Wednesday, July 20, 2011

http://youtu.be/uyYw0k--qNY


A couple of weeks ago, Dean and I went on a walk. A post-thunderstorm re-con mission, if you will. We found a nice bird nest that was blown out of a tree during the storm, and we thought we'd add it to the collection on the mantle. Dean didn't feel like carrying it on the rest of our walk, so he tucked it away in a short little dogwood tree in our neighbor's yard. So, we thought we'd pick it up on the way back. But, we forgot. So everyday when I walked by, I meant to get the bird nest. But I kept forgetting, until yesterday.

I reached through the branches and started to grab the bird nest. But there were two large, blue, brown-speckled eggs in the nest. So, I left the nest. I admit-I did think about taking it anyway.

So, today I decided to take another peek. Today there was one slightly cracked egg, and one naked, breathing, pink, little unrecognizable creature. Just as I leaned in, a whizzing noise swooped over my head and up into a tree. I looked up and saw a very fiesty, angry mockingbird.
Good thing I didn't take that nest.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Who is responsible for evil?

The Problem of Evil-Deal With It


There are a lot of things that are just bothersome or annoying that I get so aggravated about. For instance, many Saturday mornings I realize that I don't have any french vanilla creamer. My chai tea is horrible without creamer. This really makes me irritated. This always happens to me on Saturday morning when I want to just relax, read, and drink my tea. So annoying.

Then, there's a slightly higher level of annoyingness that happens when I get startled by something like a spider, snake, or benign little creature like a toad. I am not afraid, I just can't stand to be startled. I live in a veritable rain forest. Every insect, spider, creature is just bigger and better; more colorful and louder, scarier and varied. It is especially and most frightening when a large, hairy, and leggy spider is just hanging out in the shower curtain, and it startles me as I startle it.

But, I have especially had my nerves scraped lately by evil.

I know I have turned around a serious corner. I wouldn't be put off at all if I knew that you just closed this action down right now and didn't want to hear any more. There are times that I just don't want to hear it, can't stand to hear it, can't bear to hear it. I have chosen to not grieve. Why do I get to enjoy peace? That doesn't seem fair, does it? But to protect myself, I have closed the door on someone else's life event in order to preserve my own little cocoon of peace.

There are Evil Things that can't be ignored forever.

So, I'm battling my own beloved logical fallacies, here. That's what I mean when I say that I'm planning to deal with The Problem of Evil. I'm planning to deal with my own mistaken reasoning concerning other people's life events. Life events that have some element of, "evil." I don't feel quite ready to take on moral absolutism, moral relativism, or moral universalism, yet. But, I do want to deal with the problem of evil.