So I got out the manual. It’s a pretty good little manual and my eyes lighted quickly on something like “the vacuum will stop running if it is overheated.” There is a thermal protector. Yeah, the back end of the little canister felt pretty warm. In that event one should check the filter to see if something blocked it. So I read where the filter is and saw that I must remove the bag to get at the filter. To remove the bag I have to open the canister. Well, I’ve only opened it up once when I did the first and only bag change. I read how to open it and struggled to remove the hose from the canister, because that has to be done before one can get to the latch to open the lid. I was happy when I finally got that done. Of course it is easy once you know how the latch holding the hose works.

I felt around and found the latch to open the lid. And I saw mounds of dirt packed into the canister on top of a bag. Any idea what joy there is in cleaning that out?! Lots of joy. No wonder the outside indicator was still green showing that the bag was not yet full. There was nothing inside the bag, because no doubt I had misunderstood what “rotate the bag mount down” meant in the instructions for putting in a new bag. A little humiliation can be good now and then. Getting that mess out of there and cleaning the filter had the vacuum humming again. I’m so grateful for that thermal protector Kenmore put in there.

• At the time of the last life update we had waited about 3 months for the permit to put in a new drain field for our septic system. After another month we cancelled the job, got a refund, and found another company to start the process. They had a permit in 2 weeks and the job was completed a few days later. We may have been a bit too patient.
• I switched from flip phone to smartphone. The 2 posts on the saga begin here
• As a result of reading Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff I’ve been learning a bit of Bash scripting. In the video course I’m using (along with other material) I learned enough about vim to use it to practice writing such scripts. Now I’m using vim a bit more as the editor with Mutt, an email program I use fairly often. If and when I get secure enough with it I might switch to using vim rather than nano for routine console text editing.
• Some major household electrical problems materialized recently.
• The list of blogs has been updated on the Websites page.

Reading:

My profile on The StoryGraph

Read:

• Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography by Bruce Chilton - “Jesus within the context of his times to present a fresh, historically accurate, and revolutionary examination of the man who founded Christianity.” This was a very different look at Jesus for me and I enjoyed the perspective.
  
• Why Religion?: A Personal Story by Elaine Pagels - The title says it all. I’ve read some of her work and enjoyed seeing how she got into that line of writing.
• Urgent Track by D.L. Keur
• The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle - A very realistic science-fiction story by an astronomer and cosmologist published in 1959. It came highly recommended and they were right.
• Toxic Deceit by D.L. Keur
• Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty
• Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement by Catherine Keller - I found this extremely difficult to read and understand. The main reason was the use of complex words especially when they flowed together in a sentence. It was poetic many times. Many concepts in the book are about things that when experienced are nearly impossible to put into words. It seems to me that the book got across the concept that some of the most important things are not actually understandable in the way we conceive of understanding. The title “Cloud of the Impossible” resonates with me.
• My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende - A historical novel about a young writer who journeys to South America to uncover the truth about her father. Top notch in my estimation.
• InnSaei: Heal, Revive and Reset with the Icelandic Art of Intuition by Hrund Gunnsteinsdóttir
• The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann - “Brueggemann traces the lines from the radical vision of Moses to the solidification of royal power in Solomon to the prophetic critique of that power with a new vision of freedom in the prophets.”
• Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff - “A transformative guide to rethinking our approach to goals, creativity, and life itself.” I posted how I used what I learned in this book.
• The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben - “Wilde is a mystery to everyone. Decades ago, he was found as a boy living feral in the woods, with no memory of his past.” The story was engrossing at the beginning and had mysteries to be solved which kept me reading. But it felt cluttered, like there were too many things going on. I’m not sure why I stuck with this book to the end.

Currently Reading:

• Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr
• Entropy by Peter Cawdron
• Selected Writings (Meister Eckhart) with editor Oliver Davies

A week ago I was washing laundry and on the wash and rinse cycle the lights in the house blinked along with the pulsing of the machine. We called an electrician. Two of them came out and pretty quickly found a loose neutral wire in the light switch in that room. They tightened it and the pulsing stopped. We rejoiced.

