Cube 4 very large, or six medium or eight small potatoes in to half inch cubes. In a huge frying pan heat six tablespoons olive oil to meduim, start to fry 4 dried chilis and a tablespoon black mustard seeds (yellow will do in a pinch). When the seeds start to darken, add 2-6 cloves crushed garlic, a tablespoon chana dal and a tablespoon urad dal (dals are indian for split peas, if you cannot find these use just a tbsp of dried yellow split peas.) Keep frying until the dals are golden. Add all the potatoes, salt and pepper to taste, and scraping up all the goodies on the bottom of the pan keep mixing until the potatoes are coated with oil and seasoning. Cover and let cook, using a metal flipper to scrape the potoatoes off the bottom and mix them about every 5-8 minutes. It should only take 20 minutes or so for the potatoes to be cooked, they should get soft and browned on the outside. Taste one to see if it is ready. Serve with a green salad and curried spinach and tomatoes, which I will post tomorrrow.
Today we went for two long walks up in the hills behind out property. We found trails, and walked probably 2 miles each walk. I made sure to stretch my ankle each time, and it felt fine, although it got very tired after the second walk. Tom loved it, he took his sword and hacked any undergrowth which got in our way. It was really cute, he got on his blog and wrote about protecting the biscuit queen! It was a beautiful day, just the right temp, and not too many bugs out yet. We saw several rabbits, startled a herd of deer (they are noisy and huge up close with no windshield to separate you!) and found beautiful flowers ~mallows, ranunculous, hawthorn,
and apple.
Tom has a grand plan to walk to my friend's home in a city 90 miles away. He thinks if we walk 10 hours a day, and camp at night, we can make it in 3 days. I thought a trip to the hardware store first would be in order, 4 miles away. He has big dreams, that one.
Nick had a dentist appointment and I had a half an hour wait. They had Cosmopolitan on the table, so being curious and cynical after the last two movie expiriences I had I started reading it. Now this is a family dentist's office, where many times moms make appointments with their kids. How many times have I been in the chair when my kids were out in the waiting room reading?
There was 10 secrets how to wow him in bed, how to give a good tongue bath, a story, with illustrations, on how the vagina worked and how it could expand to accomodate any size penis, vaginal farts, is spit a good lubricant? and there were several explicit erotic stories, plus the usual array of half dressed models, rape scare articles (if you storm off mad it could be the last thing you do), and consumerism.
Now if grown women want to buy this drivel then go right ahead, but in the dentists office? And since many of these topics are sexual, shouldn't this be in a brown wrapper on the top shelf? They might as well put Playboy out, because there was no content difference.
I have an appointment next week and I think I am going to bring the issue up front with one of the inappropriate articles out. I am betting that a single woman brought that in, and no one else has read it.
Or maybe no one cares?
Has anyone read Dr James Dobsen's Raising Boys? He talks about the pressures facing boys today, including the rampant sexual culture and relative morality. I sit here terrified because I have already seen everything he spoke about. I have been writing about it and doing things about it (like killing the tv), but to see it all laid out in one book like that just makes the task of raising my boys seem so difficult. He does give great pointers on how to handle things though.
I have decided to start saying grace at meals (part of the solution). Tonight I ate after the boys because I had clients over. So I say down by myself and started to say grace. Tom asked me what I was doing and I told him. He actually asked me what is he supposed to believe, since there is death, disease, sickness and pain. Why is God so great if all those exist? ! Wow. I told him I asked those same questions at his age, and my parents said "because I said so" and "You do too believe in God". Oh, THAT changed things-not!
I talked a little about how bad things must exist or we wouldn't appreciate the good. I also mentioned how free will means there will be bad things. But I just didn't know how to answer well. He asked how I knew those things and i said i read a lot and observed what went on around me. I told him we will have to go ask the priest, that is what he is there for. I will be interested to see what he says. Tom was very mature about it, I was impressed.
What do you think about faith? Are anyone of you guys religious? I used to think that religious was brain washing, I was a complete athiest in the college years, but the older I get the more I believe. Is raising healthy, responsible children who feel they have a meaningful life possible without faith in a higher being?
