m e a d o w l a r k

In my World History Class, we are currently studying India, and more specifically Buddhism and Hinduism. Much of what I thought i knew about other religions is being challenged, and i have found myself wondering aloud if i will see Siddhartha Gautama, Muhammad, or even Mohandas Gandhi in Heaven. I have come to realize that there are many elements of truth in all religions, and that they probably evolved over time, along with christianity, from roughly the same belief system. This has me questioning how much the Christian religion has changed since Jesus’ original teachings. After thousands of years and thousands of different translations of the Bible, have we as Americans misinterpreted, over-produced, nationalized, consumerized, and westernized Jesus’ divine teachings until it resembles something different entirely? Have we been using our immense wealth and blessings to feed the hungry, free the oppressed, clothe the naked, and love the poor? Or are we using the cross as an excuse for our nationalism and as a token gain more wealth?

What Ive learned about Buddhism and its founder in the past weeks have arose the most questions for me. Siddhartha Gautama, or Buddha, has struck me as an incredibly wise man, and not a direct oposition to Jesus, as i had always thought. Siddhartha, who was born 400-500 years before Jesus’ time, preached that material possesions were not the ultimate goal in life, and that in order to be happy we must free ourselves from desire. He abandoned his life as a prince to travel the world in search of wisdom and enlightenement, and forbid his followers to worship him. It did not seem as if he was trying to start his own religion, and many people today consider Buddhism a lifestyle rather than a religion. Unfortunately, many sects of the Buddhist religion do worship Buddha, directly contradicting his teachings. Many Buddhists today also worship idols of Buddha. It is obvious from this that Buddhism has evolved greatly, so that it barely resembles what it once did. I find myself wondering if Siddhartha was given the gift of wisdom by God, but had his words twisted and culturally diffused into something it wasn’t supposed to be…

Hinduism also has many truths, but has evolved greatly. Hinduism stresses the importance of nonviolence, and respect for God’s creation, and it states that “God is one, but wise men know him by many names.” Hindu followers have changed this into worship of millions of gods and a segregated caste system that promotes racisim…

In addition, Islam directly addresses how distorted the major world religions have become, yet the five pillars of islam are traditions that were arguably never a part of God’s plan… 

And finally, Christianity evolved from Judaism, but Jews today follow much different traditions than they did thousands of years ago when moses was parting the red sea…

What i’m trying to get to through all of this is that we need to question how tolerant we are being of other religions, and whether or not we are following Jesus’ ORIGINAL teachings. When you boil them all down, the world’s religions differ only slightly, but they have been corrupted and distorted into something completely different than they once were. I beleive that Christianity is by far the least distorted, but perhaps i only believe that because thats what i was raised to know. I believe that God looks at your heart, not what denomination you are or who you voted for in last years election. What  I do know is that there is God out there who loves me, and he is a God of love, tolerance, compassion, and peace. I know that Jesus Christ is God, and that i should follow his teachings. I know that I will never truly know EXACTLY what God intended for our religion to be and i need to accept that wonder and mystery are an important parts of faith that set us appart from our all-knowing God. Nonetheless, I should continue to seek wisdom and truth in God’s word. I also know that we as Americans need to take a closer look at what the Christian faith has become. Are we really putting others above ourselves? Or are we like the Pharisees who take an arrogant pride in our religion? Are we giving back to God what he has so graciously given us? Or are we spending our blessings in pursuit of an American Dream? Are politicians using the Lord’s word to rule justly and fairly, and aid those in need? Or are they using his name in vain as an excuse for pride, discrimination of gays, warmongering, bloodshed, destruction of his earth, and worship of material possesions? Are we truly following God’s will? Or are we following a marketed, western-friendly, feel-good religion?