A couple mornings later we again noticed the dimming/blinking that we normally had. We decided to have it looked into again. We were more worried about it after being told by the electricians that these problems can cause serious damage. We called a different electrician who did an inspection and found that the problem seemed to be in the area of the outside electric meter box. He named 4 possibilities. He couldn’t remove the tag and look inside, so he told us to call the electric company. He gave us his number to call if needed and left.

The electric company came soon after and showed me the loose neutral wire in the “can” as they call it. This box had the thick wires that bring the electricity in from the transformer. The loose connection could not be tightened. The box had to be replaced. I called the electrician and he came back in a few minutes while the people from the electric company kindly waited. They spoke, turned the power off at the transformer, and the electrician got what he needed to replace it. Meanwhile we have a generator which gave us power. We were so grateful for the thoughtfulness of these people taking care to coordinate for our benefit.

The new box replaced the one that came with the house in 1975, so new codes required a surge suppressor and a different grounding system. The electrician worked hard for several hours and got it done. Someone from the electric company came to turn the power back on soon after he finished. Now the lights are steady. I suppose it could be our imagination, but major appliances seem to run smoother now too.

For a long time I’ve wanted to learning to program for personal use on my computer. I had taken some programming courses in the 1980s and loved it. I’ve forgotten all of it, because I never used anything but BASIC outside of class. In more recent years I’ve tried reading a couple of books on programming, but never got very far. It felt like failure. Maybe a “tiny experiment” was what I needed. The idea is to set a short period to do something consistently as an experiment to see if it really suits you. Motivation is shifted from accomplishment to curiosity. It is not a failue if the experiment doesn’t lead to more than the trial period. I feel a sense of freedom and fun in this shift in mental attitude.

For my first experiment I decided to study an old book on Perl programming for a half hour or more each day for 2 weeks. I did it and the result was knowing that I didn’t like the language at all. Perl seemed so odd to me. Amusing with words like “chomp” but not appealing.

I’m a bit familiar with Bash commands and it would be useful on my Linux system so it made sense to give Bash scripting a try. This time I followed another suggestion from the book which is that it is better to not do these things alone. I asked around for advice on what to use as a study source and got several ideas. I decided to do a combination of a written tutorial on Bourne shell scripting and a 7+ hour video course on Bash scripting.

At the end of two weeks I knew that I did not want to complete the Bourne shell tutorial. I also knew that Dave Eddy was giving a lot of information very rapidly in the video course. I kept up with him as he discussed some things I was familiar with along with things I did not know. I was especially grateful for his quick course in using vim! I had resisted learning how to use it, but it was really helpful for coding in Bash. I only had to learn a couple of keystrokes to do what I needed. And I knew at the end of two weeks that I wanted to continue learning Bash scripting.

I’ve done about 2 hours of the video in about 9 hours, so there is a lot more available to learn. I think it’s going to go slower now that I’m into what I know less about. Dave has provided the files with the code he goes over in each short lecture, so I am using that as a written reference to study and practice writing it. Someone told me about shellcheck which I installed easily on my Linux system. That program analyzes the code and shows errors in it. Very handy when what I write doesn’t work!

I don’t know how much use I’ll get from this, but I do know that I’m enjoying the process. That’s the main reason I’m doing it. If I can do something like process a bunch of files using a loop, I’ll be very happy.

I tried to use the Internet on my phone while I was out of wifi range. Turns out I did not have data service. I did not request service with data when I originally got the flip phone 14 years ago. Being able to go online during an Internet outage is the main reason I got a smartphone, so I needed to change plans. It’s only $5 more to get a plan with enough data, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it with the instructions I found online. It turned out there was a recent change; the process now requires an agent. So I had to do chat again and I dreaded it. But this time it was quick and easy. Great news.

Well, the next day I found that I could not send or receive texts, nor could I make or receive phone calls. I suddenly had no service. I tried to chat online, but needed to receive a text with a code to verify my login to my phone service account. That was impossible with my dead smartphone so using our landline I called the number for account service. Not too bad. After the automated service gave me 3 things to try which failed, I was asked for my pin number for further help. I couldn’t find it in time, so the auto-agent sent me a text to respond to. Of course, I could not receive that, so it gave up and gave me a person. That person had me do a few things (that I had already tried from the tips online) and those didn’t help, just as when I’d tried them before. So I was then connected to tech support.

