Beneath the Wraps

            We fed the missionaries on Friday though the air quality was not that great.   They did not seem to mind as we built and ate Hawaiian haystacks out on our porch and visited for a bit.   I’d given them containers to take home some food which they said they would give me on Sunday.   Sadly that was my main objective for going as I knew we haven’t returned to normal and I thought it would be depressing.   Only the speaker was allowed to remove his mask.   We were told we could sing but had to leave our masks on.   I chose not to sing as the smoke has been enticing me to cough. Several announcements were made before the bishop talked about how many of us are opinionated and often our opinions will put us into a box. There are a wide variety of boxes that exist – in our jobs, in our community, the way we serve (he didn’t say politics – but that is one I had thought of) . . . some people, such as the Pharisees, will...

                It's been a year since Jeanie passed - not that I dwell on dates when people died.   Her mom does.   She's always posting the birthdays and death dates of those who have passed on.   Some days are better for her than others.   I think some days may be worse for her than they were for Jeanie.   I can't say for certain since most of the correspondence I've had with them has been through facebook.   I didn't even have that with Jeanie those times that she not only unfriended me but blocked me as well.   Apparently, it was the medication disrupting her otherwise rational mind.   It not only shattered her own emotions, but I had allowed myself to become upset as well.   I may never know the entire scheme of things; I did learn so much more about her at her funeral than I had ever known about her before.         ...

        I've been quite emotional for the last couple of weeks or so.   Watching " The von Trapp Family: A Life of Music "   and seeing the horrors of bullying by supporters of Hitler. Crying over different stories featured in 60 minutes.   It's almost like five years worth of PMS took over.  What's up with that?             In my philosophy class, I was supposed to take a quiz and post my results about taking the quiz.  I just now finished the assignment of what I learned about contextualism or relativism and explaining the similarities between those and virtue ethics.  Actually, I am only supposed to pick one value and one ethic.  I am really quite confused by moral values - which, by the way, are part of my religious upbringing and NOT philosophy.             So I start off the discussion by sayin...