Insightful

I really wish I could say something insightful or in some way meaningful. There are so many thoughts and ideas floating around in my mind, in my spirit. I feel that if I don't write something it may all come exploding out in some fit of rage or sadness.

I wish we had rages of happiness.

I need some sort of outlet. I wish I were still in college. If I were I would simply walk out into the night, find some quiet place to lie down and watch the stars until I felt as though the world made sense again. There is too much noise. Too much bullshit floating around. I just can't deal with it right now. I want to push it all under the rug and live without overwhelming responsibility. I'm sure many people feel the same way that I do right now, that life is just too big. How in the world did we end up like this, in a tangled mess of fears and regret, of what-ifs and why-nots? Where did simplicity go? Was it ever there in the first place? I tend to believe that simplicity is still here. You know those maze puzzles on kids' menus at restaurants, the ones where there are just a bunch of jumbled up lines but only one leads to the goal? I think that is how life is, only it's much more difficult to find and stay on the one simple line. It's ever harder to think of what is at the end of the line at the goal. I want to live simply. I want to wade through all the garbage that is around me all the time and set up camp on a small island and live for the things that make me and the ones I love happy. I suppose it's too easy to be pulling back into the putrid waters, though.

They say that life is a journey and not a destination. I believe that. They say that one must learn to dance in the rain because the storm may never pass. I can do that. But, every once in a while it would be nice to see a rainbow.

Ignorance

I'm angry. More than anything, though, I'm hurt. I realize that we all have some pretty strong feelings about what has been going on with Chick-fil-a recently, although I shouldn't say recently because they have always shown a disdain for homosexuals, but quite frankly if you think this is all about freedom of speech you are being ignorant.

What if Dan Cathy had said, "We support the biblical view of slavery," or "We believe that if God intended races to mix we'd all been placed on the same continent."

Of course, if he had been around to say those things when they were actual issues the same kind of senseless arguing that is going on now would have taken place and in fact did take place. Dan Cathy would have been 100% Confederate and vehemently anti-interracial marriage if he had lived in those time periods.

So you see, this is more than about freedom of speech, this is about discrimination. This is about hateful attitudes that lead to senseless suicides, broken people, and needless dissension.

I stopped eating at Chick-fil-a more than a year ago. No one from the company had made any public comments about marriage equality; however, the company had already taken a stance on the issue. Chick-fil-a donates large sums of money to religious organizations that have been designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. These groups sit right alongside the KKK on long lists of organizations in American dedicated to destroying tolerance, equality, and diversity. In the past year, Chick-fil-a donated at least $2 million to groups like the Family Research Council and Exodus International.

The Family Research Council regularly publishes bogus "scientific studies" that have no standing in the real scientific community. Every respected medical and psychological entity out there affirms that homosexuality is not a choice.

Exodus International was an organization dedicated to "reparative therapy" for homosexuals, better known in the media as "pray the gay away." The American Psychological Association condemns this practice as very damaging to the subject. Exodus International has recently disbanded and the pioneer of reparative therapy, Dr. Robert Spitzer, has renounced all of his work. He stated that his findings regarding a person changing his or her sexual orientation were "unproven" and he apologized to the LGBT community.

Going forward, I would suspect Chick-fil-a to continue funding groups that are damaging and damning our friends, our neighbors, our brothers and our sisters. This is about more than religious freedom or freedom of speech. Mr. Cathy has every right to say any hateful or inaccurate thing he wants. However,  and more importantly, your children deserve to be loved for who they are, your sister has the deserves the right to marry who she loves, and we all have the right to grow up in a world that doesn't tell us we are disgusting vile demons. Dan Cathy is wrong, and I will not allow my money to fund such atrocities.

Get the facts, do some research, don't just blindly post or "like" pictures celebrating Chick-fil-a's "religious freedom" or "freedom of speech." Every time you click share or like and every time you dip that nugget into some Polynesian sauce, you are sending a message to some kid somewhere that he is doomed, unloved, dirty, and demonic. His blood will be on your hands.

Calling out the Peters

I often get philosophical when I mow the yard. I think that is one reason why I like mowing so much. There is really nothing to do but think for about an hour and a half. Yesterday, while I was mowing, I had a lot on my mind. Most of it had to do with all the hate that has flooded my newsfeed lately. You see, I subscribe to a few news pages that update regularly to tell me what people are doing to take away my rights, to poison the food I eat, to ensure that I know I'm going to hell. Honestly, I need to unsubscribe from it all because it just makes my blood pressure rise. Of course, most, if not all, of the people saying these things label themselves "conservative Christians," albeit nothing they say is ever Christlike.

So, I was thinking about these people yesterday while on the mower and I was reminded of the time when Paul called out Peter for living a double standard.

11 But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. 12 When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile Christians, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. 13 As a result, other Jewish Christians followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. -Galatians 2:11-13

I feel as though Christians today live in some sort of hypocrisy like this. It seems Christians today are afraid to extend a loving welcome to those they consider "uncircumcised" for fear of being condemned by the likes of the Tea Party or Fox News. Those Christians who have done so (such as the Presbyterians) have faced scrutiny from their "brothers and sisters in Christ." It's time for this Peter generation to be called out. Shame on them for propagating hate and dissension in the name of Christ.  

