faulker012

Do you ever think about your eyes? To truly appreciate your eyes, the functioning of your eyes, you have to realize that your normal, healthy eyes are automatically triangulating your spacial relation continuously. That, in addition to detecting detail in even extremely low levels of light, distinguishing over ten million distinct colors, observing the smallest discrete motion, adapting to changes in visible light through changes in the pupil, automatic adaptation to light quality, focusing during movement from close objects to distant objects, continual focus with both rapid and slow object movement, observing three dimensions, and recognizing subtle patterns. Our eyes are exquisitely amazing and complicated organs. * The evolution of sight is also truly amazing. Our complex eyes began long ago with a few cells that were capable of sensing light. These specialized cells detected light and that light was then detected by the brain. Most resources that I found date early sight and ear...

This past weekend I was driving home from across the state. I stopped in Rolla MO in the early afternoon for lunch at Panera. Rolla is a university town, a technology university. Maybe it was Parents' Weekend; maybe most weekends bring the parents, longing for their children because every table in the restaurant was filled with families. A parent or two beaming at a young student or two as the students told their stories.  The fathers, huge smiles, from ear-to-ear even, fully enjoying the humor of their growing sons. (Most of the students at this school are male.) The fathers' shining eyes watched their boys laughing over the soup and sandwiches. The mothers? Longing. Wanting to touch. Wanting to sit closer, be nearer. I could feel it in every mother I saw, the longing. Quieter smiles, hands fluttering toward the part in her son's hair, his collar, his shoulder... A short break from her son's empty room, well-made bed, the full refrigerator back home. If only for an af...

Do you ever feel inundated with religiosity in the world? I do. So I got to wondering how many people on the planet are nonbelievers...I founds tons of websites with information on the matter. This website offered these statistics that comforted me a bit...thought I'd share it. I chose this website only for it's ease of readability. Sadly the US does not rank high in nonbelievers. Various selected countries, according to the Oxford Handbook , with the highest percentages of non-believers, include: Czech Republic – 55% atheist/agnostic (actual number: 4,649,620) France – 41%   (19,965,630) Sweden – 39%   (2,800,152) Germany – 36%   (24,564,226) Netherlands – 34%   (4,303,110) Belgium – 34%   (2,857,053) Denmark – 32%   (1,369,512) Norway – 32%   (1.146,464) United Kingdom – 30%   (14,579,992) South Korea – 28%   (10,419,885) New Zealand – 28%   (866,000) Finland – 28%   (1,172,404) Japan – 28%   (29,766,356) Hungary – 27% ...

I'm posting this post again. I first wrote it in 2014.  I recently had a conversation with a dear, dear friend of mine  and our conversation brought the idea of this post to mine. I hope you enjoy it. I remember a hideous day from years ago when Elizabeth was just a few years old. It was while we were potty-training (Oh geez, she is going to hate it that I posted anything about this time!) and I was just beside myself with wondering what to do. I had no idea what I was doing and I was concerned that I was totally messing things up. She was about four years old , maybe. I know that I had a newborn at the time and he was born when she was three and a half, so yeah, about four years old.   She just didn't want to stop wearing a the darn disposable. And when I asked her why she told me very simply and practically that she didn't want to stop playing to take the time she needed. It seems like such a small deal now but then I was just a mess about it for some reason. I have...

When I was active in my belief and in my religion and in my church I often wondered why there were no women in places of authority in the church. Masses never included females in any role, from the officiant to the servers to the readers. The Catholic church is extremely male-dominated, while my experience with truly good believers was that the most amazing humans who I ever came across were female. Nearly every single person in my religious circles whose goodness and leadership blew me away were women doing their part for the religion, maybe even more for the humans in the religion. When I look back on my days in the religion several women immediately come to mind. And no men, actually. It seems that the women that were active leaders in the church were more focused on the humans in the church while the men were more active in the power and control part of the religion. Hmmm. I just realized that. Anywho...several women immediately come to mind, women whose overall personas were far m...

My opinions are generally quite liberal. I definitely have opinions that are unpopular and I don't mind if other people don't agree with me or share my opinions. It's nice that way. For example, I don't have a problem with the font Comic Sans. I think it’s OK .   I think anyone who wants to get married should have that right. Any colors, genders, races, WHATEVER. As long as a person is an adult, their life, their decision. Consenting adults. Marijuana should be legal. Stupid murderous alcohol is legal. Ridiculously poisonous cigarettes are legal. Marijuana isn't even close to being as toxic as those two substances.  Feminism. I don't think most people understand what it is. It's not freaking hatred of men. It's about equality. David Bowie. Yuk. Not a fan. I don't like his voice, his persona, or his music. I have no problem with suicide. If, at some point, you think your life is ready to end, it should be entirely within your right to end it. I espe...

I have a serious question for all readers of this post and I hope you leave a thoughtful comment below in the space for thoughtful comments: What is the single most influential book you have ever read?  If you are a reader like I am, that question is probably super difficult. I can think of at least a dozen books that have moved me and that have meant something to me...the kind of book that gets me reading more, researching, wanting...needing more. I have several books that have served as tremendously meaningful turning points for me.  There is one book that was hugely significant for me and very influential in my transition from believer to nonbeliever. It was about the year 1997; I was working part time at this place where I had some time to read/reflect/write a bit. That's significant because I had a newborn at the time and reading/reflecting/writing aren't typically possible in the life of a new mother.  My sister was living in Dallas at the time and she and I were wr...