How do you start talking about faith, even within your own family, without embarrassment? My family went to church every Sunday, said Grace at every dinner, and said the children's prayer every night, but we lived without faith. These were rote mechinations which labeled us good Catholics, but we never talked about God. To this day I am embarrassed to bring up God because i feel I am shoving my faith down other people's throats. Even now I wonder if the few who come here will run since I brought up God.
It is sad that we can feel comfortable with the kind of message that Cosmopolitan delivers, yet to speak of saying grace is an embarrassment.
This Saturday’s Recipes by The Pioneer Woman
3 years ago
19 comments:
Faith isn't about others, it's about yourself, but I think faith is in many ways a learned feeling. Before you talk to Tom about it, think about your reasons for feeling the way you do. In your example, it appears that when you're feeling embarrassed about something it's because you're remembering your feelings when your folks did the 'required ablutions' that all good Catholics did in the day.
What were you embarrassed about? The fact that your folks were religious or the fact that you felt they were hypocritically religious? The fact that you said prayers at every meal or the feeling that those prayers were habit more than belief?
Here's the kicker... were your parents doing anything wrong? Certianly they failed to successfully communicate their faith to you, but as parents we all know that sometimes it's VERY difficult to teach our children. We want so much for them to understand, but our own human failings too often get in the way. You do what you think is right and hope it works out. Your parents lived in a world where habit created reality, a good Catholic was good because of what they DID as well as what they believed. Was there really anything there to be embarrassed about?
Faith is a POWERFUL thing, it has changed the world over and over again. The questions I've struggled with over the years have to do with how we live it, how we FEEL it and communicate it in our daily lives.
Is faith tied inexorably to a structured religion... do you NEED to associate with 'Catholic' or 'Hindu' or 'Muslim' to have faith?
Is it a parents duty to indoctrinate their children in any particular system of belief or should we teach spirituality along with a respect for life, others and self in a way that transcends human organizations?
Do we go to church or sit and watch the swallows skimming over the lawn for an hour.
Is it better to fold hands and say a 1 minute prayer at night with our children or to spend 20 minutes reading to them? What do you think THEY are learning in each case?
HOW do we communicate a belief in God? Is it through a ceremony or by watching the sun play on the ground under a stand of ancient oak, or maybe by watching apple blossoms falling through a warm afternoon breeze to the music of a thousand honeybees.
Be careful with the potatoes, if you overcook them they get mushy.
miss ya
Hi BQ
I was sitting in a mall about 6 years ago, having a coffee. Across the isle was a large chain bookstore and up front was a bargain book display. What caught my eye was a book called "Would you Believe?" by Tom Harpur. A small red jacketed harcover book, a picture of a lit candle the only art work.
I surprised myself by actually buying the book! The subtitle caught my attention: I can't remember it, but it was about how it was possible to not lose one's intellect and reason, yet still become a believer. Facinating!
Harpur described a person walking alone through nature somehwere and getting totally blown way by the experience and feeling this urge to express gratitute for the experience. Wow! When I read this, I was sitting atop my mountain enjoying the peace and solitude... and I had had just that same feeling wash over me... intense need to express gratitude. Harpur's kicker was this: just who are you expressing this gratitude to? He says we are hard wired to believe in a deity because there IS a God! We feel hunger because there is food; thus, we feel a need to worship because there is a God.
Harpur is a Rhodes scholar and an ordained minister. I've read several more of his books. Compelling stuff! But, I've gone off focus..
I began to accept that maybe there is a God after all. Long story short: all behavior has purpose and all behavior generates consequences. My buying that one little book (it fits easily into a jacket pocket)had a powerful effect on me. Since then, my life has gone around the block and back again, and I'm not sure just what I believe anymore. But my brother, wow! I passed the book to him, he read the book, but it turned out to be the beginning of what has become a strong Christian faith! Becoming a Christian has strengthened his family and smoothed out his life in many ways. He's a much happier camper than he has ever been, and I am happy for him and his family. He never pushes God on me, though.
