The Plumbline

Galileo once said, "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." Nothing could be more truthful than those words. We often want to understand the truth, but we do very little to actually discover it. I like watching those shows on how things are made. They are on my list of viewing options at least two to three times a week and there are times when I am just amazed to find out how things are put together, what goes into making a particular object, or how much work goes into the creative process behind the object we see as the end result of someone's intense labor. For example, I had absolutely no idea how much work goes into the making of some of those little cones of incense we once saw so prominently sold during the 60's and 70's. They are less popular today with the introduction of these "oil diffusers" and "wax melting pots" we see marketed now, but back in the day they were the thing we...

I have a power outlet in the garage right behind where I have placed a small freezer to assist in storing meats and extra items I buy up on sale.  It is in a very convenient place, at a very convenient height (don't even have to bend down to plug in), and it is clearly recognizable as a power source.  Shortly after moving into this house some years back, I placed the freezer there.  It wasn't until one day, late after work that I came to realize an issue with the power source.  I did not realize it was connected to the GFCI plug in my bathroom. As we made our way through getting ready in the morning, it was not uncommon to trip the GFCI with the plugging in of hairdryers, curling irons, etc.  We just hit the little red button and reset the thing, moving on with our morning grooming tasks.  Unrealized, we had inadvertently tripped it at the end of our morning process, not bothering to reset the thing because we were all done in the bathroom and it didn...

Sometimes peace is not the absence of noise, but rather the "ordering" of the chaos within the noise so we begin to hear clearly and find the answers we seek. John F. Kennedy may have said the following about the absence of war, but it bears truth we all need to consider: " Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures ." He might have been talking about how nations and peoples stop fighting against each other, taking up the stand of peaceful resolution to their issues, but it is this idea of peace being a process of gradual change, the removal of barriers, and the erecting of new structures in their place which really tells us a great deal about true peace. It isn't the absence of movement or thought - it is the "putting into right order" the actions one takes or the way one begins to consider a matter before them. Don’t be anxious about things; inste...