Monday, July 29, 2013

We've got Entirely too many Troublemakers here!

Red Squirrels
 
 
 
 
 
 
"Macavity"
Scottish Wildcat
British Wildlife Centre

Friday, July 5, 2013

Papa Hemingway: SoulCraftsman

Ernest Miller Hemingway
21 July 1899 - 2 July 1961
 
 
 
 
The Art of Manliness is authored by husband and wife team, Brett and Kate McKay. It features articles on helping men be better husbands, better fathers, and better men. In our search to uncover the lost art of manliness, we’ll look to the past to find examples of manliness in action. We’ll analyse the lives of great men who knew what it meant to “man up” and hopefully learn from them. And we’ll talk about the skills, manners, and principles that every man should know.
 
 
My idea for the Art of Manliness came about as I was standing in Borders bookstore looking at the men’s magazines. It seemed to me that the content in these magazines were continually going downhill, with more and more articles about sex and how to get six pack abs. Was this all there was to being a man?


And as I looked around at the men my age, it seemed to me that many were shirking responsibility and refusing to grow up. They had lost the confidence, focus, skills, and virtues that men of the past had embodied and were a little lost. The feminism movement did some great things, but it also made men confused about their role and no longer proud of the virtues of manliness. This, coupled with the fact that many men were raised without the influence of a good father, has left a generation adrift as to what it means to be an honourable, well-rounded man.



Shop Class as Soulcraft brings alive an experience that was once quite common, but now seems to be receding from society: making and fixing things. Those of us who sit in an office often feel a lack of connection to the material world and find it difficult to say exactly what we do all day. For anyone who felt hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, Shop Class as Soulcraft seeks to restore the honour of the manual trades as a life worth choosing.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Huldah That Thought...........

Huldah
a figurative quilt by
Textile Artist: Julie Dushack
 
 
 
'Tell Josiah, king of Judah, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord I truly have heard you."

 
 
Huldah is an incredible woman of God. She was called by God to be a prophet. She had a great reputation in ancient Israel. She did in fact exercise authority by the very nature of her ministry. She is the first person to declare a text scripture but she also interpreted and applied it to her day. She stands at the very heart of the Josiah narrative and in fact his reform movement was the result of her prophetic work. But the Chronicler also uses her to articulate one the central motifs of his entire work . . . The theme of mercy given to those who humbly seek the Lord.
 

Monday, July 1, 2013

The Pals Regiment: 14-18

"Gassed"
John Singer Sargent
 1918
 
 
 
I'm waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust
I'm breathing in the chemicals

I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus
This is it, the apocalypse
Whoa

I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my systems blow
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Whoa, whoa, I'm radioactive, radioactive
Whoa, whoa, I'm radioactive, radioactive

I raise my flags, don my clothes
It's a revolution, I suppose
We're painted red to fit right in
Whoa

I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus
This is it, the apocalypse
Whoa

 ~ lyrics Radioactive
Imagine Dragon

Country Home for Fallen & Friendless Women

 Lady Macbeth,
John Singer Sargent c.1889
 
 

 
 
Lately I been, I been losing sleep
Dreaming 'bout the things that we could be
But baby I been, I been prayin' hard
Said no more counting dollars
We'll be counting stars
Yeah, we'll be counting stars

I see this life
Like a swinging vine
Swing my heart across the line
In my faces flashing signs
Seek it out and ye shall find
The old, but I'm not that old
Young, but I'm not that bold
And I don't think the world is sold
I'm just doing what we're told
I, feel something so right
But doing the wrong thing
I, feel something so wrong
But doing the right thing
I could lie, could lie, could lie
Everything that kills me makes me feel alive
~ lyrics Counting Stars
OneRepublic