Three Things Thursday

1) I just reconnected with my anthropology professor friend on the phone and find myself wondering where the evidence is that religion is predictable based on culture. Some of religion, surely. Some of it can be predicted based on individual psychological make up. But all of it? My sense has long been that anthropology is mostly speculation, culture filling-in where no precise record exists (it is hard enough to grasp previous cultures when extensive records to exist, as with Rome). Perhaps he will enlighten me and send me to the right texts. And by religion does he mean theology, metaphysical belief, or praxis, ethic, sense of the sacred? For surely many cultures have known the holy, the holy good or the holy awful. I continue to hope that God has spoken to all or most of them throughout history, but I have no way of knowing.

2) I'm ten days from another weekend on the sea! My last two days of Bareboat are Memorial Day weekend. How cool is that! I spent a half hour this morning working on my knots. Also, I'm reading the fourteenth of the Patrick O'Brian novels and I must say: they continue to fill me with wonder.

3) This summer I will have to knuckle down and do the thing I hate most: work on my house. The baseboard from my (in)famous wood floor must finally go in; the deck and house need to be painted...these things never end. It wouldn't be so bad if I could afford to pay someone to do it; I can't. Or if I enjoyed the work. Generally, I don't. Besides just hanging out with my family, I like to read, write, sail, work out, and go to dinner parties.

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