This person was very laid back in presentation. Soft voice, blessing me. I was thrown by this introduction and asked him if he would be helping me with the problem. I felt very much that I was in serious trouble. After a while his way of conversing soothed me and I was calm and enjoying the conversation as he worked through the problem.

The bottom line is that this was probably my fault: When I got the new phone I took out the SIM card and put in the card from my flip phone. That worked fine. When I decided to get a different plan I was asked for a number found in the phone and a number that was on the box it came in (ICCID.) That ICCID was not for the card currently in my phone so now the phone didn’t connect. I put the original SIM card back in the phone while talking with the tech on the landline speaker phone. It went smoothly and it fixed the problem. A half-hour or so later I got a call on my smartphone from the tech guy to double check all was well.

I was very happy and then plunged into the unhappy state shortly after with a cooking disaster, but that is what the compost bin is for, right?

After a good night’s sleep I began a chat with “U.” I was passed on to various folks for 2 hours ending with instructions to call the same number I had called the night before. I had a sinking feeling, and then an idea came. When the helper asked the first question, the answer was “yes”, but I said “no.” I did likewise on the next question. And that got me on the line with a live person. That person connected me to the angel I’d been looking for. She ran me through the process of ordering a better phone that was cheaper. Unfortunately the process failed both times.

But this goddess put me on hold assuring me that if the call got dropped she would call me back. She found a “U” store in my area that had the phone that I could buy there. She also recommended that I go instead to the much closer “W” store where all manner of things are sold including phones for the “U” prepaid service. She said if I’d let her know when I’d be at the “W” store, she would call me there on my cell phone to help me through the process of getting it. I didn’t accept that, but marveled at the offer. She explained briefly how to simply change the SIM card over to the new phone.

That may all sound so simple to most folks, but this is my second cell phone and first smartphone. I’m a newbie. Anyway, I got the phone from “W” and got the SIM card changed over and it worked!

Then came the next 7 days where I felt like I was swatting flies turning off notifications from apps which I then deleted. Making a call was much harder with this phone until I learned the new way of things. I love the ease of answering texts with a little keyboard. My battery is at 45% which is better than my flip phone was doing. So I’m happy I made the change. And so far no addictive behavior on my part. And now if the internet goes down again I’ll be able do email or check the internet provider online with my phone.

That wasn’t the end of it.

Recently that charger stopped working. The red light was out permanently and leaving batteries in it for 8 hours did not charge them. I got a new one. I couldn’t find a model similar to the old one, so I bought one of the current models. Things have changed in a quarter century. Electricity gets to this one through an adapter for USB plugged into a wall socket and the other end of the USB cable plugged into the charger. It can charge a single battery (the old one required a pair.) It has a display that shows how much charging has been completed and then shows it full with the word “finish” visible when complete. It takes 1 hour to charge. This was a very nice surprise. I wonder if it will last 23 years. I may not find out since I am currently 79, but I sure do like it. Here’s a picture:

Am I hungry for information? Or something else? I’ve decided to stop what feels like hopping around all these writings and take a breath. Maybe I’ll understand more as I try something different. I looked at what might work:

• I want to read only one main book at a time. I want that to be mostly non-fiction.
• There is always one book that I’m reading for a book group. The books we read are “depth and mysticism” and we read them slowly and meet every two weeks. This kind of reading with the discussions is not a problem for me.
• I read spiritual material in the morning for about a half hour. This could easily be the same book I read for the book group. It could also be another non-fiction book.
• I like to read a bit before going to sleep. Fiction would be good for a short read at night for a half hour or so.

So that’s 3 books, the main book of non-fiction that I read during the day, the fiction for a short read at night, and the book for the book group which is also a short read. That felt calming just thinking about it.

I did this today and I noticed my mind felt clearer. I realized that I didn’t have to sit and figure out what I was going to read. Twice while reading I made a connection with the other book that I had been reading, but had set aside until later. I found it interesting that I did not feel driven to get that other book out and look at exactly what it said about what I was connecting to. It felt like I already had enough of the idea in mind. I felt a sense of freedom that seemed to clear my thinking to focus on what I was actually reading.

This is a start. We’ll see where it goes.

