The Plumbline

Do you know the difference between a telescope, a microscope, and a horoscope. Each has a purpose in this world, unique in he power each has to reveal something to us. Many scientists understand the purpose and function of the microscope - while the astronomer has a vast knowledge of the possibilities of the telescope. The man or woman without much hope, grasping for something by which to "predict" their day's outcome might turn to the horoscope, but let me just say this is the one 'scope' that you should not really spend your time focusing on. I did a word search to find out how many words in the English language contain the word "scope". I was surprised to find 108 words! Some are for medical purposes, others for the discovery of movement, still others for the purpose of focusing on distance. There are scopes to predict the presence of electrical current, explore hidden spaces, and even to predict the changes of temperature. What became very ap...

The hot monsoon season is upon us in Arizona, meaning very high temps and lots of humidity. For those of you that already live in a humid area, you know how stifling high temps can be in combo with humidity climbing. There are lots of things that stifle us in life, but when you begin to feel like every step you want to take is being held back, like every dream is crushed right before your eyes, or there is some force just standing in the way of you moving forward, your spirits get a little 'forlorn'. The feeling you experience is like the walls are somehow "closing in" around you - like you can palpate the very space you occupy on this earth as getting smaller and smaller! In the most literal sense, being stifled means something similar to being choked out, much like we'd "choke out" a campfire. You smother it with something like dirt long enough and in sufficient quantities until it just has no way of receiving the very thing it needs to continue on ...

Back in the day I decided to get healthy and that included finding a jogging partner. At the time, we were living just outside of an Air Force base, so there were lots of families there who had spouses with time on their hands. I found a friend whose hubby was home in the morning and worked a later shift on the base at his appointed post. That meant she and I could hit the paths early in the morning before it got too hot in order to do our runs. The running did not last long, though, as my friend's husband was reassigned to another base not long after we started our endeavor. One of the things I found interesting about running with her was that she jogged and I ran. There is a difference, you know. Jogging is kind of at a more leisurely pace - running has longer strides and a very determined pace. As a result, I was frequently out ahead of my friend, just running at speeds she could not match. That meant I had to slow down a little at times, and even stop and run in place at others...