Of all the Biblical comments on judging, this one spoke to me:
Proverbs 31:9 NIV – Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.
There’s a lot of Biblical stuff about judgment and mainly, it’s about not judging others because you too can be judged and not necessarily how you would prefer. But that’s not the whole story.
There is also a lot of stuff about defending the poor and needy. Taking care of the poor and the helpless. Feeding the hungry. And for failing in this obligation, you can definitely be judged by God and by man and by pretty much anyone. Because these things are part of what makes us human and neglecting them makes us beasts. Actually, I think most beasts are rather nicer than the most of the “men” who rule (?) us.
Nonetheless, there are terrible people in powerful positions in our society. Although I don’t personally judge individuals — friends and family, for example — I figure that those who seek power and especially those who seek power by vote gathering or other less worthy means, deserve to be judged. They asked for it. They strove for it. Now it is our turn. You asked us to give you power, you must be judged on the basis of how you use it.
They have set themselves up as standard-bearers for others, so how can they pretend they haven’t earned the right to be judged?
If you seek power and get it, you will be judged. Power demands judgment. That’s the deal, your covenant with your world. You can’t claim power but also claim freedom from the judgment of others.
Tyrannosaurus rex was big and ferocious, but it had tiny arms. The story of how T-Rex lost its arms is pretty simple. But what’s complicated is the story of why it kept those little limbs, and how it used them.
I got a new camera. Having given my favorite camera to Garry, I realized I need at least one long lens. After a lot of checking, it turned out to be far less expensive to get a whole camera than a long lens for the Olympus. The Olympus lens is not only more expensive, it was also much slower. And, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t use it much, either.
Testing, testing …
I bowed to reality. Fortunately, the price on the camera I wanted had dropped by half since I last looked at it. This probably means Panasonic is going to make this model obsolete and introduce another which will cost more, but not necessarily be better — or even as good — as this one. I have lost faith in new models as improvements over earlier versions.
It was really hot today. Humid, too. Normally I’d have “gone out” to shoot with the new camera, but at 100 degrees (37.8 for your metric folks) and nearly 100% humidity, it felt like hot soup outside. I took a few garden shots, then went back inside for the air conditioning. I don’t like winter, but I really hate hot and humid.
It’s the Duke!
This heat won’t last long. Less than a week, then it will cool down. For the beach bunnies, this is perfect weather for a long holiday weekend. I burn easily and heat stroke is my favorite warm weather activity, so I’m happy in the A/C. Garry claims to love hot weather, but I notice he’s not outside, either. I think when you reach our age, extremes in temperature are unhealthy.
We got our boat in the water right on time this year, in early May. But the weather wasn’t acting like spring. It was rainy and cold a lot. Tom didn’t care. He’d go sit on the boat in the rain. He says, “It’s a boat. It’s waterproof!” That’s not for me. I stayed home while Tom went and sat on the boat in the lousy weather.
Now it’s feeling like summer and I’m getting into the rhythm of boating. Some days we just go to the marina for a few hours, often without the dogs. But when there are several nice days back to back, we pack up the dogs and move to the boat. It’s like going to a floating beach house.
Living on the boat feels like a vacation. We’re only a half hour away from home. So in some ways, it makes no sense that we feel like it’s such a big and positive change from our everyday life.
But there’s something cozy and fun about living in a mini house. The small kitchen and bathroom are challenges – but fun challenges. Cooking on the small three burner stove often has to be done in installments because I can’t fit three pots on the stove at once. I can’t boil pasta, make sauce and cook meatballs at the same time as I do at home.
Creative juggling gets the job done – eventually.
We grill a lot at home. But we aren’t allowed to use a grill on our boats at the marina. Instead, there’s a communal grill for each dock. You often have to wait your turn to get to it, so we don’t rely on grilling too much on the boat. We tend to order out or go out to eat more. It’s part of the sense of being on vacation when you don’t have to cook as much as you do at home.
Since we are all living in a smaller space on the boat, we end up spending more time together with the dogs than at home. At home, the dogs spend a lot of time outside in good weather. And they love to go from room to room, sofa to sofa. On the boat, there’s only one sofa for them to crash on. And that’s where I spend most of my time.
While we do similar things on the water that we do at home, such as reading and writing, it feels different on the water. Among other things, the dock is a more social environment than in our rather isolated house in the woods. When boats go out or come in, everyone rushes to help. It’s dock etiquette. There is a very strong current in the river at the marina, so getting in and out of our slips can be a tricky affair.
After helping a boat in or out, the people on the dock hang out and chat. The same thing happens when we walk the dogs. We end up chatting with people on their boats as we traverse the dock to get the dogs to the parking lot and the dog walking area.
Then there are the invitations for drinks and the time spent relaxing on each others’ boats. Most things are impromptu, spur of the moment affairs. You never know who will be on their boats when you’re there.
We recently had a wake-up call, reminding us that boat travel can be dangerous. Our good friend took her boat out in bad seas. She got banged around so much, her swim platform literally broke in half and her radar unit broke away from its hinges. If the swim platform had come off ITS hinges, the boat would have started to take on water and sink in the middle of Long Island Sound!
She was lucky and dodged a major bullet!
imagine a swim platform, like this one, split in half, lengthwise
My friend was very shaken, as were we. When you are alone out on the water, you are dependent on weather and water conditions. And there can be lots of unpleasant surprises. The key to boating safety is knowing when to leave the dock and when to stay put. The go or no-go decision is the most important thing a Captain does.
But no matter how careful and conservative you are, you can get caught in unexpected and dicey conditions. It’s happened to us but we never suffered as much damage to our boat as our friend did. We have had some very rough and scary trips. We’ve reached our destination with things flung all over the boat – furniture, contents of drawers, anything not tied down! I’ve had to crawl along the floor to keep a chair from heading off the boat when our gate broke loose!
Fortunately, I’m very happy on the dock! I don’t need to go somewhere in my beach house in order to enjoy it. I like hanging out at the marina and taking short day trips. Our friends and family are happy with this routine as well. So this is what we do most of the time. It’s not what all boaters do, but it’s fine for us.
Birds look either great or awful in black & white. Much depends on the background. If it’s busy with trees and all sorts of other jungle, it can be very difficult.
So I went for the simplest construction — birds against the plainest background I could find.
The wan in the riverBlack-crowned-night-heronWhitensville PondSilhouettesA great blue heron
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Nonetheless, there are terrible people in powerful positions in our society. Although I don’t personally judge individuals — friends and family, for example — I figure that those who seek power and especially those who seek power by vote gathering or other less worthy means, deserve to be judged. They asked for it. They strove for it. Now it is our turn. You asked us to give you power, you must be judged on the basis of how you use it.
