A Nice Rainy Day

I had a great day today.  My father-in-law was in town and we went out to lunch and dinner!  Then I went to a friend's apartment to throw a couple of pots on her wheel.  Yes, I skipped a bit of work to do all this (which is why the day was so great!).

5  First I want to share a picture that I took on our honeymoon last summer in Ireland.  While we were staying in Killarney, Ireland we saw this beautiful grotto on our way into town from our B&B.

It was something to break up the walk and make me pause for a bit, and on the way back it was a landmark to let us know we were almost there.

The stonework in Ireland is something Dave and I will never forget.  On our bus tour, we saw these low stone walls all over the countryside.

Do  you see those lines that look like hedges?  Those are stone walls.  (I took this picture through the window of the moving bus)  We were told that there was no mortar between the rocks, to allow wind to pass through without knocking them down.  So there's a life lesson: sometimes it's best to let things pass.  Or pick your battles.  Or something like that.

Ireland is a very rocky island.  This is at Galway Bay.  Beautiful.

Dave is standing next to one of the taller walls near the fortress at the Aran Isles.  The stones are really just stacked there, and have been for (some large number of) years.

Next item:

6  We've all probably heard JFK praised for his separation of church and state speech.  Kennedy was a Catholic and famously insisted that he would not let his personal beliefs interfere with his ability to govern the country.  Democrats seem to love to cite him as an example of 'how it should be done' when a person of religious faith is running for office.  There are a couple of quotes from his speech that I think are very relevant today, and probably forgotten or overlooked by those Kennedy fans in favor of the HHS mandate.

At 4:46 in the video linked above:

"I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the first amendment's guarantees of religious liberty, nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so."

At 9:05 

"But if the time should ever come... when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest then i would resign the office, and i hope any other conscientious public servant would do likewise." - JFK

Yep, that's right.  Not only was he saying that he would keep his personal beliefs separate from public office, but also that it would be wrong of anyone to undermine the first amendment and that he would sooner resign than violate his conscience.  I doubt he would ignore the current pleas of the Catholic Bishops.

Liz