Technology Overload

I'm overloaded with information and electronic technology.  My brain has ceased bubbling up with creativity. I've decided that I'm done sacrificing myself for false immediacy.  I'm needing a direct old fashioned touch from God.  Information is only information after all.  Our epistemology will take us no further than our metaphysics.  

I will start small, almost like an exercise program.  I will start taking my e-mails in limited fashion, like a glass of wine before bedtime, and controlling my access to Facebook to once a day.  

I love these thoughts by T.S. Eliot in "The Rock"  

"Where is the life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

The clearest way to see through a culture is to see how it speaks to itself.  

 

 

Learning How To Be a Southern Yankee

 It's taken me almost three years to realize that to Southerners, a Yankee is anyone not from the South, not necessarily someone from the Northeast, as I had always thought. I am also realizing that there is no crash course that teaches you how to be Southern.  Real Southern tradition is taught at birth and passed down from generation to generation.  An "outsider"  just doesn't have a clue. Anyway, certain behavior may be perfectly acceptable in places that I've lived, in the east, midwest, and west, but if you break the "rules" here, you will hear about it, and "true Southerners" will never forget. You will be "discussed."

I've broken several rules so far, and I'm sure that I'm not finished yet. Here are a few rules never to break in the south:

Never stop at Costco to pick something up for a potluck and fail to transfer it to good china.  

Never serve iced tea and call it sweet tea.  (I never imagined there was a difference!)

Make sure you understand the concept that everyone waves, it's called being friendly.  Oh, yes and make sure you acknowledge someone when you pass them on the sidewalk.

Never use Miracle Whip in chicken salad.

In the summer, never serve anything that is big enough to fill you up.

 I think we typically, as Northerners, stereotype what the South is in so many negative ways. We kind of forget all the beautiful things that they contribute to make this country a country. The South has a completely different history than the north, east or west, both good and bad that is fascinating for everybody.  It makes people work together who usually don't, and it is really beautiful! I am American by birth and one day hope to be Southern by the grace of God.