Neat Freaks

Yes, I always did feel like there was something weird about the way that Cori was always so obsessed with the schedule for bathroom cleaning and the way she would try to order me around as if I were her employee. These neat freaks really do need to talk to a psychologist. I could not allow her to grow accustomed to such behavior. If I did, she would begin to assume that she was in charge of my life and that is not so. Cori was just too weird. Her choice of boyfriend: Weird. Her choice of job stuffing tacos at Del Taco tolerating a creepy boss: Weird. Her choice of wording: Weird. Her need for a female sidekick to follow her around like a little puppy dog: Weird.

Flood

Yes, that was so nice of Sue McGartland to clean up our room after the flood. There was a flood because maybe the toilet bowl was not working properly or something like that and we had to call for someone to fix it. Sue was not really doing me any favors, however. It was her job. They were paying her to do these things and they sent her up with the carpet cleaning machine to work on the problem. I suppose that I could have done it myself but Sue took charge of it so I just let her do her job. I also remember her talking about her other job at Fairview, the mental hospital down the street. I sometimes wonder whatever happened to Sue. Does she still work at Fairview or did she go on to bigger and better things? I just don't know.

Single Women Missionaries

Yes, everyone is perhaps expecting me to follow in the footsteps of the many single women missionaries and be bossy and tell everyone what to do. I could try but then I would fail and that would be stupider than just not trying. You see:

1. Failure vs. Success: If I already know that everyone is poised with knife in hand waiting for me to jump in with my opinion about everything so that they can tear me apart then the smartest thing I could do is just not try in the first place. Thus it logically follows that I will not fail. I am not planning to fail so success means not to be killed by definition. The saying goes that if you do nothing you will succeed at doing nothing has a certain ring of truth to it. Sure, I could do something but just doing whatever is not going to get me anywhere. So at least I will succeed at doing nothing which is better than failing at doing whatever they want.

2. Personality Type: Yes, most of the single women missionaries I ever heard of are very overbearing and domineering types of women. That personality type seems to lend itself to that sort of missionary work. Without that type of women perhaps many things would never get done, such as the building of an orphanage as Lillian Thrasher did in Assiout, Egypt, and so forth. After all, there are some things that a man is just never going to do. Few women ever become church pastors but those who do perhaps go where there is no man available to do the job. However, I am just not the type. I wish this riff-raff would stop pestering me with the prospect that I might be another Lillian Thrasher/Angie Thomson because I am just not interested in raising money to build orphanages in Romania. I know enough about Angie to know that we should go our separate ways. Maybe someone really should do that but it won't be me. I am just not the type.

3. Copycats: If I did that I would just be accused of copycatting because Angie already did that so I can't do that. Anything I might do would have to be original to me due to the copycatting problem so that means that I cannot do anything. Anything I could ever think of to do has already been thought of, as Ecclesiastes has put it so eloquently. There is nothing new under the sun.

Killing

Yes, who wouldn't want to kill a little brat who ruins your life? It is a natural emotion, not really the fruit of the Spirit, but neither is war the fruit of the Spirit and neither is abortion the fruit of the Spirit. Yes, we do remember Grandma Calkins telling us that pastor's wife was planning to have an abortion if her baby were tested positive for mental retardation. The baby girl tested normal and thus was not aborted. Yes, we all remember hearing this story from Grandma. And why is it that pastor Webber and wife were not run out of town on that evidence alone? How is it that the Assemblies of God tolerates this horrible pastor and wife who do not represent anything that we say that we believe and whose husband is unbeknownst to us secretly a child molester which information only was revealed later? The position of pastor alone tends to make people blind to the pastor's glaring faults. The sheer force of inertia, perhaps, explains how pastor's leadership is automatically reaffirmed year after year even when evidence mounts that he is wreaking mischief behind everyone's back. Who are we to tell the child molesting creep to step down? It is not our place to say, especially as we have no clue what happened. Sure, God forgives Pastor Webber but he cannot be trusted with our children. So, yes, we understand this problem. But who knew?

Ancestors

Yes, it was interesting to know that Uncle Merritt's daughter, is doing some research into the Calkins side of the family. She is the one who originally did some research into that. I don't know very much about it. I am not sure but we may have some distant cousins in the Northwest, not that it makes very much difference in my life. We were never descended from C.C. Calkins, builder of the Calkins Hotel, and anyway what was left of the property was sold before the grief-stricken man abandoned Seattle so probably no one has any claim there. We might have some pacifists over there on that side of the family somewhere. I do remember seeing some draft card info but I don't remember who it was. I would have to redo my research. And should I apologize for my distant relatives of that era and side of the family who conscientiously objected to serving in the armed forces for whatever reasons during World War I? I suppose they had their reasons at the time, religious and otherwise, and the laws of the time allowed for that so I do not see any reason why I should feel guilt or any need to act out some type of atonement for their omission in not participating in the military machine. If the Butterfields feel themselves obligated to enlist then that is their choice but there is no reason for them to inflict their sense of obligation upon me. I do feel like we should honor our soldiers who risk life and limb to protect national safety but I also am grateful that I don't have to do that. It is sad that the current state of affairs requires the existence of the military machine but sometimes these military people forget that it is not about having the right to beat up on people like me which makes them a dishonorable embarrassment to the rest of the family. It is a matter of survival and self-defense which is honorable. If we let our enemies walk all over us we just won't have a life. Which is why we have to keep these relatives in their places.

Elisabeth

That was so weird the way they were trying to recreate the ancient conflict between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, as if there were any comparison to modern realities. Just because I read a lot of Elisabeth Elliott books, a Presbyterian, that does not make me a Presbyterian. And just because Mary Queen of Scots was the mother of the heir to the throne, that does not make either one of those women deserving honors given only to the Virgin Mary. So these people are just weird. Yes, Elisabeth Elliott's husband Jim was one of the five martyred in Ecuador by the Auca Indians documented by her book "Through Gates of Splendor." Nevertheless, obviously there have been many missionaries to the Indians of South America and the Elliott's were not the first, only the first to the Aucas, a particularly fierce tribe. Still, each tribe has its own language and customs and needs its own missionaries to communicate the gospel to them. A television satellite just won't fit the bill. We cannot give up personal evangelism imagining that mass communication will do the job for us. It has its place but the macros will not help until the micros are installed and programmed to understand what you are talking about.

Mark Brown?

Yes, all I did was tell the volunteer that no, I will not be volunteering for them. I don't really have to explain why. I just didn't want to. It does make you wonder what Mark Brown did with all the taped conversations he was making of everyone. He was the sound engineer who unbeknownst to everyone was secretly tapping all the telephones and bugging the conference room so that he would know everything that was happening. He always did seem to know a lot about everything. It was weird. It is weird how all these people are always angry with me over basically nothing. I did not really say all that much or anything that everyone does not already know so why is everyone always angry with me? It is weird. I just don't even know why I should apologize for Mark's sloppy handiwork so I won't.