The Baboon Congress

Finding the Sacred

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Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota.

One thing I appreciate about the Baboons is our tolerance for one another’s opinions and beliefs. Oh, sure, we have our occasional tiff, with brief howling and hurling of poo, but after a bit we regroup and run happily together down the Trail to the next topic.

I have long wanted to post this, but hesitated, with the hesitation that many people have when discussing their religious beliefs. I know most Baboons are quite spiritual, some in less traditional ways, but spiritual and thoughtful. I have trust that the Baboon community will consider this in the spirit in which it is intended (which is to elicit comment and discussion).

I am privileged to be a member of a committee of the western ND Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that approves people who wish to become rostered leaders in the church. This means that if you want to be an ELCA pastor in western ND, you have to jump through a whole lot of hoops and have the qualities that we need for our clergy leaders. Anyone can go to seminary, but if you want to be called and ordained, you need our blessing. This means that we walk with  applicants for several years, attending to and encouraging their growth and maturation, even those who start the process later in life. Some start very later in life, but the process is still the same.

It always fascinates and moves me the first time we meet with an applicant. They are frequently teary. They have incredible faith stories and are so relieved to take the first step to answer what sometimes has been an internal urging that they have tried to ignore for years, but find that they cannot. Some have had incredible heartbreak and trauma, but persevere to answer what they hear as a direct call from God to serve the Church. After one particularly moving interview, a fellow member of the committee said to me “The Holy Spirit was in the room with us tonight”. That statement made the hair stand up on my neck, for I knew that she was right, and let me tell you, the thought of kind of makes me stop and feel humble.

After our June meeting last summer, I left Bismarck and travelled to the Twin Buttes Pow wow in Twin Buttes, ND. We have dear friends from Twin Buttes who are tribal members, and the Pow wow is always so much fun with them. I love watching the Grand Entrance and all the dancers in their gorgeous costumes and intricate dance steps. In the center of the Pow wow grounds is a pole that the dancers circle around, counter-clockwise. Our friend’s mom, now passed, had brain cancer for years, and her only request each year was to see the pole and get pushed up to the pole in her wheelchair so she could touch it. She was also a devout Christian, but that pole was also sacred to her.

It is fun to walk around the pow wow grounds to see the vendors, and the people. I notice children and adults tapping their feet to the rhythms of the drum circles, hearing the traditional songs, also sacred, and I am reminded that the sacred is all around us, in meeting rooms and on pow wow grounds, in churches and in our everyday encounters.

Where do you find the sacred in your life?

86 thoughts on “Finding the Sacred”

  2. Thank you, Renee. Beautiful peace – I appreciate it you putting it out there.

    I am not a Christian, but do consider myself spiritual. Most of my spirit filled moments have to do with nature: a sudden cool breeze on a hot day, a swarm of yellow butterflies outside my hotel room door, coming up over a hill to a miraculous view of white sand and blue water below you.

    And then there are all the spiritual moments in raising a child. When she pulled herself up for the first time in a laundromat basket in Hayward, when she bent herself in double the first night of gymnastics class, when she finally told me she didn’t want to leave home for her sophomore year of college.

    I guess it’s true what Peter Mayer says:

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  3. Nature pretty much does it for me. The wilder, more remote, more foreboding and imposing, the better.

    I get pretty spiritual about music too. Any genre as long as it gives me goosebumps, makes me cry, makes me want to dance and sing, makes we want to thank whatever is responsible for creating human life and allowing me to experience such joy and awe by raising my head skyward and shouting at the top of my lungs, “Thank you for THIS!”

    Chris in Owatonna

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  4. OT: did you hear that? The fill in host on Radio Heartland (sorry; didn’t catch your name) used the term ‘pater familias’!
    Only on RH, I’m telling ya…

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  5. I find the sacred in community – in the connections and spaces between and with people. There is a drive to seek interaction, to reach out, to support, to nurture – that is where I see spirit made manifest. I see it in groups like this where people gather around for conversation and fellowship or camaraderie, in groups of volunteers working to end homelessness and providing a recognition in the humanity and struggle of being without a home, I see in classrooms where teachers ignite curiosity and excitement about learning, I see it in the child who invites the new kid or the lonely kid to play, I see it in the person who sits with a friend or a stranger and holds their hand when they are struggling, I see it when joy is shared. I do see it in nature and other places, but in that space between beings where we connect, that is where I find it.