Things people say...

I'm often quite astonished by the kinds of things people share with me while I'm performing my duties at the local grocery store. The other night I was putting out milk and this lady in her mid 60s came up to me and started complaining about the price of milk. "Yes, it's gotten quite expensive," I concurred. Then she went into how she is lactose intolerant and she has to buy the lactose free milk because the soy milk tastes bad. "Oh, okay," I say. Then, she spurts this little gem (which I quote as verbatim as my memory allows):

"And what really gets me is MY government gives all the Spanish people 500 dollars a month in food stamps! It's just not right... but there's nothing we can do about it. Except pray."

And she walks away.

I was stunned. I should be used to this kind of thinking because I live in the South, but for some reason it just caught me so off guard. Let's think about how that prayer would go...

"Dear God, I'm white and therefore superior and you love me more so could you please stop giving the Hispanics food stamps? Amen."

-__-

Chickens!

I've finally gotten settled in my new place, though there are still some things to unpack... On clear days I have a WI-FI connection from my parents house, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce my new pet chickens!

I got them last Saturday at a local flea market for a nice lady who has just begun selling her chicks. She said she wasn't so great at sexing yet, so I'm hoping I ended up with two hens (I don't want a rooster!).

I picked two different color chicks so that I will be able to tell them apart. Lucille is a Buff Orfington (the lighter one) and Martha is a Rhode Island Red. Research indicates that they are both hardy breeds, tolerant to heat and cold, and good egg layers.

Both Lucille and Martha are around 5 weeks old. It will be awhile before they start laying eggs fit for consumption but I wanted babies so they will grow up being used to me.

Yesterday I built a chicken run around their coop for them. They seemed to really enjoy it. I just have to watch out for neighbor hood cats that want an easy meal!

I've ordered some organic chick feed for them, though it hasn't arrived yet. Now they are eating the starter feed that came in the kit I bought. I really hope the organic one arrives soon.

My next project is starting a compost bin so I can recycle their litter and other materials from my home so I can have my own supply of organic fertilizer!

*edit*

It's been a few weeks since I saved that draft. Lucille and Martha are doing great! I'm still not sure if they are hens or roosters though... The people I asked on Instagram had mixed opinions. Guess I'll have to wait until they lay an egg or crow! Here are more recent pics of them both:

I've moved my computer into the other bedroom so that it picks up the wi-fi better. I'm going to try and do better at posting!

Strawberries!

Just a quick blurb about the two delicious strawberries I got off my strawberry plants today.

They were very sweet and soooooo good! I can't wait until more are ripe!


Also, I'm trying out the Blogger app for the first time. Ergo, this post was published from my iPhone. I uploaded two pictures but I have no control over their placement. :(

Baby birds

There is this type of bird that I usually only saw at cemeteries when I was growing up that we always called ground birds because they make nests on the open ground. I supposed I mainly saw them at cemeteries because it is quieter there than your average open ground. According to the Internet their official name is Killdeer, though ground bird makes a lot more sense...

Anyway, a pair of Killdeer made a nest in my front yard a couple months ago. About one month ago the female bird laid some eggs in what I guess she thought was a quiet serene location. Little did she know all the moving that was about to take place.

She ended up laying four eggs which I helped her protect. I mowed far from the nest (though she still tried to attack the mower several times) and I kept vehicles from running over the eggs as the nest was in the path of the truck we used to carry my parents' furniture from the trailer to the newly rebuilt house.

Killdeer have evolved into great ground-nesters. They are beautiful birds that blend in well with ground foliage and have an aggressive nature for scaring away predators.

This is the female spreading out her plumage as I approached the nest:

They also have a great tactic for luring predators away from the nest. If I got too close for comfort, the bird would scurry away from the nest and then flap around on the ground as if it were hurt a few feet away. It would also stick out one wing and lay there like it's wing was broken. If I moved closer to the bird it would scurry a few more feet away and fake injured again.

I know this picture is small. I couldn't get very close to them without them running away, but the bird on the left is faking injury and the bird on the right was just squawking at me:

And here is one bird flapping around on the ground:

After a month of being sure not to run over the nest, I was beginning to wonder if the female had just laid a bunch of duds. Then one day last week my parents and I noticed a little baby bird running around alongside it's parents. The next day, all four eggs had hatched and the little Killdeer were running around the yard exploring. If was the first time I had seen them in baby form. They had the same markings as the adult birds only they were fuzzy as all get out, probably the cutest baby birds I have ever seen.

Again it was tough to get a picture of them, but I tried:

Here are some cropped images:

Eventually I decided to ignore the birds' warning cries and risk getting flogged to examine the nest. I'm glad I did because there was one little baby snuggled down doing it's best to blend in.

I'm also glad I took pictures when I did because the next day the adult birds led the little babies across my yard and my parents' into a field with high grass. I'm sure by now those little babies are flying.