Well I am happily home in Minnesota. The word and thought of home have been heavily on my mind lately. Probably because home is a little jumbled in my mind. Whenever I am headed to Napa for a visit I certainly tell people I am “going home”. I cannot help but cry a little bit everytime a plane I am on touches down anywhere in California, something inside of me just sighs deeply and says “I am home again.” Certainly if I am in California without the rest of the family I soon get homesick for Minnesota…or rather for the family. And even when the family is with me we are always ready to go home when we leave California. Does that mean that “home” is Minnesota? Or does it mean that “home” is the house we live in.

Although most of us will say that we are going “home” when we are headed towards the place where we dwell. Is that simply where we keep our stuff? Or where we sleep most nights? The place where we bought the food in the refridgerator? Many of us may live in places that are not really much of a home to us. To many of us home is where we grew up, but many of us moved around a lot as children, do those people not have a clear sense of home? Or does it go back to where we dwell?

I love my house (I just wish it was about 1000 square feet bigger), it is a place of beauty, a place of love, a place of chaos, it is home…even if it is plunked down in the fridgid state of Minnesota. And yet a part of me will always feel a bit like a fish out of water in the midwest. I have lived in Minnesota for 9 years, I lived in California for 25 years, if I end up in Minnesota for another 16 years will this become home? Is it a matter of where I have spent the majority of my life? I spent two weeks sleeping in my old bedroom in Napa. I have arguably slept more nights in that room than in any other in my life, and yet now I continually have a hard time sleeping while there.

Minnesota….I actually love that too, believe it or not. Of course I have carved out a life here that includes family, friends, career. Minnesota is a great place to live. There is much to do and much beauty to see. The weather will ever be a challenge for me, but realistically the weather effects the lives of pretty much everyone living in this great country to a pretty serious degree with the exception of those living in the vast state of California. I happen to be one of those people who think that change is a good thing…the weather certainly changes around here! You could say it’s Bi-Polar…huge mood swings!

Certainly at this juncture in my life home is where my family is, my family of Chuck, Travis, Elaine and Onjya and to a degree Manny and Daisy-the wonderdog and princess cat. But I miss family in California dearly and always have a sense of being away from home in being away from them. Of course many of you are now spread around the country too. Near and dear to my heart are family and friends in Oregon, Tennessee, Arizona, and Wisconsin. None of those places are home to me but they hold people in them that I dearly wish I was closer to.

Just some thoughts I have been having…thought I would share. Kind of random I know. I think I am having a mid-life crisis and getting all contemplative….40 is only a few days away you know! Yikes.

Hope you all all “home” and happy. Where is home to you??

~Renee

i just want to thank ALL of you pedley’s for posting on here all of the time.

i enjoy hearing about all of your lives and what is going on in each of you. i love your hearts! you are each so unique but at the same time it sounds like you are a very strong family who really likes each other. you make me smile (o:

i am sure you are loving having your wife and mom back home. she is so great and did a wonderful job caring for shari.

keep up the blogs!

x

leila

hi ya’ll from tennessee…wil and i are actively reading the blog- happy to see it has some traffic again! our life seems to be abnormally busy right now; work has consumed both of our lives the last couple months. summer definitely went by so fast that it didn’t feel like summer.

i wanted to hop on here and let you all know that there actually is a way to have your post categorized with your name (someone mentioned it in a past comment). it has been set up since the beginning, but i don’t know if it was ever mentioned in any of the tutorials for anyone to know!

when you write a post, you’ll notice 6 or 7 blue categories on the right…if you hit the little plus sign (+) on the “categories” section, it will show a list of all the participants in the blog. when you write your post, you’ll click the box next to your name and unclick the box that says general. not only will it show your name at the beginning of your post when published, it will keep all of the posts sorted by category so someone can go click “chuck” on the main page and see all the posts chuck wrote.

i can include a little picture of it when i get home to give you a visual of that list…i can’t upload pictures at the moment. i’ve tried to go in as people write their posts and change the categories myself, but i’ve gotten behind with all this activity!

thanks, kristen

Well I drove down the mountain road today for what I am sure will be the last time for a while. While it is a blessing to be here, a blessing to serve, a blessing to be with my family…I will not miss driving up and down that mountain road each day! It makes me realize that I generally drive around town and to and from work without really thinking much about it. You have to contantly be awake and aware while driving that road.