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  6. I have heard it said that most Americans feel more comfortable talking about htier sex lives than their religious beliefs. I find that quite disturbing.

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      1. Well, I guess I hope that people can start thinking about and talking about all important things. Why be embarassed and uncomfortable about relgious/spiritual beliefs?

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        1. How do you come to the conclusion that the lack of discussion is due to embarrassment? It seems to me that in a discussion of that sort we would either agree and the discussion would be vacuous or we would disagree and the discussion would be pointless. It’s unlikely we would change each other’s mind and what would it matter if we did? Religious belief is entirely speculative.
          For myself, I don’t think I would include religion/spirituality in a list of “important things”.
          Ethics and morality I would consider important. They are often conflated with religion but are not necessarily the same thing and morality doesn’t require theology.

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        2. I generally don’t talk about my spiritual beliefs, especially not with people who hold strong religious views. Not because I’m uncomfortable or embarrassed about my views, but simply because most people of faith that I have encountered aren’t content to accept that I don’t believe in a god.

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        3. You bring up an important idea, Bill. I assumed embarrassment. I shouldn’t do that. It would be so refreshing if more people had more conversations about ethics and morality. For me, both those topics are inextricably tied to religious/spiritual beliefs, but not necessarily for everyone, I know.

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        4. I think of spirituality as internal and personal and religion as external and public. Some people subscribe to the spiritual package presented by a particular religion or denomination and their whole spiritual experience becomes measured in terms of the external precepts of that faith. People who struggle with their religious beliefs seem to be measuring themselves against an external standard. That might make sense if that standard weren’t arbitrary and speculative, the invention of other persons. It just doesn’t compute to say that someone is struggling with his or her internal and personal beliefs. If those beliefs are sincere, they are as substantial as any dogma.

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        6. i think of the part in Pride and Prejudice where Elizabeth is trying to convince her father not to allow her sister Lydia to go and stay with the commander of a regiment and his wife, (where she eventually go into all that trouble) by describing Lydia as someone who had only thought about vanity and amusements fo rmonths, and who hadn’t thought about serious matters at all, and that her lack of serious thought could only lead to serious trouble.

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        7. The idea of “sacred” places smacks a little, to me, of magical thinking and is an externalization of the wonder we sometimes feel in the presence of the mystery of existence. The sacred is in us and not in any particular place.

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        8. I like your distinction between spirituality and religion, Bill, and the fact that morality doesn’t need theology. For me, however, it does compute that people struggle with their internal beliefs if those beliefs come in conflict with the teachings of their theology. Having been brought up as a Catholic, I spent a lot of years searching for a spiritual home that felt right to me. Because of my early indoctrination, it took me a long time be comfortable with a belief system that rejects most of what I had been taught.

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        9. I too was raised Catholic, but in my case it never really “took”. By the time I was about 15, I was hearing some things in the church that didn’t accord with my own sensibilities and, even at that young age, I recognized that I was at a sort of crossroads: either I had to accept what the church was telling me and silence my own conscience or I had to trust myself and live with the consequences. I chose myself and by age 16 no longer considered myself a Catholic.
          It was pretty easy for me because I frankly had no positive associations with the church to miss— nothing to draw me back. For me it was simply liberating.

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        10. If I recall correctly, Robin’s parents were missionaries. Though I know that a lot of missionaries do good work, it’s a concept that I struggle with. I’d sure love to get Robin’s perspective on that.

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        11. Robins parents were supported by a mission board, but Robin’s dad taught comparative religion at a university and her mother was a social worker. While their religious beliefs were certainly more traditional than ours, they were by no means proselytizing.