Anyway, BQ, just wanted to check out your blog site as I noticed on SYG that you were planning on getting one going. Wasn't planning to write, gotta go..take care.
I think Christianity can not just be described as a 'faith' but as a culture and it's one that has caused Western Civilization, (which is the youngest and the smallest numerically speaking of ALL the major civilizations) to successfully become the greatest civilization in the world...
The bottom line is nothing happens in this world without the imput/permission of our civilization...and I mean nothing...that's what the whole point was of the collapse of communism and the 'End of History'...in other words the systems we've built will be what every other civilization strives to obtain...that's the future...no new 'ism' but capitalism, democracy governments, free markets with big public benefits safety nets to catch those who can't compete, etc.,
People need to appreciate Christianity more and what it's done for Western civilization instead of all this garbage they keep talking about other cultures. I saw on SYG all that nonsense they were talking about homosexuality and how it's empowered men in other societies, that's ridiculous...
Are men in other societies better off then men here, not on your life they aren't...they might rule a small 'turf' inside their homes but they can't even decide who will rule their own countries, what religion they'll practice or not, what tv shows they'll watch or even who their enemies are...
They do what they are told or else...half of the men in those 'wonderful places' would sell everything they own to be allowed to move here...and many of them have since most of them after getting their education here refuse to go back home...
For instance, do you think for a MOMENT any of those societies would ALLOW a Mens Rights Movement that is so anti-establishment as this one to even EXIST...they would have already closed your websites and charged the owners with something already...
Please, let's get real here...
We are the culmination of Greek and Roman culture, their heirs so to speak...and in spite of the many complaints, we've done a damn good job of perserving and strengthing that legacy...until recently that is, but that's due to the fact that we're in declining numbers...and that I must blame on men...
As feminism can be blamed on them too, sorry to say...
Back to your point, I think your son senses that YOU really don't appreciate Christianity, that's why he doesn't...you need to re-examine your attitude to it and then you can look at his...
That's what I think...
Hi! Mr Anonymous is my hubby, btw.
Boy, I guess a few beers and a blog are the way to get you talking!
What am I embarrassed about?
The main thing is that I hate how go from one extreme to another. 5 years ago I considered myself an athiest. Do healthy people switch gears like that or am i still nuts? I am terrified of making this extreme.
I also have just felt that being Christian is hokey. It is embarrassing, it is so unenlightened and unPC. They brainwash their kids and try to tell everyone what to do and they are preachy and they are so goody goody and they have such big hair! (These all being my past perceptions of Christians.)
My parents did the things they had to, but it felt like they did these things only to look good. There never felt like there was any sincerity to it. They never went out of their way to help people, they did what was expected and no more. We didn't say a prayer, we mumbled a line so fast that no one could understand it. I had never even listened to what the meal prayer said until 2 years ago. It meant nothing. I have never had a real conversation with either of my parents about God. We never spoke the name God and certainly not the name Jesus unless it was in a preprogrammed prayer at the appropriate time. God is not in my vocabulary.
I do not blame my parents since my mother didn't regularly go to church as a child, and my dad never seemed comfortable talking about it. I think either they really just didn't have everyday faith, or they were of a generation where you just didn't talk about anything important with your kids.
I guess to me it is more important to stick your neck out and risk doing things than cling to small traditions which are safe and cheap. It is easy to mumble a poem every night before eating, it is harder to go visit someone who is sick, or give to charity, or voluteer in a school. But I cannot expect my parents to feel the same way.
I do think I need an organized religion, to guide my behavior. Organized religion is about gathering the wisdom of centuries and the word of God and trying to tell us the better path so we don't have to bumble along making every mistake ourselves. Today the lack of religion is a huge part of what makes it so easy for the rampant violence, sex, consumer and drug culture today. No one is telling people "Guys, this makes no sense and will only destroy you in the end- this is what is more important."
I am trying not to make faith cheap and meaningless. I am also trying to feel comfortable in this new role. I am dreading my family finding out because inevitable they will start teasing about my changing with the wind. I am embarrassed that I am not normal, that I have no clue what is inside my head half the time.