 Shari is improving greatly. Tomorrow their housekeeper will be there for 4 hours cleaning but Shari will be alone the rest of the time. We are hoping it goes ok. I worked today on letting her do things for herself, she really can do most things, there are just a few things that are difficult. Adjusting the ice packs on her back is difficult and unfortunately not something that can wait until Fred gets home. After tomorrow Fred has a 3 day weekend which gives her a lot of recovery time. What will happen for next week remains to be seen. She sees the neurologist next Friday and will hopefully have more information then about recovery time.

It has been incredibly hot here. The temp outside at Berryessa today was 109!!! Now that’s hot! Made me oh so thankful for the air conditioning that I normally am not very fond of! Now I am back down at mom’s and while it is not quite that hot now at 8pm, there is no air conditioning in this house and it is HOT! Especially upstairs. I will be hitting the pool when I am done posting this!

As I said I am blessed to have been able to be here but I am very anxious to get home. I miss my family terribly and I am ready for the routine of my life. Mom had CNN on a few minutes ago and they were showing St. Paul and talking about the Republican convention next week…I almost cried as I said “oh, it’s home!”

Chuck, Travis, Elaine, and Onjya thank you so much for working so hard at keeping things running while mom-less. Thank you for being so willing to send me away! And for being so supportive of what I had to do even though it is so far away from all of you. I cannot wait to see you Saturday.

Aunt Shari sends a great big thank you to all of you also!

Love to all….Renee

I started school on Monday, and it was great because I’m in high school now, and yet they still treat me like I’m a kindergartner. And all the Juniors and Seniors are super rude, because to them I’m just a stupid little sophomore. It’s nice to see all my friends again, but I don’t like school. None of my teachers are especially nice, and I don’t have a ton of classes with my friends, but I’ll get over it. I’m not in any fall sports, so I just run on my own after school to get ramped up for track in the spring. That’s about all I have to say for now, so you’ll hear more about my insanely interesting life soon. Love you all!

I did not realize how sad and pathetic I am as it has been almost a year since I last posted my last blog.

My last entry discussed my return to college life, so I thought that I would start there.

I am currently on a 3 week break before starting the fall semester. Since my last class was Statistics, I thought that I would write in that context.

1- The number of years that I have been at this “school” thing

1 ½- How many years I have left. As much as I wish that time would generally slow down, this is one area of my life that I wish would go a little faster than normal.

90- The percent of statistics that Travis says are “made-up” on the spot.

816- The number of miles that I have commuted to work by bicycle this summer. I would like to get to 1000, but the days are starting to get short. Technically, I don’t know if I am “sticking it to the man” by reducing my carbon footprint while commuting to an oil refinery, but it sure feels good.

65- The number of miles that Onjya and I biked last weekend on our Father-Daughter camping trip. (Way to go Onjya!) It was extremely fun. We camped, swam, canoed, fished and ate smores…good times!

3- The number of teenagers in our home that are helping out so much while mom is away. No fighting, the work is getting done, everyone is staying fed. Yeah!

1996- Driving distance in miles from Farmington, MN to Napa, CA. It seems like an awfully long way away, but I know that is where Renee’ needs to be, and where our thoughts and prayers are all directed. Get well soon Shari and Fred.

5- The result of 4 + 1; also the number of people that I will look forward to sleeping in their own beds again soon.

3- The number of days that are left in the kids’ summer vacation! Yippeeyeah!! I hope that my cell phone can get used to not ringing continuously from 9am-4pm daily.

My first class in the fall will be a professional writing class. I’ll have to figure out a way to make that the theme of my next blog.

Chuck