Why be Normal?

It’s summer in Northampton, Massachusetts and although it has been a rainy summer, the gardens at the Northampton Community Gardens couldn’t be more beautiful this year.

The community gardens in Northampton are a series of plots that locals rent from the Northampton Recreation Department for a nominal fee and tend throughout the summer.  You never know what you are going to find planted here in these gardens, but most take a huge amount of pride in their plot, planting harvestable vegetables and beautiful flowers.

I took this picture on a walk a few days ago,  when the weather was one of the top five days of the year with 75 degrees and a light breeze.  The sunflowers and black eyed susans are in full bloom and can be seen in almost every plot at the Northampton Community Gardens.

I visit often the gardens often and I love to see how they change throughout the growing season.

I followed this monarch butterfly as it flitted around the gardens looking for the right place to find some nectar.  Finally the monarch butterfly settled on this flower and I was able to catch a picture of it.  Summer in Northampton, I love it here.

My mind is in the gutter lately, and I apologize already.

In October 2008, Mercy Hospital in Springfield Massachusetts had what many believed to be an image of the Virgin Mary in one of the upper floor windows of the facility.  This hospital is about 20 minutes from my house and is a catholic hospital run by the Sisters of Providence.

Here is a picture of the “sighting” that thousands of believers flocked to for several weeks.  Church officials investigated the “miracle” with an undertermined outcome.

After several weeks, the window was removed from Mercy Hospital (it was reportedly getting replaced anyway) because of the sheer numbers of visitors that were clogging parking lots, making it difficult for hospital patients to seek services.  This religious sighting of the Virgin Mary made local news for several weeks until it faded into the abyss.

I’m supportive of anyone that has a religion or faith, regardless of what that faith may be.  If something gives you strength and peace in this world and isn’t hurting anyone else, flock, follow and pray.  It is just my opinion that if Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary wanted to leave us a message, wouldn’t they be more obvious?

Virgin Mary sightings are very popular in trees.

Maybe this is a true miracle of the Virgin Mary, but maybe it is the product of an overactive imagination. 

Remember when you were a child looking up at the clouds and could see all kinds of animals, shapes or other objects?

If we want to see something, and we have some faith, we will see it.  In this picture I can sort of see where it looks like the Virgin Mary, but I also see a giant bald eagle.  You could convince me either way that this was an image of the Virgin Mary or a bald eagle.  I’m sure there are more images here to pick out, but those are the two I can see.

What I am extremely skeptical about is the idea that any religious, miraculous image would come to a random person in the form of toast, corn flakes, or other ridiculous forms.

Take the underside of this rock for example:

Would the Virgin Mary really appear on the underbelly of a rock, only to be seen if a gardener were to inadvertently flip it over?

Why would the Virgin Mary show herself to this woman on the underside of a rock?  What would make one person special enough to be singled out by a miracle?

Many of us would love to believe that we are special enough to be singled out for that miracle sighting, but really, wouldn’t a miraculous sighting be more eventful than this?

This sighting of the Virgin Mary was a very popular one down in Clearwater, Florida over the Christmas holiday in 1996.

In a period of three weeks, over 450,000 people went to view this wall of a building in Clearwater Florida.  The image measured 50 feet wide and 35 feet tall.  The image was on the outside of the Seminole Finance Building in Clearwater, Florida and spanned over nine panes of glass.

If the Virgin Mary were to come down and leave an imprint, this is a bit better, clearer image than say, the one under a rock or a cornflake in the shape of the Virgin Mary.

If I was a religious person and I was in the area, I just might have gone and taken a look at this image myself.  I can see why such an image might make the faithful flock.  In any event, this image can be seen by the general public and didn’t “pick” any one follower to share the image with the rest of the world.  I’d say that if religious miracles exist, this could be on the list.

Like the underbelly of a rock, I think this Virgin Mary sighting in a random piece of firewood can be removed from the list of potential miracles.

I don’t see anything forming in this log at all, but a brown stain that sort of looks like a piece of crap. 

I think faith is a great concept and those that follow anything religiously have in their lives something special they can hold on to.  You may not cling to any particular religion, but maybe you follow your favorite baseball team, yelling at the television and believing that if you don’t go for a snack while your favorite batter is up they will get a hit.

Religion is full of superstitious behavior as are many things in life.  Whatever you have faith in, hold onto it.  It doesn’t matter if the world thinks you are wrong, if you are not hurting anyone and you are enjoying yourself then you have found what you need in this life.

The Red Sox won the World Series twice in my lifetime.  Miracles can happen.

Redneck babysitter

Redneck Moron

Redneck NASCAR fans

Redneck Pets

Redneck Taxi

Redneck Spoiler

Redneck Car Air-Conditioner

Redneck Fishing Boat

Redneck Moving Van

Redneck Fire Alarm

The Shadow Puppet Master

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Traveling through the backroads in Massachusetts, I always bring my camera with me because you never know what you’ll find.  I took these two pictures last fall, while traveling along route 116 in Cummington, Massachusetts.

Here is the side of a barn in Cummington where the owners strategically placed old wrought iron gates all along the barn walls.  This is the same business where I found the giant tin man who has a lit heart and stands guard at the front of the stove pipe store.

Here’s a second picture, an artistic creation made entirely from used bicycles:

I’m not sure if I like this piece of art, but as my four year old niece and I discussed, anything can be considered art it just depends on how you look at it.

On a quiet road in the middle of nowhere, some of the most interesting things can be found.   The artist created both the barn art and the bicycle structure just for the sake of their own enjoyment and maybe to capture the interest of a passing motorist or two.

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