In the morning I had a sort of epiphany. I recalled one of the letters we had read in our book on writings of Hildegard of Bingen. In it Hildegard says that we humans are fragile. Toward the end of the letter she writes of her own fragility and need. Suddenly it dawned on me that I, too, am a fragile human being. My imperfection is a given. And I realized that, yes, I am fragile just like Hildegard! Now, Hildegard was also incredibly gifted, so that phrase “just like Hildegard,” comparing myself to her, shocked me. Am I also gifted? Funny how the awareness of the possibility of being fragile yet gifted had come to me from one of those books I had been complaining about. Surprise!

• Emacs update: I used it for 2 months and got used to the keystrokes I needed. In the end I decided that Obsidian is the program that is best for me to use since I write mostly in Markdown and my notes are stored and easily retrieved there as I write. The same would be true of Emacs if I decided to learn to use it in that way, but I’d rather save the time and trouble and stick with what is working for me. I am satisfied that I did finally give Emacs a go.
• We still have not got the permit to fix our septic system. We got the inspection after 6 weeks and nothing after that. There is an apology on their website for slowness due to the move of the department from here to there and some kind of update, etc. We are doing fine since the system still works as long as we keep water use way down. I see it as preparation for our climate future.

Reading:

My profile on The StoryGraph

Read:

• Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher
• The Rose Code by Kate Quinn - World War II story of three female code breakers at Bletchley Park and the spy they must root out after the war is over. Excellent historical novel. The ebook was 654 pages and I read it in 9 days, so I was engrossed.
• Life, Loss, and Puffins by Catherine Ryan Hyde - YA by an author who gives me stories with heart in troubled situations.
• Christophany: The Fullness of Man by Raimon Panikkar
  
• The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage by Richard Rohr
  
• The Oracle - Peter Cawdron - In WWII a German soldier contacts an strange artifact in Delphi. One of Cawdron’s First Contact series. I marvel at the ideas he comes up with.
• A Rare Benedictine: The Advent of Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters - 3 short stories introducing Brother Cadfael
• Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon - I loved this story about 18th century Maine, a midwife married to a lumberman, a murder, and greed. It was intriguing and also quite beautiful amid the wickedness.
• A Morbid Taste for Bones (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #1) - Ellis Peters - I had thought I’d read the whole series, but have decided I’m not all that interested in life in 1120 in an English monastery. I’ll go ahead and read the last book in the series to see how it ends.
• Facing Apocalypse: Climate, Democracy, and Other Last Chances by Catherine Keller - A very interesting look at the Book of Revelation. Keller does what she calls “dreamreading.” This is not an interpretation of the prophecy and it certainly is not predicting the future through it. It’s scholarly work, I’d say. In it I saw how a system present in that time remains present.

Currently Reading:

• Rabbi Jesus by Bruce Chilton
• Selected Writings (Meister Eckhart) editor Oliver Davies
• Why Religion?: A Personal Story by Elaine Pagels
• Religion in the Making by Alfred N. Whitehead

Podcasts:

3 New ones:

Wild Card with Rachel Martin: Once a week, famous guests pull questions from a deck of cards and open up about the kind of stuff we all think about but rarely say out loud.

• Feed: https://feeds.npr.org/510379/podcast.xml

Sources & Methods: National security, unlocked. Each Thursday, host Mary Louise Kelly and a team of NPR correspondents discuss the biggest national security news of the week.

• Feed: https://feeds.npr.org/g-s1-84651/podcast.xml

Radiolab: Hard to describe this one - all sorts of things and really well done. I listened years ago and recently came back.

• Feed: https://feeds.simplecast.com/EmVW7VGp

• I’m typing up this post using Emacs. I’ve decided that practice is the best way to learn the keystrokes I need and maybe I’ll find that it is as wonderful and powerful as avid users say. Thankfully it has a menu at the top that I’ve learned how to get to. Oh, did I mention that I’m using it without a mouse? So, F10 gets me up to the menu bar. Ctrl-x u is Undo. And Ctrl-x Ctrl-c closes it down quickly. These 3 things get me out of trouble which I do get into when learning–anything.
• Fun fact: We discovered that we need a new drain field for our septic system. That means that while we wait for the permit and for the work to be done we have to be very careful about how much water we throw out like in showers and all that kind of stuff where water goes down a drain. You get the picture.

Reading:

My profile on The StoryGraph

Read:

Since my last update I read 5 Sci-Fi novels:

• Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
  
• Inner Space by Jakub Szamalek - Fantastic story taking place on the ISS. Loved this book which was an English translation.
  