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  7. Good morning. I was raised as a Christian. I am no longer a Christian. I do believe in religious freedom and that includes the freedom of people to belong to any faith that they choose. My faith is in people. For me human life and all life on our planet is sacred. However I don’t usually use the term sacred or talk about being spiritual. I don’t mind it if others talk about the sacred or being spiritual. I know that I don’t have the answers for everything. However, I prefer to not rely on any religious beliefs.

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  8. When I was young I thought the sacred was a place, and I hoped to go there. Then I thought the sacred was a condition, and I hoped to attain it. I now think the scared is a verb, not a noun, a verb that describes a certain kind of loving act. And I hope to love like that as often as I can.

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    1. Not dis agreeing with you, Steve, bit I do believe there are certain places that are infused with “the sacred”.

      Harney Peak, the spring by Minnehaha, parts of some cathedrals I have been to….

      Then there are other places that are sacred to me, but I think a sense of place varies from person to person, just like sense of smelll.

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  9. I wonder what the air waves would be like if celebreties and the media talked about their spiritual and religious struggles as much as they talk about their love lives.

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  10. Beautiful post, and a good question, Renee.

    Like Jim, sacred isn’t a word I use much. I think of the universe as a place of amazing complexity and natural wonder. Some of it we can explain, much of it not. I’m content to let the mystery be.

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  11. Rise and Seek, Baboons!

    This is a BIG question–I think I could write for hours. But never fear, I will not!

    First, what is NOT sacred to me is anyone declaring that his/her/their way is the only way. That is a yawner and a turn-off. I suspect that so many of us have experienced that particular behavior, that we are unwilling to acknowledge our beliefs for fear of turning into that.

    I have found sacred places and sacred processes: the shore of the Big Lake Superior, Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona AZ, nooks and crannies of some churches, the shore of a lake watching eagles fish, certain cemeteries which feel so holy, some healing places (almost always near water) etc. But mostly, I think it is found in our own hearts and mind as we appreciate the joy and difficulty of life. It takes a lot of fortitude and wisdom to get through a life. There is no “Right Way” to live a life, I think.

    I attend a Christian Church, but my beliefs are broader than what is represented there. I just had a wonderful experience with a church as a kid, and so I find security and value in the rituals and the community. Unfortunately there are so many disturbing behaviors which get acted out in the name of the sacred. That ruins it for everyone.

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  12. I don’t say “sacred” out loud, but there’ve been many times when I’m sitting with a client who’s in great emotional pain and, at those moments, I think how sacred the space we occupy together is.

    I’d consider myself an atheist. The path there resulted from having very little childhood exposure, converting to Catholicism at 25, then finding that the Church was political and absent during difficult times.

    I envy those who so wholeheartedly can accept and be nourished by their faith, mostly because I like the idea of having a built-in community of those who believe the same thing, but I simply cannot separate this
    pleasant vision from the cruelty and hypocrisy I see from the faith community.

    An example was when I was a single mother to three kids, briefly on AFDC, and needed surgery for cervical cancer. I had no one to watch my kids. I was desperate enough to open up the Yellow Pages and call a dozen churches begging for help with the kids. That had to represent at least thousands of people, yet not one would step up to the plate.

    On the opposite side, I have a high school classmate who’s been a missionary in Kenya for 25 years and, as I follow her life, I’m blown away with her giving and the meaningfulness of her life. I guess that, to me, this is an awesome example of walking the talk.

    Last year there was the first large gathering of atheists in Washington. As I watched the crowd, a sign popped out. It read; “I believe in life before death”. For me that says it all.

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  14. In addition to certain experiences in nature, there is music that will make me stop, sit up, and pay attention. In folk dance when one of these dances is done, I have called them a “religious experience, and I find myself getting annoyed if people talk while we dance it (which is rather unreasonable since they are often slow and not difficult, which lends itself to talking). Sometimes music we sing in a chorus will bring me to tears, and not necessarily a “tear jerker” song – just… something really special that I will call sacred.

    Nice post, Renee.

