Posts Tagged ‘inView’
Book inView: Seldom Disappointed by Tony Hillerman – Adoption
Hillerman shares that after having their first child, “destiny ruled that Anne was the only offspring nature would provide us, Marie and I decided to finish building our family by adoption.” For them, it seems it was that simple. As I entered my adult years and started considering the idea of children, I never thought of adoption. When I did, my first thought was: “I want to have MY children.” But what does that say about all the children who are adopted, or the parents who adopted them? Are they somehow less related? No! Was my perspective not very well thought out? Yes! My wanting “my own” children was something that came from not thinking about what that meant, it came from societal pressures, machismo, and a lack of trust in love. Certainly the journey of pregnancy would be missed with adoption, but everyday I make choices to pass some journeys so I might go on others. My want for my own biological child vs an adopted child has passed (though I’m not sure I want children at all yet!). In addition to knowing several people who were adopted and have relationships with their parents that are no different from non-adopted children, I now have the experience of a step family. I love them with all my heart, and they weren’t even my choice. Family has to do with loving each other, not what your gene sequence is.
Right now fertility clinics are a huge business. People spend years of waiting and thousands of dollars, without pursuing adoption. I certainly started from that perspective, but I know find that if my wife and I wanted to have children and weren’t able, the decision to adopt would be an easy one for me. When the Hillerman’s were building their family none of the modern fertility treatments were available, but it seems that they would nonetheless have headed quickly to adoption. The following is an exerpt which everyone who thinks about having children should read:
“…Marie and I hereby submit our answer to the universal question of those considerng adoption. The question concerns parental love for kids you haven’t produced yourselves. The answer is don’t worry about it. As veterans of raising both kinds we can testify that all of them provoke affection, irritation, worry, joy, dismay, care, pride, anger and, most of all, love. Each and every one of them is our child. Don’t try to tell us they had another set of parents. Nor need you worry about adding adoptees into an existing family. Each of our five was greeted with excitement and enthusiasm and had to tolerate being mothered and big-brothered by the siblings they’d joined.”
Book inView: Seldom Disappointed by Tony Hillerman – Squirrels: cute fuzzy creature, or dinner?
“It has occurred to me that social economists could learn something about measuring hard times by counting the ducks and geese surviving on state university ponds and the squirrel population in campus trees.”
- Tony Hillerman, Seldom Disappointed
In Hillerman’s very poor college days he had a friend and roommate who made squirrel stew on Sundays when they did not receive food from their dishwashing job. My first thought was, would I eat a squirrel? While I feel we eat far too much meat in our society, I do like to eat meat. I try to eat meat only once a day, I keep the serving size small, I buy organic free-range. So where do squirrels fit in? Squirrels are wild. I have no qualms about eating wild meat provided it is hunted in a sustainable way. Squirrels are a long way from endangered, and I think if given the opportunity I would give squirrel a try.
In england the burgeoning population of gray squirrels (introduced from North America) is threatening the native population of red squirrels (think Beatrix Potter). The governments solution is to cull the gray squirrels. Regardless of this being an ethical solution to the problem, it is certainly a good idea not to simply throw the dead squirrels away, but to eat the meat, and use the fur. The squirrel market is slowly growing in England, and I have to wonder how long before it starts popping up here.
For a basic overview of squirrels as food, check out this
Book inView: Seldom Disappointed by Tony Hillerman – Christianity in Brief
Hillerman introduces his Catholicism early in his book; it was an important part of his life from childhood to when he wrote the book. His primary early learning of Christianity came from Father Bernard, the Priest of the one church in the tiny town of Sacred Heart, Oklahoma. These days there has been lots of press about Creationism, and the loud movement that supports it. As a Christian myself, I have at times been asked questions such as: “So you think the Earth was built in seven days?” or “Isn’t the Bible just a big lie since it starts out with such an obviously wrong account of creation?” I have always felt that my answers were a hastily put together hodge podge of not all that coherent claptrap. Hillerman’s Father Bernard however provides a coherent answer (to the inquisitive sixth grader Hillerman was) on the question:
“Darwin’s theories, said he, didn’t conflict with our biblical Genesis stories because we understood that in these God taught in poetic metaphor. The biblical “days” of creation represented eons of time. Humanity separated us from the other primates when God touched the first of us with self-knowledge of Him and of life, death, good, and evil. The evolution theory was simply a brilliant scientist’s attempt to help us understand the dazzling complexity of God’s creation – from the amazing strength of a grasshopper’s legs to the way our brains translated the signals delivered by our optic nerves.”
Father Bernard continues with a primer on the Gospels and the foundation of Christianity:
“He made the Gospels equally simple. Christ tried to teach us that happiness lay in helping others, selfishness was the road to damnation. His bottom line always boiled down to God loves us. He gave us free will, permission to go to hell if we wanted, rules to follow if we preferred both a happy life and heaven, and a conscience to advise us along the way.”
Nothing as complex as Christianity, or a persons faith, can be encompassed by so short a passage, but I find it helpful to try on sentences like these. They help me see the foundations of my beliefs, and they help me in casual conversations with people who don’t know anything about my faith.