Flying and other modes of transportation

In the last few weeks I have been on six airplanes. I have four more (two trips) left and then I'm done. It's all business. My daughter has been flying home and back with me. At 9 months she is really active -- but is an amazing traveler. She smiles at everyone and only gets fussy if she's hungry. I warn anyone that sits next to me that I will be nursing during the flight - and I have not met with any animosity. Sine I get to preboard - it is up to others to choose to sit next to me (I've been flying on Southwest - so you can pick your seat). I hold my child so she is standing on my lap -- very easy to see. The only problem has been that she seems to like falling asleep on the decent -- so I have to wake her up to get off the plane -- and she does air her displeasure.

Lots of moms seem to travel in the mid-afternoon. I have yet to see a Dad solo with a baby -- toddler, yes - baby, no. And most of the moms are solo. Hmmm... wonder what that means...

I had to rent a car on one of these round trips. You can only rent automatics. Now, I have only been driving a "stick" for about four years. I love it. Automatics are boring. The guys at the rent-a-car place when I returned ut were overly gregarious. It was kinda annoying - and grotesque. But, when I picked up the car - they took four phone calls before they helped me and that too was annoying.

todays borrowed thought

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper.
Robert Frost

Technology dependent

I have been without internet for over a week. I had 121 messages (not counting junk mail) in my in-box. It was rather frustrating to not have access from my own computer -- I could check it from other people's. But, I will admit, there was something nice about not being tied to the computer every night.

I also lost my cell phone a couple weeks ago. I was lazy and did not put phone #s in my palm - so when I lost the phone, I lost everyone's numbers. I didn't even have my mom's number. Thank god I actually knew my older sisters "digits" - and she gave me the important ones. Now, one would think these numbers would be in my palm pilot. Wrong. I forgot to hotsink with my desktop 10 months ago and my desktop was attacked by 21 spyware viruses, prompting me to do a clean sweep of my computer. The only file forgot to back-up --- you guessed it, my phonebook...

For mother's day my husband got me a camera phone - it's pretty nice. And as irony would have it - the week I got the phone, he broke our digital camera. So now my phone is the only way to chronicle out daughter's life.

I am technology dependent.

Quote of the Day

Creativity is first of all an act of destruction. - Pablo Picasso

Judas, Lutherans and Da Vinci

I've been reading about the Gospel of Judas – I watched the National Geographic special – which is not as good as the magazine’s article on the same subject. I completely addicted to this kind of stuff. Religion is a fascinating topic – all religions interest me. In high school I took a philosophy/religion class – which was amazing. I don’t think public schools can get away with something like that now (thank you Mr. Bush). But, it opened my eyes to the world -- I had been living in my own myopic universe. We did a semester on Philosophy – from Socrates to Foucault – and a semester on world religions from Christianity to Confucianism. It was around this time, I started collecting writings on different religions, and collecting texts.

My father is a Lutheran minister but I would not classify myself as anything. Perhaps it is my way of rebelling but I don’t want to define myself according to an organized religion. I am drawn to religion from a scholarly perspective, I think. Maybe I am just trying to figure out what “fits.” Who knows. I just don’t see how one group of people can be “right.”

My dad’s side of the family had a reunion last summer. Now, these are a bunch of terrific people. All of my uncles are ministers and my aunt is married to one (my grandfather was a minister too) – so let’s just say – religion is super imortant. Anyway – they put together a new family list, complete with addresses, e-mails and birthdays. And now I get a Lutheran magazine delivered to my house every month. Perhaps my relatives noticed my sister and me “faking” our way through the Prayers of Thanksgiving. Or maybe it was the way we chose NOT to discuss what we do on Sunday mornings (for me it’s usually coffee and reading the New York Times; for my sister it’s sleeping in). But, someone must have thought we needed a subscription to the magazine – that we needed a little “saving.” It wasn’t just sent to me, but my sister as well. Perhaps it is curiosity, like watching The Factor, but I flip through it. It’s interesting but heavy handed. It’s not going to change my views on religion.

Back to the topic at hand: years ago, I read Elaine Pagel's books on the Gnostic Gospels (and her Origin of Satan – which is a great read) – so this latest info on Judas doesn’t exactly surprise me. Besides, anyone who has seen Jesus Christ Superstar (one of my favorite musicals) – sees sympathetic Judas, different from the one depicted in the bible

What disturbs me are the people that are so adamant about the bible being the word of God and their fervor to defend it. And what I find even more disconcerting is the growing number of people who quote verse from the bible without having read it and then try to convert you! My father has been known to have full-on conversations with these door-to-door bible thumpers. The end result is usually the undoing of the door ringing nuisance by my father’s gift of debate. To my father’s credit, he actually liked The Last Temptation of Christ and saw it as an interesting interpretation of the passion. I have yet to ask him if he saw Mr. Gibson’s foray into the biblical film genre.

What I find quite silly (because to find it unsettling would give it way too much clout), is the millions of Da Vinci code fans that think Dan Brown stumbled onto some “new” information. That’s just ridiculous and people should read more than just fiction written like a screenplay. Esoteric texts have been readily available for years (currently in internet form on the Sacred Text Archive – which is fantastic site and I recommend checking it out – see the links to the side). Besides, he is not the first person to take on the bible… There was another book I remember reading when I was in junior high. Can’t remember the name of it. But, at the end – the romantically linked couple came across some old pottery, which held scrolls. The scrolls held the last words of God – in which God admits he made a mistake in creating the ‘flawed’ man and is going to leave us to our own devises… I remember telling my mother – who gave me the book – “Well that actually makes sense.” Unfortunately, the author didn’t quite know how to end his story (sorta like Dan Brown) and the couple decides that it would shatter the world to reveal their findings, so they keep the secret… Too bad…