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  15. Nice Renee–

    We were recently asked if we were ‘spiritual’. And as we sort of rambled our way beyond a simple ‘yes’, they clarified; not ‘religious’, but ‘spiritual’.
    And that can be different, can’t it?
    And Sacred can be different from either of those.

    We don’t go to church anymore, but I do have beliefs that are probably all three.
    I guess I just don’t use the term sacred much. Which has given me a lot so think about today! So thanks for that Renee!

    I have always said seeing the crops grow in the spring is as close to God as I can get.
    Every spring, planting seeds and seeing them grow renews my faith.
    So I guess that’s sacred at the same time?

    And yet I know several people who have lost their faith over the years.
    They’re struggling with various things. And I feel bad for them because they seem to still be looking for *something*, just not sure what anymore.

    Interesting discussion today.

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  16. Another not religious and not consciously spiritual being here. I have been a member of a Unitarian Universalist church for 25 years and it is the community that has drawn me here and kept me here for so long.
    There have been ups and downs, crises, and uninspiring times but this is my tribe and I love belonging.
    Like BiR, I feel that dancing and singing moments are probably the closest to sacred that I have experienced besides the births of my sons.

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  17. I was baptized and confirmed ELCA Lutheran (still am and occasionally go to church there) but am a parishioner at a progressive Catholic community that stresses social justice. They are my tribe and I feel a strong connection to them. I would consider myself to be more spiritual than religious. The most sacred experience I’ve had was not in a building……it was sleeping outdoors during a Grand Canyon river rafting trip about 25 years ago. Never had I seen millions of stars at one time and I felt so minuscule in the whole scheme of life. There is much in nature that astonishes and humbles me. Music (both listening to and performing) can also be a sacred experience.

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  18. I don’t use the word “sacred” often, but I have often had places that were special. Each of them were a place that brought me some sort of peace. A certain tree I liked to climb, a certain creek I liked to explore, a place by the lake. Or maybe not a certain place, but a sighting of the moon one night; stars, northern lights…

    I don’t have a special place here in Minneapolis. There are some nice places, sure, but none of them hit that sweet spot that make it special. All of my previous favorite places were places where I could be in solitude – I haven’t found any place like that here. And I’ve been cautioned that if I am in a place where there are no other people here in the city, that’s when I should be most afraid, because someone might come along and attack me.

    Quakers speak of the Inner Light, or that of God in every person, and I like that. While I might not put it in those terms, I see that as a way of respecting the beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and uniqueness of others. I’ve been involved in religious groups before, but now have a distaste for organized religion because so many religious folks want cookie-cutter followers who believe and act (and vote!!!) in exactly the way that they deem correct. This group of Baboons is the best group I know for seeing the Inner Light in others. I’ve liked that the most common reaction to different opinions is not “what is wrong with you?” but “that’s interesting; I’ve never thought of it that way; tell me why you think that.” As Renee said, we don’t do it perfectly, but it’s our normal. So I guess this blog is a special place for me.

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  19. Traveling in Ireland many years ago, I stepped into a Dolmen (A dolmen, also known as a cromlech, portal tomb, portal grave or quoit, is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone (“table”), and felt immediately an overwhelming sense of quiet, peace and peacefulness. At the ruins of Rock of Cashel (The Rock of Cashel (Carraig Phádraig), more formally St. Patrick’s Rock, it is also known as Cashel of the Kings. Reputedly the site of the conversion of Aenghus the King of Munster by St. Patrick in the 5th century AD.) I walked into one of the spaces and felt a strong rush of pull upward to the sky. Electromagetic fields? Or holiness?

    I have a place out in my “south forty” of evergreens that feel holy to me, a sacred place.

    Yes, nature — mountains, the power of the ocean, trees, rocks have always spoken to me more than traditional religion….though the upward pull of a Gothic Cathedral comes close.

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  20. I’m hoping that Crow Girl and Clyde weigh in on this conversation, but with Clyde’s internet problem perhaps that’s not possible.

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  21. I have a card (company: Artists to Watch, doesn’t give any more info as to source) that I used to keep framed by the front door:

    “I honor the place in you
    where the entire
    universe resides,
    the place of love and light
    of peace and truth
    where
    when you are in that place in you
    and I am in that place in me
    we are in the same place.”