Tom is so serious about this kind of thing, which is good. I just feel a great responsibility to him to explain everything in a way that is both reverent and accessable.
Hey, according to the Bible this is your job, Dave! You know, the head of house and all ;-)
So how DO you live it daily without it becoming too familiar, which then means rote and meaningless?
Do you think it is better to be in church with your mind wandering and checking your watch or watching the swallow divebomb your tractor and thanking God for the beauty in this world?
Why is there church if it is not meeting the needs of it's people.
So don't laugh at me when you get home and watch me stumble through prayers. I am not very good at it yet.
Tom prayed that you stay out of trouble at school, btw!
No2 Fembots-Thanks for coming over! I am going to try and find that book, it sounds like something I need to read. I am really glad you posted, please feel free to come back and post more. It makes me glad to hear from other people who have gone from not believing at all to some kind of faith. This seems so simple in my head, whay is it so awkward telling others?
Exactly what trouble does he think I'm getting in? And how would that be different from the trouble I get into at home? Well... we do tend to drink too much, they had us playing QUARTERS tonight... it's been a long time since I played drinking games. Of course as a result I'm fairly toasted, so the rest of this post may make limited sense. :)
As you know, I think you and your folks have a lot of difficult history, and your incompatibility in some important ways is just futher illustrated by your clash of faith. My first post was to get you thinking about the disconnect, that if your folks HAD been the type of people who spent an hour watching swallows... YOU would have likely felt a connection more than you do, and that connection would have included a spiritual component.
Being a parent doesn't change who you are, and what does a parent do when they find one of their children who is simply unable to connect with them on a number of levels. It must be very painful. Luckily we have GREAT kids, challenging yes, but intelligent and inquisitive. Frankly I think your concern regarding 'flip flopping' is moot, your families opinion is not important, only your own feeling and of course the boys. As for myself, I plead guilty. After 14 years of christian education I know damn well what I SHOULD be doing. My problem is one of ambivelance... I'm having a hard time rationalizing faith in a human organization that claims exclusive ownership of my link to God. I DO see God in the world around me, in light and dark, in life and death... and I believe we have effectively communicated that to the boys. I think perhaps there may be value in organized religion as a structured way to communicate ideas about faith and God to the boys, but frankly I'm not impressed with much of what passes for organized religion today, and to be totally honest I don't TRUST the people in those organizations with something as important as the spiritual development of our children.
Regarding Christianity and Western Civilization... while I freely agree that the influence of Church has been a strong supporting influence on Western Civ, I would not go so far as to attribute the success of western civ. on the church. The foundations of Western Civilization are Greco-Roman, and those were both polytheistic societies (until Constantine anyway). The basis of government, philosophy, education, art, and so many other things we take for granted today are based on societies that existed before Jesus walked the earth. That's not to reduce the stabilizing influence of the church, but simply to put in into perspective, as a (on the balance) positive influence on a new kind of society.
One could just as effectively argue that it's the militant expansionist ideas that characterized the Roman Empire as contributing to the pervasive influence of western society. After all, if it had not been for the constant drive to explore and expand that Europe experienced during and post-renaissance, many parts of the world would have waited centuries before having any exposure to other cultures. While the Church was always involved, the driving forces behind exploration were entirely economic... and as I said, western economic theory is Greco-Roman.
Whew... well I'll have to check this in the morning and see if it makes ANY sense at all, quarter... sheesh you'd think I was 20 again. I'm getting too old for this, good thing this is my last year.
I don't think that we can credit everything or even most things good in Western Society to economics...that's very American thinking however. Regarding other issues, any help Rome's military expansions gave us was lost as the Dark Ages fell upon Europe...
I mean some people think if it weren't for the Dark Ages and the subsequent loss of most of our medical, scientific, even military technology, Europe would have ventured into space around the 14th century or so...
However I think the Dark Ages where Christianity really had time to take hold in Europe was really what 'made' us what we are today... Although I do consider us to be heirs of Greek and Roman thought, philosophy, governing institutions, etc., perhaps we are not quite legitimate heirs as I'm sure the Eastern half of the Roman and Greek empires thought that the Western half was finished after the invasions of the 5th century that we would just become an outpost for barbarians...
