'Tis a puzzlement

Vermeer "Woman Writing a Letter with her Maid" (detail)

The sky is slate grey, and trees are bending and flailing in the wind. Some may fall, as did a big old white pine a week or so ago, with a crack and a whoosh and a ground-shaking thud. Every day is a little apocalypse in the country. Every day, everywhere, really, but here it's easier for me to notice. Life is change, and because we are pattern-seekers, we ask questions both sublime and ridiculous, to try to find rhyme and reason to it all.

Lately, I have been wondering:

What would happen - or not happen -  if I closed my Facebook pages? Would I stay in touch with people? Would they, with me?

Why is it assumed that proving and having a scientific basis for various phenomena therefore proves that there is no God?

Why do we get our knickers in a twist about whether or not Beyonce lip-synchs, and passively accept school music program budget cuts that will guarantee that the next generation won't even be able to record their own vocal track to lip-synch to?

Why is the conversation sound quality of cell phones so poor?

When driving is so damaging to the environment (gas and oil) and to our pocketbooks (gas, oil, tolls, insurance, registration fees), and we are being urged to use public transportation more, why are trains almost always more expensive (Amtrak, I'm looking at you) than driving?

Why does it matter who wrote Shakespeare's plays, when the amazing thing is that they were written at all?

Since when does "preaching to the choir" mean that you're talking to people who already agree with you? Has no one ever listened to choir room conversations?

And is there anyone who really, truly, honestly can't believe it's not butter?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Adi Braun]

Dear Laurel,

You are funny and poignant at the same time. I would definitely always stay n touch with you...facebook or no facebook!

Be well. Love, Adi

[Alicia Butler Todaro]

I'm the milkman's daughter, Of course that stuff is not remotely like butter.

I have been pondering why "proving and having a scientific basis for various phenomena therefore proves that there is no God?" Even though I am Deacon Alicia AND Dr T. ( in Chemistry) at the same time and all the time, I'm clueless. Is it to distance our science and our science from Genesis 1? Maybe the poor scientists have lost the poetry in their souls and the song in their hearts and have forgotten that there is much in this world than cannot be counted, measured, quantified or even explained.