    When I get back to meditating, that would be the place I am seeking.

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  23. I suppose I consider myself an agnostic, or a secular humanist, if I have to put a label on it. Like PJ, I choose to let the mystery be. I wouldn’t say I am particularly spiritual, nor do I have strong opinions about what is sacred and what is not. Ethics and morality are always topics of interest to me, but I don’t relate them to any particular belief in creation theory, religious practices, or afterlife. Many highly moral people go to church, but so do white supremacists and Michele Bachmann.

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  24. I grew up Lutheran but after confirmation fell away from the church and did not attend regularly anywhere for years. I was drawn back in a few years ago by a small (not Lutheran) congregation that chooses to show their faith in action not dogma. It is a creed-less denomination, but in the mainline Protestant fold. Took me a loooong time to get okay with identifying as a Christian again – even now I am hesitant in who I tell, lest I get painted with the same brush as those of a much more conservative, Bible-as-verbatim-truth sort of faith. I can tell you that my experience and definition of God is different than my pastor’s – but she would not tell me that mine is wrong, because it is mine (and not especially traditional Judeo-Christian at that). And while I could justify my choice by extolling the social-justice virtues of this congregation, that begins to be a little too earnest, a little too “high and mighty” for my tastes. Truthfully, it was seeing how this little congregation accepted and cherished one man – a man with developmental disabilities who speaks out of turn during the service and who asks for things that social convention says he should not, but who will tell you every Sunday that he is glad to see you and that he likes you. This group does not merely tolerate E, you know that he is a valued part of the community. He is glad to see each of us, and we are glad to see him. Sundays don’t feel right when he is not there. The congregation appreciates and welcomes the gifts he has to offer, the gifts of acceptance and joy. It was that glimpse of the sacred in the connection between E and the rest of congregation that pulled me in and keeps me there. It’s not the hymns and it’s not the prayers, it’s the radical and abundant acceptance of E (and everyone else).

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  26. i missed the trail yesterday when after checking in early and finding nothin i was not able to check back in until the morning after.
    i felt initially i had something to say and discovered as i went along in the responses that i do not have much to say. i have been a vegetarian for many years and early in my quest people used to want to have heated discussions about how lettuce has feleings too and the scientific studies done prove they sense pain and i should be ok with either both animals and plants or neither. i tried for a while and ended up saying that they could continue with whatever made them comfortable and so would i.
    religion/ spirituality are like that. i am a guy who always give the best slice of pie to the other guy and also the guy who goes to the fron of the line in traffic jams and slides in rather than wait 20 minutes in minnesota nice fashion while the line inches toward resolution.
    maybe reflection would be a good idea but i am ok with muddling along in the world with my own little brand of connection.
    as much as i would love to be able to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing and letting it go at that. i do have a sense of soemthong more. i feel bad sometimes that i have not exposed my kids to spiratuality more directly. i hope they get to a place where it works for them. i will ask how i can assit. thats my take away for this post. ask my kids whats up.

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    1. Ah, yes, I heard that old chestnut about “plants feel pain” just last week. When people trot that one out, they don’t want to hear that feeding plants to animals and then eating the animals kills several times more plants than just eating the plants so you should be vegetarian anyway. They just want to feel like they’ve proven veg*ns are hypocrites. It’s terribly important to them.

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      1. i used to enjoy debate. in an intellectual sense its kind of fun. for arguments to take over peaceful coexistence on the planet is not my idea of a good time.
        pass the guac

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        1. I’ve been a vegetarian for 43 years… and STILL to this day when I tell people I’m a vegetarian, somebody will pipe up and say “I don’t eat much meat at all these days”. Or something similar. As if I’ve declared some moral imperative that they have to live up to. Amazing.

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  27. I’m sorry I missed the discussion yesterday; I checked for a new post before starting work, didn’t find one, and then forgot to check again.

