present in nearly all of known human history. He asks the reader to "Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him." He finds it as astounding as finding a civilization where math worked entirely differently, and I'm inclined to agree with him. There are certainly civilizations that have praised the cleverness of a man who double crossed someone who had done him harm, but few would argue that doing so to an honest person was the right thing to do.

He then brings up the fact that, while most of us expect or demand that others follow the Law of Nature, we each fail miserably at it ourselves. Even more so, when we do so, we more often than not find a reason to excuse ourselves of the shortcoming, but we do know that we have broken it. We may blame it on another person, or outside circumstances, but when someone does the same to us we tend as human beings to hold them to the standard that we just fell short of ourselves.

He proceeds to point out that in the case of inanimate objects, if we call them "bad", what we mean is that they are not the way we would have them, not that they have actually done something wrong. Whereas when we consider a person "bad" (think of someone like a Hitler perhaps), we certainly DO mean that they have done something very wrong - they have killed people, or have stolen money, or committed another act that has caused us to decide that they are bad, there is a standard of Right and Wrong, and they have definitely fallen into the category we would call Wrong.

What could cause this fairly uniform standard? What force in the universe could give us a moral compass, without forcibly compelling us to obey its decree of "do this, but not that"? There must be something, which at this point Lewis refers to as "Something Behind." Next week I want to take a look at what he thinks we can guess at, from how we know human nature works, about this "Something Behind."



<<This came out a little later than I'd hoped; Thursday snuck up on me after a particularly nasty week of allergies. Next week I'll make sure I get things written before Thursday, and schedule the post. >>

Fetch!

When I say Miles is a dog... this is a huge part of why.

This is not a new video, but this is a constant occurrence. Whether he has a ball, a hair tie or an actual cat toy, this is his favorite thing to do.

Starting Mere Christianity next week

Starting on next Thursday, I'll be going through Mere Christianity. The book is broken into 4 parts, so I'll spend the first 2 weeks on the first part, then probably moving to part 2 for two weeks, and so on for 8 weeks. I will be doing more commentary than summary (I hope) on the writings, so it may be a bit confusing for anyone who hasn't read the section I'm currently talking about.