Holy Silence

As you can see in my reading list (scroll down on the right hand side) I am in the middle of reading a book called Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality by J. Brent Bill. I have to admit that the practice of silent worship is one of the things that draws me toward Quakerism. Before we'd even started attending a Quaker meeting, I was very interested in the idea of contemplative prayer. The idea of Christian meditation and even Christian mysticism is interesting to me.

The Quaker (or Friendly) idea of sitting in silence is a method of intentionally listening for the voice of God. In honoring the Inner Light that we all have, if we are silent and still, we can await the word of God.

In this hectic world of rushing around and noise everywhere, I think a lot of us yearn for the silence. It can bring us a sense of peace that we'll miss if we don't take the time to sit in silence.

Camping Season 2008 is now open

As I mentioned in my last post, I did ignore the media all weekend. That was mostly because it was our annual First-Weekend-in-May camping trip which is our family's official start to the camping season. The weather this year was not as nice as last year. Friday we had to contend with rain and storms and then Saturday night it got down into the 40's and was a little on the chilly side. But that didn't deter us. We love camping and can't wait for the first annual trip. We always start the season off at McCormick's Creek State Park in the same campsite every year. It is a family tradition. Here is the creek from which the park gets its name:

As I mentioned, it was rainy and stormy Friday night when we set up camp, so we had to hang up a tarp to protect our table. It was only a little miserable and we made the best of a trying situation.

The rain did stop, however, and Saturday was a nice and sunny day. We went on several different hikes. (Here are my three sons on one of our hikes.)

And we spent time playing around the campsite.

It got pretty cold Saturday night so we huddled around the campfire. Here I am sitting by the fire. I was bundled up in a t-shirt, sweatshirt, a hoodie, and a fleece jacket with a winter coat draped over my legs and gloves on my hands. Dressing in layers actually does work.

Saturday morning we warmed up by the fire as we made breakfast.

I was thrilled that the guys made breakfast. Here's my 16 year old making biscuits in our dutch oven.

In general a good time was had by all. In my gardening blog I have created a companion post where I will share all the wildflowers that I identified this trip. And if you are a wildflower fan, this weekend was incredible. Everything seemed to be in bloom!

We are excited about camping again and are already planning our next camping trip for some time in June.

Indiana Media Blitz

So this is what it is like to be a participant in the process. Indiana usually gets ignored in primary season, so this is new to us. I could do without the prelude, frankly. Next Tuesday can't come soon enough.

Junk mail is in my mailbox every day. I get two flyers a day - both about Barack Obama. His camp sends out positive info about him and Hillary's camp sends out negative info about Barack. I am SOO tired of Hillary's negative campaigning. And I have to admire Obama that even after all this time, he isn't stooping to her level of campaigning. The smearing is just getting really old and nasty and I'm disappointed in her. I am liking her less and less with each day and I used to be a Hillary supporter. Sigh.

I am so tired of turning on the TV and hearing about Rev. Wright. The attempt to connect Obama to radical black extremism is so transparent and sad. Using this country's history of racism against itself. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

I will be ignoring the media this weekend. Everything I see only solidifies my opinion about who I will vote for. I'm just looking forward to it being all over.

And then it starts all over again as we approach November.