    As a firm-to-hard polytheist, I’m sure that what I mean by “sacred” is a bit different to what everyone else has been talking about. A human-made sacred place or object is one that has been sanctified, or dedicated to the deities or spirits–I have one shrine at home, dedicated to Brigid, and will be building one for the ancestors when I make some space. A natural sacred place is one where a spirit (vaettr, kami) powerful enough for humans to notice its presence, exists or has established itself. Minnehaha Falls would be an obvious example, and many trees are significant kami. There’s even a middle ground, as in a human-made building that attracts a kami to take up residence.

    The earth itself is the body of a goddess, so technically all of nature is indeed sacred, but the places humans notice as sacred or numinous are dwelling-places of spiritual persons, and should properly be treated as someone’s house. If you were ever wondering why the Icelanders make such a big deal about moving stones that are known to be elf-houses out of the way of road construction, that’s the worldview they’re coming from.

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    1. all you spooky spirit people make me envious. in ireland they have lots of places where spritis dance in the light of the moon. i wish i could be there and dance with them. im stuck here with the everday regulars i see in my life. i have occasional inspirations to go find a peaceful moment and communicate with the things/spirits i need. maybe more is in order.

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      1. I’m actually pretty hard-headed, especially in comparison to the average or stereotypical “alternative spirituality” type. I don’t have much patience for “woo”, my belief in things like physical laws are at least as strong as my belief in oorlog and wyrd, and it’s an ongoing practice for me to let go and trust my intuitions. My worldview is partly built on a few very powerful experiences, partly on rational choice (A World Full of Gods by John Michael Greer is the book that opened up hard polytheism for me), and partly on an innate sense of enchantment that never stopped insisting there was more to the world than either the WELS or the culture at large declared there was. If you really want to, you can do it, but you have to abandon any fear of being either silly or crazy. It only looks like a rabbit hole when you’re looking down from above.

        Apologies for any preachiness in the preceding…

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  28. in my ducts.. i am leaving the ducts behind this week. it feels like a new corner. all the stuff the last ten years may have found are off in the vapors and the next guys deal. we are inheriting the ducts in a new house with a new set of stories. i think the collective accumlation of dust that has seen the stories of the universe is an intriguing topic.
    someone made the comment that the dust is the stuff stars leave behind. romanticizing dust is just what i need. got new reason to let it sit a while longer.
    renee dusting twice a week? you need to put marble slabs over all surfaces and get a hose system installed.

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    1. Well, I don’t dust twice a week. I gave up as it seemed like a losing battle. Now I feel like having a Dutch fit and really clean house.

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  29. Rise and Clean the Ducts Baboons!

    I have had the ducts cleaned in my house because I struggle with allergies similar to what your husband experiences. Because I am allergic to so many things, every intervention helps a little and nothing really fixes the problem, including cleaning the ducts. As far as I know, all the dust suckers found in my ducts was dust!

    My missing sanity might be in there somehwhere though!

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  30. Morning all.

    I don’t have ducts – I have radiators, so doubt the sucker uppers would find much. But I’m pretty sure there would be socks in there (except the ones that will turn up in PJ’s friends house as extra Tupperware lids). And that Bangles CD that has never been found.

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  31. when i was in 4th grade i shared a bedroom with my brother. the house was cold when we woke up in winter mornings. i discovered if you took a screwdriver and took the heat register thing off the wall more heat came into the room. my brother would wake up and go sit on the floor next to the heat duct trying to get warm.
    thats the background to the story.
    we had siamese cats sam and patch but they werent much to play with and handle. they kind of had minds of their own. up at the grocery store a mile away a pet shop opened and we harasses my mom into letting us get a little rodent. not a guinea pig but maybe a gerbil? i got bored with the gerbil pretty quick but paul thought it was cool so he sat by the heatduct holding the gerbil and then would put it back in the aquarium thing it was kept in. one day when he went to the aquarium it wasnt there. we thought and thought and decided the gerbil must have wanted to get warmed up a little too we never saw it again. i felt nbad but it got me past my desire to become a house of rodents. no appeal anymore.
    left that house in 1969 and i thought of gerbils eerytime i looked at that heat duct.
    today its 2015 we mention heat ducts and i still think of gerbils my uncle casey had the same relationship with the under the city water systems. sewers to some. aquaducts to others. bringers of memories unwanted to casey. and i dont think it was the dust

