The oak desk was very old and very solid. The persian rugs covered an oak tongue-in-groove floor. The varnish was worn. A floor lamp stood by the desk. There was no room for a small lamp on the desk top. It was covered with books and papers. There was barely room for the coffee mug.

Father Alban looked up and thought about straightening up the mess, then went back to his book. It was something about the power of cosuffering love, by Archbishop Lazar Puhalo.

Fr. Alban was struggling with sorting out and describing the threads of social coercion that were dominating the currents of christian discourse. Much of this he found to be very unchristian, and so he was fascinated by the theme of co-suffering love.

Fr. Alban's draft for his own book was scattered across the desk. He wanted to explore the timelessness of God and how we participate in that timelessness through history. The Church teaches that there are two kinds of time. One is God's time, cairos, and the other is the time we experience that creates history, chronos. All of history and all of the future is present to God. This is in fact "eternity." The great arc of time, of history, has a beginning and an end. This arc is called telos, a greek word.

Fr. Alban had a habit of talking aloud when he was working on an idea. "I work, therefore I help. And when I am too sick or old to work, and others help me, I am helping knit together the whole of mankind. For those who need no one are in hell, and those who love are in heaven."

Marc had been standing quietly by the door. Fr. Alban looked up at him. "Well, I can work on it more later. Come on in, I want to show you something."

Buster and the Bamboo Bike

Here is the very cute dog whose name was almost "Beauregard Bugleboy, Man's Best Friend" ala Pogo. We call him Buster, otherwise known as "Mr. Friendly":


In other news (this is a non-sequitarian site, reader beware), having nothing at all to do with Buster:

Friends and Neighbors, this will blow your socks right off your feet! It's a bike frame made out of bamboo! See http://www.calfeedesign.com/pages/bamboolarge.php.

Further, if you google "bamboo bike," you will see references to do-it-yourselfer's building bamboo bike frames! I am so proud of these folks!

We have a patch of bamboo - I was thinking about bamboo flutes, but maybe I will have to plant more bamboo and expand my thinking.

Vera is already way ahead of me: What about a bamboo frame dog house?

Every poor son of this commonwealth

There is a statue in Sylvester Park, Olympia, Washington, of John Rankin Rogers.

Born in Burnswick, Maine, September 4th, 1838.

Died in Olympia, Washington, December 26th, 1901.

Twice Governor of Washington.

Philosopher and Statesman.

Author of the Barefoot Schoolboy Law, which gives to every poor son of this Commonwealth a fair education.

Governor Rogers' favorite motto:

"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."

Auriel Ragmon says:

We need a living wage, universal health care and education through college. We should be trying to make it feasible for more parents to spend more time with their kids. That is the way to support families and our society. Pay the inheritance tax and contribute to heritage. You can be very proud of yourself when you support our country this way. It is a great thing to help.