Ridings and ramblings
Horseback Riding.
Today’s lesson was good. I had to skip it last week ’cause of the various midterms and due dates, but it was fine today! Good weather, though it’s been rainy lately. So the arenas were full of that half-dry, sloppy mud in the centers, which was a drag. Plus there were hyper jumpers in the main arena (where we usually ride) so we had to move to the little jumping ring. Which is bounded on one side by the 80 West offramp, on another by the big arena, and on the third by the Arboretum sidewalk — full of small children and inconsiderate bicyclists and evil dogwalkers. Not that I don’t like people, I just don’t like people skipping merrily up to the bushes to peer through the fence and spook the horses.
Unlike the other times we’ve ridden there, today Levi was well-behaved and not too spooky. Nervous yes, he actually spooked himself by slipping in the mud. If he’d been paying more attention to me and to where he was going, he wouldn’t have slipped. I lost my balance (bah evil English saddle) and decided it was better to bail than to try sticking on … so I spent about 2 minutes on the ground dealing with him but the rest of the lesson went well.
Seems like every time I ride in these English lessons, I have the best seat, the best post, the best position blah blah blah so I end up just having the time to myself to work on him. Doing what everyone else is doing, but not being distracted too much by the instructors. It’s rather nice. I wonder if the tack really does change his attitude, or if it’s the nicer weather, or if I’ve changed, he’s changed, we’re both growing up… whatever the cause, it’s about time.
So I’m pleasantly tired, still a bit horse-stinky, and I’ve just cleaned off half my desk. Lots of old catalogs and newspapers and newsletters and such… oooh. $25 rebate from the HP ServicePak. Apparently there was a rebate with the warranty on the computer. Well, the new motherboard seems to be working nicely, I still don’t know how in hell I managed to fry it, but at least they’re giving me a rebate. That’s very nice of them.
Do be do be dooooooooooooo… lots of unofficial 4-H stuff going on that I can’t post on here because it won’t make any sense to non-4-H’ers … but there’s been good things happening lately. It won’t be so bad that I ditch the actual event (State Presentation Day) ’cause lots o’ people are coming up the night before to help out. And the State Leaders’ Council (under whose name SPD theoretically is run) has just created a new committee for people to unify the 4 sections (north, north-central, south-central, and south) and their presentation guidelines. And judging guidelines. Yay!
Mom is now on the I&R (Incentives and Recognition) committee with Emily. Yay! She gets to help redesign record books, decide why the hell the various fairs require a “4-H Uniform” when 4-H doesn’t even HAVE a uniform (economic discrimination and all that jazz), why we insist on following the fair’s idea of a uniform, why we still have the felt hats and the scarves and ties, the scholarships, the awards…. Basically, Mom is now on the committee that determines incentives and recognition for the California 4-H Youth Development Program. Go Mom.
Other random stuff … I like Aggie Ambassadors. It’s a fun group. Very much self-directed, with input from the College of Ag and Environmental Sciences, but events are volunteer. I don’t get signed up for anything, and whatever I commit to is pretty well delineated. Block and Bridle meets next Tuesday at 7 — electing ossifers for next year. I don’t wanna be a main ossifer (prez, vp, treasurer) but I’ll try for something like communications or recreation or awards or events … something somewhat on the board but not In Charge so to speak.
It’s 7:00 now and my stomach is starting to growl.
I like food, but good as DC food is, I like having the kinds of foods that I like — not a random selection each day. When I’m in the mood for tuna melt, by Stomach I want tuna melt! Not ethnic rice or wok or pizza or weird icky pasta-wannabe. Tuna melt!
Okay, ’nuff random writing for now, I’m off to eat!
Go eating! Yay! *gets out the metaphorical cheerleader’s outfit*
The Lutheran Cheer — via Martin Luther, originator of the 95 Theses or whatnot that sparked the Great Split in the Catholic Church…
“Pope-y, Pope-y, he’s our man! If he can’t do it no one can!” At least regarding indulgences and other Religious Concepts We Have Known and Sold for a Profit… The Church never fails to amuse/inflame me.
I’ve decided there’s no such thing as pure Christianity. All the sects and sections and heresies and whatever you want to call them … have their information filtered through at least 2000 years of politics and history. So much of the doctrine is based on so-called analysis that doesn’t take the culture of the time into account. How much of Jesus’ or Moses’ or Popes’ teachings were shaped by the time in which they were taught?
I have an idea regarding the priesthood. Women aren’t allowed to be priests/bishops in most of the “traditional” Catholic-style churches. I say priest because that word tends to be more restricted in its use than “pastor” or “deacon” or other such titles. The church has put this in place more or less because all of Jesus’ disciples were male. Two thousand years ago, how many women were independent? How many could simply drop whatever they were doing and run off to follow the latest and greatest religious figure, and avoid being stoned to death or spat upon or any of a number of icky fates?
Transcending and mind-opening and thought-provoking as Jesus was, he was still a product of his time.
Take a look at the Old Testament with the description of the Vault of Heaven or whatever it’s called. Genesis goes into great architectural detail as to the nature of the universe. Metaphorically speaking, it was a great way of figuring out the way the world works. But I suspect that it was written in tangible terms (a great arch spanning the land….etc) in order to be well-understood by the people he was teaching.
I heard somewhere that “Seven Days” was originally “Seven (hebrew word meaning ‘period of time’)” — opening up that great sewer of Creation vs. Evolution. Mr. Vorac (of Villanova fame up to June 2001) had a great idea — distinguishing between figurative and literal speech in the Bible — but even he didn’t follow it. He got caught in the quagmire in the first month, when we endured Genesis. Seven Days or seven periods of time, epochs, eras, ages? A great vault or the various layers of ___-spheres around the earth? There are so many ways to interpret it.
I can’t wait until someone harnesses wormholes and we can go back to observe what Jesus was really like. Steven lent me a great book about it, can’t remember the title, but it had a good theory about Jesus and wormholes. I made the mistake of reading it while I was at Villanova, and it just made me step back and look at the way culture of the time shapes philosophy and religion.
I guess my basic religious method is to take it ALL in. Science, history, doctrine, belief, culture. Find a balance among what was originally taught, how its time affected its expression, how intervening time has molded it since then, and what kernels of original concepts are still applicable today. I’m just more of a big picture kind of spirit, not a “Gospel Truth” kind. I like knowing why and how, not just that it is.
Okay, NOW I’m going to go eat, after 16 minutes of discourse. Hope you’re happy, all you seculars and religious and agnostics and atheists and neo-druidics out there. Go find your truth, but make sure you can defend it against history and science before you try evangelizing.
Food is good. Me go find food.
Alleged Food.
We pledge allegiance to the tray that carries our daily sustenance. And to the card, that holds our swipes — one housing complex, under Davis control, inexplicable,
with stinky food and long lines for all.
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