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  32. Like vs, I don’t have ducts but radiators. Still, I’m very lucky to not have allergies of any kind. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have worry all the crud the I’m pretty sure has accumulated over the years under my kitchen cabinets. Husband never did around to putting baseboards around the bottom, and you’d be surprised at the stuff that has accidentally fallen off the kitchen counter and rolled under there, never to see the light of day again. I shudder to think of it, really!

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  33. If you are thinking about having your ducts cleaned, get a reference from someone you trust, like a furnace installation and maintenance company you have dealt with before. Like door-to-door firewood salesmen, furnace cleaning outfits are frequently bogus. They can be dramatic, with a truck and a big bag that inflates and a large diameter hose, but in some cases it’s all kabuki. Elementary physics will tell you that the larger diameter of the hose, the weaker the suction relative to the size of the vacuum. There are reputable cleaners out there, but caution is advised.

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  34. I also have hot water heat and no ducts….but I have a freezer that I haven’t cleaned out for years. I am afraid of what I will find, but do remember I have some road kill birds I was saving to paint pictures of…maybe a weasel? And what forgotten foods might there be? Winter project…this year. for sure. I promise. I hope.

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    1. I cleaned out my in-laws freezer when they moved out of the farm house. There were cranberries from 15 years previous along with whole chickens and other misc stuff all frozen in into one giant block at the bottom of the freezer. We let it thaw overnight and the next day I was fishing around with my hands in this bloody red liquid when our 15 yr old son came up, looked over my shoulder, gulped, put his hand on my shoulder and said “You’re a better man than me” and walked away.

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  35. This 1925 vintage house has large upstairs bedroom created when the wall was removed from two tiny rooms, leaving an opening to the air ducts in the middle of the room. I have dropped favorite earrings which apparently skittered across the floor and down this rabbit hole. I’ve explored what it would take to dismantle the ducts and retrieve them, and it’s just not worth it.

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  37. Evening– We have electric heat so no vents in our house either.

    My wife is looking for a flash drive that had a bunch of pictures on it. We know it’s around here somewhere…

    When we took the cupola off the barn we found a wrench inside. That was from 1924 when the cupola was installed I presume.
    My sister was pulling some old barn boards off a granary and found several old pieces of…. something. A round plate I think comes from a corn sheller, a file so rusty you can’t even see the ‘file-y’ bits anymore and rusty old pair of hog ring pliers.

    I told her if she found any money I’d split it with her.

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    2. Flash drives – I used to think it was really cool that they could make them so tiny. Now I’m kinda wondering if I should attach them to big chunks of wood like the library does with the restroom keys.

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  38. our new house comes with a washer dryer. the giant front load new state of the art stuff. whe i walked in the house the first time i smelled mustiness and checked for water issues . found none well 2 days ago i found out what it was. the washer is a haven for lord nows what kind of toxic mold growth. i rans a cycle with the washer nothing. i will pour a gallon of bleach in there and see what weve got.
    cleaning out refrigerators and freezes is intersting. i forgot all avbout soem of those things in there.
    debbies grandma died and had a little dimentia nbefore anyone realized it. when they cleaned out the house they found 100 packages of bacon. there was something else too but everywhere they looked they kept finding bacon. some racid some forzen some form years earlier some from the day she died. she was a bacon fiend. maybe thats what killed her.
    can mold kill ya?

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    2. Before you pour in a gallon of bleach, I would track down the user’s manual as the manufacturer may have a more nuanced approach without using so much of a dangerous, eco-unfriendly substance.
      (apologies if you were just using hyperbole)

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  39. Radiators here, too. If I had ducts, I’d hate to think what the cats would have batted into them over the years. I don’t know what’s under the refrigerator.

    I don’t think I’m missing any soup spoons, though.

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