• Dark Beauty by Peter Cawdron - Peter writes first contact novels. He’s prolific and each story I’ve read so far is unique.
  
• The Darkness Between the Stars by Peter Cawdron (Novelette. Short and engrossing)
  
• Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson - Fantastic story. Long trip on a multigenerational ship. So intriguing and great descriptions of life as it might be on such a journey. An ending I don’t think I’ll forget and I usually do forget what I read.

Also read:

• Round the Bend by Nevil Shute - Maybe the mental process of going round the bend isn’t all that bad. This novel makes one wonder. Good story taking place in the Persian Gulf in the days before computers, fast transit, etc. A man fascinated with airplanes goes into business there. He meets up with someone who seems a little off in his thinking yet does great work on his planes. Shute is not big on happy endings it seems. I read On the Beach as a kid. No happy ending there, either.
  
• Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen by Matthew Fox (Read this for a discussion group.)
  
• The Way of the Mystics by Howard Thurman - He brought in mystics of several religions. The book is an edited transcript of several of Thurman’s talks. I found him giving those talks online and it was wonderful to listen to him. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love to hear open-minded people talk about these things.

Currently Reading:

• Christophany: The Fullness of Man by Raimon Panikkar
  
• The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage by Richard Rohr

Podcasts/Music:

• Nothing new to report, at least nothing I remember.

(I finished typing. Now let’s see if it will process into a post. First Ctrl-x Ctrl-s)

Here is what I experienced.

Searching

Searching the files by filename or contents is easily done with Searchmonkey. In fact, I often use it to search files in the Obsidian vault, because it gives me better output than the Obsidian search. In Obsidian it is easier to open the file and read or edit.

Markdown

Writing markdown outside Obsidian is not a problem. I often use ReText to make small edits or to quickly save a note rather than going into Obsidian to do it. I’ll save it on my Desktop while I use the information and then later move it to the Obsidian vault if I want to keep it.

Auto-save

Obsidian saves the file as I write or edit. Other programs require saving, but usually will remind me if I haven’t saved. I like the automatic saving, but there is not a lot of friction involved in saving a file manually - Ctrl S usually does it.

Viewing

Looking at the files in ReText is good enough. I can switch between the markdown to Preview. In Obsidian I can edit while seeing the file in Preview which is easier. Thinking about the ease of Obsidian’s preview, I looked around for other options. I found two very nice ones: Ghostwriter and Remarkable. Seeing how little distraction there is when writing in Remarkable, I realized how much distraction I have in Obsidian. It’s nice when I want these many things handy, but not when I’m needing to focus.

I also found glow, a very nice CLI viewer that will open my editor with a keystroke. This is especially useful when I am working outside the Desktop environment. I’ll mention more on this later.

Convert to HTML

Doing this exercise using ReText reminded me of the need I sometimes have to convert markdown to HTML. When I use Obsidian to do that I get a lot of additional style instead of strictly the necessary HTML that I need. I found that I could view the HTML in ReText and copy it using “Edit/View HTML code” from the menu.

Links

A big plus in Obsidian is its linking capability. There is a rule that links shall not be broken, so if the name or location of a file is changed, all links in the Vault that refer to that file are also changed. Working outside of Obsidian I would need to do a content search for the links to the file and change them manually when I changed a filename or location. That is a big point of friction.

Sense of security

Overall I feel comfortable that I can still use the data stored in the Obsidian vault if I no longer have Obsidian available. In addition, the friction points that I encountered informed me of potential problems with linking and also led to a program that will likely be better for writing without distraction while retaining the advantage of seeing a preview of the output.

Surprising idea

All the above is about working on a Desktop with color, images, a mouse, etc. But something came to my mind that I’m getting a real kick out of and the enjoyment gets me to use it–the black and white screen with the word “login” on it. It’s an old friend.

This post is about using a CLI environment for less distraction while writing. The experiment resulting in some friction when working on Obsidian files outside of the Obsidian program brought the thought of this to mind. It seems that the difficulty of going outside the limits of a single program can indeed release useful ideas. You may want to read Ellane’s article and try her suggestion. Maybe you’ll come up with some crazy ideas, too!

