"My favorite animal is steak." - Fran Lebowitz

Weird weather today. It will POUR down rain, so hard that it's noisy inside of MoHo, and then be sunny. Repeat every 15 minutes.

Brett, the pastor at UFC, was gone this morning so the pastor of college ministries preached, and the college group led the worship. (Note: the church meets in a H.S. just a few miles from the UofO campus so there are literally hundreds of students who attend. Hence the need for a position dedicated to that demographic.)
Ugh.
I told Pam it was a throwback to our experiences at Emmaus and Cornerstone. The songs were all Christian sentimentality and the sermon a hot mess. He preached from the Sermon on the Mount and ran two sections together that, because they are stand-alone units, look contradictory. He just ignored that detail and talked all around the barn with no discernible structure or point.
Tonight we're going to a home group that each week meets to discuss prepared questions on the morning's sermon. I can hardly wait. (It's afternoon as I write this.)

The small group meets at (and is led by?) the home of an orthopedic surgeon who attends UFC and led this morning's bioethics class. It's a special three week class (they don't normally have any S.S. hour) and it was pretty good. After an intro the dr. guided the session effectively with a series of questions and controlled what could easily have turned into chaos. Most of the time was spent discussing Gardasil, the HPV vaccine. I didn't realize the HPV is the only known cause of cervical cancer, and that the virus is a sexually transmitted disease.

As of yesterday morning both bays of the woodshed are filled with seasoned wood. Together they hold three cords of wood, which should last us two winters, assuming last year was typical. Based on the piles of split wood sitting between MoHo and the creek and waiting to be stacked I'm estimating we won't need to worry about firewood for the next decade at least.
The potential problem: I'm pretty sure I cut some of the rounds more than 18" long and I think even 18" may be too long for our stove. I will have to cut some of the pieces in half before they can be used, but that can happen later. Other tasks currently sit at the top of the to-do list.

I dislike the PC restrictions on speech that now rule conversation for several reasons. I want to pay a female a compliment without being accused of sexism, or worse. While there's no excuse for abusive speech and never has been, keeping up with the words and terms now deemed inappropriate is more than I can handle. "You can't say that anymore" is advice my kids have given me more than once. And the restrictions too often get in the way of conversations that could educate and elighten. How can I learn if I can't ask?

With that disclaimer, I want to understand why some cultures have advanced over the centuries and others haven't. Do some have systemic limitations? Is it nothing more than "coincidences" that lead some cultures to progress while others sit static? Is there some theological reason?

For example, when Europeans arrived on this continent none of the the Indians/Native Americans/First Nations (??) had a written language and didn't even have the wheel. They dragged goods on something akin to a sled behind a horse.
Until relatively recently some Amazon tribes practiced cannibalism.
Female genital mutilation, slavery, the abandonment of baby girls and the mentally ill.....

Whether it's technical advancement or moral values, some cultures are better than others.
It's true, and no amount of PC pressure will change that.
I'm NOT saying any culture is without serious problems, especially on the moral front. Sin continues to exact its price in every person and every society. But no one can reasonably argue that narcissistic materialism is as bad as institutionalized misogyny expressed through acceptable violence in all forms.
I'm also not saying that Europeans are at the top of the heap (though I think a case can be made that in many cases they've historically had the lead). I know just enough history to know the Chinese were way ahead of the rest of the world in science and technology for centuries.

A year ago I was in Costa Rica and was struck by the strength of family bonds. The family unit is central, extended families live together with the younger generations taking care of the seniors, and children are loved (not idolized). I saw teens sitting with their parents at services and dads warmly interacting with their kids regardless of the kids age (and teens reciprocating). Eight months later I was in Tanzania and never saw a dad interacting with his child in any way, regardless of age. About the only time I saw mothers in contact with their child was to shift them from their back to their front in the wrap sling used to carry them. I did see a few moms helping their very young child at mealtime, but nothing more. Husbands and wives sat separately in meetings - women in the back - until I got on the husbands and urged them to have their wives sit with them for the next session. (I got about 80% compliance.)
Why?

I don't know, and I'd like to learn the various explanations for the differences in cultural development and progress, both in the areas of technology and morals. But even asking the question makes it sound like you're devaluing some people relative to others. No, I'm asking about cultures, not individuals.
But even that is verboten.
So you didn't read it here. Nope. Not from me!