garbage dumps and graveyards

I am quite proud of myself.  This past weekend I ripped out three major appliances from our kitchen (a refrigerator, an oven, and a dishwasher), and I somewhat successfully re-installed new versions of each appliance.  All three appliances now work, but my wine cooler now does not work...go figure.

But that's not really what I want to talk about.

What I want to talk about was the experience of taking the aforementioned old appliances to the garbage dump.  As I made the turn into the city dump, in the remote area where we live, I could see Sea Gulls and Ravens circling in a hallow of surveillance and demise.  The smell of the garbage was sweat and spicy at the same time (a reminder of the smell of India).  The dump workers were kind but stoical, each of them imbued with a deep sense of finality.  Their faces read the tell tale signs of resolution and understanding, almost as if to say, "Here is where all things come to an end."  

In short, I loved the experience.  I love garbage dumps, and I love graveyards.

There is a quiet peace about both places.  It is a peace that stems from garbage dumps and graveyards.  It's the end of the quest for upward mobility, eternal happiness, new appliances, better appliances, better stuff, more stuff...

So, here's my homework assignment for you all, visit a garbage dump or a graveyard sometime in the next month...it will do your soul good! Happy Halloween!

All for Now,

GB

God and Football

This won't be the most edifying blog-post I have ever written, but it will offer some insight as to what I have been upset about lately.  Boise State University is the best football team in the entire country, they hale from a middle-class farming town, they aren't connected to th entrenched establishment of football in this country, and therefore will not be playing in the National Championship Game.

I should begin by saying that I was raised in Boise for 12 years of my upbringing, and, growing up as a child of modest means, the only thing to do in Boise in the 1970's was fish for mud suckers in the canals around the town perimeter, and go to football games to watch the Broncos play - a team who were, at that time, only a little bit better than a Jr. High girl's field hockey team....

I could spend some time in this post complaining about the fact that no other team wants to play Boise, who is a great team, because they don't want to run the risk of losing to the Broncos, and effecting their own win loss record.  I could lay out arguments about how the Boise football scenario is emblematic of an entire elitist class structure in this country that usually keeps people in middle and low income areas trapped in poverty and marginality.  I could ask the question of why we even have a National Championship game at all (the BCS), and why college sports has devolved into a commercialized empire that is today more about money than educational opportunity.  I could ask the question of why we have decided to pick a National Champion based on a computer polling system, rather than the opinions of real live human beings....

But I won't

I am just going to commit this whole thing to God, and know that our God (Jesus Christ) came to a place and a town not so different from Boise, Idaho to minister to people who nobody else wanted to play a sporting event against.  And he made them, and all of the rest of us, winners in the process!

All the For Now,

GB