Julie Pippert: Using My Words

If a tree falls in a yard, will anyone look up from their Harry Potter books to see it? I really hadn't intended a botanical series this week, but the theme has been chosen for me. Yesterday, a tragedy occurred here. It may sound silly but I am devastated about what has happened. Let me back up and tell this from the beginning, in photos. I may have mentioned the incessant, unceasing, neverending, beyond Biblical rain we've had here. I may have mentioned it is every day, and has been, for months. This is a dreadful photo, one I had never planned to do anything with other than keep for history. It's from about a week ago, on a day when my children---all of us sick with cabin fever---decided to suit up and go play in the rain. Can you see much? This is the back half of our yard. The small pink object is Persistence, standing shin deep in water. The yard had drained off earlier that day, but then we were hit with a storm and pounding of rain so fierce that about five inches of...

When I studied Old English in college, I not only learned a new language, I gained insight into my own culture and its past through its history of languge. I remember the strange and yet familiar words, the complex and myriad meanings, the grammatical rules, the hours groups of us spent translating and seeking the best modern word for an ancient concept. But most of all, I remember the professor. The course was taught by a former Jesuit, who left to marry a Russian emigre (please recall this was the 80s and early 90s, so that was actually noteworthy back then). I was recruited in college for a job, and this professor steered me away from it. I subsequently took a different job, which happened to be with his wife. During a major crisis at that job, we were evacuating and had a matter of seconds before contamination. I happen to be the sort who keeps a cool head during such times, and the professor's wife was not. Who knows her history or why the event affected her so much. She panic...

A simple toothache can be fatal. That is the sobering message a 12-year-old Maryland boy left when, after his dental problems went untreated, he succumbed to a severe brain infection. Deamonte Driver's life could have been spared if his infected tooth was simply removed -- a procedure costing just $80. However, the Driver family faced obstacles with Medicaid, poverty, and access to resources, resulting in an easily preventable health problem turning deadly. Source: Toothache Leads to Boy's Death at abcnews.com I think by now we've all heard this tragic story. We're all saddened, perplexed, and outraged. At least, I hope we all are. This is a devastating and completely avoidable tragedy. We should feel grief, and outrage. And, as usual, the first people to step up and loudly start talking about reform are...politicians. And, as usual, we are all looking to the politicians to fix the problem. Through legislation. As if we are tittle tattlers in kindergarten running to t...

"He who needs mercy finds it," says Jalal Al-Din Rumi, a 13th century poet, jurist, and theologian. Born in an area now Afghanistan, Rumi is considered one of the greatest Sufist poets, whose works such as the Mathnawi continue to influence the Persian culture (Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan) as well as the world through multiple translations. In the Masnavi , Rumi addressed the challenges of life: faith, hope, love, doubt, mercy, evil, reason, truth and so on. In my translation (EH Whinfield, 1898), Pain and Mercy sit side-by side: Pain first, Mercy second. Rumi originally had Mercy before Pain. However, I think Whinfield's reorganization did not detract from Rumi's original intent. Instead, I believe it shows in great relief a key concept Rumi wanted his reader to absorb. Rumi wrote: Pain is a treasure, for it contains mercies; The kernel is soft when the rind is scraped off. I feel keenly my own fallibility, and thus I feel compassion when another falls. For fro...

Another catastrophe devastates us all with its unecessary tragedy today. 33 dead at Virginia Tech . I can only imagine how the people lined up against the wall and executed, or hunted down, felt. I hope I never know, I hope my children never know. I hope we always only can imagine. And this, this thought, is exactly what every person, every parent hopes. Today, some lost that hope. And that may be the least of the loss. Gwen said she's so glad to know it's people who kill people, not guns. She begs us to consider the damage the Virginia Tech murderer might have inflicted with a knife. I said good point. Jen said God has been noticeably absent. I said, "It is a tragedy beyond words. I will say...God gave man freedom of will. This was not God's will; it was man's will. God was not absent. I am sure God was more present than ever. But he will not remove freedom of will. I am sure God was more anguished by heart than any of us, and that's both saying a lot, and v...