Monday, November 16, 2009

Today in Plumbing



It turns out that the sewer connections in Asheville
have a dirty little secret.
The pipes connecting to the house are metal.
The pipes between those metal pipes
and the sewer
are made of some sort of laminated tar paper.
It is really a miracle they lasted 60 years or so.
But now the time has come
to pay the big bucks
and dig the big holes
and replace the pipes
so that water will continue to leave the house
and not pool in the basement.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

2012

I have been thinking about the short and long of the Mayan calendar.
The calendar ends in December of 2012,
so people are cashing in with books and movies
about the end of the world
at that time.

Working with hospice patients,
I'm familiar with the energy
that comes with this way of thinking.

If I have two years (or less) to live
what do I need to get done?
What do I need to say to people?
What do I need to learn, to forgive, to resolve?

It is a good and healthy thing
to live with short term deadlines.

Motivates us to get moving,
to do the things that we keep putting off
for uncounted tomorrows.

But I'm also intrigued with the LONG
of the Mayan calendar.

In our culture it is unheard of
to plan ten years ahead,
much less 5000 years.

If I make a new calendar
not for this month or this year
or this decade or this hundred years...
but for the next 5000 years,
what sort of planning does THAT entail?

The Mayans were truly remarkable
with their calendars short
and their calendars long.
They were people comfortable with
both the short view from harvest to harvest
and the long reach into the vast unknown.