Increasing font size

In Linux I can get a terminal with Ctrl Alt F1. I login and I’ve got bash available to type in commands. The font on this terminal used to be small, but I had made it larger when I enlarged the font on the Grub menu (I have more than one OS on my machine, and they are selected from this menu.) This change in font size also changed the size of font on my terminals. To make this change add this line to /etc/default/grub: GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

To increase the font size in the terminal in GhostBSD add this to /etc/rc.conf:
allscreens_flags="-f terminus-b32"

Programs

• File manager: nnn - This one is quick and easy to use and allows me to open the file in nano. I also have Midnight Commander if I need it.
  
• Editor: nano - still looking for a better markdown editor for commandline
  
• Browser: lynx
  
• BSSG: Create YAML for website posts and pages; convert markdown to HTML; open server for viewing site on localhost in lynx. There’s a link to the website for this Bash Static Site Generator at the end of this page.
• Terminal multiplexer: tmux - Create panes on the screen in order to use more than one of these programs at the same time

As I get used to the keystrokes, I’m finding I’m more focused writing on the blank screen. I use only the editor to do the writing and then tmux with BSSG and lynx to look at it. If I see a need for a quick edit, I open another pane for nano to edit. When finished, I go back to my Desktop with Ctrl Alt F7 (this function key number varies with different versions of Linux) and take a look at my work again using BSSG to open the server and my regular browser for a view in color with images.

I’ve been thinking about a digital garden. It seems like putting incomplete ideas out more in the open on my website might help me work with them. This idea came to me when I was thinking about “gnawing rats” which is in I’ve Got Time, a current read. Writing is one of these things that keeps bugging me and when this idea came, it felt like a relief. So I tried making the structure for it and I succeeded. But…

One problem is that the structure would take too much time and effort to work with. I immediately thought this whole thing was a bad idea, just a distraction from writing. But…

Later I thought actually it’s a good idea, but poorly implemented. I was trying to make it separate from the site. I think it can easily be just another page or more on the site outside the blog. I already have a couple other pages and this could be like those.

I also realized that my intention is not to have a lot of permanent material in the garden. I see it as being there temporarily for me to work with. There will be a link in navigation to “Garden” and I’ll just put what I want there. It doesn’t have to make much sense to anyone but me, but may gradually get formed into something. We’ll see what shows up there. Currently I don’t know what I’ve got laying around in notes. That’s part of the problem that I want to solve.

Reading:

My profile on The StoryGraph

Read:

• A Refiner’s Fire by Donna Leon. #33 in a series I’ve been reading for years
• The Color Of Abolition by Linda Hirshman. Read along with a small online group. First in a group of books on Abolition.
• Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman
• Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism by Vanessa Machado De Oliveira
• The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict. Historical novel about the mysterious period of time Agatha Christie went missing.

Currently Reading:

• Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War by Jon Grinspan. Reading along with a small online group.
• Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan. A historical novel. Mrs. Lewis is the wife of C.S. Lewis, an author I found early in my life.
• Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels. The beginning of the book goes into some detail about the different groups of Christians in the early days. There were those who followed the teachings that are in this gospel version. I like how Pagels explains the various differences in beliefs.
• Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione. Feeding instead of fighting demons. So far I’ve found this quite useful. Catchy title, isn’t it?
• I’ve Got Time: A Zen monk’s guide to a calm, focused and meaningful life by Paul Loomans. I am almost finished reading, but am going to spend more time going through it again. Very sensible and so much that I want to absorb and practice. It doesn’t sound difficult, but it is a different way of approaching tasks than my never ending to do list.
• Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen by Matthew Fox. Contains several of the paintings from Hildegard’s books with commentary on them.
  
• The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage by Richard Rohr. Reading a chapter a month along with a podcast with Richard Rohr and guests discussing the book.

Podcasts:

• Internet Archive: Future Knowledge: a new podcast about how knowledge is created, shared, and preserved in the digital age.

  • Conversations with authors and experts on topics like digital preservation, the future of copyright, open access, AI, and the policies shaping our information ecosystem.

    Whether you’re an author curious about how to reach readers, a librarian facing new challenges in the digital landscape, or someone who cares about the future of information, Future Knowledge invites you into a timely and essential dialogue.