We almost did but I think our recovery and subsequent events ultimately proved them wrong...
"I also have just felt that being Christian is hokey. It is embarrassing, it is so unenlightened and unPC. They brainwash their kids and try to tell everyone what to do and they are preachy and they are so goody goody and they have such big hair! (These all being my past perceptions of Christians.)"
LOL...I know what you mean. I think we have those dear old televangelists and their wives to thank for a lot of that!
I also hear you about that sense of embarrassment. I'm a Southern Baptist myself (can I still stay? :-)) and I married into a family who believes, I guess (I know my husband does) but they're all extremely private about it. We're not in a church currently, although we plan to find one next year when the kids will be a little better prepared for the children's group, and right now I do miss my old church group where we were all very open about our faith and how we each sensed Jesus working in our lives. It was a setting where we could all share our different takes on the Bible and ourselves without fear of ridicule, which I think is what church was originally all about, that is, fellowship and support and encouragement for believers in the midst of a culture which was not always receptive and often hostile. And not all churches adequately meet this need for Christian fellowship, I know--I tried several before I found the right place. I hesitate to speak of these things to my in-laws as well because of just what you said, that is not their style and I might come across as preachy or goody-goody (which is not my intention, as I'm always acutely aware of my spiritual shortcomings and seldom ever feel equipped to tell others what they should do).
But as to living the faith daily without it becoming meaningless, to me it seems that when we reach out to Jesus He'll respond and live out that faith through us. What we have to do is be receptive to His leading and let it come out in our lives.
Whew! Did I really say all that? Hope I didn't turn anyone off but I'm just honestly sharing my experiences. Great discussion here.
Anne
I think people can be "religious' I guess for want of a better word without being specifically Catholic or Baptist...We have where I am an Ethical Cultural Society where services are held (mostly discussion about ethics in personal life and business, how to treat neighbors, friends, enemies, etc., ethically) and it can be used as a quasi-religious experience for children if you wish them to get some exposure w/o joining an organized religion.
I think kids need something like this more then adults for obvious reasons. I mean you can give them this sort of training alone, but it's much more difficult...
I missed the Catholic Church when I first left it and I was very involved with it. Heck I almost became a nun. I finally returned after about 15 years, but it was so changed, I realized I didn't even WANT to be a part of it anymore...
The rituals I had grown up with were all gone, no more mass in Latin, no more incense, all the hymns were changed, no more organ music, everyone was shaking hands with each other and they were playing a guitar in the background...
Crickey...
I got out just in time apparently...
I went to Catholic grade school and I remember those lovely hymns and the incense and the organ music and the candles. Very lovely and moving. Appeals somehow to that longing for a peek into heaven, I think. I was tempted to go Catholic myself for a while.
I love guitar music in church, though. Especially for informal worship and small group sessions. Even better by far is harp, but that's a rare treat.
Anne
Of course you can stay- I am really glad, Anne, that you did post that. If someone is offended then that is their problem, there is NO reason we have to be so embarrassed about believing in God. I am just so amazed that the same people who watch a Christina Aguilara video without flinching get offended at someone saying the name Jesus.
I just don't get it, and I, up until last year when we killed our TV, was one of them.
Now I am both grossd out by steamy videos and am embarrassed to talk about God.
But I am getting there.
So NYMOM, you thought about being a nun? What drew you to that path? Did you have good experiences in your childhood? Why didn't you do it?
So was it the PC Clinton years that did this to our culture? I remember being embarrassed as a kid, but it was more because Christians I knew were pretty hokey-I was trouble with a capital T right from the beginning.
Maybe this is more of a blue state phenominon?
I keep wanting to write more but I have been so tired. I am going to be early again (well, 10 isn't really early, but...)
I almost became a nun because since about the age of 5, I and all my siblings were raised by them...
