Traveling, environment, meandering...

As I type this, I’m on a plane from SLC headed east, back home. This morning the Transportation Safety Administration told us to remove all lotions, gels and liquids from our persons as we attempted to come through security checkpoints. You’d think that since all passengers (a majority of the “frequent travelers” carry water with them) have had to dump all liquids that the airlines might be willing to help us out by giving us more water on our flights??!! Not so the case this morning, so far I’ve been able to obtain one eight ounce bottle of water, merely a shot glass for me, I usually drink a liter plus on a three hour flight. I guess I’ll have to drink up on my lay over! On a positive note, an atta-boy to Delta for continuing to show movies on their flights, “MI:3” and “Over the Hedge” were good, oh alright, I didn’t actually watch “Over the Hedge” figured I’d wait to watch with the kids, but I glanced at it a few times and it looked funny. The ladies across the aisle seemed to enjoy it.

So I was thinking how funny it would be if a Bible came with the words “Don’t Panic” on the cover, instead of “Holy Bible”. I realize that may be sacrilegious to some folks, but I think it would be very amusing. You know the reference, right? I don’t really know why I think that would be so amusing, I just do.

How cool is it that the local Salt Lake paper has a section called “Outdoor” the out-of-doors is such a focuse for people in West, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, etc. It’s really cool! I suppose probably the Boston and New York papers have such things and we don’t have that, because we don’t need it, we live it on a day to day basis. Although, I don’t live it as much as I’d like. It’s hard to find that balance between all the projects I have to do around the house and being outside, riding the mountain bike (about 5 times so far this summer), hiking (what, once this summer?), riding the motorcycle (a lot more than the others, simply because I can go further faster) and other things. It saddens me. Ah well, we live with what we got, right?

I wish that I could reprint, in whole or in part, Tom Wharton’s article from “The Salt Lake Tribune”, if you can find it online it’s called “Has nature just become a thrill ride?” (August 10th). It’s a very well written article (and timely for those in SLC as the Outdoor retailers meeting is happening this week) It asks a tough question that has an even tougher answer. How does one “compete” and “commune” with nature (especially where money is involved), is it even possible? It is opined that only the heart of the person (or intent) is really how it is defined.

I think Tom is right and I think that applies to “religion” also. If one is a nice person because they are a nice person, good for them. If you struggle with being nice to people and you work hard at it as a sacrifice, say, to Jesus I think and believe that you will be rewarded for your effort. The same way that if you go out into nature to climb a mountain or a rock face and find that in so doing you may very well destroy something (or contribute to its destruction) and you forgo your expedition or take strides to minimize your damage, I think that’s good and you’re showing responsibility and good stewardship. If you don’t, well then you’re heart just isn’t in the right spot and you lose your right to complain/gripe or tell others how to live (I urge you to read Peter Schweizer’s article in USA “The Forum” for August 10th entitled “Gore isn’t quite as green as he’s led the world to believe”). I really hope that Peter’s allegations aren’t even 50% true, as I respect Al Gore’s getting people thinking about the environment more. (I say as I sit in an airplane that is spewing junk into the air.)

This has been a meandering post hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I hope it has made some sense to someone!!??

Peace,
BS