Scattershot stuff of interest

faireraven summed up True Love beautifully in her LJ today, but the quotes I really want to pass on are ginmar's. As usual, she has some profound things to say about the nature of love for another and love of country here. (For the two of you who don't know Ginmar, she's a Reservist who just returned Stateside... but do not expect cookie-cutout patriotism from her.)

Every time I'm confronted with the issue of gay marriage, I'm amazed that something so irrelevant can be become so important in some people's minds. Is love so plentiful in this world that we can pick and choose who gets to fall in love with which person? It's nothing but a form of hate to reject one person's hopes that way. Love is nothing but the purest form of optomism there is, putting one's faith on another person, as well as one's trust.

I've never loved my country because she was strong and powerful and... all that. I loved her because she was like my parents, flawed and unique, and occasionally in trouble because she tried to do the right thing, no matter what the cost. "The Star-Spangled Banner" isn't about an overwhelming victory. It's about a bunch of guys who don't know, lying in their foxholes, if their brand-new nation has survived the night. The only way they can tell is to check and see if their flag is still flying over the fort at 'dawn's early light.'

We're a nation composed of immigrants and founded on the notion that our hopes can transcend our flaws and our weaknesses.

Highly recommended reading.

( As for me, I'm back to wrestling the nature of what I owe to the causes I say I support. )

Fun Missionary Fact

In what was probably a terrible deja vu for the missionaries, the doctor who was shipped over on the second mission also left the mission early, citing his own health and more importantly his wife's health. I have to check the timeline (thumb drive @ home) but Dr. Blatchely appears to have made his announcement while Dr. Holman was still fighting the ABCFM.

However, this time there weren't the terrible personality conflicts; the missionaries asked Blatchely to stay, but after he got permission slips from two ship's doctors stating his weak health and passage home that the ABCFM wouldn't have to pay for, he was told "we here assure you that we will put no impediments in your way, to prevent a favorable reception from the Board or the Christian public."

V. important, that!

As for the mission doctors, third time was the charm.

(no subject)

My latest are up at RtE (link at left): Green Thumb & A Perfect Husband.