Still wondering...

On Friday, October 22, we were asked this very same question. I still hope to answer "you're right: now."

Oh. What's the question?

If not now, when?

Lost and found department

So, I learned in science class that you can't really DESTROY matter... it's got to "go" someplace. Therefore, whenever anyone says to me "I've lost 10 pounds..." I reply, "oh, they're not lost; I've got 'em right here." I never seem to have any problem at all FINDING weight... it's the losing of it that gets me!

And, so Kathryn's question fits right in...

Why is so easy to put on weight but so very difficult to lose it again?

Pernicious creatures, those fat cells.

I hope so! (again, but different)

Nastya, from Belarus, asks

They say, "where there's hope, there's life." Is it really important to have this hope?

I hope so! Else, why would we ever love anyone, do anything, feel anything? Hope drives it all!

Sports or Smarts?

Lisa, from not too far away from me in Maryland (and who sent a card from Baltimore, where the Baltimore Ravens play football), asks:

Why are major league baseball rookies getting multi-million dollar signing bonuses when our nation's teachers are getting low salaries, having to buy their own classroom supplies, and work in crumbling down school buildings?

I'm sure you've seen those comic illustrations where a devil sits on a person's left shoulder whispering into on ear while an angel sits on the right, whispering something else. I feel a little like this with this question!

On one hand, I too want teachers to be well-paid, well-supplied, and well-employed. I wish our nation's school buildings were all up-to-date, creative, well-designed structures with the features that high-tech sports stadiums have. On the other hand, I rather applaud the young athlete who has figured out a way to parlay physical strength, agility, and skill into a rewarding career. We have always showered the young, fit, and able with accolades.

Can we balance a little better? I'd like to think so.

A Little Life

I have a little life. I know I do. I am not a world-changer, a disease-curer, a paradigm-setter. So, when Jana, from the Czech Republic asks

What's the purpose of your life?

I reply, "to leave my little corner of the world a little better off than the way I found it." If we EACH did that....

Do we ever really know what's good for us?

On the only card I've received from Moldova - and quite a lovely card it is - appears this question:

What association arises for you from the photo on the card?

At first, I felt the warmth of the sun as it touched the leaves and stem of the tulip. Then I wondered if the photo had actually been printed using a reversal process so that it appeared the way a negative would because the flower was bending away from the light. In life, wouldn't it bend toward the light?

And then I thought how much this little photo illuminates the foolish actions we sometimes perform when we turn away from something that is good for us and that keeps us well. Deep, I know. All from a little tulip.

All we have going for us are opposable thumbs!

Mirabelle from France asks to ponder this:

Can animals be superior to humans and if so, in what ways?

Let's see... humans can't run as fast as the fastest animal, are not as strong as the strongest animal, can't see as well in the dark as the keenest-sighted animal, can't smell hardly anything at all, can't leap as high nor swim as deep...

All that prevents the cats in this household from piling me onto the trash heap like the useless waste of resources that I am is my ability to OPEN A CAN OF CAT FOOD! As long as I can do that, I figure I am safe!