Penstemons

Penstemons are a straight stalked plant that makes some very pretty flowers. The flowers come in a variety of colors (the ones we have range from a light pink to the deeper red pictured above) and are common in many regions.

When they aren't flowering, they can look (to the uninformed) a bit like a plant that may not belong in the yard. Some refer to such a plant as a weed.

This is what happened to me when I was asked to go out to weed the yard some time ago. All these green things were growing. Some belonged, some did not. Not knowing which was which, I gleefully tossed weeds about like the reaper felling his wheat or a Gatling gun mowing down rows of bloodthirsty savages.

That was when I learned what Penstemons were.

Sometimes we try to get rid of weeds, but we can, if we are not careful, get rid of the flowers too, in our attempt to clean up the yard.

Artistic

Hail to the Artist!
The author, the poet, the painter and such
The musician, the sculptor,  the singer
that moves us so much.

Hail to you dreamers!
May your ilk never fade.
As you inspire with pen, brush and note
And remind us all with the lands that you've made;

That the place we are in,
With its troubles, it's pressures, it's rush and its din
Is not the only place we will ever be
And is not the only place we've been.

Emotions of Leadership

Here's something good to know, if you are in any sort of leadership role:

When leaders come into the room, they will always evoke one of only two emotions. They will either bring fear or they will bring joy.

While some leaders like having their troops and charges fear them, it doesn't hurt to remember that if people fear you they will hide things from you. Their ideas, observations, insights, facts and circumstances will not be shared freely with you.

So, which emotion comes with you and your leadership?


- The two emotions are adapted from an idea I heard from Perry Noble, to quote my source.

Hashtagivism

Hashtag Activism

You know what it is. We find something we are passionate about, or moved by or want to change. 

What can we do about it?

We can make sure the world knows how important it is to us. We can raise awareness. We can pop up a hashtag'ed statement on social media to let the world know that we are aware of the injustice and, dammit, we are gonna let someone else know about it too!

I recently heard that one of the founders of the "occupy" movement decried this type of hashtag activism as being one of the downfalls of the occupy movement. Many were wanting to make a change, so they did something about it. They tweeted, posted and voiced a quick blurb about how they were in the game. Since they felt like they'd made a difference, they went on with their lives, then wondered why the change they craved never came to fruition.

I am not a fan of the occupy movement, but I do wonder if I've ever fallen prey to thinking my hashtagivisim has at all changed the world. Have I tossed out a quick "I support you" post, and thought that would take the place of doing something real and making an impact in a meaningful way.

As for you occupiers make sure you hash tag it up. As far as I'm concerned, that's all we need out of you.

Doomed for want of an egg!

Alarming! Shocking! Controversial!

If you haven't heard, an expert panel at the FDA has recently issued a new set of dietary guidelines reversing the adamantly held previous guidelines regarding the so called dangers of eating foods with fat, cholesterol and other foods that, for years, the government has told us were bad for our health.

 For those of you that have always trusted the government and made sure your omelettes were egg white omelettes or tried to lose weight by eating a "healthy" high grain diet, this might be a big surprise.

 For those that have looked at the research, this is not really anything new.

Others will continue to throw up their hands in the face of this information and not what to do with it, other than to say, "Well, something is going to kill you, so why worry about what you eat?".

These are, perhaps, the same people that don't use car seat because, "These kids are gonna die one day anyway. May as well be from being ejected through the windshield in a minor traffic accident." 

Or they might say, "Well, I'm gonna die from something. so why bother disconnecting the electricity before I install my ceiling fan?".

Maybe they really don't care, or maybe they don't really think what they eat will kill them.

Reality is that diet strongly effects health and many have died from an improper diet. We can eat better and be better stewards of the body we have been given and maybe decrease the chances that our death will be because of how we treat ourselves.

I suppose we can start by looking at the new dietary guidelines, even if they are somewhat behind the times: 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines

Reefer Madness

Our lovely house in the Sacramento area, where we bought our last refrigerator.




Finding ourselves in need of a little more cooling and freezing space, we recently replaced our 17 year old refrigerator. In the midst of our looking and switching out and all that, Diane reminded me of this:

A few years ago (it was nearly 6 years ago now) a call came in to the local emergency services/911 dispatch. What was the big emergency? A refrigerator was left in an abandoned lot. Not only that, but the doors were still on it! With nothing to keep them closed.

When this was made known to my coworkers, many of them had no idea why this would be a problem. Apparently, this is only something we old timers know about.

Have you ever been warned of the dangers of a refrigerator in an abandoned lot?

In other news, we do have a fully functional Maytag for sale. Cheap.

Two we went to last week

We don't ordinarily go out to the movies, certainly not first run ones that set us back a good $30 or so. But the Brother and Sister in Law were in town and I really wanted to see 13 Hours, and God's Not Dead was a preview type screening. So, here are some thoughts on the two:

I know the critical reviews of this are mixed, some mainstream critics love it and some are less than impressed. I thought it was great. Although it was frustrating and made you want to lace blame on someone for the mistakes that were made, it was a great picture of how you can be frustrated and wanting to know who is to blame, but only after you face what's in front of you with what you got and do the best you can.

The real people portrayed in this film felt that it put you back "there", in the action. Being a veteran, a shooter and having a little bit of tactical training, I can say that this film seemed to be as close to "real" as you can get. 

And, it showed a group of guys that weren't required to dive into what they did, but they did it anyway. I was gonna say that they did not "have to" do what they did, but I don't think, in that situation, these guys could have not done what they did. These are guys that could not sit idly by when they knew they could help. And that is inspirational.

So, this is a movie that is realistic, frustrating and inspirational. I think I will see it again soon.

Here are some interviews with the actors from Rotten Tomatoes

Here is the link to one of the men who was grievously injured and started a non profit to aid contractors like them that are injured or lose their lives while serving for us in places like this:

Shadowwarriorsproject.org

This movie, is, of course, completely different than the last. It is the sequal to the surprise success, "God's Not Dead".

Like that movie, it pits angry non-Christians (this one includes so called Free Thinkers, Atheists, and the ACLU) against a believer that has the audacity to share scripture. Unlike the last one, this one does not do so in an effort to share personal beliefs, rather as an answer to a student asking to compare Jesus to Ghandi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King JR.

I won't give away the plot details, but it also includes the idea of Pastor's being subpoenaed by the local municipality to provide sermon transcripts to ensure "hate speech" is not included in what they teach, a teacher hauled off to court for answering the question in the paragraph above and a fun group of recognizable characters.

Among the luminaries in this feature: Pat Boone, Fred Thompson in his final role, The Newsboys, Robin Givens, The guy that you are not sure where you know him from until you realize he was one of The Ghostbusters, Lee Strobel and others you might know.

While this is highly dramatized and not based on any true stories, the movie provides at the end a list of cases that are similar to the details in this movie. And, in spite of the ridiculous idea of sermons being monitored and policed by the government (we are allowed Free Speech, which includes hate speech, right?), municipalities have recently been in the news for this very thing and recent polls have shown that increasing numbers of people are good with free speech being limited if it offends people (here). So the idea of Christians being singled out, ridiculed and silenced is not all that far fetched. Nor should it be a new idea for Christians.

So, I enjoyed both movies. One is already in theaters. Go see it today. The other comes out right after Easter. Invite me to go see it with you.