• The Woman Behind The New Deal : Throughline : NPR : “From Social Security and the minimum wage to exit signs and fire escapes, Frances Perkins transformed how people in the U.S. lived and worked. …how a middle class do-gooder became one of the savviest and most powerful people in American politics — and built the social safety net we have today.”
  • Throughline is probably my favorite podcast. As they say. “Throughline is a time machine. Each episode, we travel beyond the headlines to answer the question,”How did we get here?”
• Welcome to NON-ZERO-SUM GAMES and podcast Non-Zero-Sum James (Podcast RSS: https://pod.link/1810797958.rss): “…exploration of win-win games and how they are essential for a better future. Each week we’ll explore a new aspect of game theory, moral philosophy, ethical economics and artificial intelligence—looking to solve the complex problems we face in our world together.”
  • I’ve been going through the podcast listening and then visiting the link in the show notes to the site. Going through this way in the order the podcasts are presented has made it easier for me to understand the material.

Music:

• Ellle and Toni doing “Mrs. Robinson.” Near the end Toni does a great guitar picking addition that I love. These two put something out at full moon each month. Mrs. Robinson - Elle and Toni - YouTube
• I was remembering a Paul Simon song about drops of rain one morning as I heard the rain falling. Searched and found the name, “Kathy’s Song.” Looked to see if I had it and found an album of music by Eva Cassidy in my collection. I had forgotten how I love her style and voice. I especially like “You Take My Breath Away.” Here are a couple links if you want to hear her:
  • Eva Cassidy - You Take My Breath Away - YouTube
  • Kathy’s Song (Simply Eva) - YouTube

• Changed static website generator from Jekyll to BSSG
  
• Bumped up my walking exercise: 30 seconds faster walking/60 seconds at usual speed. After a few sessions this has become enjoyable.
  
• Our 20-year-old, large self-defrosting freezer started leaking again and we decided to get a new one. We opted for a small 7 cu-ft freezer without self-defrost. We are loving the quiet, the low energy use, and the way it makes us consider if the food we are buying is what we really need for the next little while. There is a lot less room in this. Hardly any frost in it after 2 months, so I won’t have to do that chore as often as I thought I might.
  
• We got new windows for the house. The windows were collecting moisture on the inside and we wanted to get safer ones for hurricanes. Immediately after they were in we noticed that the indoor temperature held more steady in the house and it was quiet. Energy use has gone down with the combination of the freezer and windows.
  
• Started using 3 Blueland cleaning products to reduce plastic packaging. See my post New Cleaning Products for more detail.

Reading:

See My profile on The StoryGraph for more details on the books

Read:

• The Emergent Christ by Ilia Delio
• The Awakening Call by James Finley- Read this with the Depth and Mysticism reading group
• Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls. Great True-Life Novel about the author’s grandmother
• Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chödrön
• Meditations with Meister Eckhart by Matthew Fox
• The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance by Dorothee Soelle
• Meister Eckhart from Whom God Hid Nothing by Meister Eckhart
• Critical Traces by D.L. Keur (#10 in a series)
• Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine by Alan Lightman
• Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr.
• The Sower of Black Field by Katherine Koch (Historical novel. The author came to the archives where I worked to research her relative who was a Passionist priest in Germany in Nazi Germany.)
• Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber
• Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet by Matthew Fox
• Coercive Power by D.L. Keur (#2 in another series)
• The Mystics Would Like a Word: Six Women Who Met God and Found a Spirituality for Today by Shannon K. Evans - A very different view of 6 mystics. Read this with the Depth and Mysticism reading group

Currently Reading:

• The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage by Richard Rohr
• The Color Of Abolition: How a Printer, a Prophet, and a Contessa Moved a Nation by Linda Hirshman
• Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen by Matthew Fox - Current book in Reading group
• Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman
• Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism by Vanessa Machado De Oliveira

Podcasts:

• I’m listening to Season 3 of Everything Belongs where The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr is being discussed by him and others. I’m reading the book along with listening to the podcast. Next issue is Chapter 4.
• Flora Lichtman has been back on Science Friday for awhile now. She made a 10-episode audio series called “The Leap” profiling scientists who were willing to take big risks. This first one is with biochemist Kati Karikó, who did work on mRNA that was needed to develop early COVID-19 vaccines. Her work was dismissed, but she carried on anyway. Great interview. I’m looking forward to the remaining 9 podcasts.