Welcome guest author Jane Flink from Columbia Missouri.   

The "Raging Grannies" Youtube video (see earlier post) and their rollicking response to CBS "right to life" advertising funds inspired Jane.  She mobilized her inspiration and wrote a wee story called "Gods Idea" and I have included it below.  

GOD HAS A GOOD IDEA - By Jane Flink

God is sitting in the Garden of Eden, contemplating all that s/he has made. “I want another experiment with Persons,” God thinks.  S/he wants to create a tiny Person.  S/he will call it a Baby and Adam and Eve will learn about themselves as they watch the Baby grow to be like them.

“Where will I put this Baby I will create?” God wonders.  “I could hide the Baby under a large cabbage leaf in the garden and when the Persons come out to gather food, they will find the baby.  But will they understand what a Baby is if they find it under a cabbage leaf?”  And God says, “That is not a good idea”.

I could drop the baby from the sky, God thinks, perhaps from the beak of some large flying bird.  But the Baby, as I envision it, would not withstand the fall to earth.  “So that,” God says, “ is not a good idea.”

God thinks longer.  “Perhaps I should first create a council of elders, made in the form of Adam, and when they open their council meeting lo, a baby shall be in front of them, and these wise elders can decide what to do with it.  But for all their wisdom, will they understand what a Baby is, and what a Baby needs?  God thinks it likely a council of elders would find a Baby only something more to argue about.

God’s mind roams over his/her creation. “I could give the baby to Adam, but he is always jumping and plunging into streams to swim and climbing tall trees.   Adam might not understand how to grow the Baby to become a Person, male or female, as I have created them.” 

As God is thinking, Eve strolls down a path near the place where God is sitting. She has built a raft to cross a stream to gather berries and along the way she finds a young rabbit, one of God’s newer Creations. Eve is playing with the rabbit, feeding it bits of lettuce from the garden and she and the rabbit roll over together in the soft grass.  When the young rabbit grows tired, Eve nestles it against the hollow of her throat. Carrying the rabbit, Eve finds a soft tussocky place under the shade of a tree and she and the rabbit curl up together, and they sleep.

God loves them all -- s/he loves the cabbages and the high-flying bird, and Adam and the Council of Elders, and Eve and the little rabbit and so it is  hard to know where to put the Baby he is planning to create.  S/he looks again at Eve and the rabbit.  When she found it in need of play and food and sleep and love she gave the rabbit all of them. The Baby God is thinking of would need all those things, not just for an afternoon; not just in cabbage season; not just when high-flying birds cared to carry cargo, or when councils of elders sat down to disagree. For the Baby, God wants love that will never die.

Finally, God decides.  He gives dominion over the animals to Adam.  But he gives dominion over the Baby to Eve, to carry inside her body until it is strong, until God himself can breathe life into its nostrils and make of it a living soul.  When God tells Adam about the animals, Adam leaps with joy. But when he gives the Baby to Eve, her head is full of visions of the blessing of life given and the sadness of life taken and the need for a love that never dies.

The sun closes down the day, casting shadows of blue and gold and God sits quietly, looking with satisfaction over all her/his Creation. “The one about the Baby,” God thinks, musing  –“that was a very good idea,”

The End....

Abortion politics is nasty business and unsteady ground.  It has divided and hurt us for so long.  In the middle of Jane's story I felt suddenly disorientated as if air was rushing into my mind bringing me a sense of space.   Into this space came laughter and its near companion, compassion.  We need all the questions, all the wisdom, and all the humor that we can muster for this collective heart-sore. 

Then, Jane added in our email exchange, "At any rate, God's decision carries everything I believe about how necessary and delightful and strong and needy and merciful and fun-loving and caring women are, and I have thought, since my first pregnancy, that God was a pretty wise old guy to put the Baby where he put it.  And if there are times when Woman finds she cannot give the Baby what it needs, and must part with it, I believe with all my heart that abortion is her decision and hers alone -- not only do I believe that, but I think God believes it, too. All those televangelists can't fool me!"


Thanks for being the inspiration for something i have long wanted to write!"    Love, Jane 

Ah but the honor is mine....Love Sharon 
and
Thanks to the Salonistas in Missouri and to other warm hearted strong minded women who have inspired us to continue to explore, talk, and listen.

The power of design: Fun in funny places

Recently, while traveling with friends we reconsidered  a question posed  some years ago via questionnaire about how to increase the traffic flow in public restrooms, particularly womens' rooms.

A variety of suggestions were put forward at the time based mostly on dark humor and the assumption that people move more quickly in places that they don't like.

My son suggested that if you really wanted to shake things up that you could significantly change the traffic in mens rooms by putting the urinals back-to-back so the patrons faced each other.  Alternatively, one could place them in a circle facing inwards.

All men  present agreed this was a potent idea that would have far-reaching effects (none that they were in support of).  Some predicted that such a design would create a restroom that no one (man) would use.

The inquiries of the curious women were met with curt certainty and unusual concordance among the men but, no details.

Thus, much giggling ensued.

Tonight I found this wonderful picture by Wim Wiskerke a photographer based in Holland.  He has been a great help to me as I learn the ropes in stock photography and seek to expand and share Gay's available images .  His image that I've included in this post is available at Alamy Stock or from him directly.  It  provides a similar innovative culturally-based approach taken in a REAL mens room in Brussels.  The caption reads "Mens bathroom; urinals at a Brussels restaurant featuring 4 women onlookers, amused, making jokes".

 The anthropologists among us want to assess the response to the design and its impact on use, demand,  and time spent.  We are intrigued.

In truth, the actual solution to the long lines outside the womens loo is  probably to double to number of womens bathrooms available or make all public restrooms unisex.

Then again if some of the ideas proposed here were tried it might be that certain mens rooms could be documented as underutilized and therefore, candidates for renovation into womens rooms.

Please, share your response to these far-fetched notions-- the actual pictures from a Brussles resturant and their loo, or the facing urinals design, how would these affect the situation or environment  we know now?

And, thanks Wim for a great shot.

sharon