My father abandoned my mother (after about 14 years of marriage and 8 children) and she couldn't care for us (back in the 50s, stay-at-home mother, no income, etc.,) so we were all placed in a Catholic home run by nuns...I lived there until I was about 14...most of the kids there had exactly the same history I did, few were real orphans, as most of their mothers came to visit them, but couldn't afford to care for them at home...their fathers had either died or abandoned their families...
Of course I was so grateful to them for being taken in (because before my father abandoned us he was very abusive) that I imitiated everything they did...
My mother winded up with an attorney for a boyfriend when I was about 14, so she went to court and I was eventually sent home to live with her (them really, but people weren't so open about living together then, so he kept a separate apartment)...
Eventually I didn't attend Catholic school anymore or even go to church on Sunday so I got sidetracked from that plan...but if I had stayed they had a program where at 16 you could begin study to become a novice with the eventual plan of entering the convent...
If my mother hadn't taken me to live with her when she did and put me in public school, didn't encourage church attendance, etc., I probably would have just gone into that novice program...
Although actually I found out later that many of the girls I knew who did go into it dropped out eventually...so who knows...
Wow. I am sorry yur dad was such an ass. As much as I think it is overused, the welfare system is designed just for those cases. What a shame she didn't have acces to that. The church did a lot of good things then, it sounds like it was a good expirience for you. Not ideal, but good.
Sounds strange to say, but I really believe that god doesn't do these things on accident. There was a real reason why you went to the home, but didn't go into the program. Perhaps your daughters?
What was it about the nuns you admired?
"Sounds strange to say, but I really believe that god doesn't do these things on accident. There was a real reason why you went to the home, but didn't go into the program. Perhaps your daughters?"
Perhaps...although a lot of girls I know who did become novices subsequently left anyway, so maybe it was the times...I guess it was just too limiting in this day and age to devote yourself to God and his work ONLY...
Actually though I think the biggest problem was that novices had never 'lived' before taking vows...I saw an interesting mystery series about a monk called Cadfael...he was a crusader, who fought in Jerusalem for years, never marries, but whores around like most soldiers probably did in those days...Anyway Cadfael is put to guarding a priest (captive for ransom) and the priest winds up convincing him to come back to England and eventually he becomes a monk...He's quite content afterwards in his very limited role there as he tends a garden of medicinal herbs for the other monks and some villagers...of course, also solving mysteries on the side as they come up...
It struck me then, that perhaps the church has the wrong idea regarding recruiting a priest or nun. They shouldn't be trying to recruit young people who never experienced life, but older ones who did...
What was it about the nuns you admired?
Very educated, self-contained women for the most part. I mean ONLY TWO of them took care of about 30 kids in each group...Looking back I don't know how they kept their sanity actually, particularly with the younger kids...
They even slept in a room down the hall from us in case one of us got sick in the middle of the night...
Some were not so nice, but for the most part they were and fortunately for us the not-so-nice ones were identified early and transferred somewhere else like kitchen duty or something...
"I don't think that we can credit everything or even most things good in Western Society to economics...that's very American thinking however."
Hmm... well I don't think that's what I was saying at all, there was a lot more to Ancient Greece and Rome than Economic theory... as I said earlier : culture, philosophy, education, art... and much more.
"Regarding other issues, any help Rome's military expansions gave us was lost as the Dark Ages fell upon Europe..."
I'm talking second order here, not that Roman Conquest led directly to some particular benefit for Western Civilization (although it did in a broad sense), but that in general, the expansionist philosophy of Rome stayed with us and gave rise to the great explorers of the Renaissance and beyond. Other advanced cultures (In Asia, the Americas, etc...) simply didn't have the drive to explore... a drive that was a central theme in Europe. Furthermore, those explorers were not generally driven by a desire to spread Christianity (although the Church was always right on the coat tails of exploration) but rather PRIMARILY by economic concerns. The pervasive influence of Western Civilization around the world today is linearly linked to those centuries of exploration and expansion.
"I mean some people think if it weren't for the Dark Ages and the subsequent loss of most of our medical, scientific, even military technology, Europe would have ventured into space around the 14th century or so...
