“Difference is not the problem; it is the privilege and oppression that is based on difference. The trouble is produced by a world organized in ways that encourage people to use difference to include or exclude, reward or punish, credit or discredit, elevate or oppress, value or devalue, leave alone or harass.” Allan G. JohnsonContinue reading “Similarities ~ Differences”
Author Archives: vanaltman
Crocheting ~ “Look Out Duck”
“What is a hobby anyway? Where is the line of demarcation between hobbies and ordinary normal pursuits? At first blush I am tempted to conclude that a satisfactory hobby must be in large degree useless, inefficient, laborious, or irrelevant. Perhaps we have here the real inwardness of our question: A hobby is a defiance ofContinue reading “Crocheting ~ “Look Out Duck””
Mountain Ascent
To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. The ego-climber is like an instrument that’s out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He’s likely to miss a beautiful patch of sunlight through the trees. He looks up the trail trying to see what’s aheadContinue reading “Mountain Ascent”
Sewing ~ “Fashionista Doll”
“Nothing we do as individuals matters, but it is vitally important to do it anyway.” Gandhi’s Paradox What do I do when I can’t do anything? Well, I have to do something! This was my plan when I found myself sitting in a large room with an dripline attached to a port, feeding chemotherapy directlyContinue reading “Sewing ~ “Fashionista Doll””
A Patch of Sunlight
Once there was a girl named Amalia who dreamed about a bluebell. In her dream, she saw a bluebell flower blooming in a patch of sunlight. The little flower rejoiced in the warmth of the sun and lifted its petals in celebration of the light. Amalia rejoiced as well, for how often does one encounterContinue reading “A Patch of Sunlight”
How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Finding Our No
All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It’s my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset, I’ve won or lost. At sunrise, I’m out again, giving it the old try. And no one can help me. Not even you. Ray Bradbury ~ Fahrenheit 451: CodaContinue reading “How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Finding Our No”
How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Entertaining the Troupe
Most of the sorrows of man, I incline to think, are caused by…repining for another world. Alone among the animals, he is dowered with the capacity to invent imaginary worlds, and he is always making himself unhappy by trying to move into them…The world, I am convinced, could be materially improved, but even as itContinue reading “How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Entertaining the Troupe”
How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Retrieving the Lost
No teacher should strive to make others think as he thinks, but to lead them to the living Truth, to the Master himself, of whom alone they can learn anything, who will make them in themselves know what is true by the very seeing of it. George MacDonald ~ Unspoken Sermons, Third Series A HairContinue reading “How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Retrieving the Lost”
How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Being a Heretic
The difficulty does not arise so much from the mere fact that good and evil are mingled in roughly equal proportions; it arises from the fact that men always differ about what parts are good and what are evil…The error arises from the difficulty of detecting what is really the good part and what isContinue reading “How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Being a Heretic”
How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Busting Chops
When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly; it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But we still know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till thenContinue reading “How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Busting Chops”
Objects in a Bag 