However I think the Dark Ages where Christianity really had time to take hold in Europe was really what 'made' us what we are today... "
IMO it actually was the Renaissance that made us what we are today, and while I don't think the 'dark ages' were nearly as dark as some seem to think, there's no doubt that the Renaissance has more in common with Classical Western Civ. (Greco-Roman) than it does with the church dominated middle ages. It was the churches LOSS of power that was a prime motivator of the renaissance, and studying the middle ages provides enough evidence for the seperation of church and state that Western Societies have pushed the pendulum violently too far left IMO. Finally, I tend to think that the renaissance itself... far from being a 'new' state in the development of our society, could be described as a reawakening of the principles under which Rome and Greece existed, principles that were thought of as a threat to the church.
"Although I do consider us to be heirs of Greek and Roman thought, philosophy, governing institutions, etc., perhaps we are not quite legitimate heirs as I'm sure the Eastern half of the Roman and Greek empires thought that the Western half was finished after the invasions of the 5th century that we would just become an outpost for barbarians...
We almost did but I think our recovery and subsequent events ultimately proved them wrong..."
I think the Romans had a very one sided view of 'the barbarian horde'. I don't recall the historian but not too long ago I was reading about the fall of the Roman Empire, and he suggested that the invading tribes didn't so much want to destroy Rome as they wanted to enjoy the same lifestyle, they COVETED the lives of Roman Citizens, and they wanted IN. I subscribe to the inner decay theory regarding the fall of Rome, while outside pressures were fierce, it was decadence and loss of direction that destroyed them. Just look at the equipping of the Legions and you can see a steady decline in the empire. First centure Centurians were the scourge of the continent, in large part because they were the best equipped and trained forces in the known world. Just a few hundred years later they were being shabbily equipped and barely trained... a stunning fall and indicitave of very serious problems at the heart of Roman Socieity.
"I think the Romans had a very one sided view of 'the barbarian horde'. I don't recall the historian but not too long ago I was reading about the fall of the Roman Empire, and he suggested that the invading tribes didn't so much want to destroy Rome as they wanted to enjoy the same lifestyle, they COVETED the lives of Roman Citizens, and they wanted IN."
Boy that's scary if it's true since it could mean too many immigrants, even if just intent upon improving their own lives, can become such a burden on their host, that they cause the collapse of the whole entity...
AND I'm not thinking Rome here but the US...
AND why can't anyone give the Catholic Church credit for anything today...Europe would probably have ceased to be an entity, maybe eventually became like sub-saharan Africa is today, if it weren't for the church...
The Catholic monarchs who reconquered Spain from North African Moslems paid for Columbus's trek over here...they were trying to find a new route to the Indies as the old route was riddled with Moslem ports of call and no Christian ship could pass...
People who push back our salvation to the time of Greece or Rome and try to deny the Catholic's church's contribution to the success of western civilization have many ulterior motives...one of them is discrediting Christianity's oldest living 'relative' today, the Roman Catholic Church...I'm no longer a practicing member of it, but I still recognize the valuable contribution it has made to our civilization...we should give credit where credit is due in this case...
My honey is just so smart ;-)
"My honey is just so smart ;-)"
Oh is that your husband's handle...drengest ex flambeau...is it Latin???? What does it mean????I actually thought someone else had come over from SYG and named themselves that...
What does your husband teach at the university...is it history... because that was my major as well...
LOL! His handle is his name in Ars magica, a role playing game we play. Our characters are together, he is an impulsive fire mage and mine is a shape shifter names Imyramesha (Misha) who turns into a cat and rides on his shoulder. It is great fun.
He is at school getting his masters in Engineering Management. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering, and is a project manager right now. He has earned a 4.0 so far, and which I have to give him crap about since I have a 3.95 ;-(
He is the smartest man I know, not just because of the stuff he knows but his ability to see things objectively, and to see the whole picture.
I am one lucky woman.
My DH is an engineer, too. In fact, every really serious relationship I ever had with a man was with an engineer. Aren't they great?
Love their perfectionism, their logic, their reliability, their attention to detail (my hubby notices things that I would never see in a million years--good thing, too, as he's in aircraft and if he misses something, people die).
I'm a very lucky woman, too.
Anne
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